Living in the modern world means being exposed to gigabytes of information every day. Our society is forced to live at a fast tempo, constantly making decisions which we may not even notice. A common choice spotted by marketers is that more and more people prefer consuming information through videos rather than from written pieces. As companies constantly adjust to trends, tendencies, and innovations, video marketing becomes more and more powerful. So, making videos part of your marketing strategy can be crucial to success if you are just starting your business.

Startups are usually very limited in budget. When a new company is born, it faces a few common problems:

• High competition
• Limited budget
• Unstable financial results
• Low brand awareness

Because of these difficulties, many startups are forced to put aside their prepared marketing strategy and wait until a “more suitable time” comes along.

However, even if you have a limited budget (which startups usually have), you can still start working towards developing your video marketing strategy according to the specifics of your business, your niche, and the strategy of your competitors. This way, you will be able to solve many difficulties regarding low traffic or poor brand awareness. Just follow the easy steps listed below.

Videos are a great way to boost your brand awareness and reach greater financial results. Marketing is not something that should only be implemented when you have extra money. Plan your budget and try different tools instead in order to understand what gives you the best return on investment. Of course, spending your monthly budget only on video marketing would be the wrong decision. In the case with startups, planning does the trick. Surely this is quite common advice, but it really works – always plan your marketing strategy before taking any action.

When planning your future video marketing strategy, it’s essential to be realistic about your expectations. Even though videos are a highly effective form of communication, they are not magic. Moreover, it requires effort to prepare and create a highly engaging and relevant piece of content. That’s why you should:

• Think of how many videos you can create per month (with your team or with the help of an outsourced service)
• Think of how you will promote your videos and whether you will use paid promotions
• Think of the platforms that you will use to play your videos and consider the specifics of these platforms
• Define your goals and track your achievements.

Only by creating a plan and establishing the goals that you plan to achieve can you find the most suitable scheme for your business. Make your plan, knowing you will adjust it in the future according to the results that you get.

Your competitors might be the ones whom you should look at to understand what you can do with your marketing strategies. For example, find out if they have YouTube channels or if they use short videos to promote their products and services on Instagram.

You can also see if there is an adequate reaction and audience engagement. What mistakes do your competitors make when creating their videos? How can you do better than them?

You can also find out the main trends among your target audience regarding video content. Pay attention to the demographics of your target audience and consider the platforms and content formats they prefer. Of course, in order to do that you should create a buyer persona firstFor example, the latest stats show us that Facebook is used mainly by an urban population aged 18-29 (81% of people of this age use it) and 30-49 (78%). If your buyer persona matches these categories, you can dive deeper into creating videos oriented towards the Facebook audience.

You also should consider the stage of a sales funnel that you create your videos for. For example, for the visitors who don’t know anything about your brand yet, educational and entertaining videos will work the best (how-to videos, tips and advice, etc.). As they might be just surfing the Internet in order to find information that they need, there is no sense in creating videos focused on sales – they just won’t work on people who are not ready to buy from you. Upload such videos on your landing pages, in blog posts (to break long chunks of text), and place them on specialized platforms.

While moving through the sales funnel, your visitors become your leads and customers. They need to know more about you and the products or services that you offer in order to be ready to make a purchase from you. Videos that are more focused on your products (product reviews and comparisons, client testimonials, in-depth guides, etc.), as well as other branded videos (event videos, expert interviews, case studies, etc.) will help them decide if they want to buy your product.

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine any type of work that you wouldn’t be able to outsource. Many freelancers and creative agencies offer their services in the content creation field, and video production is no different. Here is what Francis Grant, a senior marketing specialist of EssayTigers, says about cooperation with video creators,

“We don’t produce many videos, so we don’t actually need to have a whole department that will be specialized in creating them. However, sometimes we need to launch a video or a few of them, for example, dedicated to our new promotion. In this case, we cooperate with a little team we found on the Internet. They are very creative, fun and painstaking, so we don’t have to worry about the quality of their work. The best advice when picking a video creator – make sure to provide a detailed explanation of what you want to receive. Then just look at the final result. If it is better than you expected – then you have found the right specialist.”

Finally, if your budget is very tight, you can try creating videos yourself. Many startup teams have to learn to be a jack of all trades, from business development to marketing. You can also try using a tool like OnlineVideoEditor to create your videos.  With OnlineVideoEditor you will have access to many templates, animations and over 1,000,000 free images, videos and sounds. You can really achieve great results even if you don’t have any experience in creating videos.

You will never know how to do something properly until you try. Even if you don’t have experience in filming, you can always learn how to create videos like a pro or hire a real one. Create a schedule for the next month considering your budget and the number of videos that you can afford to make (including expenses on promotions).

Let’s say it will be two videos per month. Then you need to brainstorm topics and the rough concept. For example, it might be a narrated guide if you promote learning courses. You can speak through the video about the advantages of your course and its why people should sign-up.

Now, when you have an idea for a video in your head, you can start creating a description or script of it in order to provide your outsourced specialist with a detailed task. Write down how long you want a video to be, any exact words that have to be included, etc. Even if you are going to create a video yourself, you will still find the notes that you have prepared beforehand useful, as you will avoid missing put on some important details.

Sometimes advertisement costs can hurt your budget even more than the price of producing the video itself. However, any marketer will tell you that creating a video is just the beginning of a complicated process of video marketing development. You can promote and advertise your videos in a few ways:

1. Optimize your videos for search engines

SEO is an essential part of brand promotion, including a video sphere. SEO helps a lot when it comes to understanding the needs of your potential customer and their preferences while positioning your brand and showing your work to the people who might be interested in it. In the case of videos, keywords and meta-data work the best – let Google know what your videos are about and who they are for in order to be the best match for the search queries of your potential customers. Give your video a correct and SEO-friendly title – limit it to 60 characters and use one keyword, but put it there naturally. Provide a description up to 1,000 characters and add keywords and tags. If you can add a transcript to your video, you will increase your audience and your chances of positioning higher in search results.

2. Use social media platforms to promote your videos

Posting videos on one platform only and not sharing information about it on your business account on Instagram or Facebook isn’t the right way to develop your video marketing strategy. Integrating videos into your social media marketing strategy is a very effective tactic that helps show your content to larger audiences, making it more shareable, and develops an effective strategy of spreading brand awareness.

3. Use paid promotions

You don’t need to have a large budget to promote your video. You can determine your campaign budget yourself according to your monthly plan, you’ll be surprised with the exposure you can get with even a small budget. What types of paid advertising are there? Many. There is a paid advertisement in Google Ads, so you can promote your channel on YouTube by paying for actual views. You can also integrate videos into your Facebook campaigns, collaborate with influencers, or use videos for native advertising.

Every startup goes through the stage when every cost and expense should be well considered because of a very limited budget. Video marketing is something that you should definitely try even if (or it’s better to say “especially if”) you are just starting your business. Create a plan, pick the right creator for your content (or become one), and promote your videos through various platforms – you will see how effective video marketing is.

Stacey Wonder is a copywriter and a content marketer who currently works for Essay Tigers. She has vast experience in content creation and promotion. Also, she works as a freelance blogger who creates posts that are useful to people who are interested in self-development.