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Have you heard? In 2017, video marketing grew to be one of the most viable marketing tactics ina marketer’s arsenal.

Here are some fun stats from marketing brand Zembula:·        Ifyou post a video, you may get 39 percent more vendor calls and 65 percent morevisits to your website. ·        Videospush up the likelihood of a customer buying your products by 64 percent.·        Engagementcould go up significantly (up to 22 percent) by presenting a full-page ad withyour video.·        Youcould get 80 percent more conversions with a landing page video.·        Click-throughrate also goes up, sometimes to 200 or even 300 percent if you add a video toan email. The proof is inthe pudding: video marketing has really caught up. Today, there are so manyways to make and upload videos, such as YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitch. You don’t need a professional setup, either; your phone does the trick.

If you want tointegrate video into your marketing strategy this year, check out this list of17 tips. 1. Watch Your Video LengthThere’s a lotthat’s competing for the average person’s attention: their jobs, theirfamilies, personal hobbies, friends, social media, text messages, emails…thelist goes on and on. That means thatthe average person doesn’t have time to sit down and watch a 15-minuteexplainer video from you. It’s nothing personal; there’s just only so manyminutes in the day. If you want yourvideo to be a part of someone’s day, it’s better to keep it as short aspossible.

One to two minutes is good if you can squeeze your message in thatquickly. If not, try not to exceed five minutes. 2.

Plan Your Videos As you can see then, every second of your video counts. That means you can’t sit down in front of acamera (even if that camera is your phone) and wing it. Off-the-cuff videos do havetheir place, but these probably shouldn’t be part of your marketing strategyfrom the onset. Instead, youshould plan your video from start to finish. Write a script.

Draft astoryboard. Do a few test runs. Shorten or lengthen the script based on thosetest runs. Yes, it’s goingto take hours of work for a video clocking in at under five minutes, but theresults could be worth it. 3. Tell a Story So what shouldyour videos be about? If you’re trying to promote your products or services, then you should be selling the whole time, right? Not really.

Listen, this isa video, not an infomercial. If you’re all about “ sell, sell, sell,” youraudience is going to be quickly turned off. Instead, humanize your product.

Tell a story; in fact, tell a few stories. Gettestimonials and show real people using your products or services. This bears repeating, though: don’t focus on being salesy in your video. You’ll have otheropportunities for that.

4. Don’t Forget Your Tags You’ve surelyseen tags used on YouTube before, even if you don’t have your own account. Thisis how, if you wanted to search for funny cat video compilations, you wouldfind said videos. The users ofthose videos tag their clips with related keywords. In this example, it mightbe “ cat,” “ funny,” and “ animals.

“ As a marketer, you’re already familiar with keywords. You pepper these into your content, addthem in your landing pages, and subtly inject them in your social media post. With YouTube, it’s not that different. Choose five or so relevant keywords, andkeep them shorter when possible so they’re easily searchable. 5. Don’t Leave the Description Box BlankYou see theblank description box staring at you, but what are you supposed to write? Everything you plan on saying will be in your video. That said, you can’texactly leave this space blank.

Why? The descriptionlets users know what your video will be about before they click it, as a fewlines show up in YouTube search results. If you leave this blank, you couldmiss out on a lot of traffic. Not only that, but Google relies on these descriptions, too, so writing a good one could boostyour SEO. There’s a greatguide on Backlinko for writing killer descriptions. Hereare some pointers:·        Makesure your description focuses on value. ·        Includea link, either to your website, your landing page, or your online store. Toomany links looks spammy, though.

·        Dokeyword research and put relevant keywords in your description. Include eachone on at least three occasions, and put the first keyword within 25 words. ·        Don’tsurpass 250 words. YouTube description boxes are not novels. 6. Make Your Video Titles Sing Equally asimportant to the video description is the video title. Imagine you’researching for a topic for the first time on YouTube.

You’re not subscribed toany of the channels you see in the results, so you’re not biased. What’s goingto make you click, then? Either the thumbnail or the video title. Social analyticscompany BirdSong Analytics recommends capping off your title at100 characters (or fewer). That’s not words, it’s characters.

So, in actuality, your title should be a little shorter than a tweet on Twitter (you know, theold-fashioned 120-character days). That said, ifyou can write a good title in 70 characters, that’s even better. Chances are, youwon’t write the perfect title right away. It’s better to jot down some longer ideasand then trim down words until they fit the character limit. It should besaid that we live in an era of clickbait today, where people write shocking andoften deceptive headlines just to get clicks. While sure, you could trick youraudience for the views, that’s not going to help you build long-termrelationships with customers.

7. Make Sure Your Thumbnails Are Must-ClickNow that yourtitle is ready, you need to decide which thumbnail you want. YouTube will giveyou a few sample thumbnails to choose from. These will all be stills from yourvideo. Since they’re auto-generated, these stills are not always flattering. Luckily, you canadd your own thumbnail on YouTube that portrays your video the way you want to. Again, don’t rely onclickbait to attract attention to your video. Your thumbnail cannot portrayexcessive violence or nudity, so keep it tame and PG.

A good thumbnailshould be a visual accompaniment to your video title and description. It shouldintrigue and get customers clicking without relying on cheap clickbait tactics. 8.

Don’t Waste Your IntroYou know the oldsaying, right? “ You only get one chance to make a first impression.” Thatcouldn’t be truer when it comes to making videos. You really onlydo have a few seconds to hook someone in, so you must use that time wisely. While you can start your video with a short greeting (“ hello,” “ what’s up?,”” how are you?”), after that, you must launch into the crux of your video. It’s okay toexplain what you plan to cover in the video (“ today we’ll be talking about…”), but again, don’t waste precious seconds.

Keep the intro brief, fluid, andengaging to best capture your audience’s attention. 9. Include a CTAAnother majorelement you need for your video is a call to action or CTA. This can go inseveral places.

Let’s unpack these:·        Youcan add a CTA in your description via the video link you provide.·        YourCTA can go in the video title, although this comes across as kind of salesy.·        YourCTA can go in your actual video, either in the middle or towards the end. Youcan either mention the CTA in the video or add an annotation bubble that letscustomers click on your website. You may want toA/B test to see which CTA placement gets you the most clicks. According to a Wistia study on video CTAs from 2017, it’s best to end yourvideo with a CTA.

Of 324, 015 clips on YouTube with 481, 514 CTAs, 95. 9 percentof accounts choose to put their CTA there. Just 0. 1 percent started a videowith a CTA, while four percent used a CTA midway through the video. 10. Share, Share, Share Your video isrecorded, edited, and uploaded to YouTube. You’ve watched it and it lookspretty good, especially for your first video. Now the goal is to get others towatch it.

If you don’talready have social sharing buttons enabled on your website and blog, you’llneed those. You should also have an active presence on platforms like Facebookand Twitter, and to a lesser extent LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram. Now it’s time toshare your video on those platforms. You know the drill: encourage youraudience to share with their friends, family, and coworkers. Tools likeCoSchedule also make social sharing easier and faster. The next timeyou write a blog post in which the video is relevant, be sure to embed thevideo in your content.

That’s another great way to get new sets of eyes on theclip. 11. Create an Element of Interactivity When PossibleInteractivevideo is another growing trend that is worth paying attention to this year. Thistype of video includes elements like clicks, touch screens, and voicerecognition that let your customers change the outcome of the video. The mainindustries that can benefit from interactive video are entertainment brands, education brands and schools, retailers, and marketers.

Rapt Media writes about several campaigns marketers have used, including one from Philips where the customer got to design an avatar. These kinds ofvideos may take much more effort and a require a higher budget, but if donewell, they can boost leads and possibly revenue. 12.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Humorous You could makethe most informative and useful videos on all of YouTube, but if these are dryand boring, no one is going to watch them. Presentation is everything onYouTube, as you probably understand by now. This doesn’tmean you should riddle your video with bad puns and lame one-liners in anattempt to be funny. If you’re not quite a budding comedian, find someonewithin your company who can quip more naturally. Forced, fake humor will fallflatter than a video with no humor at all. Also, rememberthat you are professionals. While you can throw in a few jokes whenappropriate, you’re not a comedy channel.

The humor is meant to lighten up thesubject matter, not overtake the video. 13. Expect Mistakes and Learn from Them You blank onyour lines once the camera starts rolling. You spent hours painstakinglyediting your video only for the file to corrupt. Once the video goes live, itgets a poor reception. If you click onthe profiles of any successful YouTube star and scroll back to their first fewvideos, you’ll see that even they didn’t discover the formula to successovernight. It takes time and patience.

You’ll naturallyget over the jitters with time the more you make videos. If it’s an issue withthe video getting few views, ramp up your social sharing. 14. Stick to a Publishing Schedule For some people, YouTube is the new TV. How can they say that? It’s becauseYouTubers stick to a schedule.

They make videos daily or weekly, and always onthe same day. Their fans can expect to log in on a Tuesday evening, forinstance, and see their favorite YouTuber’s video every week without fail. If you want tobecome an integral part of your audiences’ viewing schedule, do the same. Maybeyou publish every Monday or Friday, but once you pick a day, make sure you canrealistically publish videos that same day each week. Of course, you can skipholidays and other extenuating circumstances, but otherwise, stick to theschedule. Eventually, your audience will come to rely on your videos weekly, too. 15.

Make a Series Another way tohook in your audience long-term is to start a series. Say you have 10videos as part of a series and a prospective customer finds the sixth video inthat series. They watch it and like it. Guess what? They’re probably going togo back and watch the other nine videos to catch up. If you do planto start a series, make sure you label your videos from the beginning. Come upwith a name for your series and then title your video something like “ NewSeries, Episode #1” and so on.

16. Use Facebook Targeting If you’ve paidfor Facebook Ads, then you’ve used Facebook targeting. If you’re not quitefamiliar with this feature, we’ll go over how to use Facebook targeting foryour video.

First, go toyour Facebook Business Page and then set up your new post. You should see atarget icon that looks like two little triangles. This lets you select up to 16different interests in which you can divide your audience. Now you canselect audience restrictions. This further segments your audience by thelanguage(s) they speak, their location, their gender, and their age.

Now, youcan be sure that your video will only be displayed to the audience segments whowill be most receptive to it. 17. Use Analytics When you clickon a YouTube video, you can clearly see how many views, likes, dislikes, andcomments the clip has generated.

It doesn’t even have to be your video. This informationis public, but YouTube’s analytics go far deeper. To access these analytics, goto your account and then the Creator Studio.

From there, you should see anAnalytics tab. You can see even more data via the End Screens option. Thispresents the following information:·        Endscreen elements, which tracks whether you’ve used end screens like CTAs, subscription buttons, and more. ·        Clicksper end screen element, which tracks the level of engagement with your endscreen element.

Of course, youcan also use analytics to track more than end screen elements. These also tellyou useful demographic information, such as where your subscribers are comingfrom, so you can make more targeted clips. Conclusion Video marketing, whether you like it or not, is here to stay. It’s only going to become moreprevalent for marketers to master in the coming years, so why not start early? By following these 17 video marketing tips, you’re on track to driving moretraffic and growing your audience. For all yourother marketing needs, there’s EngageHub. Whether you want to build your socialmedia presence, master SEO, or automate email marketing, EngageHub is anaffordable alternative to HubSpot that’s geared towards small businesses andstartups.

EngageHub iscurrently still in beta, but will be going live soon, so be sure to use it forfree for the next two months!