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Considering video as a marketing tool for your online course

Marketing a product or service online requires constantly being connected to the latest tendencies and coming up with something that is new and refreshing almost every month. While some trends have their peak then fade away, video marketing promises to be a real game-changer in the long run.

Ever since it has made its way into inbound marketing (more noticeably in recent years) it has yet to show signs of slowing down. With 72% of businesses declaring that video has improved their conversion rate and 65% of executives saying they visit the marketer’s website while 39% call a vendor after viewing a video, it’s clear that this specific type of marketing has enormous potential.

It’s easy to learn about video

If your ball park is instructional design, odds are that you have crossed paths before with video creation. Since it is one of the preferred mediums for adult learning, video has become an integral part of almost any educational enterprise – be it old school classroom training or its modern successor e-learning.

The technology is readily available on any smartphone and there are quite a few apps that help with amateur film-making. Furthermore, tips, tricks and even some valuable advice from professional cinematographers are all only a google search away.

All this makes the task of creating a video in order to market your course a lot less daunting. Below there are some tips about how to manage the entire process and have a successful result.

Know what, for whom, and with what

Purpose makes the world go round. Before you start picking location, writing the script or figuring the color scheme, there are a few questions you should ask yourself:

  • Who is your target audience? Keeping in mind that “whoever is curious enough to watch” is not a good approach, you have to figure out who your typical buyer persona is.
  • What is the objective of the video? Is it to get as many enrollments as possible, to raise awareness about your work or to collect emails for a database?
  • How will you know the goal has been met? This basically requires that you set some key performance indicators that you can compare the outcomes to.
  • Where will your video air? Different platforms have diverse audiences and requirements. It’s advisable to start with one channel rather than going in multiple directions right off the bat.
  • What is your budget? While ‘zero’ is a perfectly acceptable answer, it’s good to keep in mind that an investment in video marketing has the potential of a rather sizable ROI.
  • What is the timeline? There is the possibility you might want to link your video with the launch of your project. Or you already have a finished one that you need to promote. The approach to making the film will be very different if you have a few days as opposed to a few months for completion.

Find the best format

The right video at the right time can go a long way. You need to find what type of content you want for your video taking into consideration your own preference and what your target audience normally goes for. There are several categories that are eligible for marketing:

  • Entertaining videos are some of the most popular online. Whether they are of cute animals doing the dearest things, of kids being kids or adults behaving in (most of the time) unbecoming ways, these are the clips that get shared a lot – we all know somebody whose day needs improving. If you think this is the type of content that works best for you, it’s advisable to make sure it really is funny and not in any way offensive to anyone.
  • Educational videos – “how to” are probably the most typed words on google these days. People want to get information when they need it and video helps them understand and replicate better. Since you are probably marketing some form of instructional content, it might be easiest to go with this version. It can even incorporate a small chunk of your course.
  • Inspirational videos – these are the ones that do more than bring a smile for a couple of seconds. They are aimed at moving viewer hearts and minds and stay with them for a while longer. The way to achieve this is use breathtaking views, great music and produce truly motivational material.

Closing thoughts

As I have mentioned, there are a number of tutorials on making videos in order to market your online business. Though a bit long, this video on how to make a video gives much useful information with examples.

What is said there and I would like to stress even more is that you can make the most fantastic clip and upload it on the platforms with immense traffic yet it won’t do much if you don’t optimize it for search first. It would be a great shame to miss out on all that exposure.

The solution is to employ the SEO mechanisms as you would for a text posted on a blog. The difference is that with video it is not just the title but also the description that matters in the search so every word will have to be carefully chosen.

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