Want to know how to come up with video marketing ideas?
Easy – pay us to do it! WOOP.
Ok ok fine, that joke was just too easy to resist. But seriously, we’ve got an easy to follow 5-step system that will help you create a brilliantly inspired bank of ideas to support your video marketing.
It goes like this;
1) Create themes based on sales and marketing core principles
2) Find inspiration in your;
- Sales Cycle
- Personas
- Topical news
- Sales Team
- Internal meetings
- Keyword research
- Google Analytics
- Answer the public
- SEMrush etc
3) Match your answers to stages of the sales cycle
4) Choose an even spread across your entire sales cycle
5) Pick the ones that will have a strong impact, but are also realistic for you to complete
Lets break those down a little more…
1) Create themes
What do we mean by ‘themes based on sales and marketing principles’? Well, we know that evidence is a strong influencing factor when it comes to buying decisions. So for us, a key theme is always ‘Evidence’ or ‘Results’, or however you want to frame the key information that your buyers need to see in order to be convinced to buy.
But we all know there are plenty of other marketing principles, such as building trust. Building trust could be achieved through more expert or thought-led pieces, so perhaps that’s another one of your themes?
What about values? The values of your business are certainly a great theme, as it will help to build rapport, humanise your brand and attract like-minded clients.
Creating a list of your own key themes will make it easier for you to create a longer list of actual video ideas. When you have a theme defined, thinking of ideas that fit that theme is way easier than just thinking of random ideas with no connection!
We’re recommend choosing 5 themes. You can then choose 13 ideas for each theme… and BOOM you have 3 months of content, posting 5 times a week. It’s unlikely you’ll create a video for each one of those ideas, but maybe you’ll have a blog idea, text post, GIF, photo or audio content for some of them instead.
2) Find inspiration
Finding inspiration isn’t about sitting back with Snoop Dogg’s favourite leafy green. No, it’s about leveraging areas of the business that already hold the knowledge you seek.
We’ve listed a number of areas below which you can look to for inspiration on your ideas, fitting within your chosen themes:
Sales Cycle
- What questions are prospects asking?
- What is the thought process during the sales cycle?
- What is important to the person buying?
Personas
- What do your idea clients care about?
- What are your ideal clients interested in?
- What are your ideal clients most scared of?
- What is the biggest challenge your ideal clients are facing?
Topical news
- Is there a news item worthy of newsjacking?
- Can you comment on current affairs in an entertaining but educational way?
Sales Team
- What messages are they constantly repeating?
- What questions are they constantly up against?
- What objections do they face?
- What messages resonate with prospects?
Internal meetings
- What training are you undertaking?
- What are your team talking about?
- What are some of the trends you can spot?Keyword research
- What are people searching for?Google Analytics
- Where are people spending lots of time on your website?
- Where do you need to increase the dwell time?
- Which blogs are the most popular?
Answer the Public
- Ummm yeah – just use it.
SEMrush
- Other options are available, but it’s a great tool for keyword research and content opportunities!
3) Match your answers to the sales cycle
It’s important you take your ideas and plot them against your sales cycle. Do they fall into the Awareness, Consideration or Decision phase of the sales cycle?
We know they will never fit perfectly, but it’’ll give you a good idea on where your content is currently sitting.
4) Choose an even spread
Next, ensure you’re creating an even spread of content across your sales cycle. This will give you a more balanced video marketing strategy, and will produce more concrete results. The caveat is, you need to create a decent volume. If you’re only doing 3 videos, then skip this part!
PS: Our advice? Plan and execute 12 or more videos to get the best results! Consistency is key.
5) Pick the ones that will have a strong impact, but are also realistic for you to complete
Whittle your list down to the ideas that will resonate with your clients, but which are also actually achievable to create! If one of your ideas is about visiting the International Space Station because of some topical news, perhaps it won’t get done by the end of Q3…. so be realistic.
Planning video can be time consuming, and executing video can be even longer. Be sensible about your deadlines, and have a contingency plan. That way you’ll end up with higher quality content, without any last-minute scrambles.
Hopefully, these 5 steps have given you a structured way to start planning your next video marketing ideas. If you’d like to take your video production up a gear, we can help! Simply get in touch to find out more about the kind of video we could create for your marketing strategy.
