Here at Nextiny, we’re all-in with video marketing. As a team, we’ve grown to use it in many ways that we wouldn’t have even considered just a short time ago.
New ways to make and use videos are cropping up everyday. These are the ways each member of the Nextiny team uses video in their day-to-day work:
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I use video in many ways on a daily basis.
We use video as a product to showcase our customers' businesses, as an engagement method to connect with our audience and educate, as a communication channel to run our business and connect with potential customers, and as a way to empower and educate our current customers.
Video helps us connect at a more personal level to everybody we work with and it is ingrained in our day-to-day in many ways as you’ll see below.
On a day-to-day basis, we use video for many things, each with a different reason:
Episodic Video Content: When shooting video for our episodic video series "Coffee Talks," we are using video to discuss a topic that provides some kind of value to our audience and at the same time it allows us to showcase our personality and how we run our marketing agency. Episodic video series are great for showing culture and personality, and sharing things that you would not share traditionally through an "About Us" page or a blog post. These videos then turn into blog articles, social posts, and even podcasts. Episodic video content is a great way to generate content in a consistent way that helps keep your audience engaged, help keep Google happy, and in turn helps with SEO, lead generation, and overall engagement with your brand. An episodic video series is as connected to branding as much as it can be a content marketing and lead generation activity.
Watch every episode of our inbound marketing video series, Coffee Talks!
Video to simplify the content creation process: I use Soapbox to create short videos about a specific topic. These videos are then used for promotions and to educate our leads and customers, and they are usually also turned into an article that can be shared on social media along with the video for promotions. These Soapbox videos are great to show something on your computer, some reports, slides or simply websites, since you can combine your laptop's webcam with a screen share and edit them very easily directly in the tool.
Soapbox by Wistia allows us to create quick, high-quality videos
Video for internal communication and customer service: As much as I think of video as a product, we use video as a channel to communicate in a more personal way. We try to use video Zoom meetings as much as possible with our customers. It tends to help us read body language and be more aware of everybody's needs.
Also, every time we need to explain something to a customer or anybody in our team by email, we create a simple video explaining what they need to do or showing the issue that we are seeing. These videos are a much better way to communicate when compared to an email with screenshots and a lot of text trying to explain what is happening on the screen: "Click on the button at the top right corner" turns into 1 second on the screen of something very obvious that is happening. Soapbox is great for these how-to videos that then could also become part of your knowledge base.
Video for Sales: I also use Zoom video meetings as much as possible. When communicating with potential customers, I use video to send "Video Voicemails" by email and send short videos showing what we see as opportunities for efforts we can implement to help a prospective customer. At the same time, depending on how long the sales process is, we create videos introducing the team that will work with this specific customer, showcasing our personality, and making it a more one-to-one connection. This helps make the sales process more like a human conversation than a transaction. Also, it helps us attract customers that are a great cultural fit for us and detract the ones that could potentially not be a good fit.
We are continuing to use video in as many efforts as possible. It helps in marketing, sales, customer service, and business management processes by creating a better connection.
Also, we work with a lot of B2C businesses. So, we understand that a lot, or most, of buying decisions are made emotionally and then customers educate themselves with data and convince themselves that the decision they have already made was the correct one. Video does that. Video can connect with your potential customers at an emotional level to create that first decision in their mind.
I am in charge of doing quality control on all of the videos to ensure that our customers’ and our own videos for Nextiny are of the highest quality.
I always check videos to ensure that there are appropriate CTAs that work, that titles are accurate, that the video transitions are smooth, that there are no spelling or grammatical errors, that captions are there and are accurate, that the names and titles of the participants are correct, that the user experience is positive, and that the message of the video makes sense. I also test the CTAs to make sure that the experience continues to be cohesive in the landing pages, I test forms and make sure that the thank you page delivers the value promised. I test all of this on both mobile and desktop to make sure both experiences work.
I also use video conferencing as a communication channel for meetings and interviews of potential hires.
Although I mostly work behind the scenes, I have also participated in Nextiny’s Coffee Talks discussing how Gabriel and I run the agency and how my training as a Psychologist has assisted me in those efforts.
Watch every episode of our inbound marketing video series, Coffee Talks!
Video helps us to understand body language even when we are not face-to-face and it’s also very efficient when there are time constraints since it streamlines the whole process. Running the initial interviews through Zoom allows us to save time and also saves time for applicants by not making them come to our office until the interview process is further along. We are also able to interview people who are not local to Sarasota.
I am continuing to do more videos like Coffee Talks in the future.
I would say I use video most consistently in my position as an educational resource. If I need to show something to a customer for marketing or sales support, using Soapbox by Wistia to create a simple video is the best way to do so.
This is a clear and quick way to explain something without having to arrange a time for a phone call or a meeting. They can watch the content whenever it is most convenient for them and still get the same value out of it.
Using videos in video reporting is an interesting thing we’re doing. We have started doing it and found it to be very powerful. If we see a great metric or success in one of our clients HubSpot accounts, rather than waiting for our next meeting to show them, it is powerful to send them these results as we see them.
An Example of using video as an education resource for our audience
As a website designer and creative here at Nextiny, I am constantly using video. After seeing the results that video can drive for our marketing efforts, we started to utilize video in almost all our creative efforts.
When I am building out a landing page or website page, I look to see if I can optimize the page with video to increase the user experience, time on page, and therefore the SEO ranking for the page.
How videos can be used on web pages
When I am putting together an email campaign, I’m working with the video team to see what videos we can create to make the email more engaging as adding a video to an email can increase open rates by 25%.
A large part of my job is providing support to our clients. Instead of sending a stream of screenshots and text to help navigate a client through how to troubleshoot an issue, I create a short customized video for them to follow along with. It’s been amazing to see how digestible video can make a seemingly complex process - and the response from our clients has been incredible!
Video is the ideal option for increased engagement in any effort, whether it be optimizing marketing campaigns or providing customer support because it is so human. Video can convey emotion and enable connection in a way that text or static imagery never could. It helps to bridge the gap that screens and devices create between one another. At the end of the day, we’re so excited about video here at Nextiny because it works - and there’s data to prove it.
We are a team that is constantly growing, evolving, and learning new things. I use video in our internal training efforts.
Instead of walking each member of the team through an intricate process or transcribing the process into text, I can create a short soapbox that team members can refer back to, keep on file and watch at their convenience.
by Bryan - Senior Account Manager
Servicing customers. This seems like a broad answer to the question, but as someone who is responsible for interacting with clients every day and making sure that clients feel confident with the tools and strategies we work on together, video helps simplify this process immensely. I can connect via zoom meeting to share my screen and walk through a specific issue they are having, I can take 5 minutes to instruct our clients on how to use a certain feature within a software by creating a simple soapbox video, or I can just delight them with a personalized message about a small win from our campaign efforts. It’s a warm and efficient way to address client questions and concerns, and connect with them on a human level.
As an account manager at Nextiny, I go back and forth with clients via email every day. Whether it's helping navigate them through a software, showing them an analytics report, or making changes to the website, there's usually a lot to go over which can take a lot of time when putting a standard email together.
For instance, If I'm giving instructions on how to do something inside HubSpot it's cumbersome to map out each step and pull in custom screenshots to communicate where I am in the tool. It's much easier for me to take 5 minutes, open my Soapbox chrome extension, and talk them through the point I'm trying to convey.
Creating 1:1 service videos for my clients adds a layer of personalization as well. I often get a more delighted response from clients when I effectively answer their questions and deliver the answers in a personal video than if I were to send them a standard email.
There's a misconception about video where people believe that creating video content takes a lot of time or is difficult, so when you do create video to help someone it really feels like you're going the extra mile to take care of their needs. It's a win-win situation. You save time and your client feels like they are receiving a higher level of service.
Here’s way more than one thing:
Account meetings, internal training (on-boarding); It can and is being incorporated into any marketing or sales process:
by Isabella - Video Marketing Manager
Aside from creating and editing videos, I also monitor how our videos are performing where they live — whether it be blogs, landing pages, galleries, etc., and how they play into the journeys of our leads/customers.
Video acts as a form of communication in our marketing efforts. People are statistically more receptive, 50% say they prefer it to watching a video than reading long content for different reasons. Most of the time, it's exactly that: Time. People want information quickly. Also, seeing the face behind the information adds a relatable and human element to that piece of content, making it more easily digestible. On the editing and optimizing side, we can see if our efforts were effective in providing that for the viewer.
We are making more Soapbox videos within the office to encourage the same from our clients.
Between spending time behind the camera lens capturing content or my eyes glued to the computer screen editing, I’m always working with video optimizing Nextiny’s video content.
I work directly with the rest of the video team to collaborate on larger projects and also spearhead all of the drone flights for our own shoots as well as our clients.
For a few years now, people have been saying video is the next ‘big thing’ and the numbers agree; video has steadily helped companies drive a more clear and concise message to its viewers. Just this past year, 61% of businesses say they currently use video as a marketing tool and 88% of businesses say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy.
Video has many different avenues to add value to — many ways we've explored already and some that have not been revealed yet. One area we are focusing on is episodic content which is engaging and leads a viewer down a clear path for a specific purpose. Episodic content drives the viewer to want more, always exploring the option.
I use video in a lot of things that I do daily. I add them into blog posts, social posts, watch them for training, and to add captions. There aren't many things that don't have video involved in some way.
It increases engagement on blogs and social. Adding a video to a post
The nice part of video is its utility and ability to live almost anywhere. We’re going back into older blogs and optimizing them with our newer videos to increase engagement and drive more traffic to our video channels.
I work with video frequently in my day-to-day experience. From helping the film team shoot a video, to using video in social media posts to reach audiences.
When it comes to implementing video into our social media strategy, its importance cannot be dismissed. People are drawn to video, just having a video on a SERP increases organic traffic by 157%. They would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Making video the best option for my efforts.
We’re always looking for more ways to incorporate video into our social media strategies and have started producing social media specific videos and tailoring them for each channel (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
Video is engaging, highly adaptable, and has an incredible amount of uses in the day-to-day life of a marketer. Let us know how you use video everyday by dropping a comment below or via our social media.