This won’t be the first time you’ve heard this: video is the future of marketing. Need some statistics to back that up?

Globally, 80% of all Internet traffic in 2019 will be video.

Using the word, “video,” in an email subject line can boost click-through rates by 65%.

In the B2B world? 96% of B2B organizations are engaged in video content marketing.

Think video is just for the average consumer? Think again. Three-quarters of business executives watch work-related videos weekly.

Video didn’t kill the marketing star; it just created a new kind of marketing. So if you don’t have a video content marketing strategy yet, you’re behind the curve. But it’s not too late: here are a few ideas for how to use video to your marketing advantage, even if you think you have no visual story to tell. 

Tell Your Brand Story

Using video is an excellent way to tell your brand story. It will help you steer clear of the dry facts and statistics that you might usually lean on to validate your brand, and force you to focus on the visuals, those details which constitutes a compelling narrative. If you need some help crafting that story, see a two-part post we did a while back. There are some good examples of brand stories there, but the value of a video brand story is really this: it’s the most immediate way to get your audience to feel something.

Why does it matter if they feel something? Because emotion drives engagement. Emotion drives financial decisions, social shares, and loyalty. Put that way, investment in a top-quality digital video to tell your brand story seems like a sound investment. But you don’t have to invest a lot of money these days to make—and measure—a great video: not with Vimeo, vlogging cameras, YouTube, Instagram, and the number of sophisticated video analytics platforms popping up.

Don’t forget to focus on telling a story. Focus on the narrative, including a beginning, middle. Make the story small and personal, even if what you do is global and big picture. Favor authenticity over grandstanding, and conceive of the video as a trailer not necessarily for what your brand does, but what it believes.

Offer A Unique Series

Ever wonder how YouTube stars have so many subscribers? Aside from a variety of natural talents, it’s this: consistency. Each successful YouTuber has an angle, whether its beauty guru, parenting, comedy, or world travel. And each star has a perspective, and they offer that perspective on a regular basis—in what is known as a channel, but what is really a series. Think of a video content strategy as something that offers your perspective—regularly and consistently—in different episodes. This gives you the benefit of thinking about your strategy in the long term, while zeroing in on the narrative each particular episode of your series.

If your organization helps a community of people, one video strategy could be a monthly feature on a person or family involved. Interview them or let them tell their own story of personal experience with your organization. If your organization advocates for a cause, consider an educational series. If you are dealing with the environment, highlight a different part of the world in your video series, and tell a compelling story about what your organization does or wants to do there. If you are an organization that, for example, wants to help young girls succeed at math and science, perhaps put those young girls in front of the camera to give a math or science lesson.

The idea behind the series is to put a face to your brand, and a story to your cause. If you know the driving emotion behind your cause, telling the stories that capture an audience won’t be far behind.

Go Behind The Scenes

There is perhaps nothing an audience loves more than exclusivity. And if you can’t offer exclusive discounts, offer exclusive access. One way to do this is to go behind the scenes of your organization, or of communities your organization has relationships with. Show what makes your organization tick by featuring the people or processes that work for it.  The benefit of this is twofold: showing the gears of your organization helps validate what you do, and sharing the behind the scenes stories has emotional value for your audience.

One way to go behind the scenes is to showcase your company culture. If you have a tradition in your office that might be interesting to outsiders, tell a story about why it’s important. Do members of your staff have expertise or back stories to share? It always helps emotional engagement to show the faces of the people who actually do the work. Don’t shroud your CEO or top-level executives in mystery; in the days of digital transparency, it’s expected that your entire team be available, especially on social. Bottom line: an enigmatic staff member with a good story can go a long way in a video.