We all want instant wins from our marketing efforts, but success is a long game with organic web campaigns like content creation and SEO. Still, you might crave instant gratification. We all do. That’s why we check traffic reports frequently and closely monitor social shares after publishing a piece of content.

The good news is there’s one content format that may help sate your craving for immediate wins: Video. Director of Video Product Perry Leenhouts explains  how marketers can target quick wins, and long-term success, with video marketing.

Produce short videos that are unexpected & original

“Don’t aim too wide or you’ll end up making something that’s so generic, it doesn’t have an impact on anyone.” – Perry Leenhouts, Director of Video Product

According to Perry, customers often ask which type of video to use (a corporate interview, a funny vox pop, an animated explainer, etc). That all depends on your goals and the purpose of the video. (And we offer a guide.) But there’s one formula required for any video, in any format, to achieve its intended impact: A tightly focused message told in a unique way.

“If you want something that stands out, it has to be short and to-the-point, different than what’s already out there and geared to the audience that you want to reach. Don’t aim too wide,” said Perry, “Or you’ll end up making something that’s so generic, it doesn’t have an impact on anyone.”

Create a distribution strategy

The other key to making a strong and immediate impact is to create a distribution strategy to reach intended (and added) viewers.

Iyoutube increase trafficf you want to get a lot of views right away, you should post the video on YouTube where there is a large audience. Download Brafton’s complete guide to YouTube marketing for tips on getting the most views, and most clicks back to your site. In addition to YouTube, promote videos on every social channel you use for marketing (and add an image thumbnail for best results).

If you can resist the immediate audience, we generally recommend that you wait two weeks before posting a video to YouTube after you’ve published it on your site first. Why wait?

  1. It takes search crawlers some time to find and index that link on your site – and you don’t want the YouTube video to outrank you.
  2. People may be more likely to take desired actions if they view the clip on your site instead of YouTube. While you can optimize for further clicks on YouTube (see our Playbook!), your website offers instant access to product pages, contact forms, etc.

Publishing videos on your site before distributing them to other networks also helps direct traffic back your domain. The links you share on social media to promote videos will direct viewers back to your site – which is where you probably want them to end up – because it puts them a click away from product-focused landing pages.

Don’t try to make a viral video

There is no real secret to creating viral videos. Some are massive productions that take months to film, while others are captured in seconds on smartphones.

Hollie HeathAnd as Perry explained, “If there were a secret to making viral videos, everyone would make them and there wouldn’t be viral videos anymore.”

Instead of trying to capture the intangible qualities of extremely popular clips, you’re better off doing something that hasn’t been done before. “Make a video that’s unexpected, or shocking. Those are the kinds of productions that people get excited about and share with others online, “Perry said. You might do this by adding humor or situating your products against unexpected use cases. A solid creative video marketing team should have ideas.

It’s also crucial that you have a deep understanding of your audience. When you know what they think is funny and you know what excites them, you can create content that’s most likely to elicit a strong response.

Instant wins come from hard-working video marketing strategies

The way to get instant wins from your video content is to put in the hard work, first learning what your audience likes and then taking the risk to create something unexpected. Companies running wildly successful campaigns are doing the research ahead of time and releasing assets strategically where they’ll have the greatest impact.

For more specifics on content strategies to fuel other goals:

Check back for more answers in our 12 Days of Content!

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.