If you are looking for ways to identify the best video marketing platform out there, you are certainly asking a relevant question. In today’s day and age, small and large businesses alike need to have a video marketing strategy. To put it another way, video marketing is table stakes in the constant effort to find new customers and reach your business goals.
At the same time, however, identifying the best video marketing platform can be more difficult than you would expect. By taking a quick glance at Google, you can see that there are so many different types of video marketing platforms. Some of them have tools that are found in other video marketing platforms. And in certain cases, you may find that one platform has features that you can’t find on virtually every other platform.
In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into video marketing platforms and factors that you should consider when selecting your video marketing platform. We are going to discuss things like what video marketing is, why you should be using a video marketing platform, what to look for in a video marketing tool, and how Dubb can provide you with fantastic tools to execute your video marketing strategy.
I want this article to be a helpful guide as you complete your diligence and find the best video marketing platform for you. At the end of this post, you will have a better idea of the things that you should look for (and avoid) when you are shopping for a video marketing platform. And while I may be biased, I believe that Dubb is a fantastic video marketing platform that can solve many of the issues that you may encounter when you seek to leverage the power of video marketing.
So are you ready? Let’s get started with this deep dive into video marketing and video marketing platforms.
Table of Contents
What is Video Marketing and a Video Marketing Platform?
What is a Video Marketing Platform?
Why Should I Be Using a Video Marketing Platform?
Looking at Options in the Marketplace
Common Problems in Video Marketing Tools
What to Look Out For in a Video Marketing Tool
More Things to Keep in Mind When Choosing and Using a Video Marketing Platform
Find a Platform That Helps You Tell Compelling Stories
Don’t Ignore Screen Recordings
What is Video Marketing and a Video Marketing Platform?
To start off, I think it is important to spend some time discussing what a video marketing platform actually is. After all, if you are trying to choose the best video marketing platform, you must have a clear understanding of what a video marketing platform does and how it can add value to your organization. While it may seem like this is an introductory step, it is worth discussing this now before we get into the details of the best video marketing platform.
What is Video Marketing?
But I think it is also worth taking an additional step back and talking about video marketing itself. Simply put, video marketing is the process of introducing videos into your sales and marketing outreach. This focus on outreach isn’t for the sake of outreach. Essentially, what you are trying to do is increase engagement and understanding.
In the end, we are all focused on making sales and growing our businesses. Without increasing our sales growth rate, our businesses will find it difficult to survive. At the same time, we can’t approach new prospects or customers with a hard sell right away. If you were to do that, you will quickly discover that that tactic doesn’t work.
Instead of being too aggressive when approaching new prospects, you can rely on the power of video marketing. You can create high-quality video content that educates and even entertains your audience. Better yet, when you are creating video content for any type of audience, that video content doesn’t go away. You can use it in all kinds of different situations. In fact, at Dubb, we think of this as a way of cloning yourself. While you are busy doing the other important duties in your day-to-day work, your video content can simultaneously be educating, inspiring, and entertaining your audience. And who knows? As you are on a sales call with a specific prospect, your video content may convince an entirely separate prospect to go forth and make a purchase.
Ultimately, at Dubb, we are huge believers in the power of video marketing. Whether you just started a small startup, work in the marketing department of a much larger company, or have a different role, I am confident that you can get immense value from video marketing.
What is a Video Marketing Platform?
So now, let’s take a look at what a video marketing platform is. Basically, you can think of a video marketing platform like a business partner. As a starting point, it should help you create, edit, and host your video content. These are three separate, yet related tasks in creating any type of marketing video. Without one of the three, you will find it essentially impossible to create a great piece of video content. Ideally, you would find a video marketing platform that lets you shoot beautiful video, edit that raw video content in an extremely easy and intuitive way, and that lets you host all of your edited video content.
There is another key component of a great video marketing platform. That component is distribution. After all, you may make the best piece of video content on the Internet today. However, if that video content can’t get in the hands of your targeted audience, all of your hard work will essentially be for naught. You won’t get to see the engagement—and perhaps even increased sales numbers—that you would expect from your stellar video content. Because of this, a great video marketing platform makes it extremely easy for your video content to get from point A to point B. No matter your audience and where they like to hang out, that video marketing platform should help you easily get your video content in front of that audience.
Finally, a great video marketing platform lets you analyze and track your video content. There are so many great things about creating digital content. For one thing, your content can seamlessly travel all around the world, 24 hours per day. Even if you haven’t met many members of your audience, you can still provide value to them—wherever they are.
But along with the sheer scale that comes with digital content, one of the best things about video marketing is that you can get plenty of great insights about your content. Those insights come in the form of data. Great video marketing platforms let you gather and analyze data about every single one of your videos.
Why Should I Be Using a Video Marketing Platform?
As you can see, video marketing and a video marketing platform are relatively simple concepts. At the same time, however, you may still be wondering why you should be using a video marketing platform in your day-to-day work.
For instance, you may recognize the power of video marketing in accomplishing your business’s goals. You may have even created some video content and manually uploaded it to YouTube. In that case, you may still be wondering why you need an all-in-one video marketing platform.
On the other hand, you may have come across this article, and still may not be sold. While you may see how videos can be entertaining or informative, you may not see the connection between video marketing and dollars in your company’s coffers.
I think there is an easy way to see the immense value of a video marketing platform. There are two key statistics to highlight here. Both of them focus on consumer behavior. After all, whenever you are trying to engage with or sell something to a particular group of people, it is critical to meet your audience where they are at. In other words, to increase your odds of making a sale, you must communicate in a way that your audience prefers or appreciates.
Ultimately, over 50% of consumers prefer to watch videos. According to data provided by HubSpot, videos on landing pages will increase conversion rates by over 80%. These are significant numbers all from including video in your marketing work. The second statistic is especially relevant for those of us looking to use video to generate more sales (which is arguably all of us). By just putting a video on a landing page, you have a dramatically better chance of converting that interested individual into a paying customer. It is that powerful.
Now, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many different studies that show that video boosts email open rates. Video can increase clickthrough rates by up to 300%. Simply put, there are countless numbers of studies that show the power of video in email and video marketing. While the choice is yours on whether you want to take advantage of this power or not, rest assured that it is there for the taking.
With all of that said, there’s another key point to keep in mind here. Just because video is powerful doesn’t mean that you can create and distribute subpar content. You can’t just create any type of video and expect that it will lead you to massive success. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work like that. You need to still create valuable content for your audience. And to be clear: “valuable” doesn’t necessarily mean boring or stale. Yes, you can create a video that is more functional than others. However, a “valuable” video can be funny. It can be humorous, entertaining, or just fun.
This may seem like a tangent, but keep this in mind as you’re thinking about video marketing and video marketing platforms. Even though video in and of itself is extremely powerful, you need to keep video quality at the top of your mind. In other words, you’ll need to put in the hard work before getting all of these natural benefits of video.
Looking at Options in the Marketplace
So at this point, you’ve seen how video and video marketing can be extremely accretive to your business. Whether you are trying to hit your sales goals or simply want to develop better relationships with a specific audience, you can get the job done through video marketing and video marketing platforms.
Now, knowing that video marketing platforms can help you reach your business goals, you may be wondering which video marketing platform that you should use. As you will quickly discover, there are plenty of options that you can select from. For some people, it may seem like there are too many options.
Ultimately, you will find a handful of options. They include tools like Dubb, Vidyard, BombBomb, Vimeo, Wistia, and YouTube. Each of these platforms has their own strengths, benefits, and weaknesses. The best way to experience those strengths, benefits, and weaknesses is to try them out for yourself. You will quickly get a sense of what is great and not so great about these tools and platforms.
At the same time, however, I think that the video marketing platform that you end up choosing should be based on a few things. Regardless of the size or sector of your business, you should seriously consider these factors when you are making your decision. Those things include your goals, budget, and the functionality that you need.
Common Problems in Video Marketing Tools
But let’s take one step back. I think that when you are evaluating different types of video marketing platforms, it is helpful to look at some of the common problems that you’ll encounter. Identifying these problems before you make your choice will help you vet the many options that are in front of you. To put it another way, when you are looking at a certain type of video marketing platform, you’ll be able to quickly identify whether that platform accounts for the problems that I’m going to discuss below.
For starters, one common problem on video marketing platforms is limited functionality. Most of the platforms that I mentioned above have very limited functionality. In other words, they are built for doing just one thing. That one thing can be something like video distribution. Or it could be something like video hosting or video creation. Essentially, these platforms are siloed off and specialize in one thing.
Even if that tool or platform does a great job when specializing in that one specific area, it makes life harder for us. This is because we have to connect several different pieces of software. While that may not seem like a big deal on the surface, what typically happens is that some of those pieces of software won’t work with others. In the end, it actually creates more work for us and our colleagues. But even though this creates more work, we are forced to jump through these hoops to be able to get the end result that we expect.
In the end, limited functionality is an underrated problem. Many of us don’t realize the extent of this problem until we have connected multiple pieces of software together. When that time comes, it can be massively frustrating. Our work doesn’t have to be like that, however. Instead of stitching together these different platforms, we can select a video marketing platform that can achieve all of the results that we want to achieve. We can find a video marketing platform that lets you shoot stunning video, edit that video wherever you are, distribute that video to any specific audience, and track the performance of that video.
From limited functionality, let’s now talk about limited integrations. People often use video where they can. Often, however, they find that it is limited in the ability to integrate into their existing marketing and sales stack.
But let’s back up. What, exactly, does integration mean? You can think of it as the ability to easily create, edit, share, distribute, and track your video content—all within the platforms that you are already using. Basically, integrations let you choose the tools that you prefer to use and make the process of using those tools together much easier.
Integrations are key for ease of use and operations. This is so that users of video can stay focused on the things that are important to their businesses. Instead of being in the weeds on how certain programs can talk to each other, they can just rely on integrations to do the heavy lifting.
Finally, some video marketing platforms are difficult to use. They have a steep learning curve. They are hard to use to accomplish the best result that you are trying to achieve. Even if you are able to navigate these more difficult video marketing platforms to complete your work, the entire experience can be stressful. Moreover, it can be extremely time-consuming. It takes not only to get the hang of the video marketing platform itself, but to actually go on and create, edit, and distribute your video content.
On the flip side, great video marketing platforms make it easy for users to get the job done. These platforms are going to have helpful tools like templates, guides, and training. Even if there is a slight learning curve in the beginning, these great video marketing platforms work hard to dramatically reduce that learning curve. They understand that your time is extremely valuable. The designers behind these products work hard to continuously make their products even easier to use.
What to Look Out For in a Video Marketing Tool
Now that we understand some of the main limitations in video marketing platforms, I want to transition and speak about some of the positive attributes that you’ll want to find in a video marketing tool. For starters, we want to identify video marketing platforms that directly take on the shortcomings listed above.
The great news for you is that there are some video marketing tools out there that check off all of these boxes.
Ease of use is typically first and foremost here. After all, you may come across a video marketing platform that has tons of interesting features. But if you and your colleagues don’t know how to use those features, it’s almost like those features don’t really exist. It can be massively frustrating—especially if you invested in the video marketing tool to use those features.
Ultimately, we need to be able to create, edit, send, and track our video content as easily as possible. It cannot be a whole production. We don’t have time to utilize different team members, tools, and software to accomplish one simple thing. That is especially true if that one simple thing we want to accomplish is doable with one simple tool.
Along with ease of use is functionality. Functionality is along the same lines as ease of use. It’s about being able to utilize a single tool to accomplish your goals. By doing this, you are able to streamline your efforts and time. From there, you achieve more efficient results.
So when you are looking for a video marketing platform, make sure that it has enough features for you to accomplish your goals. Ideally, you will find all of those tools under one roof. By identifying the platform that has all of those tools, you forego the frustration of constantly finding third-party tools to solve problems that you encounter. If you think about it another way, by finding a video marketing platform that has everything you need, you can create awesome video content in a shorter amount of time.
Third, when it comes to a video marketing platform, integrations are key. Integrations make it easier for you to complete your work on the platforms that you like to use. Once you have set up all of the integrations that you want, the two (or more) platforms can continue to communicate and provide you with valuable feedback.
Keep this in mind as you are looking at different types of video marketing platforms. Integrations may not seem like the most important thing in the world, but they go a long way in making your life dramatically easier. By setting up integrations as you start on your chosen video marketing platform, you invest in future efficiencies and avoid future headaches. Don’t ignore them.
As for the fourth thing that you should consider when looking at video marketing platforms, you won’t want to ignore analytics and actionable data. The ability to track your videos is huge. Tracking the engagement and results of your video content provides value in so many different ways. At their core, however, tracking and analytics let us know what is working and what is not working.
Let’s look at an example of this. You may be trying to convince an interested prospect to become a paying customer of your business. For instance, you may have met this specific prospect at an industry conference and want to send her some more information about your product. To do so, you send her a short video that you and your colleagues created. In that video, your company explains what your product does and how it can improve users’ lives. Upon sending that video to the prospect, you can see how she interacts with it. For example, if you see that the prospect views the entirety of the video, this can be a great sign (especially if it is a long video). On the flip side, if you see that prospect abruptly stop watching your video after a short period of time, you would want to do some digging. It may be the case that your prospect didn’t like the arguments or comments that you were relaying at that specific point of the video. Or it may be the case that the prospect had to stop watching your video to address something urgent in her life. Whatever the case may be, this data gives you a great starting point to investigate further.
Ultimately, the ability to track your video content is a huge add-on for your video marketing work. It actually intersects with integrations. Integrations connect with your other systems (like Salesforce or HubSpot) and let your analytics drive more results. No matter what you are trying to accomplish with your video marketing work, it is really important to pay attention to analytics and data. They can give you some unexpected insights that can let you create better video content, build stronger relationships with your audiences, and generate more sales.
Finally, the fifth factor that you will want to find in a video marketing platform is automation. A powerful video marketing platform enables automation through video. Basically, what this means is that when someone watches a video or clicks something associated with that video, automated sequences will be triggered. Not only that, but workflows and scoring can automatically be triggered.
What does this mean for you? Basically, it means that you can create simple or complex workflows that provide more personalized experiences for your audiences. Instead of providing a single experience for every single audience member, providing these customized experiences makes it more likely that your audience members will become paying customers. They will intuitively recognize that they are getting a more personalized experience, and because of this, they will be more receptive to your message.
Not only that, but leveraging workflows and automations can save you significant amounts of time. You don’t need to manually look at a prospect’s reactions to your video and send them a specific video or email message. We don’t have the time to manually cull through prospects like that and manually engaging in this process can lead to more mistakes. By relying on automations, however, you can be sure that your audience is getting the experiences that you want them to get. Granted, you need to make sure that your automations are programmed correctly. There is the chance that you incorrectly program an automation, which means that your audience is receiving the wrong experience each and every time. But having said that, assuming that you have programmed your automations and workflows correctly, you will find that they provide immense value to your work and to your business.
Video automation is one of the most important components of a video marketing platform. When you are doing your research, you’ll definitely want to make sure that your video marketing platform lets you leverage some type of automation.
What We Do at Dubb
To this point, we have discussed what to expect from a video marketing platform. You have seen some of the things that you should watch out for when looking for your platform. But at the same time, you have seen things and features that your new video marketing platform should have.
Like I said above, finding a video marketing platform is a personal process. To you, there may be certain factors or variables that are critical. For others, those factors or variables may be less important than others. The core idea, however, is that there are certain factors or variables that are must-haves. We discussed those features above. From data and analytics to ease of use and functionality, you’ll want to find a video marketing platform that contains most (if not all) of these elements.
At Dubb, we are laser-focused on creating the best possible video marketing platform for our customers. We understand that video marketing can be one of the most game-changing things for you and your business. But at the same time, we understand that leveraging video marketing may not be the easiest thing. Like I mentioned above, there are certain issues or problems that are found in certain video marketing platforms. They make the experience much more difficult. In some unfortunate cases, it can be so frustrating that you may want to give up on video marketing altogether and spend your valuable time elsewhere.
Essentially, Dubb was built to address every shortcoming that I mentioned above. If you haven’t heard of Dubb, it is an all-in-one video communication platform that lets users create, edit, distribute, and track video content. Users can do this by using Dubb’s built-in video marketing technology. Even if you already have an existing system, Dubb is designed to perfectly integrate with that system. As just one simple example, if you are already a HubSpot user, Dubb is designed to integrate directly with it. By doing this, you can get actionable tracking right inside of your system. And if you don’t have a system or are in between systems? Dubb can be your entire video email marketing stack. In this stack, you can include things like bulk emails, automated emails, and even automated sequences of video emails and text messages. With all of this being on one platform, the process becomes significantly easier.
So with all of this said, I want to discuss some of the main features that you will find on the Dubb platform. Granted, these aren’t the only helpful features that you will find on the Dubb platform. You can find a complete list of features by clicking here. With that said, however, let’s take a look at some of the most exciting features that you will find within the Dubb ecosystem.
Dubb Action Pages
One of the most exciting features that you’ll find within the Dubb ecosystem is called Dubb action pages. You can think of Dubb action pages as video landing pages for all of your video content. Each video that you upload to the Dubb platform gets a Dubb action page of its own.
So what is so great about these action pages? Simply put, they provide you with opportunities to promote your brand and build great relationships with your audience members. This happens in a number of ways.
First, with Dubb action pages, you have the ability to customize their look and feel. You can include things like your logo, colors, fonts, and more. At Dubb, we understand that your brand is extremely important for your business. Branding can go a long way in helping you find new customers. Because of this, we made sure that every Dubb action page gives you a chance to tout your brand to your audience.
To make your life easier, we also let you create action page templates. Templates are a great way to create stunning action pages while saving significant amounts of time. Whether you want to start from scratch or use one of the predesigned templates, you have the power to do so. Once you have finished designing your template, you will notice that it can be automatically used for every single video that you upload to Dubb. Rather than continuously designing the same template for your video landing pages, you can rely on the software to do this step for you.
Simply put, by relying on Dubb action pages, you can skip several repetitive steps and get well-designed action pages every single time. It will make your life easier and will let you spend more time focusing on your clients’ wants and needs.
Plenty of Calls to Action
On Dubb action pages, you will also notice that there are plenty of available calls to action (CTAs). If you haven’t yet heard of CTAs, they are basically ways to help your audience take some type of action. That action can be many different things, but one of the ultimate goals is to move a prospect down your sales funnel. After all, we aren’t really in the business of creating videos for the sake of creating videos. We want our video content to help our businesses generate more sales.
CTAs can help you do that. They make it much easier for your viewers to learn more about your product or service, schedule a call with someone on your team, or even make a purchase right then and there. All through the power of technology, you dramatically increase your chances of making a sale.
So what are some of the CTAs that you can find on the Dubb platform? Here are some of the most valuable ones:
- Schedule a call on your calendar: After viewing your video content on your Dubb action page, a viewer can easily schedule a call on your calendar. We are proud to offer integrations with many of the most-used calendar booking services, including Calendly and Book Like a Boss. Instead of sending back-and-forth emails to find an open time on your calendar and your viewer’s calendar, you can let the viewer find a mutually open time. This is a great CTA for all levels of your sales funnel.
- Download a white paper or eBook: Sometimes, you want to help your viewer learn more about your product, service, or company. You can discuss some details in a specific video, but you may not be able to talk about everything in video form. This is where a white paper or eBook comes in handy. A well-thought-out white paper or eBook can thoroughly discuss your product, the features that it offers to customers, and how it can improve customers’ lives. It is a great resource for prospects at the top of your funnel.
- Communicate via Facebook Messenger: When you are prospecting for new customers, you may quickly realize that some of your prospects don’t want to provide their personal information. While an email address may be fine, they may not want to provide their phone number. What you can do instead is provide a way for that prospect to chat via Facebook Messenger. With just one click of a button, your viewer can easily get in touch with your organization.
- Reply with Video: This is an extremely exciting CTA for a number of reasons. For one thing, it lets your viewer immediately respond to your video with a video of their own. Rather than taking the time to type out a lengthy email, he or she can click a button and start recording. Arguably what is more powerful, however, is the fact that you can use these videos for your own video testimonials. Assuming that you get the viewer’s consent, you can leverage social proof and use their glowing praise when spreading the word about your product or service.
- Follow Any Link: Finally, Dubb offers a CTA that lets the viewer follow any link that you’d like. That link, for instance, can send the viewer to your Instagram or Facebook page. More enticing may be the fact that you can send a viewer to a purchase page. Essentially, if you are sharing a video with a viewer that is at the bottom of your sales funnel, you may want to direct that viewer to a purchase page. With this CTA, you are able to do so.
Whichever CTAs that you choose, you can be sure that they will help you generate more sales. Even if the viewer doesn’t make a purchase right there and then, you are still increasing your chances of making a sale. No matter your sales or marketing goals, you should absolutely incorporate CTAs into your process.
Playlist Feature
Another awesome feature that you will find in the Dubb ecosystem is Dubb’s playlist feature. While the playlist feature may not be something that immediately comes to mind, it can be a killer feature that will help you build better relationships and generate more sales.
You can think of the playlist feature like playlist features that you would find on other apps or tools. Basically, it lets you build a playlist of features that can autoplay after your first video concludes. In effect, you get to create the entire visual experience for your viewer.
Ultimately, the playlist feature is something that you can’t find on many other video hosting websites. The quintessential example is YouTube.
YouTube is a fantastic video platform for so many reasons. Those reasons make it the second most trafficked website on the Internet today. But that being said, the platform has some shortcomings. Specifically, if you are posting a video on YouTube, there are plenty of things that you cannot control. For one thing, you have little control over your branding. Sure, you can include your company’s branding in the video itself. However, around the video, you can’t control what appears. Along with this, you can’t control what is played after your video. In some instances, the viewer may see your video, but then have a competitor’s video automatically played after yours.
The playlist feature is powerful because you get to control what happens next. Instead of delegating that choice to some algorithm, you can design the audience experience from scratch. Combined with the power of Dubb action pages, the power is in your hands.
So Many Integrations
Above, I spent a good amount of time talking about integrations and why they are so useful. Integrations help you get your work done in a shorter amount of time. Whether you use plenty of other tools in your sales and marketing stack or just rely on a few, you can rely on integrations to make your life easier.
At Dubb, we are proud to provide a wealth of integrations for our users. You can find a complete list of those integrations by clicking here. As a starting point, you will find integrations for well-known tools like Google Chrome, Gmail, LinkedIn, Outlook 365, Salesforce, HubSpot, and more. But beyond that, we have integrations with other tools like Real Geeks, Follow Up Boss, Lion Desk, GetBonzo, and more.
We are always looking for more integrations to add to our platform, so don’t hesitate to reach out. We are happy to hear your feedback and suggestions.
Dubb CRM
You may already have a CRM that you use in the course of your business. If so, that’s perfectly fine. You will probably find a Dubb integration that works with your chosen CRM. That said, if you don’t already have a CRM, you may want to consider Dubb’s CRM.
Let’s face it. In today’s day and age, it is almost table stakes to have a CRM system. A CRM, among many other things, can keep you organized. Especially as your business grows, it will become increasingly harder to track and manage all of the relationships you have with prospects, soon-to-be customers, and current customers. A CRM can help you with this important task. Leveraging the power of technology, you can know where the prospect is in your sales funnel, when to follow up with that prospect, and where you can improve your sales process so that you can convert more prospects into paying customers.
Essentially, Dubb’s CRM is an all-in-one solution. With this CRM, you can import and manage contacts, track deal flow, send personalized video emails and SMS messages in bulk, and more. It is a really effective tool that can help you organize your prospects, stay in touch with your customers, and generate more sales.
Using Dubb’s CRM, you can improve your communication and overall productivity. You can start by importing your contacts through a CSV file, Google sync, or Outlook sync. From there, you can keep your contacts organized using Dubb’s tab system. You can also add things like notes, custom fields, activity reporting, and more. Better yet, you can do all of this from the contact level.
Then, there is a deals section in Dubb’s CRM. In this section, you can keep your eye on the prize by associating your deals with contacts and team members. Ultimately, you and your team will quickly recognize the prospects that require some follow up. Dubb’s CRM also contains a task management section, where you can create and assign tasks to specific team members. By doing this, you and your team members can stay on the same page. You’ll know when to perform a specific task and will have the confidence that each and every task is being completed.
Finally, you can use Dubb’s CRM with Dubb’s campaign and automation tools. This is so you can keep in contact with all of your contacts at scale. From sending video emails to sending SMS messages in bulk, Dubb makes it extremely easy to build and maintain your most important relationships.
Dubb Virtual Backgrounds
In today’s day and age, virtual backgrounds are all too common. They became really popular when we were all locked down during the height of Covid-19. Even though we had to stay in our homes, we still needed to communicate with our customers and colleagues. While some of us were fine with our customers and colleagues seeing images of our homes and apartments, others weren’t as comfortable.
This is where virtual backgrounds came into play. Virtual backgrounds not only protect your privacy, but they can also show off your personality. At Dubb, we are happy to provide our users with virtual backgrounds. On Dubb, our virtual backgrounds are powerful and can appear in real-time. Basically, they let you feel comfortable in your setting without having to worry about your background being a distraction. Using our virtual backgrounds, you have the choice of blurring your background or using custom images in place of your actual background.
Ultimately, our virtual backgrounds are a simple, yet effective way of making your videos more interesting. You can add these virtual backgrounds with zero additional time or equipment. In the end, if you have any interest in this feature, I encourage you to give it a try!
CAIRA
CAIRA is one of our more exciting features that can make your video content more persuasive. Essentially, CAIRA is an artificial intelligence-driven real-time feedback assistant. This assistant isn’t specifically looking at your video quality or the shots that you are using in your video, however. Instead, what CAIRA is doing is looking at the language that you’re using in your videos.
No matter the type of video that you are creating, you are trying to get the viewer to take some sort of action. You are trying to persuade them—even if the video isn’t a “sales” video. At the same time, in our videos, we typically don’t pay attention to the language that we are using. We are focused on the message that we want to say, but beyond that, we aren’t closely looking at the language that we are employing.
This is where CAIRA can be extremely valuable. CAIRA can analyze your language and help you improve your communication delivery, clarity, empathy, professionalism, positivity, and persuasiveness. Using advanced artificial intelligence, it analyzes the language that you used and flags certain words for your attention. CAIRA can even track profanity that you may accidentally use in some of your videos.
This data is interesting in and of itself. That being said, the real power comes from the fact that you can incorporate those insights into future videos. For instance, if you noticed that your language could be more professional in your video content, you can avoid non-professional words that you have been using in your prior videos. By making these changes, you can become a more engaging communicator to your audience. Your message will be better received and you’ll be in a more advantageous position to generate sales. It’s just one example, but it goes to show the power of incorporating CAIRA’s insights into your future videos.
By becoming a Dubb user, you get access to CAIRA. CAIRA can be used to analyze any video that is in your account. It is a great feature that you should definitely check out if you decide to work with Dubb.
Dubb’s Teleprompter Mode
Finally, I encourage you to check out Dubb’s teleprompter mode. This is a great feature that can make the content creation process substantially easier.
Whenever you are creating video content for your business, you will want to have at least some idea of what you want to say. But if you are recording a longer video, it may help to have some sort of script that you can use when recording.
In the past, this script was typically on paper. When you were speaking to the camera, you would have needed to look down at your notes and then look back up at the camera. In today’s day and age, scripts are often in a Google Doc or on Microsoft Word. Still, it is awkward switching back and forth between your script and the camera.
This is where Dubb’s teleprompter mode is extremely handy. With Dubb’s teleprompter mode, you can record videos from your phone or desktop with ease. To do this, you will need to create a video through the Dubb website. Once you are on the website and start recording, you can scroll down and see that there is an option to display a teleprompter. After clicking that button, you will notice that the teleprompter selection option will appear on the top. You can click on it to select from one of your existing scripts. You can also create a quick script of your own and go from there.
The teleprompter feature can keep you focused as you are recording. That said, it also provides another key feature. Creating a script and putting it into the teleprompter ensures that you and your colleagues are on the same page. For instance, if you are creating a really important video for a certain group of prospects, you and your colleagues may want to be extremely careful with the language that you are using. In that sort of situation, you can settle on the script that you want to use and then upload that script to Dubb. Then, when recording, you can activate Dubb’s teleprompter mode so that you are precisely following your script.
Ultimately, if you decide to become a Dubb user, go ahead and check out Dubb’s teleprompter mode. While it may not be a “must-have” for quick, 15 to 30-second videos, it can be a huge asset for some of your longer video content.
More Things to Keep in Mind When Choosing and Using a Video Marketing Platform
When you are evaluating video marketing platforms, you will certainly want to identify the things that we discussed above. At the same time, however, selecting and using a video marketing platform isn’t simply about checking off boxes. There is some more nuance to it.
Because of this, I want to wrap up this post by spending a few more moments discussing some things that you should keep in mind when choosing and using a video marketing platform. You can think of some of these as first principles that you can rely on when making your decision.
At the end of the day, it is your company and your call. However, there are some things that you should keep in mind as you are going through this process.
Find a Platform That Helps You Tell Compelling Stories
As you have gathered in this post, video marketing platforms offer all types of tools and features. They serve a wide variety of purposes. At the same time, however, not all tools and features are created alike. They may serve different purposes and different overarching objectives.
So why does this matter to you? Ultimately, I think that you should focus on finding tools and platforms that help you tell compelling stories.
Storytelling is at the heart of video marketing. No matter the story that you want to tell, video can help you tell that story in an extremely powerful way. The possibilities are endless. If, for instance, you want to talk about the founding of your company, you can do so by speaking directly to the camera. If you are sharing some of your early memories in your company’s history, you can include video clips from that time. You can even include interviews from your friends and family on what they were thinking as you were starting your venture.
You can also use storytelling as a way to build social proof and convert prospects into paying customers. Like I mentioned above, testimonial videos are a great way of doing this. They are so powerful because they are words of praise about your business from the mouths of satisfied customers. In effect, you are borrowing social proof from others, which makes it much more likely that a prospect will make a purchase from you. Because you will want to incorporate video testimonials into your video marketing work, you should definitely find a platform that lets you easily incorporate them into your video content. Whether you publish standalone video testimonials or incorporate them into longer video content, testimonials are excellent storytelling mechanisms.
These are just some small examples, but they go to show you how video can unleash all of your creativity. Humans are inherently attracted to visuals and to compelling storytelling. Because of this, you will want to invest in a platform that lets you easily tell those stories. Using Dubb, for instance, you get access to an extremely powerful suite of creation and editing tools. For instance, the Dubb mobile app lets you create compelling video content wherever you are. You can easily shoot stunning footage, splice clips together, add on-screen items (like emojis), and more.
In the end, keep storytelling at the top of your mind. Even if you don’t think you have interesting stories to tell, trust me that you do. You just need to be creative, take your camera out, and start recording.
Don’t Ignore Screen Recordings
When you are looking at video marketing platforms, you should also be searching for different ways to create video content. After all, if you are thinking about creating a new type of video, you may naturally think of pulling out your camera and recording a selfie video.
Don’t get me wrong: selfie videos are tremendously powerful. Through the simple act of pulling out your cell phone and hitting the record button, you can build outstanding relationships with a single prospect or a group of prospects. But at the same time, selfie videos can get old after a while. They incorporate just one visual style.
Separately, you may want to record some video content that provides immense value to your current customers. For instance, if you sell a digital product or service, you may get frequent inquiries on how to use certain tools or features. To be clear, satisfied customers may be reaching out, but they are doing so in order to get the most out of that digital product or service.
Because of this, you would probably be interested in creating a screen recording video. A screen recording video is pretty self-explanatory. It is essentially a video of your computer screen. In screen recording videos, you can choose to record your entire screen or part of your screen and your webcam. In the end, however, the goal of screen recordings is to visually represent some idea or process.
So to get back to that natural use case, let’s assume that a key customer wants to find a better way to use your digital product. While you could record a selfie video and try to explain it in words, a better approach would be to create a screen recording video. In that screen recording video, you could pull up your digital product and visually show the prospect how to use it. Whether you want to respond to specific questions or show some hidden tricks on how to use the product, your key customer can visually see what you are doing. There is little ambiguity here, meaning that they can quickly implement the tips and insights that you end up discussing.
Therefore, when you are looking at video marketing platforms, make sure that you choose one that lets you create screen recordings. While you may not need to create a screen recording right this second, this feature can be immensely valuable in the future.
With Dubb, for example, you can easily create all types of screen recordings. The platform lets you record your webcam only, screen only, or a combination of your webcam and screen. Even better, Dubb has some additional screen recording features that you may not find on other video marketing platforms. For instance, Dubb offers an annotation tool. This annotation tool lets you mark up your screen as you are recording.
As just one example, let’s say that you want to direct your viewer’s attention to a particularly important piece of text on your screen. Instead of verbally telling your viewer to look at that piece of text, you can underline or circle that piece of text. It is a small thing, but it can go a long way in keeping your user engaged and delivering a clear message. Combined, those things will increase your chances of making a sale.
Screen recordings are an excellent option for you and your team. If you are even thinking of creating them for some (or every) member of your audience, I highly encourage you to invest in a video marketing platform that gives you this feature.
Don’t Be Too “Salesy”
This is an important first principle that you will want to leverage regardless of the video marketing platform that you choose.
Considering all of the power of video marketing, there comes a time where some individuals are too aggressive. They see the potential of these tools and this strategy and take it to an extreme level. For instance, they are super aggressive in asking for sales in their videos. Even if they are providing value in much of their video content, this “salesy” approach turns off their audience. It makes it seem like the presenter and the company are only developing the relationships to accomplish their goals. What could have been a great customer relationship is foregone because of the salesperson or marketer’s internal focus.
While it may seem tempting to take a more aggressive approach in your video content, there is something to be said about taking a more passive approach. Sure, you want to hit your sales goals. Like I mentioned above, we are creating video content to generate sales. At the same time, however, too much aggression kneecaps you. It prevents you from getting sales that you would have gotten if you took a more conservative approach.
So what does all of this mean? I think that it pays to lead with value. When creating your video content, think about how you are going to create value in the viewers’ lives. As I mentioned above, you can think of value in many different ways, from functional value to emotional value. You can create a helpful video on how to better use your product or a funnier video that incorporates your product or service. As with everything discussed here, the choice is yours.
By prioritizing value over everything else, you get closer to an actual sale. You prove to your audience members that you, your product or service, and your company can make their lives significantly better. Even if your audience members don’t make a purchase right now, you are in a much better position to get that sale. Just hang in there and keep creating valuable content.
Leverage the Waterfall Method
This is a specific first principle that all of us at Dubb know and love. You can think of it as a way of cloning yourself when you are creating all types of video content.
Let’s face it: for as powerful as video marketing can be, you still need to pull out your camera and create content. Moreover, you need to create valuable content. This is easier said than done. It requires a lot of thought and great execution from you and your team.
The great news is that there is a particular strategy that can help with this work. That strategy can save you time, help you create valuable content that engages your audience, and generate more sales. As you can guess, that strategy is called the Waterfall Method.
The Waterfall Method is a content creation strategy that lets you recycle some of your longer form content. Instead of creating all different types of video from scratch, you can use the content that you have created and remix it in different ways. By serving that content to the same, similar, or entirely different audiences, you can continue to engage with those audiences and provide immense value.
To better understand the Waterfall Method, it is helpful to discuss an example. Let’s say that you recorded an hour-long roundtable with some of your colleagues. The roundtable discusses some interesting news in your industry, some updates about your product or service, and some new updates that promise to make your customers’ lives even easier.
You may choose to live stream that video or record it and distribute it later. At that point, many people would move on and think about recording their next piece of content. However, if you choose to go forth with the Waterfall Method, your next actions would be different. What you can do is take that hour-long video and edit it into smaller and smaller parts. You can then distribute those smaller parts to the same audience or a different audience.
For example, you can take that portion of the conversation that discusses industry news and distribute that to a separate audience. That audience could perhaps be some of your peers or other informed customers that want to stay up-to-date with industry news. This clip could be several minutes long and you can choose to upload it to your YouTube page. From there, you could edit that clip down even further. You could find a very quick soundbite or clip from that smaller video and cut that out. That smaller clip can be shared on social media websites like Instagram or Twitter.
You can do all of that with just one excerpted clip from the one-hour roundtable. From there, you can follow the same process for the other segments of your roundtable video. You can create shorter and shorter clips, which you can then distribute and share with audiences on all kinds of platforms. For some of your videos, you will find that they are more appropriate for platforms like Instagram or Twitter. For others, you may want to distribute them on YouTube or other channels suited for longer-form content.
The bottom line is that the Waterfall Method can save you massive amounts of time. Sure, you need to cut out and edit certain clips from a longer video. That said, the time savings in other areas are substantial. You don’t need to think of new content ideas or spend time creating scripts for new videos. You don’t even need to get other team members into a meeting to discuss your content strategy going forward. Instead of that, you can simply use the great video that you have already recorded and remix it in a different way.
The Waterfall Method is especially effective if you are presenting old content to a new audience. Taking the example from above, you can take one clip of your discussion of industry news and post it to another one of your social media channels. In many cases, your audience won’t know that you took this clip from a much longer discussion. But even if your audience knows or learns of that fact, the longer discussion is yet another opportunity to show off your content to a new audience cohort.
At Dubb, we are huge proponents of the Waterfall Method. It can not only save you tremendous amounts of time, but it can help you build better relationships with your colleagues and prospects. It makes life easier on yourself. Yes, you will need to keep generating content ideas. There is no complete avoidance of that. That being said, you will need to generate fewer ideas, especially if you are consistently creating longform content. With that longform content, you can fill up your content calendar with high-quality content for all types of audiences.
The Waterfall Method is there for you. All you need to do is incorporate this strategy into your overall marketing strategy.
Have Fun
Creating video content doesn’t need to be so serious. By investing in a great video marketing platform, you have all of the tools you need to create great video content and have fun at the same time.
Decades ago, it was expected for businesses to make “professional” videos. By professional, I mean videos that were extremely expensive and time-consuming. Typically, businesses needed to invest in all sorts of expensive equipment, hire expensive actors, and spend weeks, months, or even longer on finalizing a specific video. While the end result would look really good, the upfront investment was substantial.
If a business moved away from this paradigm, it would have seemed unserious. There was lots of peer pressure to avoid making a video that wasn’t seen as professional. Even if there were plenty of ideas to shift the paradigm and do something different, the social pressure was to avoid those sorts of ideas.
We are now living in more exciting times. Regardless of the size or sector of your company, you don’t need to invest thousands of dollars into every single video that you make. On the contrary, you can make a fantastic video by just pulling out your cell phone and hitting the record button. You don’t need to hire expensive actors or build expensive sets. All you need is you and a camera to get started.
Moreover, you don’t need to be so serious when you are creating your video. While business can be serious, some of the best marketing videos take a less serious tone. You can look at something like Dollar Shave Club’s infamous marketing video, which played a significant role in launching the company towards a substantial acquisition offer.
When you are thinking about your future video content, don’t be afraid to show off your personality. Nothing is preventing you from having fun while you are recording. By embracing the fun side of this process, you put yourself in a great position to create stellar marketing videos.
Get Started Today
Video marketing and video marketing platforms are essential to accomplishing your business goals. These business goals can be everything from finding new customers, creating compelling video content for warm and cold prospects, and even building stronger relationships with some of your longstanding paying customers.
While the value is there, the specifics can be somewhat murkier. There are plenty of video marketing platforms that offer you one or several helpful tools, but they may not contain everything you need to execute your video marketing strategy. Moreover, even if one of those video marketing platforms contains many tools that can help you with your strategy, it may not be easy to use. The potential may be there, but the difficulty of use may make the tool unusable.
Because of this, you will want to find a video marketing platform that checks off many (if not all) of your boxes. It needs to be functional, easy to use, have tracking and analytics, and more. Ultimately, it needs to be a tool that you can rely on when you need it most. Whether you are trying to convince a new prospect to become a paying customer or want to connect with a group of your current customers, your video marketing platform should let you easily complete your work.
Finally, if you are looking for a great video marketing platform, I encourage you to give Dubb a try. I may be biased, but I believe that Dubb is one of the best video marketing platforms on the market today. You can check out a free trial by clicking here. There, you will find everything you need for your video marketing efforts. If you have any questions about Dubb and how it can help you with your video marketing work, don’t hesitate to contact us.
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