By Cristian Stanciu
Did you know two thirds of online activity revolves around watching videos?
You probably knew that a lot of all internet traffic is video traffic nowadays, but didn’t expect it to be that much.
YouTube is one of the biggest examples that has over a billion users and more than 500 million hours of videos are viewed on it every day.
And Facebook has recently started to take better care of content creators too. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we would start seeing videos doing better and better on Facebook in the near future.
Anyways, unlike other traditional marketing channels, video marketing is versatile, cost-effective, and creates an opportunity for almost everyone who’s looking to share and promote any product or service.
Since a lot of people prefer videos over any other form of marketing, this creates an opportunity for authors to promote their books and reach more readers with video marketing.
However, for your video marketing strategy to be successful, you have to offer something that does not only market your book but also keeps your readers engaged.
As video marketing is a great way to grab instant attention, you can take advantage of this by introducing yourself on your video channel. Remember – if people know you, they’re more likely to invest in your book.
When they’re able to see your face and hear your voice, they’re more likely to trust you and of course would like to spend their hard-earned money on your writing.
I know creating videos is a difficult and challenging task, especially when you have never done it before. But with a little bit of effort or maybe by using an agency that provides video editing services, it can really grow on you and become a fun task.
But, how to pursue this task?
1. Create a behind the scene series
The promotion of your book doesn’t start the moment your book is finished.
As a matter of fact it should start the moment you begin to start writing. I know that may sound weird, but hear me out.
Use any following that you already have on your social media, to let them know that you are starting your book writing process. So you can go ahead and create a super short, quick video just to let people know you plan on writing a book on a specific topic.
I like to look at this as planting seeds. The book will probably be published later or much later down the road. But planting these seeds as you progress through the book will help you sell more copies in the end. It kind of creates a hype around it.
So these “behind the scenes” videos can simply explain your creative process or talk briefly about a certain chapter in the book. It can be literally anything you feel like it’s worth mentioning in a video.
2. Create a Story
Book marketers and authors generally create videos that only put their books in the limelight. Although, there is nothing wrong with this approach, if you keep the content of your video too focused on your product, it may sound sales-y to the visitors and may look like a cheap promotional strategy.
You have to create a video that highlights the story-telling element as it can actually bring your dull and boring promotional video to life. There are two ways to do this. First, you can either make your reader the hero of the story or give all the limelight to your book.
Keep in mind, story-telling is something your readers can easily relate to. With the right action and carefully chosen words, you can increase engagement and create a lasting impression that will persuade visitors to like, trust, and remember your brand.
3. Do Not Drag
This is certainly one of the most important aspects. Online users generally have a confined attention span. If your video fails to grab their attention within the first seconds, they’ll be more than glad to switch to someone else’s video.
Just look at Wistia’s findings bellow:
So in order to captivate your audience’s attention, you have to create a short, meaningful, and to the point intro. Definitely put the best stuff that you have in the very beginning of the video.
Also, your video must provide a clear answer to the question: why should people watch this video?
Remember, your objective is to grab your audience’s attention in the limited 10-minutes window and you have to keep them curious so that they continue watching it till the end.
4. Search Engine Optimize
So, you have created an amazing video? Awesome! But, no one watches it. All of your efforts will immediately go down the drain if your video fails to grab the attention. Search engine optimization, or better yet SEO for YouTube, is a foolproof way to get desired clicks and likes on your video.
Once you post your video on video platforms, make sure you also host them on your website. You can easily do this by embedding the video on different pages of your website, where it makes sense.
This will increase time on site and dwell time, which will boost your rankings even more.
As YouTube is owned by Google, if you successfully manage to get all of the above-listed factors right, there is a high chance your video can get a good search engine ranking. Just make sure you have a list of keywords handy that you can use to optimize your descriptions and tags.
Getting a lot of social signals in the very beginning, right after you posted the video is super important too. So make sure to let everyone know right after you uploaded your video.
5. A Powerful Call to Action is a MUST
Last but not the least, your video must include a robust CTA encouraging viewers to take the desired action. Most of the times the call to action is placed at the very end of the video, which is not necessarily bad.
However, you might want to try a creative and non-invasive way of placing it in the beginning of the video. Viewership tends to drop a lot and only about 40% of viewers actually stick until the end of your videos.
Over to you
There is no denying the fact that promoting your book through the conventional advertising channels is great, but ever wondered how beneficial an effective video marketing strategy could be for your book?
So, take a clue from this post and follow these 5 simple tips to promote your book like a marketing pro.
Cristian Stanciu is a freelance video editor, owner and post-production coordinator of Veedyou Media – a company offering video editing services to videographers, marketing agencies, video production studios or brands all over the globe. I can catch up with him on his blog or on LinkedIn.
