Consumers are bombarded with content every day. Video marketing allows brands to stand out in a crowded marketplace and make human connection with their audience while building trust. Increasingly, brands are incorporating video in their marketing strategies to build brand awareness and grow their customer base. Video also helps with SEO rankings as videos now appear in 70% of the top 100 search result listings.

How-to videos are particularly successful in driving traffic and converting visitors to customers. How-to videos teach something new or build foundational knowledge needed to understand your products. Google reports how-to videos earn the most attention of any content category on YouTube–7 in 10 YouTube users search the platform for help with a problem in their work, studies or hobbies.

If you’re ready to drive more traffic and convert more customers, here are the steps to creating entertaining and engaging how-to videos.

1. Choose the best how-to video to utilize for your product or service.

• Explainer videos help your audience better understand why they need your product or service. Many explainer videos use a sample customer scenario to demonstrate what potential customers can expect if they purchase the product or service.
  Length: 2 – 10 minutes
  

• Demo videos demonstrate how customers can accomplish something with your product or service. You can take viewers on a virtual tour of your software product or show an unboxing and testing of the physical product.
  Length: 30 seconds – 1 minute

Guava Family is a great example of a brand that incorporates both strategies into their video content driving visitors to their product pages.

2. Create compelling content

To attract viewers, video content needs to be creative, concise and high quality. Ensure your content addresses consumers’ needs by asking yourself: 

• What are the key features of your product and what problems do they solve?
  Think about how your product makes customers’ lives better and present it in a way that will help them understand not only what your product is, but why they should buy it.

• What questions do customers frequently ask about your product?
  Use Google Trends and Google Consumer Surveys to help.

• Remember to keep your videos short and to the point.
  Consumers prefer videos under 60 seconds.

The Arena Gym  provides enriching content to potential consumers with instructional videos to help with athletic technique, enticing consumers to train at their gym.  

3. Optimize the video’s headline and title tags

Make your videos easy to find by adding descriptive titles, details, and relevant tags to each. Use buyer personas and Google Trends to identify the keywords most likely to help customers find your video through search engines.

• Optimized title
  The headline or title should only be a few words and include the main keywords you want to rank in search engines.
  

• Appropriate title tags
  Use plenty of relevant keywords while ensuring the title tags fit your brand and will attract your intended audience.

• Full description
  Describe your video in several hundred words, articulating your key points and include relevant keywords, especially those with high video ranking on search engines.

Petcube utilizes this strategy in their how-to videos making it easier for pet owners and consumers to find the video online.

4. Upload and promote the video

Once you have your optimized video, ensure your target audience sees it. In addition to uploading to YouTube, you can promote your video through:

• email marketing
  Using the word “video” in an email subject line can boost open rates. Add a video thumbnail in your emails including email newsletters.
  

• share on social media
  Share your video on social media platforms that make the most sense for the audience you’re trying to reach.

• YouTube channel
  Create a YouTube channel for your company/brand even if you only have one video. YouTube is the second most-searched site and your channel will get a lot of exposure.

• incorporate paid advertising
  Facebook Ads allow businesses to target the right audience for videos by location, relevancy and demographics.

Summary

How-to videos are a great way to drive more website traffic and to acquire more customers. Your target audience will not only receive helpful information, they’ll become acquainted with your brand, build awareness, increase sales and bolster your brand’s reputation.