Producing a high-quality business video requires significant talent, time, and financial investment, regardless of whether it’s created internally or by an external team. However, after investing all the effort to create an exceptional final product, many businesses overlook a crucial aspect: the promotion strategy.

While you may excel at promoting your blog content, marketing video content is a different ball game. However, we recognize that video content resonates exceptionally well with audiences. Simply incorporating a video on your landing page can significantly enhance conversions by 80%! Therefore, it’s crucial to dedicate time to attract viewers to discover, access, and watch your video, as the effort is worthwhile.

To ensure your video receives the attention it deserves, I’ve outlined nine video marketing tips below to significantly increase your video views, ensuring your hard work in creating an excellent product doesn’t go to waste.

#1: Enhance Your Video Thumbnail with a Smile

The video thumbnail plays a pivotal role in influencing a visitor’s decision to watch your video. Just like we judge books by their covers, it’s essential to present your video attractively with a captivating thumbnail image that entices viewers to click play.

The most effective way to ensure people play your video is by incorporating an image of a smiling person making direct eye contact. This is because people connect with other people. For instance, wouldn’t you rather pick up a book with an image of Prince William smiling on the cover than one with just plain text? The former is undoubtedly more appealing, and the same principle applies to video thumbnails.

“Smiling is the outward expression of happiness and serves as a starting point for connecting with others,” says Dr. Adrian Furnham, an organizational and applied psychologist.

Therefore, incorporating a smile into your video’s thumbnail is likely to result in a significant increase in views.

#2: Execute a Video Campaign on Facebook or Twitter

Offering something valuable for free is an excellent way to attract viewers to your video. Social media platforms are ideal for this, as people are more inclined to share and spread the word about giveaways, ultimately directing more traffic to your landing page and boosting your video views. Consider the following example from the company Dockwa.

Clicking on this giveaway offer leads to an appealing landing page featuring a video that explains the boating service they provide.

For further guidance on Facebook and Twitter video campaigns, refer to our article on utilizing personalized video marketing to enhance engagement.

#3: Integrate Share Buttons into Your Video Player

The immense power of social media is undeniable. You likely begin and end your day engaging with platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. As disheartening as it may seem, it’s the reality. Therefore, ensuring your video can be effortlessly shared on these platforms is crucial.

nexus-security utilizes the Wistia video player to host the majority of its marketing videos. One remarkable feature of the new Wistia player is the ability to incorporate share buttons directly within the video itself. This enables interested viewers to share a link to the video (which redirects back to your website) without having to leave the player.

#4: Don’t Hesitate to Request Shares for Your Video

While simply asking people to share your video may seem obvious, I can almost guarantee that if you put yourself out there, your friends will readily share your content and help spread the word. Reach out to your friends, colleagues, former colleagues, industry connections, relatives – anyone you can think of.

Prioritize contacting individuals closely connected to your target market, but don’t underestimate the power of a share from anyone in your network. You never know who might be connected to potential customers. Back in May, I attended an event hosted by an agency partner in Minneapolis. While enjoying seafood and cocktails, one of the employees enthusiastically described a video they had been working on, mentioning that the landing page would go live the next day, and asked if I would share it. And guess what? I did! She even followed up on Twitter once it was published. This individual, whom I had known for less than a week, convinced me to share something simply by asking – demonstrating just how easy it is.

#5: Combine Video with Your Email Marketing Endeavors

Video and email marketing are a match made in heaven. According to Animoto, simply including the word “video” in an email subject line can increase open rates by 19%, boost click-through rates by 65%, and reduce unsubscribes by 26%.

Incorporating a video thumbnail into your email also significantly enhances engagement. At Wistia, we observed a 300% lift in CTR when we used a video thumbnail instead of a regular image.

Integrating videos into your existing email nurture campaigns is not only simple and free but can also lead to improved attribution. For instance, if you’re using Wistia in conjunction with HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, or Salesforce, you can directly feed video viewing data into your lead scoring and workflows.

Let’s say one of your leads watches 75% of a product demo video on your website; you can create a workflow to automatically send them an email or notify a sales representative to reach out to them.

#6: Allocate a Budget for Promoting Your Video on Social Media

While many of the tips shared so far have been budget-friendly (for more affordable video marketing advice, check out this article on creating DIY marketing videos at home), it’s now time to invest some money into your video marketing strategy.

Promoting your video on platforms like Facebook and Twitter won’t break the bank. By carefully targeting your audience and optimizing campaign settings, you can execute a highly successful promotional campaign that reaches the right viewers, resulting in an impressive return on investment. To get started, refer to this guide on launching your first Facebook video ad campaign.

#7: Showcase Your Video at Events

We’ve all endured tedious speeches at industry events, finding ourselves staring blankly into space, scrolling through our Instagram feeds, or desperately trying to keep our eyes open. However, being on the other end of that situation is even worse. As a presenter, noticing your audience nodding off can be nerve-wracking. Playing a video is an excellent way to combat this!

A video not only provides a break from presenting but also offers the audience a respite from listening. Even the most captivating speakers on the TED stage utilize videos to break up their speeches because it helps re-energize the audience.

Image via TED.com Listening to the same person for an extended period can become disengaging (regardless of the speaker’s charisma). Therefore, industry events present an excellent opportunity to promote your video content to a large and relevant audience. Naturally, you’ll want your video to be top-notch for this purpose, so investing in video editing software might be worthwhile.

#8: Pin Your Video to the Top of Your Twitter Feed

Pinning a tweet to the top of your personal or company Twitter feed ensures it remains visible even as you continue posting new tweets. It also helps drive more engagement to your valuable video tweets.

Image via Buffer Buffer discovered that pinning a Twitter card led to a 10X increase in conversions! This is a free and straightforward method to boost your video views. Simply pin your video tweet and watch the views skyrocket.

#9: Share Your Video in Online Communities

Actively engage in online communities relevant to your industry, such as Twitter chats, LinkedIn groups, Reddit, or dedicated industry forums, and share your video content whenever appropriate. For example, if you work for an inbound marketing agency and participate in a conversation where several individuals are struggling with their inbound marketing efforts, share your explainer video to address their questions and demonstrate how you can assist them in a genuinely engaging manner.