Industrial Video Content Strategy Guide in 2024
It’s 2024 and Q1 is in full swing- and you’ve probably realized by now that industrial video marketing works. You know it’s an effective industrial marketing technique, but some big questions remain:
“What should I do?”
“How do I get started?”
And most importantly, “What kind of videos should I make for my industrial company?”
To answer these questions, you can work with a manufacturing marketing agency like MFG Tribe. If you’re not quite sold on us yet, you can also take the DIY route follow these tried-and-tested industrial video content strategies.
Let’s talk about why you want to pursue video marketing. Yes, many people still like to read blogs and articles. In the industrial market, the people who prefer video or written content is about 50/50. However, videos get more views because they get more engagement. This is because audiences like when you don’t just tell them what you’re about, but show them as well. Video content serves as a more concise way to show potential customers what your company does on a broad level, where a 3,000 to 5,000 word article can be used to take a deep dive into the nitty gritty of what your industrial company does.
At MFG Tribe we now produce well over 1,500+ industrial videos a year for our clients in all sectors of manufacturing. We have long touted the advantages and positive results of a well-executed video content strategy, with room to pivot and make micro-adjustments as necessary. Here are the steps you should follow to develop your video content strategy for the remainder of 2024 and beyond:
Live Events In Your Video Content Strategy
If you’re following us on LinkedIn, you knew this one was coming. And if you’re not following us on LinkedIn, hop on over to our page and change that really quick.
The first thing to note about live video events is that they’re not for everyone. If you or your company have a smaller following or a low social media presence, hold off on live video until you’ve increased your brand awareness and established more of a role as an authority in your industry’s digital space. If you’ve already done that, then live video events can be the missing link in your video content strategy.
Live video content works two-fold. First, when you’re broadcasting live you give your audience the chance to interact with you in real time. This alone gives live video a massive advantage over other types of video content. This real time interaction allows you to have a conversation with your audience, which keeps them engaged and more importantly makes them feel heard. Taking the time to acknowledge their comments and queries and provide thoughtful responses directly to them does wonders to increase not only your online authority, but the trust that your viewers have in you.
After the event is over, congratulations- you’ve just recorded a new video! Be sure to upload the footage from the live event for your viewers to check out on their own time. No matter how you go about scheduling your live event, there will always be scheduling conflicts that cause people to miss out. Uploading the recorded live as a new piece of video content gives those viewers a chance to still get the same valuable info that you shared in your event, just at a time that works better for them. You can also take snippets from the live and turn those into micro video content, just like you would any other full length video. This extreme versatility is why live events should play a key role in your video content strategy if you have the following for it.
Topic Selection for Industrial Video Content
Before producing video content, live or pre-recorded, you need to decide what your videos will be about. The first category of topics you can do is all of your products and services. If you’re in manufacturing, look at all the different services you offer. You can make one video per service. If you have thousands of SKUs, a video for each product might be a bit overkill. Instead, you can make one video per product category to cover all your bases.
The length of each video should be from no longer than 6 minutes. You don’t want to be fighting with your viewer’s attention span, so keep things concise and engaging. Your industrial video content should highlight all the value of your products or services including the most important aspects. To get you started, here are a few of our favorite topics for industrial video content.
Want to get the most out of your industrial marketing strategy? Consult the experts here at MFG Tribe. We are a specialized industrial/manufacturing marketing agency that understands the ins and outs of your product and what you do.
Company Culture/Recruitment Video
The manufacturing world is no exception to global labor shortage trends. Project managers, machine operators, and salespeople among others have all been in short supply for years… or has there?
The truth is that the people you’re looking for are out there, but how are they supposed to find your industrial company if you’re not raising brand awareness of making an active effort to stand out in the digital space? While it may seem like there has been a shortage for trained people in labor and skills, things look just as bleak from the perspective of job hunters because companies need better recruitment tactics. To help boost recruitment for your industrial company, you can produce video content geared toward that end.
The first type of recruitment video can be about your company in general, and how awesome the company is. For example, you can feature company benefits, the internal training program, and showcase the kind of work culture your industrial company has.
The second type is a job-specific type of video. Interview someone from your company with a specific job title like programmer, technical sales engineer, or sales lead and ask them questions about the specific role. Record about two to three minutes of raw footage of them doing their job and include it in the video. You can also create a 15 second video ad from this longer video and post it to encourage applicants.
Product Demo
Another type of video content you can make is a product demo. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most people were not able to travel and do actual demos of their technical products and services. As a result, many technical sales engineers now do demos over real time video call programs like Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. However, instead of doing this, you can make a demo video about 10-15 minutes long. You can make it similar to a webinar, where you explain your service to a potential customer.
Videos can be extremely powerful, and majority of people will watch them. They are also a great way to establish you or your company as a subject matter leader, and the product or service that you are selling, as a solution.
Educational Topics
You can also use video content to educate your potential customers. Your industrial videos can cover a variety of educational topics, from simple overviews to advanced, industry-specific practices. Whether it’s about operations or engineering, you can teach the viewer how to design parts or how to update their supply chain. The goal is to give as much value to your viewers as possible.
Now that you have an idea of what kinds of topics your video content can cover, let’s talk about how to start producing them.
Industrial Video Content Production
Once you’ve decided on the general topics, put everything you have on a spreadsheet and lay out the videos you want to produce per topic in an organized manner. By doing this, you can easily get 12 to 20 topics and work your way through them.
Next, what are the videos going to look like? They are usually a few minutes long, but what is the setting? Will you film them yourself or outsource to a video production company? If you get the services of a production company, their rates can go up to as much as $10,000 to $15,000 for a one-day shoot to produce a 4 minute video shot in one day.
Working with an Industrial Marketing Agency
A more cost-effective solution is to work with a manufacturing marketing agency that can handle all your video content needs. For example, at MFG Tribe we offer a “custom quarterly content shoot” that can work with a company’s budget and can film enough content for 8 to 10 videos in one day. A manufacturing marketing agency can do everything for your video content strategy from filming, video content distribution, updating your website, basically the overall marketing strategy for your industrial company.
Making the Most of Your Video Content
Whatever route you choose, you need to make sure that you get your money’s worth. For example, if you produce 6 full length industrial videos, you can create 1 to 2 micro videos for each of those. The full length videos can be posted on YouTube or hosted on Vimeo. The shorter micro videos should be in a vertical format and posted on YouTube Shorts and social media. Post them on your company’s LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. Make sure they are about 20-60 seconds long and have captions. You can create tons of micro video content from your full-length videos, so making the most of what you’ve got should be a significant part of your video content strategy.
Enrich Your Website with Video Content
Lastly, make sure to post the videos on your website. You can embed these videos on relevant web pages- just make sure you’re embedding from the right place to maximize page speed. Having quality industrial video content on your web page will help boost your site’s SEO while keeping your viewers engaged too.
If you are ready to jump into video content marketing, make sure to follow this guide and get the most out of this industrial marketing technique. You’ll be able to reach more potential customers and soon enough, close more sales.
A video content strategy doesn’t develop overnight. If you feel stuck, consider reaching out to an industrial marketing agency with expertise in your industry. If you want the best in the business, contact MFG Tribe Industrial Marketing Agency to learn more!
