Nearly half of marketers plan to add YouTube content to their marketing strategies in the next year, according to  new research. That’s almost half of all marketers. If you’re one of the businesses using video already, you’re in good company. If you’re not using video - you’re missing out.

With over 5 billion videos watched on YouTube every day, video is no longer confined to businesses with big budgets and super creative concepts. In fact, there are videos dedicated to just about everything these days, each intended to educate, inform or entertain the growing online audience.

But video isn’t the only channel for businesses to engage with customers online. Tools like SEO (search engine optimisation), paid advertising, digital PR and social media all contribute to your marketing goals - and can eat up your marketing budget.

Here’s how video fits into your wider marketing strategy:

Use video to increase your Facebook reach

Any business that’s making use of Facebook knows the power it has the potential to be.

But whether you’re posting for free on your Page or paying to advertise to a larger audience, you’ll have noticed a decline in the reach of your posts.

Basically, it’s getting more and more difficult to reach larger audiences via Facebook as the platform continues to amend its algorithms and change what makes it into our news feed, and what doesn’t.

That said, video has been proven to be highly effective. Facebook Live videos are a great way to give audiences an insight into your business, and video content more generally has been shown to achieve more impressions and more engagement than non-video posts.

Facebook is genuinely trying to provide the best service possible for its users, so any salesy content will be charged a premium cost-per-click. By creating engaging video content first, you can expect higher click through rates and a lower cost per click. You can then later retarget the engaged users with the sales content.

Facebook live gives users a new and engaging channel to reach audiences

Create landing page videos

Landing page videos are a growing trend amongst businesses who want to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

A landing page is any page that you expect people to see first on your website. It might be your homepage, but it could equally be service pages or product categories, if people are searching for those things via Google, for example.

Having a landing page video allows users to experience your business at a glance by passively viewing the messages you want to promote. You can show off your premises, the people and atmosphere of the company in a short 1 minute clip. This is more easily consumed and helps to create a brand image quickly.

Landing page videos work really well to showcase products, too. If you want to show a potential customer how something works, or give them the opportunity to view the product in motion, video is a great way to do it.

Consider how brands like Asos use video to show shoppers how their clothing looks on a moving model.

You can couple a specific landing page video with paid advertising to push to a certain page so the message is thoroughly reinforced.

Invest in user-generated video content

Having customers leave reviews or case studies brings authenticity and trust to your brand and business.

A typical marketing strategy will comprise at least one element of trying to increase brand loyalty and customer retention, and videos are a potentially powerful tool for this.

Brand messages are far more likely to be listened to when coming from an actual customer as opposed to being pushed by the business themselves, and by putting a face to the name and allowing your customers to speak directly to prospects via a video can increase conversion and retention rates.

You could potentially offer discounts or entry into a competition for all who send in video reviews or case studies for example. This allows you to then share this content on social media, and have a case study page on your website, all user-generated by satisfied customers.

Optimise your YouTube content

YouTube has the online video market dominated, but did you know that you can optimise a YouTube page for SEO purposes?

YouTube (which is, incidentally, owned by Google) is the world’s second largest search engine. People use Youtube to search for answers to questions, guides to help them get things done and, yes, products and services!

You can actually sell to people through YouTube by taking a similar approach to optimising your own web pages for better search rankings.

By uploading a relevant video then creating an optimised description, rich in targeted keywords, your content could rank on the first page for a term you’re struggling to rank for with text.

Couple this with a call to action drawing users back to your website, and there is another way video can help your wider marketing efforts.

People search Youtube for video-based guides and life-hacks

Use video to create teaser campaigns

Dropping short hint-fuelled videos, dangling the carrot over a series of weeks, can give great anticipation to a product or service launch.

Shorter videos can be shared across all channels, and work perfectly on social media due to their snappy nature. This can be combined with hashtags and calls to action for newsletter sign ups, for example, so people can find out what all the intrigue is about as soon as it is released.

A teaser campaign that presents mystery whilst focussing on the impact of the product or service, spread across multiple channels, is going to create a buzz.

If your teasers are intriguing enough to encourage email action, then you have just been given access to many inboxes, promoting direct contact between your business and the customer. Offer exclusive content on emails to continue a successful campaign and your teasers will lead customers to having your products and services top-of-mind.

Using video in your PR efforts

With press releases there is not much wiggle room for creativity, so if you are trying to get coverage for your business, why not try a video?

There are multiple ways you can go about utilising video in press releases. The personal touch can be useful as you can have the founder of a company addressing the journalist directly.

They can then pull quotes from the video, with ease if there is a transcript, meaning the person commenting on the news is not just a block of text. The journalist may then share this video when the news is broken, this is even better for your company as your representative is getting coverage in person.

Perhaps the news you are sharing is based on vast amounts of data, video in PR is a game-changer. The shareable nature of video means they are short and sweet, this encourages a condensed version of statistics.

Video delivers information quickly and in digestible formats

The journalist only has to spend a minute learning about your news, as does the viewer, a winner for online media.

In general, video is short and saves time for everyone involved. When creating these videos always have social media in mind. An expertly crafted 4K definition video is great, but it’s not the cinema you need to be creating content for.

Your video press release can stand out from other text heavy alternatives, and putting ‘Video’ in the subject of the email is guaranteed at least a curious open.

Video is a powerful tool to reach audiences quickly and effectively. It should be considered a key part of any marketing campaign as its prevalence is only increasing. The most effective videos are those that tell a story or show the emotive aspect of a business.

People want to see who they could be buying products or services from, especially in a world where you can do the entirety of your shopping without seeing a single person’s face.

Ben Newth is the founder of Reel Media, a video production company.