Content marketing is one of the most effective approaches to achieving membership growth and improving member engagement. Among the different types of content you create, videos are easily the most influential.
Consequentially, having a video content strategy is absolutely critical in the effort to capture the attention of your existing members and raise visibility in your industry niche.
Consider these statistics:
Across the board, marketers agree that video is gaining importance as a profit-driving tool. However, most also believe that they lack the time, skills, and financial resources it takes to create high-quality videos. This situation is especially true for associations, most of which do not have the time, personnel, or resources to produce videos.
Though the approach, from an association’s standpoint, can’t be compared to a typical marketing scenario, the goals are. Engagement, visibility, and brand authenticity are critical.
The buyer’s journey starts with awareness. They have a problem, and they are looking for a solution.
The next phase is the consideration. They know what their problem is, and they are researching different approaches that will help them solve it.
Finally, the buyer has to make a decision.
Your audience is comprised of professionals in your industry. Because of this, the content you provide should be timely and relevant to their experience.
This process mirrors the buyer’s journey in the sense that your audience is always looking for resources that will help them do their jobs more effectively.
Whether it’s about accessing guidance from trusted thought leaders, exploring job opportunities, finding out about upcoming networking events, information on regulatory changes, or personal experiences shared by their peers, every bit of content leads them back to your doorstep. As a trusted source, your value increases, as does your visibility in the industry at large.
The more video content you create, the more compelling these benefits become.
User-generated content is a solution to all of these issues. UGC gives you access to quality content that can be leveraged to create authentic, engaging, professional video marketing content at scale.
Creating videos as part of your content strategy is a great idea. However, the process is time-consuming, prohibitively expensive, and unsustainable if you choose the wrong approach.
For example, planning, writing, casting, and producing a video is a complex and costly undertaking. Unless you already have the facilities, the technical staff, and a workflow in place, chances are you will have to hire outside professionals to do the work for you.
For best results, you will have to continue producing videos, as it’s never a one-and-done activity. As costs continue to mount, the resources you need may not always be available. In the end, you won’t be able to maintain the consistency or momentum you need to see positive results.
User-generated content (UGC), on the other hand, solves many of these problems.
UGC allows you to connect with your audience authentically. Leveraging videos created by other association members, it is easier to make meaningful connections because you are giving them a genuine, emotional, peer-to-peer experience.
Additionally, because your members make the videos, there is no need to hire technical staff, writers, or camera operators. The time allocated to video creation is significantly reduced, and much of that is spent screening and choosing the clips you want to use.
In the end, with the same time and budget it would take to conceive, produce, and output a single video from scratch, you could make several using UGC.
Here are some timely tips to help you make the most of your efforts:
One-off videos are never in your best interests. Videos play on your emotions. They are more memorable than any other type of media, and they have the power to make powerful connections.
Once you have made that connection, you will need to follow it up. As an analogy, if you had a great first date, you have a much better chance of deepening that connection if you went out on a second date. If you can’t make that happen, it’s not likely that the relationship will flourish.
To ensure your video content strategy is successful, it is vital to have the support of your executive team. Outline the many advantages of using a UGC approach and quantify it with examples of highly successful campaigns.
Your association likely has several significant events during the year. Annual membership conferences, for example, are excellent occasions to build content around.
Repurposing content is the process of taking content you have already used and changing the format. For example, if you are revisiting a popular theme, you could repurpose your most-liked text article from that theme and build a video around that using UGC.
To get the most out of your video content, cut multiple shorter videos based on the same theme. This approach provides several benefits. You will appeal to people who don’t have the time or attention to watch the longer clip, and you’ll be able to follow up the long-form video with shorter “companion” pieces that continue the story.
A UGC video content strategy reduces costs and drives quantifiable results. Gather Voices is a platform designed with associations in mind. Reach out today to learn more or to request a free demo.
