Use Video Education Campaigns to Grow Your Business Video marketing is a key way to draw attention to your skills, leverage your credibility, and provide thought leadership.

The following excerpt is from Jill Schiefelbein's book Dynamic Communication. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Communicating via video is one of the smartest things you can do to demonstrate your expertise. Video campaigns that aren't really marketing, but that are simply and exquisitely adding value to and educating viewers, are a key way to draw attention to your skills and expertise, leverage your credibility and provide thought leadership.

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When you're creating an educational video series, you want to make sure that each video contains one clear learning point or actionable piece of advice. You want to get right to the point of the information your viewer is looking for, provide the value, answer one question (or sometimes just part of one question) and keep the video on one focus. You want to create videos that educate and empower by making your content accessible -- meaning that it's communicated in a clear, simple way that provides a path or action and that leaves the viewer feeling satisfied.

When you create an educational video series, the videos are not an advertisement for you. They are showcasing you as an expert. Your expertise is advertisement enough -- it's about providing value that makes people want to contact you.

Strategies for video campaigns

There are many different strategies you can use to create a video campaign. Let's dive into five strategies that can help you shape your video campaigns. Remember, the goal of each video is to have a single takeaway and provide a building block for more content and value to your audience.

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1. Use top FAQs

First, think in terms of problems and solutions, questions and answers. With the massive potential to create content in the "how to" space, it's logical to think about the questions you are most commonly asked. Get together 10 to 20 of your most frequently asked questions and start to think about creating content that answers those questions.

2. Look at your existing content

First, look at the existing content you have: blog posts, book chapters, articles, podcasts. If you have blog posts, you can create a video that expands on a post, adding a story or some extra example or flavor. This can help drive traffic back to your original blog posts and get people to engage (or re-engage) with your site.

If you've done your own podcast, think of creating videos with the existing podcast audio. You could divide most podcasts into four or five separate videos, based on the questions asked. If you have articles, books, contributed chapters, etc., look at them and see how they can be divided, repurposed and reinvented.

3. Help your viewer reach a goal

Goal-oriented videos help a viewer follow or complete the tasks necessary to reach a goal. Sometimes each video in itself can help someone reach a goal. Other times you string together a series of videos to help your audience accomplish something. This encourages more time on your site or channel and more engagement with your content. And once you help someone reach a goal, the influence principle of reciprocity kicks in and they're going to be more likely to reciprocate in some way (be that leaving great reviews, sharing your videos with others, engaging on multiple social media channels, making a purchase, sending feedback, etc.).

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4. Create stories and characters

When I think about some of my favorite YouTube videos, they all tell a story. Whether it's Henri, le Chat Noir (I love me some Henri) or learning about a new tech tool through an animated video done by Common Craft that follows a character through a short scenario, stories rule the video world.

Think about how your content can be shared through stories. You can think of case studies you've acquired, testimonials you've received, projects you've worked on. Then extract the lessons from those, create a character who is your ideal client and tell a story that educates. Adding character (no pun intended) to your content is more engaging, and we know that stories not only enhance learning but also increase connective power and strengthen relationships.

5. Develop themes and categories

Organizing videos around themes and categories helps users self-select what they want to view and learn. Think of the different themes and categories that make up your expertise, and create content around those themes.

No matter what type of videos you create, remember to always create with the viewer in mind.