Video is a brilliant tool for growing your business, especially when combined with the right marketing tools. Last week, we sat down with Chloe Romero from Lemonlight Media to walk you through exactly which types of content work best, while paired with SproutVideo’s features. 

We’ll be looking specifically at lead capture, video SEO, calls-to-action, and social sharing in this post. You’ll gain insight into how these features work, and the types of content that will make the most of them.

First, check out this recording of our live stream with Lemonlight, then keep reading for a more in-depth look at each topic.  

Lead Capture

Lead capture, or gating a video, is our first feature. This is a contact form that appears before your video and prompts the viewer to input their name and email before they can view the content. Simply put, it’s an exchange of information for access to the video. 

This is great for capturing leads and growing contact lists. SproutVideo offers plenty of integrations with various marketing software platforms, like HubSpot or AWeber. With these integrations, you can maximize these leads and use them in various ways, like email campaigns, for example. 

Best Content: High-Value Videos

While it may seem enticing to gate all of your content, you’re much better off saving this feature for your highest-value content. This includes — but is not limited to — educational content, recorded speaking engagements, thought-leadership videos, interviews, Q&As, and more.

Typically, this type of video will be on the longer side … somewhere between five minutes to an hour, depending on the subject. This works best because viewers will see the video’s value and won’t mind putting in their information to see it. 

Playback Call-to-Action (CTA)

This tool is a short message that pops up at a specific time in your video to catch viewers at just the right moment. It typically contains a link to content the video is referencing. Clean design helps keep the emphasis on your message without distracting from your video.

Similarly to lead capture, all the analytics from this feature can be found in your SproutVideo account and can be sent to your marketing automation software of choice. This insight will give you a better look at how your audience is engaging with your content. 

Best Content: Product Videos/Special Offers

We recommend pairing this feature with a video that promotes either a product or service. If your goal is to promote your product, a CTA pop-up is ideal if you’re looking to prompt viewers to take action. Since the link can lead to any site you want, you would ideally use it to send people to a product page, landing page, or a link to receive a discount. 

Additionally, these work really well for explainer videos. Because they include a breakdown of your business or an explanation of your services, your CTA could link to a page that further introduces your audience to your business or an opportunity to schedule an appointment with your team. 

Post-Play Call-to-Action

Lead capture prompts action before your video, a playback CTA can get your viewer’s attention during, and a post-play call-to-action rounds things out with an end card message you can enable to appear when your content is finished.

This feature provides a space for you to write a message and include a link to a new destination, similar to a playback CTA, and is ideal for continuing the conversation with your most engaged audience members who made it to the end of your video or live stream.

Best Content: All Videos

While this may seem like a cop-out, we do strongly recommend adding a post-play CTA to all videos because there are essentially no negative outcomes from adding this feature. Prompting your most engaged viewers to view a landing page, continue exploring your content, or check out a product is an easy way to keep the momentum going. 

Video Sitemap/SEO

A sitemap is a file that can be easily interpreted by search engines’ automated crawling bots, helping them determine the theme and content of your website. Sitemaps ensure all your content is scanned correctly and your site is represented accurately.

A video sitemap takes this same concept and applies it to the videos you’re hosting on your site. Because video content has no keywords or text bundled with it, a video sitemap is an effective way to organize the relevant information for each of your videos. 

When you grant access to SproutVideo to create a sitemap, we collect the title, description, and video tags from your video and package them in a way that makes it easy for search engines to scan. This improves your site’s SEO, allowing your videos to show up in search engine results and, in turn, produce more clicks to your site.

Best Content: Blog Videos and Marketing Site Videos

When it comes to creating content that is good for SEO, you’ll want to focus on videos that are aligned well with the page where they live. For that reason, videos that are created for a specific blog post, or videos on your marketing site, are prime candidates for creating video sitemaps.

Blog videos will be surrounded by information that is directly related to the video, so when Google’s crawlers come looking, they’ll see how well it aligns. And this improves your chances of being found in search engine results. 

As for marketing site videos, the same idea applies. If you have videos throughout your site explaining your product or service, they will be surrounded by copy that is relevant to your video, improving your SEO on those pages. 

Social Sharing

Our last feature is pretty straightforward: it allows your viewers to easily share your videos with their fans and followers. When social sharing is enabled, viewers will have the opportunity to share a link to the video on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or by email.

Best Content: Educational, Entertainment, and Inspirational

The most “shareable” videos are the ones that delight the viewer so much that they want to share them with others. Typically, educational, entertaining, or inspirational videos fit this category best.

Educational videos can be in the form of how-tos or tutorials … anything that teaches the viewer. Entertaining videos can be attention-grabbing, humor-based, or just plain fun. Finally, inspirational videos can revolve around your companies’ story, purpose, or values … and these stories can really resonate with your audience, pushing them to share. Be sure to let your personality shine through with these videos, as it will make them more relatable for your audience. 

Want to see these new features in action? Get started with a free 30-day trial today.  Let us know in the comments below what types of contact will be working with your career going forward.