What’s the first thing you do when thinking about where to hold your next meeting? Get online and start a search for appealing destinations with appropriate meeting space? Visit websites checking out various hotel properties? Look at destination and property photos? But, how much can you really tell by looking at those images? They certainly cannot give you a true sense of a location, nor give you a feel for the experience your group can enjoy in an area. While images speak volumes, video speaks louder!

Incorporating video into your marketing materials allows you to reveal the essence of your location helping to boost its appeal. But before you hire a videographer or start running around shooting videos with your smart phone, you’ll want to have a strategy in place to create engagement. Here are three points that will help create an effective video campaign:

Target Market – Like any piece of content used for marketing, you have to be specific as to whom you are trying to reach. For example, are you looking to appeal to meeting planners, and if so which group specifically: corporate meeting planners, association planners or incentive planners. The video you create may focus on different aspects of your property or destination depending on the group you’re targeting. A corporate group planner may be interested in the meeting space on property as well as creative options for space off-property. Group friendly restaurants may also be top of their list along with group activities. Association planners may be looking for creative ways to utilize existing space. Since association members often pay for their own tours and activities, videos that capture the sensation of a tour or activity as well as the overall destination can help boost member attendance. Incentive planners will be focused primarily on the unique experience your destination and property offer. Videos can be a great asset when targeting this group simply because they can capture the vibe of a destination whereas photos just don’t have the same impact.

Content – While it’s tempting to share everything the KISS rule applies here – Keep it Simple Sista! Concise and to the point will be far more engaging than a full site inspection via video. Snippets work best when trying to reach a specific market. Save the full-blown walk through video (if necessary) for after interest is piqued. Creating a concise video requires pre-planning. You’ll want to make certain you’ve clearly defined the primary objective of the video, who you are attempting to reach and just how much information you can realistically get into a 2 minute or less video. Ideally, you’ll want to create several short videos to share via social media. People are more likely to watch and share a quick 30-second piece than a 2 – 3 minute spot.

Marketing – You’ll need a place to host your videos. This can easily be done on YouTube. Remember though, YouTube is owned by Google. Even though you may have your own channel, YouTube may also list similar videos in the sidebar – some of which may be those of your competitors. However, hosting an optimized video on YouTube does offer SEO benefits. There are alternative hosting platforms such as Wistia and Vimeo. You’ll also want to embed your videos on your website – something your IT department can do and share, share, share through social media. Get the word out. Just make certain that when you do share, you are sending the video that sits on your site not on YouTube. The idea is to always bring people to your site.

Video speaks – Incorporating video into marketing campaigns

Visit Newport Beach has started creating a series of 24-second videos highlighting the destination and has embedded a longer ‘overview’ video on its home page. Planners are able to get a glimpse of Newport Beach, CA before delving further into specifics.

Video is the future of marketing. According to the digital marketing publication, Marketing Land there has been nearly a 500% increase in online video consumption over the past few years. In fact, online photo provider, iStock reports that Internet users spend 88% more time on websites with video. From a brand perspective, this is huge, after all you have a much higher chance of creating engagement, building client relationships and converting prospects to clients when there is more time spent perusing your site.

So, if you haven’t jumped on the video bandwagon yet, maybe it’s time to do so!

Have our videos piqued your interest? When you’re looking for a fantastic coastal location with plenty of airport close properties connect with Visit Newport Beach, the destination marketing organization for Newport Beach, CA. Visit Newport Beach opens the doors to this Pacific paradise with destination expertise, customized site visits, strong partnerships and resources that ease the planning process.