Video Content Marketing Strategy: Balancing Quality and Quantity

Are you using the wrong types of video in the various stages of your customer’s journey? Wondering how to make adjustments?

In this article, we’ll explore developing a video content strategy.

The Importance of Having a Video Content Marketing Strategy

As a marketer in today's digital landscape, you understand the immense power of video content. But creating an effective video marketing strategy can be challenging. How do you produce the right types of videos for each stage of the customer journey? What's the best way to balance quality and quantity? How can you ensure your video content drives real business results?

A. Lee Judge, co-founder of Content Monsta, shares his four-stage approach to aligning video marketing content with the sales funnel. This approach helps you create more impactful videos that truly move the needle for your business.

Before diving into the video strategy, it's important to understand why having a clear video content plan is so crucial for your business. As Lee explains, many companies make two common mistakes when it comes to video:

• They believe video production is too expensive, so they avoid creating video content.
• They invest their entire budget in the wrong types of videos that don't align with their business goals or customer journey.

Without a well-thought-out video marketing strategy, you risk wasting valuable resources on videos that fail to serve your business objectives. You might create beautiful, high-production videos that look great but do little to generate leads or drive sales.

A successful video marketing strategy helps you:

• Create the right types of videos for each stage of the customer journey
• Balance quality and quantity effectively
• Allocate your budget wisely
• Produce videos that drive real business results
• Align your video efforts with broader marketing and sales goals

Now, let's explore Lee's four-stage approach to developing an effective video content strategy that will help you avoid these common pitfalls and maximize the impact of your video marketing efforts.

The Content ‘QvQ Balance’ Strategy: Understanding Quality vs Quantity

At the heart of Lee's strategy is what he calls the content “QvQ Balance”—Quality vs Quantity. This concept is a guiding principle for determining how much to focus on producing a high volume of videos versus creating fewer, higher-quality pieces.

As you go through each stage of the strategy, you'll see how the balance shifts from emphasizing quantity at the top of the funnel to prioritizing quality as you move closer to the sale. This approach ensures you're creating the right type of content for each stage of the customer journey, maximizing the effectiveness of your video marketing campaigns.

#1: Awareness – Focusing on Quantity to Capture Attention

At the awareness stage, your primary goal is to reach as many potential customers as possible and introduce them to your brand. Here, quantity is key. You want to create a large volume of short, engaging video content to capture attention and spark interest in your products or services.

The goal is to get your audience's attention before your competitors do.

When creating awareness stage videos, keep these key things in mind:

• Keep them short: Aim for 30-90 seconds in length
• Focus on providing value: Offer helpful tips, interesting information, or quick insights
• Don't stress about perfect production: Good enough quality is fine at this stage
• Avoid heavy branding or overt sales pitches
• Create many variations to test what resonates with your target audience

The types of videos that work well at the awareness stage include:

• Short social media clips (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts)
• Brief expert tips or insights
• Behind-the-scenes glimpses of your company
• Quick product demonstrations or teasers

Lee suggests taking longer-form content like interviews, presentations, or webinars and extracting multiple short clips. For example, you might create 15–20 short videos highlighting key insights or memorable moments from an hour-long interview or keynote speech. This approach allows you to create valuable, relevant content quickly and efficiently.  

Pro Tip: When creating these short videos, use “sound bites”—concise, memorable statements about your company, leaders, or products that get your point across quickly. These “hot takes” or gems will help you create more effective short-form content and improve marketing communication. 

If you're doing a podcast interview, for example, plan to get several short, useful clips from it. Aim to get at least one good clip for each question you ask. If you don't get a good answer, try asking the question differently. If you're interviewing your CEO or a guest expert, plan your questions to get the clips you want. 

For example, if you want five clips, prepare at least five questions leading to useful answers. If you're creating content for your sales team, think about the questions customers often ask. Then, ask your expert those questions and get clear answers. This way, you're setting up your expert to give you exactly the content you need. The key is to plan and ask questions to provide you with valuable, short clips you can use later. This approach allows you to create various content from a single recording session, maximizing efficiency.

At Content Monsta, Lee and his team use short video clips in various ways. For example, they record video podcasts and pick out the best short clips for some of their real estate clients. They can use these to promote even audio podcasts. For financial advisors, they make short intro videos, usually 1–1.5 minutes long. These go on websites and social media channels, mainly Facebook and LinkedIn, and help build trust with potential clients. 

Lee always recommends recording video, even for audio content. His approach lets him make 3–4 high-quality videos in an hour, which is more efficient than one big, expensive production. This gives you more content for your target audience and saves money.

Don't stress about having a strong call to action at this stage. The goal is simply to provide value and spark interest. Lee recommends ending awareness videos with just your logo rather than an obvious pitch or call to action.

On social media platforms like TikTok, your profile link is right below the video. If your content is valuable, viewers will likely click on the link to learn more about you. On other sites like LinkedIn or your webpage, you can add text with a call to action near the video. But remember, even the best call to action won't work if your content isn't helpful. The key is to give value first. People will naturally want to learn more about you and your services if you do that. So, focus on making your video marketing content valuable and interesting. If you succeed at that, viewers will be more likely to follow your call to action, no matter where it's placed.

#2: Interest – Balancing Quantity and Quality

As people become more familiar with your brand, they're willing to engage with slightly longer content. At the interest stage, you can start creating mid-length videos that explore topics related to your products or services a bit more deeply.

When creating interest stage videos, keep these key things in mind:

• Aim for 2–5 minutes in length
• Maintain good production quality, but perfection isn't necessary
• Provide more detailed information and insights
• Start showcasing your expertise more directly
• Create fewer videos than in the awareness stage but still focus on variety

The types of videos that work well at the interest stage include:

• Longer social media marketing videos
• Brief educational content
• Product overviews
• Customer stories or case studies
• Short webinar clips

This is a great opportunity to expand on your most successful short-form content. If a 60-second tip video performed well, create a 3-minute version that dives deeper into the topic.   

For example, if you find three good short clips, you can turn them into “Three Ways to Do XYZ” or “Three Things You Haven't Thought About.”

This gives your long video a clear structure. If a short clip doesn't do well, leave it out of the longer video. Think of the short clips as a way to test what your audience likes. Then, use the best parts to build your longer video. This way, you're more confident that your long-form content will connect with your target audience because you've already tested the main ideas in shorter form.

Lee explains, “Every layer we go deeper into the sales funnel, as we match this content to it, we're creating content to throw it back to the top of the funnel.” 

Focus on speaking in sound bites to make better videos that connect with your audience. This means learning to express your ideas clearly and briefly. Always act as if you're being recorded.

This approach has two benefits. First, it makes it easier to create short videos without much editing. Second, it improves your long videos by keeping them focused and fast-paced. When you speak in sound bites, you get your point across quickly and then stop talking. This keeps your content engaging and prevents you from going off-topic. Practice making your points in a concise, memorable way. This skill will help you create short clips that grab attention and longer videos that keep viewers interested.

Structure is key for videos around 3–5 minutes long. Even longer content like webinars and podcasts needs good organization. For example, Lee and his team work with a client who has lots of research to share. To turn this into a podcast, they first condense the research into bullet points, not scripts, which often sound unnatural.

Instead, they create a framework with key questions and points to cover. This helps the conversation stay on track and within the desired time frame. It also ensures that all important topics are discussed. Then, the marketing team can ensure their goals are met, and the sales team gets content they can use. The result is a focused, useful video that sounds like a natural conversation but covers all the important information.

While you're producing these mid-length videos, continue creating short clips to feed your awareness content pipeline. Extract the best moments from your longer videos to create new short-form pieces for social media and other channels.

#3: Consideration – Shifting Focus to Quality

At the consideration stage, potential customers actively evaluate your products or services. They're willing to invest more time in learning about your offerings. Here, the balance tips toward emphasizing quality over quantity.

“Some buyers prefer consuming content on video. And if you can get it to them in that format, then they are going to watch longer,” Lee explains. 

Websites with longer videos often perform better because visitors stay longer to watch deeper content. Video content can also make information more engaging and understandable. For example, when someone explains research on camera, you can see their emotions and understand the nuances better than just reading a report. This is especially useful for longer, more detailed content. It allows your experts and thought leaders to really dive into topics, showing their passion and knowledge.

When creating consideration stage videos, keep these key things in mind:

• Create longer, more in-depth content (5–15 minutes)
• Invest in higher production quality
• Provide detailed information about your products/services
• Showcase your expertise and thought leadership
• Develop fewer videos, but make them more comprehensive

The types of videos that work well at the consideration stage include:

• Detailed product demonstrations
• In-depth educational videos
• Webinars
• Expert interviews
• Customer testimonial videos and case studies  

For example, Lee always checks what support is available when buying software. He looks for a strong community and lots of helpful content, especially videos. Good video marketing content can make a big difference in choosing software. It shows that you won't be left alone with just support tickets. 

Instead, you can learn from many videos. FAQ videos, knowledge base videos, and tutorials are helpful here. You can make videos about every part of your product. People thinking about buying from you are often happy to watch product demos and descriptions. These videos help them understand the product better and feel more confident about buying it. 

Lee says he sees many companies make a common mistake: They start by creating long, detailed content for people who are already considering buying. This approach has two big problems. First, these videos are too long for people who don't know your company yet. Second, you can't make enough of this content to reach many new people.

Remember, to get more customers, you need to reach a lot of people multiple times. This is hard to do with long, expensive videos. While you're making one big video, your competitors might be putting out hundreds of short pieces of content. They're reaching more people more often. To compete, you must first create many short, simple videos introducing your company to new people. Then, you can take them through the funnel with longer videos at the consideration stage.

When people are seriously considering buying from you, your videos can be more like ads. At this stage, it's okay if they feel a bit “infomercial-ish” or promotional. Potential customers are actively considering your products, so don't be afraid to highlight your unique selling points and competitive advantages. They're basically saying, “I'm interested; now convince me.” 

This type of content works well as regular videos and paid video ads on platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. You can “boost” these videos as ads because they offer value to interested viewers and have a strong call to action. This approach helps you reach more potential customers close to making a purchase decision.

#4: Action – High-Quality, Conversion-Focused Content

The action stage is where you're trying to close the deal. Your video marketing content should be highly polished and focused on convincing viewers to purchase or take the next step in the sales process.

When creating action stage videos, keep these key things in mind:

• Prioritize top-notch production quality
• Create fewer but more impactful videos
• Focus on addressing final objections or concerns
• Include clear calls to action
• Showcase the benefits of becoming a customer

The types of videos that work well at the action stage include:

• Detailed product tours
• Customer success stories
• “What happens next” onboarding previews
• Free trial or demo walk-throughs
• Final pitch presentations

Lee suggests creating videos that give potential customers a glimpse into life as your client. “This is what our customers are doing right now,” he explains. “So it's not necessarily awareness or consideration. It's like, you're ready to click this button, we want you to take action, and here is what is waiting for you on the other side.”

These videos can be more explicitly promotional but avoid being overly salesy. Instead, focus on building trust and demonstrating the value they'll receive by choosing your product or service. 

Bonus: Loyalty Stage – Exclusive Customer Content

While not part of the main funnel, Lee mentions a fifth “loyalty” stage for existing customers. This involves creating exclusive video marketing content to keep your customers engaged and satisfied.

Ideas for loyalty stage videos:

• Advanced tips and tutorials
• Early access to new features
• Behind-the-scenes content
• Customer spotlight videos
• Exclusive webinars or Q&A sessions

You can also use these loyalty videos in your action stage content as a selling point. Highlight the valuable resources customers will gain access to after making a purchase.

For example, you could tell them, “This is just a taste of what you'll have access to when you join us.” Explain that you have lots more content to help them succeed with your product. Remind them that this content is only for customers, so they can't see it all yet. But once they buy and join your community, they'll get full access to this exclusive information. It's a way to make them feel part of your “family” after they buy. This approach can encourage people to buy and help keep them happy as customers.

Practical Tips for Implementing Your Video Content Marketing Strategy

Follow these practical tips for putting Lee’s video content strategy into action:

• Start with a solid plan: Before creating any videos, map out your customer journey and identify the types of content needed at each stage. Lee emphasizes, “You can't just create content without knowing who your audience is and where they are in their journey.”
• Repurpose content: Look for opportunities to create multiple videos from a single recording session. For example, you can turn a long interview into several short clips, a mid-length overview, and an in-depth webinar.
• Collaborate with sales: Work closely with your sales team to understand customer pain points and common questions. Use this information to guide your video content creation. 
• Focus on value: At every stage, prioritize providing useful information to your audience. Even promotional videos should offer genuine value.
• Optimize for each platform: Tailor your videos for the platforms where you'll be sharing them. What works on TikTok might not be ideal for LinkedIn. Lee advises, “Wherever you're posting, as long as you can hold that attention, the content's valuable.”
• Test and refine: Use the insights from your short-form content to inform your longer videos. Pay attention to what resonates with your target audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Invest wisely: As you move down the funnel, invest more in production quality for your consideration and action stage videos. Lee notes, “Your quality's rising up. The quality is a lot more important, quantitatively. You're going to produce a lot less of this content, and you're going to have a lot more quality to do so.”
• Keep it conversational: Avoid rigid scripts. Instead, use bullet points to guide natural, engaging conversations in your videos.
• Think beyond the funnel: Remember to create content for existing customers to boost loyalty and encourage repeat business.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Instagram and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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