This article was originally published on UpGrad.com on April 6 2018. Read the original article here.
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By Sakhee Dheer – April 6, 2018
Video can be an attractive medium for marketing your product and services. The demand for video content has been steadily increasing. According to a recent study done from HubSpot by 2019, 80% of all web traffic is projected to be videos. If video marketing doesn’t feature as part of your content strategy then you are going to be missing out on 80% of all traffic. Moreover, almost a third of time people spend online is spent on watching videos. Nearly half (45%) of internet users spend more than an hour watching Facebook or Youtube every week. This makes it a very important channel to place your brand.
Also read: 100+ video marketing stats you need to know in 2020
Our brains are hardwired to pay attention to look at information that is visually presented. Thus pictures can do a better job than text and videos can explain things even better than pictures. According to a HubSpot Research, video rank highest in the format people want to hear from businesses.
However, it can take a lot of effort to produce good quality videos for marketing. But fear not, since videos also provide several benefits for your overall content marketing strategy. They often act as amplifiers for your content campaigns and thus, investments made in doing video marketing are likely to bear fruits in several ways.
Better conversion rate
Having a good explainer video can be a great asset to your product. Compared to other forms of content videos do a good job at conversions. In fact, people who watch a video are more likely to engage with a static advert later and that can lead to higher conversion sales. In experiments done by the Facebook Marketing Science team, a video followed by a static ad was the most effective creative combination in driving online conversions.
Easily Accessible
The rise of mobile traffic has made it very easy to browse and watch videos. Majority of video content online is now consumed via an easily accessible medium like the mobile phone.
Engaging
Videos can engage users in a much richer way than say text or pictures. They have to pay attention and follow through for several seconds while it is easy to just glance at a picture and move on. The more engaging the video the better it performs in creating brand recall and go viral.
Effective
When done rightly, videos can have very high retention rates. Once the viewer is hooked on by the initial message they are highly likely to stay till the end to see what happens next in the video. This is unlike text or images where once you lose a user, they are unlikely to glance at the same ad in the same interaction.
Emotional Appeal
As we know that a good marketing campaign needs to appeal to the emotional side of the audience to be effective. No other channel or medium provides a way to depict and elicit emotional responses than a video.
SEO
Videos can help build backlinks to your site, boosting social media metrics and traffic. A well-designed video campaign can bring in a good amount of uptick to your website. In addition, tagging videos on YouTube also help improve keywords and phrase association with your brand or product.
Some good video campaigns for some inspiration.
Tips for developing a kickass video!
Make it a story, not a sales pitch
One of the most common themes across all successful video campaigns is the focus on storytelling. The video should present an idea and not promote a product. A pro tip here is to customize the story to each audience segment, so instead of having a single video it is often better to shoot different variations of the storyline focussed on different audience segment.
Make the first 10 seconds the best 10 seconds
It is important to get the attention of viewers early during the video. If we make the first 10 seconds of the video the best then it is highly likely that the viewer will watch it till the end. According to a research study by Facebook and Nielsen, 74% of ad recall happens in the first 10 sec. What we see in most successful video campaigns is that they try and hook the viewer in the beginning of the video with something unique and captivating. They make it thumb stopping in our mobile-dominated world where we have attention spans lesser than that of a goldfish.
Don’t Bore
You must make sure that the video delivers the intended message and doesn’t ramble on. An ideal video would be short and swift leaving a lasting impact on the audience. Videos that are too long or overly verbose have a lesser impact.
Educate and Engage
If you are doing explainer videos it is important to have the right tone. Videos that have educational tone and engaging content tend to do much better than ones that sound overly preachy and condescending.
Choose the right content type
There are several video content types that you can consider while designing your videos.
A few are listed below:
- Brand Videos
- Event Videos – Live videos
- Expert Interviews
- Educational – How to videos – Demo Videos – Explainer videos
- Case study – customer testimonial
- 360-Degree/VR/AR videos
- Personalized Messages
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i16Qjm8FuT4[/embedyt]
The underlying story or messages of the video should be paired with an appropriate content type. You need to choose the video content type carefully, for example, if you are trying to sell a product doing an explainer or demo video makes sense. On the other hand, if you are looking to gain customer trust, doing a testimonial video can do wonders.
Developing a video marketing campaign
A good video marketing campaign should feed into your existing broader marketing strategy. Take a look at your marketing goals and see how video marketing could help accelerate the marketing funnel. Based on what you want to achieve, thinking about the type of video that best fits your needs early in your planning cycle will help you drive your audience down the funnel. Have call-to-actions and keep optimizing content and messaging based on conversion rates.
Few things to consider while planning for your video marketing strategy:
Have a clear call-to-action and make it noticeable
There should be a clear call to action at the end of the video. Once you finish telling the story you should use the attention of the viewer to get them to take some action. Even with videos that are primarily meant for brand recall, it is important to add a shout-out to help ingrain the value and purpose of the brand.
Share on multiple channels – right audience
There are several different channels for video marketing – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. You should make sure that you take full use of the multiple channels and reach your audience segment. Another thing to keep in mind is that most channels allow autoplay of video in feed without audio. So, you need to make sure your message makes sense with or without audio as it is likely that many of the viewers would be looking at it while it autoplays on a Facebook or Instagram stream.
Promote
Organic reach of a video can be greatly enhanced by using paid marketing tactics. A pre-roll ad on YouTube can garner the initial views that you may need in order to amplify the total view count. Always plan your video marketing strategy with both paid and unpaid audience in mind. The paid promotions are important early on to get views and slowly lose importance as the video becomes viral and takes a life of its own.
Optimize on Insights
Just like with any other marketing campaign, understand the reports, insight and optimize the delivery. Most video channels provide good demographic data about viewers which should be taken into account to create unique videos or variations. This can really help in striking a chord with the audience and deliver your message in the most impactful manner. Once your campaign is live and the rubber meets the road, monitor interactions and reactions based off on which optimize budgets, copy, CTA and other parameters to drive towards your core KPIs.
Even though video marketing is becoming quite accessible there are some challenges. Doing a polished and good video requires a lot of expertise and equipment. It can be expensive even though the investment in a good creative will often pay well during the campaign. Having good creative partners & agencies who understand your brand, insights and outcomes is important. A small discrepancy on video can also be easily amplified. Consumers want all videos to be of high quality all the time across all touch points. Video demands to be a core part of your marketing strategy but at the same time, it also demands resources, budget and high investment.
Today, video marketing plays an important role in the overall content and advertising strategy. If you can capitalize this new digital frontier you can get great returns on your investment and captivate the audience.
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Sakhee leads Digital Marketing at Facebook, Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, she was heading Digital Marketing & Analytics at Microsoft, Asia-Pacific. Sakhee is a guest lecturer for UpGrad’s Digital Marketing Program.
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