You see a page loaded with text, you ignore. But you if see a video on a web page, you tend to pause and take notice.
Videos
have their own charm and a way of attracting human brains. So how could
marketers resist the power of this wonderful engagement hook?
If
you are looking for quick and effective ways to increase the
performance of your video marketing efforts you are on the right page.
Video is the most convenient type of content to consume by your audience
regardless of the vertical. Anybody from a stay at home mom to a CEO
watches a product video before actually making the purchase.
So
regardless if you are a small business owner or an individual looking
to build a personal brand, read on and you can take away a handful of
highly actionable tips that will step up the quality and effectiveness
of your videos.
Tip #1 Tell a story
A
great marker should be a great creator. Marketing means being creative
and thinking outside the box, yet we often seem to forget that and get
caught up in the technical aspects of it such as reports, metrics and
all kind of different tools that are supposed to increase the ROI.
But
at the very foundation of a solid video campaign is nothing more than a
good storyline. Remember that at the other end of your campaign will be
a human being who needs to relate to your story and that’s what your
focus should be on.
As per this presentation
which is based on YouTube’s studies, 70% of the effectiveness of your
campaign will depend on how good is the story behind your video. That’s
how important this very first step is and if you get it wrong, you will
have a flimsy foundation to build your campaign on. It doesn’t matter if
you shoot in 4K, have the best videographer and the video editor or if
you laser target your audience. It all comes down to the story.
The
storyline will have to be somehow dependent on your brand and there are
no specific guidelines, but generally speaking, videos that are either
funny or emotional (or both) tend to perform better.
So definitely put the majority of your time and efforts into building a solid script before you actually start shot the video.
Tip #2 Show rather than tell
The
whole purpose of the video is to actually show your viewers who you
are, what you can do and how your service or product works. If a picture
is worth a thousand words a video should worth a million.
Get
as specific and as explicit as you can with your video. Be totally
transparent and let your audience see what it is that you will provide
them. Don’t just have someone in a suit behind a desk talking for 2
minutes straight about your company profile. Nobody is interested in
that. Instead, show them what you can do for them.
Zappos, which is one of the biggest retailers specialized in skiing equipment has increased conversion with as much as 25% just by adding demo videos to each of their product. So if you’re selling a physical product that’s a great way to boost sales.
If you’re selling services or digital
products, you can include B-rolls of your team while working at your
headquarters or while hosting an event for your clients. Anything that
adds credibility to you as a business will work. Customer testimonials
are also a great way to building trust.
Tip #3 Focus on video quality
Nobody
wants to launch their campaign with an average looking video, right?
Yeah, I know that we have all these fancy cameras nowadays which can
shoot in 4K, can color correct and so on and so forth and are not that
expensive to buy. Heck, even a high-end smartphone can produce amazing
looking videos.
But, if your video
requires a lot of camera movement, and different type of shots which you
are not comfortable filming yourself, then, by all means, hire a
videographer. According to this study over here, the quality of your video will greatly influence the way people perceive your brand.
To
be more specific, 62% of the consumers will have a negative perception
of a brand that published a poor quality video. So definitely make sure
the video quality is spot on, otherwise, your campaign will actually
hurt your brand instead of promoting it.
For most businesses, the easiest, less expensive and most convenient thing to do is to shoot a green screen video
and then outsource everything to a video editing company. This way you
can add any backdrop later on in the video editing stage, there will
probably be no camera movement which eliminates the shaky footage issue
and you can literally shoot these videos anywhere. No need to worry
about what’s in the background anymore.
This
is especially important if there’s a lot of post-production work
needed. You will be better off by having someone else do it for you
while you spend time on actually creating more content for your
business.
Tip #4 Target a platform
One
mistake that we’ve seen many businesses do is to simply take the same
video and throw it on all social media platforms. While that will
probably get you some results, it is definitely not the optimal way of
handling it.
And it’s not just us
saying that. Mark McMaster said in the same presentation cited above
that 44% of the campaigns they analyzed were not optimized for the
platform they run on. And when we say platform we pretty much refer to
just YouTube and Facebook as these two giants take up 86% of all online
video view (not taking into account Instagram views which runs through
Facebook ads too).
YouTube works like a
search engine and people go to YouTube to get answers to specific
questions, watch how-to videos, product reviews, and tutorials and so on
and so forth. The content they want to watch is informational or
educational most of the times. So if you plan on running your campaign
on YouTube keep that in mind and make your videos more informational and
maybe a little bit less funny.
Facebook,
on the other hand, is the exact opposite. There is no intent based. The
majority of people go on Facebook so simply distract themselves from
work and just to chill. They connect with their friends, and they enjoy
watching funny videos or pictures. And that’s what you need to keep in
mind if you’re targeting Facebook.
So
if the goal of your campaign is to laser target women looking to buy
mascara products for example, then YouTube is great for that. But if you
want to go after a broad audience, such as women interested in the
beauty industry, because you want them to know about your company or
your product, that’s what Facebook is great for.
Yes,
filming and editing two videos instead of just one will probably cost
twice as much, but if you set up your campaign right, the ROI will be
better in the end.
Tip #5 Keep it short
When
we are online our attention span is just 3 to 5 seconds. That’s it! So
you literally have just a few seconds to grab people’s attention before
they are gone. No time for fluff. Your video needs to be short and to
the point.
The opening scenes should
be intriguing, super funny or even shocking (if that works or your
brand), and keep the viewer watching.
There
are no specific guidelines in terms of how long a video should be
exactly, but generally speaking, YouTube videos used for
commercial/advertising purposes should not surpass the 2-minute mark. On
Facebook, you’re looking at 60 to 90 seconds tops. Obviously, if you
plan on running your video through Instagram as well, you’ll need to
keep it under 60 seconds – the maximum duration allowed by the platform.
Using
a snappy, fast-paced video editing style is a quick and effective trick
to help you keep the duration down. On top of that, this type of videos
tends to get more views and perform better overall.
Tip #6 Use copy pull-outs
Given the fact the 85% of all Facebook videos are played with no sound,
getting your message “heard” becomes an issue, if you are relying on
audio. Of course, you can always use CC or subtitles, but that’s so last
year.
What you can do instead is to add catchy
and highly animated copy pull-outs. The purpose of these is to get your
message across in an engaging way even when there’s no sound.
As
opposed to subtitles, copy pull-outs will not be a full transcript of
your video. Instead, copy pull-outs will be just summary of the
voice-over, a bunch of keywords that are enough to make the viewer
understand what the video is about if there’s no audio playing. And when
they turn on the audio, the text overlays should complement the audio
message nicely.
There are plenty of
video editing tools which allow you to add copy pull-outs, but one that
really stands out from the crowd is Adobe After Effects. So if you want
to get your feet wet with video editing you should definitely give it a
try. It looks a bit intimidating at first but you’ll get used to it
quickly.
Tip #7 Optimize for all screens
Since 51% of all video views are coming from mobile
devices now, you want to make sure your videos are easy to watch
regardless of the device. There are a few tricks you can easily
implement right away in order to do that.
First
and foremost, use big and bold, easy to read text. There’s nothing more
annoying than struggling to read small text. In fact, we know this from
this study over here that the typography in general and font size, in
particular, has a great impact on web pages bounce rate. In kind of
works the same way for videos as well.
If
you are doing a product review make sure to include plenty of close-up
shots. The basics of cinematography or filmmaking teach us that a
combination of wide, medium and tight shots works best for keeping the
viewer’s interest and attention on the subject.
The
same principle applies to small screens, but including more tight,
close-up shots of your product (especially of the features that are more
important) will be beneficial. You can easily handle this in the video
editing stage provided that you have plenty of close-up footage.
Lastly
but not least don’t use those cinematic bars you see at the top and at
the end of the video. These work great on big screens, but on mobile
take away precious space and don’t really being any added value to the
video.
Conclusions
And that’s
pretty much all there is to it. Just make sure to get the storyline
right, have something funny or emotional that will click with the
viewers and be totally transparent and honest with them.
Avoid
the standard sales pitch and try to add value to your brand with your
videos. Remember to make the video really snappy and catchy right from
the beginning, keep it short and you should be good.
Reference:https://www.resultfirst.com/knowledgecenter/7-video-marketing-tips-for-your-small-business/
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