Video marketing has become a bit of abuzz word these past few years: what does it mean? How should your business do it?
Video marketing simply means using video as part of your marketing campaign to promote your brand and market your product/service.
Any business that is not incorporating some kind of video into its marketing campaigns is missing out on a very powerful element and a very significant audience.
Here are five recent stats that
give an idea of the giant you’re sleeping on if you’re not using video:
- Social video gets 1200% more shares than text and photos combined
- 80% of users remember a video ad they have seen online in the last 30 days
- Video posts gain 135% more organic reach than photo posts on Facebook
- Companies that use video attract 41% more web traffic from search than those that don’t
- 90% of users find product videos helpful when making decisions about purchases
Another great thing about video
marketing is how versatile it is. Video offers plenty of options to choose from
when it comes to conveying messages. Video marketing can take any of the
following ten forms:
- explainer videos
- demo videos
- instructional videos
- animation videos
- expert interviews
- event videos
- live streams
- customer testimonials
- case studies
- VR/AR (virtual/augmented) reality videos
What great video marketing looks like
Here are five examples of great video marketing from some of the biggest brands:
Reebok:
Alibaba:
Coca-Cola:
Always:
Nike:
Here are three examples of great video marketing from smaller brands:
Ablii:
Impark Digital:
BungoBox:
5 secrets every business should know about video marketing
1. Don’t be too salesy, tell a story
Consumers know that your business has something to sell but they don’t
want it thrown in their face from start to finish. Coming off as too desperate
to close the sale is not a good look for any brand, just like coming off as too
“thirsty” for intimacy is often a counter-productive move to one’s dating life.
You should instead tap into the emotive power of video to tell a
captivating, engrossing story that connects to the viewer and appeals to your
consumers’ real needs and deepest desires. Videos that are purely focused
driving sales or boosting brand visibility are likely to be shunned and get no
traction.
Unlike the old days where people had no option but to sit through video ads on TV, today they can just click or scroll away. This is why should focus on nailing your storytelling. Despite what you might fear, not focusing on the sale doesn’t mean you’ll lose leads – a well-placed call to action (CTA) at the end of the video, that matches the story you’re telling, along with a tracked URL will perform very well.
2. Use your first 10 seconds wisely
Online attention spans online are growing shorter and shorter, down to just 8.5 seconds according to some stats. Furthermore, one in five viewers will click away from a video within 10 seconds or less. This means you have to get straight to point and bring your story to life quickly – you can’t afford to waste time building the plot slow like a Netflix original series that has the luxury of being binge-watched.
As soon they start playing the video, the “why am I still watching this?” question immediately pops up in your viewer’s mind so you only have a few seconds to convince them that your video is worth their time. You can grab your audience’s curiosity and give clarity to what your video is about using clever teasers such as an intriguing question, a shocking statistic or hilarious joke to hook their attention right away.
3. Loosen up and crack a joke!
It’s very tempting to be “business-y”
in order to come off as a “serious” brand and also due to the formal culture of
the corporate world where people usually look down upon comedy and being silly
in general. However, you should remember that you’re making this video for your
customers not your board of directors so please stay away from that stiff
corporate tone and boring script filled with industry jargon.
The last thing you want is your
video marketing giving your intended audience the uptight 9-to-5 vibes they go
the Internet to escape from. Well-done humor makes people laugh, gets their
bodies releasing all kinds of feel-good hormones and makes them feel at ease.
This is the kind of feeling you want your brand to be associated with – fun,
easy-going and yet still capable of what you claim to be capable of.
Also keep in mind that the funnier your video, the more likely it is to be shared with family and friends. People don’t like to laugh alone so when they do, they quickly try to share the joy with their loved ones.
4. Optimize your video for silent watchers
As much as 85% of video views on Facebook have been previously reported to happen with the sound off and videos on Twitter now auto-play on silent as soon as users scroll onto them. This is why it’s very vital to make sure your video is engaging and interesting for viewers whether the sound is on or off.
When putting together your video
marketing campaign you should always consider how to create and share a
compelling story without having to rely on audio at all. Your target viewers should
be able to get hooked onto the story and follow it all the way to the end
without turning on their sound at any point.
You can optimize your video marketing for silent playback using beautiful visuals, colorful captions, and accurate subtitles. Well done, this tactic can actually double the views on your video as many users will first watch the video on silent, get hooked and then re-watch it with volume on to get the full story.
5. Optimize your video for SEO
Search engine optimization
should be given adequate attention in your video marketing campaigns. Here are
the top five SEO tips to ensure that your videos get found easier in search
engines:
- host it on your own domain so that you reap all the traffic it generates
- enable embedding so that it can easily be shared on other platforms
- create a video sitemap to make it easier for Google’s crawlers to find it
- tag it with relevant keywords so that it comes up in the relevant searches
- give it a well-detailed description and a unique title to make it stand out
It’s easy to see why video has
become so popular – for starters, it’s an easy-to-digest format that is a very
welcome change for our eyes from text which dominates online content and is also
easy to share across multiple platforms. Furthermore, in an increasingly digital
world, we increasingly crave to make genuine connections and experience
authentic personalities. Video marketing offers modern day brands a great way
to reach their target audiences and show them the human side of their
businesses.
Gerald Ainomugisha is a Content Solutions Provider (CSP). Gerald offers freelance writing services to clients the world over especially in the niches of HR management, business tech and digital marketing.
