Video marketing has become one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing. It can be the key to growing your brand online and is almost an imperative aspect of successful campaigns. Videos drive up engagement, improve click-through rates, brand awareness, shares, and lead generation. It would be downright odd if a user went online and didn’t interact with any branded video content.
We know that Branding and Storytelling go along the same path. Video content manages to have a deeper impact on anyone that comes across it, be it enjoyment, anger, disgust, or praise. A 20-second clip on any social media platform can leave a very decisive mark on users. Just think about the amount of metainformation shared in between the tone of the message, the technical expertise, and the content in itself.
Brands have a better chance of sharing their mission in a more direct manner with video marketing. Although, the same can be said in a negative light. Brands and businesses can make terrible mistakes when producing video ads or trying to dip their toes into a new viral trend, we have all seen a business targeting a younger audience and looking simply out of date, in the best worst-case scenario. So, what is it about video marketing that makes it so special, and so hard to do just right?
Who Is Your Target Audience?
If you spend any amount of time online you most likely have experienced the feeling, or sense, of knowing a piece of content was not designed for you, of knowing you’re not its targeted audience. With how viral pieces work this is not necessarily a reflection of a poor content marketing campaign. We are constantly bombarded with a multitude of content, if you are only reached by target ads then your digital ecosystem is pretty small. When this happens it pretty much passes by without causing any harm.
On the other hand, you may have seen the counterpart of the experience previously mentioned: seeing a group of people react negatively to video ads targeted toward them, due to the video being uncharacteristic for the brand, or because the tone itself is funny to them. This is almost a staple of internet culture. The most recent form of this could be ads targeted to teenagers, while using a popular trend of social media like Tik-Tok dances, and then seeing said teen audience laugh at the lackluster display of marketing.
This scenario can hurt a brand’s perception going forward into a new market segment, but if taken by a savvy digital marketer, it can even be a chance to improve engagement and make a part-2 video ad that addresses what went wrong with the first one. In our current world video ads have the chance of becoming serialized, and highly entertaining. They can generate a back and forth dynamic that can be extremely beneficial for businesses, it can create a space of familiarity and build trust with its audience. And thus, promote a strong brand story.
Due to the nature of video marketing, it can create a highly emotional response from the public. A bad reading of your target audience can do irreversible damage to your business. A tone-deaf video discussing current social phenomena can drive people away from your business and make them lose their trust in you.
That’s why researching your target audience is so important.
Understanding the audience
A business’ target audience has a varying set of values, beliefs, life experiences, and desires that will come into play when engaging with a video. Holding these sets of characteristics will affect how the content is perceived, so it is of utmost importance that the target audience is taken into account when producing a video. And production doesn’t simply end in filming and post-production, the designated audience has to be taken into account when choosing what platforms it will debut in.
If a business seeks to reach a teenage target, production will be different than if it was targeting business professionals. Knowing your target audience and what differentiates them from others is the first step into video production.
Brands need to research and shape their ideal customer’s psychographics: what’s their age, gender, education level, socioeconomic status. What is their behavior like? What is their online behavior like? Do they have any interests that set them apart? What are their social and even political opinions like?
Another important aspect of thinking about your audience is knowing what stage of the marketing funnel they are at, or what your objective is. Is the video intended to onboard new audiences to your brand? Is it directed to already existing consumers?
The video tone and content strategy will be different regarding what your strategic intention is. Are you looking to increase brand loyalty? Do you want to convert freemium members into paying customers? The video content can perfectly be a training insight into your product or service. They can be used to broaden your educational platform or explain what needs or difficulties your product solves. There are 3 basic facts that need to be understood if you want to optimize any type of video:
- Who your product or service is for? The target audience.
- What is the objective of the Video? Where it falls within the marketing funnel
- Where does your target audience dwell online? This is very important when mapping the marketing strategy since you will need different distribution approaches in each social network.
When these questions have responses you have what you need in order to continue thinking about your marketing strategy.
What Are Your Video’s Main Goals?
The next important part of any video marketing strategy is to define its intent. Video ads are not exactly news, but their format and distribution are. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have been around since the early 2000s, Instagram started around 2010, and TikTok took off in the midst of 2016 – 2017. With the latter gaining exponential popularity almost overnight, every other platform tried to adjust by introducing some sort of short video feature.
It’s been almost 20 years since the boom of social network platforms since it took 20 minutes for a long video to load. The marketing industry has come a long way in regards to understanding and knowing how to use these new types of media output. Video marketing campaigns since have changed along with the times. Now we encounter a different type of format: the short video, and its prevalence as one of the most popular content out there.
Video marketing has a bigger landscape to occupy, a myriad of possible formats and platforms, and a bigger audience as well. With these considerations in mind, mapping and planning a video marketing strategy bears a different weight. Businesses can’t simply produce an ad without placing it into a carefully and well-thought strategy, without having a clear intent.
Brands should take some time to discuss the intended message, and what actions it will encourage their audience to take. And just what role this piece of audiovisual content will play in the bigger and broader goals and objectives of your marketing campaign. Some of the most common objectives of a marketing video can be:
- Leading new customers to your landing page and driving traffic, can involve influencers, but it can be accomplished with simple strategizing.
- Educating potential customers on your industry and product expertise
- Demonstrating the real value of your product or service with explainer videos
- Providing and showcasing customer testimonials and experience, can also be product videos.
- Showing an aesthetic or lifestyle that demonstrates your brand’s core values. Depending on the field or industry these also are tutorials.
How to Build a Video Marketing Strategy
The path towards a successful video marketing strategy is similar in some regards to traditional marketing: it requires researching, strategizing, and setting a concrete plan in motion. The plan, like any other one, needs to include a budget, schedule, production timeline, and conversion metrics.
These are some good rules to stick to:
- Keep in mind what goal you want to achieve with the video.
- Keep in mind the target audience and what sets them apart.
- What does the story you are telling affect the relationship between the product and the audience?
- Set an accurate budget and manage it carefully.
- Don’t overspend.
- Respect the timeline.
Write in concrete, clear terms what you are looking to solve with the video, what are your goals. If your aim is to increase brand awareness then the video could have a storyline that prompts viewers realization of a need solved by the brand.
If the goal is to onboard viewers into consideration, active users researching and looking for a product like yours, you can produce a video that showcases how your product is the best in the market. If you want to increase your brand loyalty or help turn indecisive users into customers, then you can remain relevant by demonstrating the benefits your product or service has brought to your satisfied customers.
We have used many examples from social media, but video marketing can be more than that. Take into account webinars, company educational videos, interactive content, and in-house demo videos, when looking for increasing conversion rates.
Having said that, if your content is launched through social media you need to keep certain precautions. Social media can be one of the most powerful tools when mapping out a video marketing strategy. But there are some important things to keep in mind and to keep in mind when approaching production and post-production. These are a requirement of the delivery format: smartphones. Mobile users are more likely to engage with short-form videos.
These are some items to take into consideration to increase engagement in social media:
- Subtitles: Many videos are watched on mute. If there’s a voice-over or dialog, then add captions so every viewer can follow the message. This is especially important with young audiences.
- Live video: Most of the social platforms with the biggest active users, like Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube, allow brands the chance to stream live video anytime, and those capabilities do deliver results for marketing teams. 81% of digital marketers recommend Facebook Live as an effective strategy after using it. There you can promote events, share real-time breaking news, and present a more informal face of your brand.
- Front-load: The hook needs to be included in the first seconds, its critical idea needs to be presented fast. Social media videos only have a few moments to catch a viewer’s attention, deliver important ideas early, and maintain a high-quality video throughout. Crop video if you need to, so the best content is seen first, or create a teaser to pique interest and then link to the full-length version. You can even make a GIF to pack a lot of information in a short timespan.
- Listen to new ideas: Innovation in a “new” field can be a delicate endeavor. But if you use data to back up your ideas, then you can experiment and see what’s the best fit for your brand. Maybe your audience enjoys lengthier videos! A/B testing can be used in any new field.
- Use Data Analytics: There’s a great number of ways to access your brand’s data. Don’t shy away from using previous data while mapping out new campaigns. Study the complementary information that other channels of digital marketing give you.
- Construct a solid campaign on every channel: Don’t forget about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategies while promoting a video campaign. These channels feed onto one another, a strong Video strategy wouldn’t even be seen if it’s not doing OK in SERPs. Integration is key, doing cross-platform actions can only benefit the brand.
What Will Constitute Success For The Video?
After the video is launched, you need to measure how it performed. Think about what is the goal of an individual video, and then analyze its relevant metrics. Each video might have a different set of KPIs, a satisfied customer testimonial video should not be evaluated in the same way a training video would. Think what information is most valuable to you: Click-through rate, new web page traffic, lead conversions, social media engagement, views, and watch time.
At COR we know just how hard generating content can be at a Project Manager level. You need to interact with team members with different specialties, you need to dedicate time to idea generation, and maintaining a high-quality standard. Managing creative teams can be demanding, that’s why we offer our support to the people who spend their time creating new ideas.
With our task estimation feature, you can know how much any creative project will cost, before you allocate the necessary resources, and deliver profitable projects every time. You can know how much time it will take, so you can onboard the right amount of collaborators, increase the bottom line while taking care of the talent and avoiding oversaturation. If you want to take a step in the right direction, request a demo today.
