Your company has decided that video marketing is an instrumental tool in growing your brand, but you are not quite sure what exactly to look out for. What have other companies done well to ensure that their video marketing touches the right consumers at the right time? Here are four key competencies of good video marketing that we at Red Productions would like to highlight for you:
Be Mobile Friendly
Would you want to make an advertisement that could only be played on Firefox or Internet Explorer? I would imagine not, but ignoring mobile users is effectively doing the same thing. According to one study by Google and IPSOS 98% of individuals 18-34 years of age reported that they watched videos on their phone daily compared to just 81% through television and 56% through computers. Mobile marketing is no longer a supplemental marketing alternative. It is an integral way to reach consumers everywhere they go.
Mobile viewing has its advantages. It is quick, easy and requires less commitment. When watching a TV ad or using the computer, the consumer is effectively forced to stay where they are consequently reducing the number of individuals willing to watch the advertisement. Oddly enough, the same Google and IPSOS study found millennials are actually twice as focused when watching a mobile video as the video is more likely to have been related to information the viewer was actively seeking. Through mobile devices, advertisers can move away from being viewed as an interruption and can be moved towards being seen as an informant, leading to a higher level of engagement and excitement surrounding the marketing campaign. By being mobile friendly, we move with the viewer. In effect, we integrate into their lives non-intrusively while actually being viewed more.
Be Socially Savvy
Social media was created as a platform for personal expression, but as brands become more personal, social media became more branded. Social media offers a whole new way to reach brands’ core audiences. By reaching customers through social media, companies can expand their reach drastically, but this reach has to be tailored for according to each platform.
Different individuals use different social media mediums. If we were a camping supply company, we wouldn’t market our tents the same way to a father of a Boy Scout as we would a college student would we? So why would we market to a Facebook user the same way we market to our Twitter base or Snapchat users? Facebook reaches more individuals at scale. Twitter is more personal, reaching higher levels of engagement. Snapchat is the hot new thing that feels fun and playful. What do our advertisements say about your company? Which audience is most receptive to this new information?
Be A Part of the Whole Customer Experience
Every business loves the metaphor of building a home and understandably so. Without a strong foundation, how can we expect a business to stand firm? But it’s funny, for how much we talk about strong foundations of a company, we tend to ignore the need for a strong foundation that can be built upon in the customer service realm. We create stories that engage viewers and attract them to our brand identity. We want these created experiences to represent what our consumers will get from exchanges with our company. We want our company’s stories to converge with those told by our consumers. So why would engaging video experiences not be a part of the entire customer process? Why would we move away from that foundation we created of a compelling consumer experience through video production? The answer: we shouldn’t.
Smart companies use all the tools they have at their disposal, and video production is a strong tool we have already established is in our tool belt. Using videos to interact with our existing customers through the customer service product helps not only to increase brand loyalty, but it helps retain customers as the experience they purchased, that foundation they experienced through our advertising, continues into their product experience. Communication through video production is a highly desirable option for many customers that leads to tangible dollars, just like the first videos that led them to joining our brand.
Here is a list of the top eight types of videos successful video marketing companies found to be most useful according to The Huffington Post (in order):
1. Customer testimonials
2. On-demand product demonstration videos
3. Explainer and tutorial videos
4. Thought leader interviews
5. Project reviews and case studies
6. Live and on-demand webinars
7. Video blogs
8. Event videos
The entire customer experience is represented here. Is that something we are doing now?
Be Aware of Your Distribution Channels
Advertising is no longer solely picking a prime time of the day to be on television or finding a billboard over the busiest overpass. As video production has grown, so have the points of delivery to the consumer. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Television, Landing pages, the list could go on for days, and each has its own unique advantages.
What is our campaign going to be about? Will it be an interactive experience, will it be short and sweet? Will it be a series of testimonials with a call to action asking our viewers to learn more? Each of these campaigns bring their own unique set of values that can be best utilized by either one or a series of the multitude of platforms, and it is our responsibility to research which one will work best. Sometimes less is better and one distribution point will do the work, other times, we need to blast the information out through every avenue possible, but one thing is always true, we need to know how we are going to distribute the material and match or final product with that distribution point. Otherwise, all the hard work we put together in the previous steps is undone when we click that “publish” button.
