Each week we have many discussions with our clients about what should go in to their marketing video. So we thought we would take our conversations and helpfully list a few key considerations when planning video content as part of your communications strategy.
- Build trust. 68% of people would rather watch a marketing video to learn about a new product or service than to read about it. Your potential clients WANT your video content in order to understand your business and your product as much as they can, and this brings you a brilliant opportunity to build their trust in your company and show how you can help them. Keep this in mind at every stage of your video journey and make sure that you’re answering their needs and building their trust in what you can deliver.
- Tell a story. Stories create emotional reactions and an emotional reaction improves affinity and recall. Lots of people say they don’t have one to tell, but this is not true – EVERY company has a story to tell. It might be how you started, why you do what you do, or how you help your customers.
- Think about what you want your ‘ideal customer’ to do or feel after they’ve watched that video. It could be as simple as ‘watch another video’ or ‘trust us more’, or it might be a more proactive call to action such as ‘order our product’, ‘sign up to our newsletter’ or ‘pick up the phone to us’. Without going over the top, just keep this video’s messaging moving in the direction of what you want this action or feeling to be.
- Don’t be too salesy. No one likes feeling like they’re being sold to, so don’t hit your customers with sales messages in your videos. Talk about the benefits of your product or how you can help answer more questions potential clients might have. And make sure to not ram the ‘click here to order NOW!’ message down their throats!
- Imagine where your viewer will be watching the video. It could be on your website, or on social media, but where they are watching it is important. You need to make sure the frame size (landscape, portrait, square) is right for that platform, and you will likely want to think about subtitle options if it’s going on social or LinkedIn.
- How are you going to share your video? It’s all well and good creating cool videos, but it won’t be building much trust if you’re the only person who’s watching it. How are you going to get people to watch them? If they’re going on social or your website, you could think about advertising to increase the number of eyeballs seeing it for the first time. You could share the video with your existing customers and contacts through a newsletter campaign, or put a thumbnail and link in your email signature. And definitely make sure that you share the video with your internal staff and encourage them to share. Whatever you do, make sure that you have a communications plan lined up ready to go for when your video is ready.
- Learn from what you do. Once you’ve released the video, look at the stats – how many people are watching, how long are they watching for and how does this compare to previous video content you’ve put out? Analyse and learn from it to make your next video even better!
- Get value from the content. Make the most of the content and budget by including cut-down versions, or take small soundbites from it to go on social.
If you’ve any questions at all about how to make video content work better as part of your marketing communications strategy, please do get in touch at hello@allyandmo.com or 01252 755118.