It can be tempting to believe that adding video to your marketing mix will produce the jaw-dropping stats you see touted online in a video marketing strategy.
And it can, But to do so, first, you need to get your ducks in a row; like understanding your audience’s intent, where they are watching (e.g. website, social, event) and what action you want them to take.
By understanding these three core principles and how they fit with your marketing strategy, you can start to prioritise what video assets will add the most value.
Commercials
Increase brand awareness.
Social videos
Capture attention and drive click-throughs
Brand videos
Create high-level brand buy-in
Explainer videos
Convert for website visitors
Website lotties
Bite-sized feature demonstrations
Thought-leadership videos
Inspire through your brand values
Once you’ve built out your video marketing strategy and decided which video asset to prioritise, you can ask yourself tailored questions specific to that video type.
Your goal here is to cast the net wide (broad questions) and then hone in on what’s most important. Let’s say you’ve decided to focus on producing an explainer video first.
Research shows you’ll increase your chances of conversions if you keep your video to 2 minutes or less – that’s just 200 words. So you’ll want to make sure your script really resonates with your audience and evokes a feeling of excitement – this is what will drive action.
To do this, start by asking yourself broad questions and then hone in on what feels worthy of more exploration. At Outmost, we call this Discovery and it forms the backbone of the brief before embarking on any video creative.
Since every company is different and every product/service unique, it’s impossible to make an exhaustive list of questions. But the key point here is to be open to discovering a new perspective and be bold enough to focus just on the types of clients you want most.
Video is probably one of the hardest assets to value. There are companies that have spent an absolute fortune and seen very little return and those that have spent a pittance and seen incredible ROI. Although it’s fair to say that the former is less common than the latter!
Start with understanding your own expectations around quality. Seek out examples you really like and find out how much they cost to produce. Try not to fall into the trap of finding videos that are in your specific domain rather focus on what quality looks like for your brand.
At its core, a video that is highly effective has less to do with how much production value it has (how high end it is) and more to do with how well the agency has understood and communicated the message to your target audience.
Any production value up and above this comes more down to how ‘high-end’ you want the video to feel. Whilst a functional video might do the job, some brands simply want their video to blow their audience away and of course, that comes with a price tag.
If you’re using video as part of an outbound marketing campaign, remember to build in enough ad spend budget to deliver the results you want/expect.
Video marketing has countless benefits, you’ll already have thought about what action you want your audience to take after watching the video. Now it’s time to think about how you are going to measure the overall success of your project.
For a brand video, you may want to measure time-on-site or if using on LinkedIn – engagement (view time, likes, shares, comments) and CTR. For explainer videos, you’ll likely want to measure sign-ups, contact form completions or demo downloads. It can be really useful for the first set of results to A/B test the page where your video sits (with and without the video) so your results aren’t influenced by concurrent marketing campaigns you’re running.
Whilst it’s crucial you produce the right video asset for the right use case, that doesn’t mean you can’t maximise its value across other channels.
For example, if you produce an explainer video, then ask the agency how that media can be adapted for social media. Due to their nature, it’s often possible to re-use sections of the video and make them social-friendly, such as creating Animated Hooks. These are simply short, looping, silent animations that demonstrate a particular feature, your core promise statement or another ‘hook’.
Channels to consider include:
This is dependant on your video goals and strategy.
Of course, no online marketing campaign would be complete without analytics. Or more to the point, learning and growing from each video project.
We’ve already talked about some of the measures you’ll want to consider, but it’s also worth thinking more broadly about what data you are capturing – and how it feeds into the big picture (your overall marketing strategy/objectives).
Be sure to use Google Analytics (and YouTube Analytics if you’re hosting here) to gain further insight
Think about:
If you’re using a data collection tool, you’ll also have some fantastic additional insights available. For example;
1. Video is the #1 content-type used by marketers to sell products and services.
2. More than half of marketers invest in some sort of product-related video.
3. 73% more visitors who watch product videos will make a purchase.
4. 92% of marketers who use video say it’s an important part of their marketing strategy – up from 78% in 2015.
5. 71% of consumers prefer video over other marketing content.
6. 87% of Gen Z prefers branded videos or ads that show someone talking about a product.
7. 55% of consumers use videos for purchase decisions.
