Large and small businesses alike are jumping on the video bandwagon. On average, Magisto estimates that small and large American companies spent an average of $20k on digital videos in 2017 alone. That’s almost as much as they allocated to digital ads and television advertising COMBINED.
You’ve Got A Story To Tell! We Can Help You #BeSeen & #BeHeard.
Why would you want to increase your company’s video budget spend? Overall, video drives engagement, and engagement drives customers. In other words, video can lead to an increase in revenue.
Consider these 8 questions we’re asking our clients about their digital marketing.
In 2016, 73% of consumer internet traffic was for video according to Cisco. By 2021, a whopping 82% of consumer traffic will be video. If you want to capture a greater share of consumer traffic to your website or social media channel, consider video. If you’re a business-to-consumer (B-to-C) company, you’ll have an increased opportunity to create more brand awareness, more engagement and more leads.
Additionally, an often-reported statistic is that as many as 90% of people report that video helped inform their product decisions.
Video doesn’t just impact off-line shopping, after watching a video, shoppers are 144% more likely to buy a product online.
Therefore, if you want to sell more widgets, consider how video can influence the buyer’s decision and increase both brick-and-mortar store and online sales.
People share videos to a much greater extent than images and text—especially if the video is entertaining. Video creates 1200% more social shares than text and images combined.
We highlighted just 8 reasons why you may want to consider more video in your marketing mix. While there may be dozens of reasons WHY you’ll want to add more videos to your marketing mix, there is really only one way to go about it. HOW is that?
Strategically.
If you want to be successful with your digital marketing, always lead with strategy. This means identifying all of the following:
First, Identify your persona(s).
One of the first components of your strategy is understanding WHO your video audience will be. In other words, you need to know who you’re targeting (your personas). Next, you’ll want to identify what you want the persona to do after watching the video. Most important, ask yourself why the persona would WANT to watch the video? In other words, if the persona asked WIFM (what’s in it for me?), you deliver.
You’ll want to ensure that your video strategy (and messaging) is consistent with your corporate branding, your product features and benefits, and your business goals.
Furthermore, be sure your video will differentiate you from competitors with similar offerings.
You’ll want to integrate and align your social media strategies, content strategies, and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Video does not exist in a vacuum. Make sure your strategy includes multiple components and angles. Your marketing agency can help you with this alignment.
Consider using this concise video strategy statement from Vidyard:
“At (Company name), we make (adjective) video content for (specify target audience), so that they (exactly what you want them to do).”
Arguably the most important component of your strategy is understanding how you will measure the success of your video(s). Six relevant metrics you may want to monitor are:
Once you know the objective of your video marketing, your targeted persona, the desired outcome and how you’ll measure success, you’ll probably be asking yourself: WHAT will we create?
Effective videos types can include:
Keep in mind that people’s attention spans are short. Whatever type of video you choose to create, be sure to grab the viewers’ attention within the first ten seconds, then hold onto it.
Likewise, keep your videos only as long as necessary. A 30- to 60-second customer testimonial may be sufficient. But a demonstration video may need to run as long as two minutes. In general, try to keep your videos under three minutes, if possible.
Other sage advice? Be interesting. Distinctive. Don’t mimic others. Avoid the hard sell. Listen to what prospects and customers are asking. Be sure to answer their questions.
Always end with a call to action—even if it’s just encouraging your viewers to go to your website to learn more.
Happy to meet you for a cup of coffee and discuss your goals. The coffee is on me and the ideas are free.
We help you #BeSeen & #BeHeard.
JRS Mar/Com is a Digital Marketing Agency focused on helping businesses #BeSeen & #BeHeard across websites, videos, social media, and search engines. We work with companies to develop professional online personas and strategic direction for their business. We also offer packages for ongoing marketing support.
For more info, read on to Videos for Your Small Business Part 2: We’ll discuss WHEN and HOW OFTEN to create videos and the pros and cons of WHERE to host them.