According to the Online Publishers Association, 80 percent of individuals can recall a video advertisement that they have seen in the past 30 days. For many in the business world, this is a powerful statistic, especially when combined with ComScore’s finding that 64 percent of people are more likely to buy a product or service online after viewing a video about it.
If your marketing team is considering adding video to your marketing campaigns, here is a three-step guide to doing so effectively.
1. Determine your campaign goals.
Before you begin filming, consider what you wish to accomplish with your campaign. Is your goal to raise brand awareness with a story? Or are you hoping to convince consumers to switch to your product or service with a testimonial?
Once you have identified your goals, you can determine how to best achieve them. If, for example, your anticipated videos will be very complex, you may wish to storyboard your narrative, and hire a video production company, rather than assemble an in-house team. Your budget and timeline may also influence your campaign goals.
2. Select your medium and platform.
In our digital age, video can mean any number of things. For instance, a live stream on a social media platform, like Facebook or a more traditional long-form film. There are also multiple distribution options.
Television commercials are no longer a company’s sole option when deciding how to release video content, as Dollar Shave Club demonstrates. Its original video, which was produced for roughly $4,500, went viral in 2012.
With proper data tracking, you can test multiple platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube — to determine which are most effective for your video campaigns. In certain instances, you may find that two or more platforms work equally well. For instance, if you have a 10-minute video, you could host it in its entirety on your website; post a three- to five-minute clip on YouTube, and a 30-second clip on Facebook and Twitter.
Whenever possible, maximize your content, and optimize it for your distribution channels with effectiveness in mind.
This may include basic considerations, like the maximum video length allowed on each platform, as well as specifics like the necessity of subtitles or the placement of your calls-to-action (CTAs) on Facebook. For example, many people scroll through their feeds in public or at work, when a high volume level is not necessarily appropriate. Similarly, embedded CTAs, like those available on YouTube, may suit some platforms more than others.
3. Review the technical aspects.
Incorporating video into your organization’s marketing campaigns requires a degree of technical care. Aspects like resolution, frame rate and load time can affect your campaign success, so it is critical to test your video on the platforms you choose. For example, if your file is large, it may take too long to load on mobile devices. Rather than wait, viewers on platforms like Vimeo and YouTube may abandon your video before it begins to play.
You may also wish to track how many people discovered your offering as a result of the video as well as completion rate and drop-off points. How many viewers watch the full video? And if they don’t, at what points do they abandon it?
Other metrics to consider include number of views – both total views and views over time; the latter of which can measure whether your video is becoming more or less popular — and number of click-throughs to your website.
Viewing video footage accounts for one-third of all Internet activity. For both new and established companies, enriching marketing campaigns with video content can help you reach and better engage your target audience.
(sourced from Chuck Cohn via Entrepreneur.com)