Before You Start Video Marketing You Must Read This
There is a lot of talk around video marketing at the moment and it is one of the most effective means of communicating your organisation’s messages but before you jump in with both feet, it’s important to take a step back and have a think about what you’re doing.
Rather than just following the pack and throwing videos out there, take a look here at our tips and advice to see if it’s actually what you need to be doing and if so, whether you’re doing it in the right way for your audience.
Will Video Marketing Actually Achieve Your Goals
Just like with any marketing activity, you need to assess whether video marketing is right medium for your audience and your marketing objectives. Start by looking at what you want to achieve from your marketing campaign and then think whether video will help you do this. Your goals might not be conducive to video content but that’s fine, it just means that you can use it more effectively for those campaigns where your goals are better achieved by video marketing. The best marketing campaigns will incorporate a variety of methods of communication utilised with the specific marketing outcomes in mind to get the best results.
Is It The Right Medium For Your Audience?
Do you know the media consumption habits of your target audience? It’s obvious to say that younger demographic groups will watch more video but what about if you are targeting older consumers who prefer a more traditional method of communication? There is no point creating a video if your potential customers won’t watch it or aren’t on the channels that you distribute it on.
There is also a trend for shorter, bitesize videos that are easy to watch but that doesn’t necessarily mean that its right for your product/service or indeed the audience. An older audience may be more open to longer, in depth video content that provides all of the information, details and instructions. Take the time to profile your ideal customer considering who they are, what they like to do, how they take in information, what their user habits are and lots more to build up a persona that you can communicate with.
What Is Your Call To Action?
Once you know what your marketing goals are then a call to action should be an important part of your video marketing strategy. Rather than looking at the overall outcomes of your campaign, this is more about what you specifically want your audience to do. This is all about being as obvious as possible to your viewer and telling them what you want them to do in order to achieve your goals.
So, what do you want your viewers to do once they have watched your video content. This could be to visit your website, pick up the phone and call you or even visit your premises – whatever it is, keep it simple and tell them!
Whatever your call to action is, it should have a significant bearing on the content and style of the video and the focus of your video content should point towards a simple call to action. Its also important to think about the platform that you are using the video on because they may dictate where you are directing your viewers to.
What’s Your Budget?
If you know what you want to spend then that’s a good start – as long as its realistic. It doesn’t have to be a small fortune but bear in mind that if you want all the whistles and bells then the cost can start to increase quite rapidly. We start with a promotional video for £500 which gets you a set amount of filming but if you’re looking for more then we can cost it up accordingly.
One way to look at budgeting for your video is what do you anticipate the returns to be. If you’re selling a high value product or service then could one sale cover the cost of your video meaning that you may be able to afford a higher budget. Similarly, look at it as a percentage of your overall marketing budget and decide if its worth that proportion of your budget and if you think about the content, you could ensure that the video isn’t dated too quickly and it could last quite a long time.
How Do You Plan To Distribute It?
Just like any marketing asset that you’ll create, you need to have an effective distribution strategy. Its good to have an idea of how you’ll get the video out to your audience and this will dictated by who your audience and the channels that they frequent. From a social media perspective, you’ll know which channels work best but you may be looking at an email campaign to distribute the video or you may be considering something like YouTube pre-roll (those ads that appear before your actual video plays). Again, this will have a major bearing on your video content. For example, pre-roll adverts need to start with an attention grabbing feature because you effectively have just five seconds before the viewer can skip the ad.
Social media platform videos may need subtitles as many of the videos are automatically set to play without sound as users scroll through their timelines. If you think that the video will play without sound then try and ensure that visual element of the video is eye-catching enough to keep the viewer’s interest.
Perhaps most importantly, each social media platform has its own maximum video length so be aware of the different lengths and adapt your videos accordingly.
This is also where a good strategy comes into play. If you’re planning on consistent, interesting video content then plenty of footage in a short, sharp style that can keep your viewers interested and informed is crucial. You may want to think about breaking your messages up into several bitesize chunks rather than a ‘one hit wonder’ too.
What Are The Competition Doing?
You’ll already be keeping an eye on your competition but take a closer look and see if they are using video. If they are, what are they doing? How are they using it? What is the reception and engagement like from their audience?
If it looks like its not working for them it doesn’t necessarily mean that video is the wrong medium. It might be that they are using it in the wrong way or the messaging or distribution isn’t right. Instead of being put off, try and learn from what they are doing and see if you can make it work for you.
If they’re not using it then think about why. Is it an industry/market reason or maybe they don’t have the budget? Maybe they’re just as forward thinking as you! If the competition is doing video marketing in an effective way then you’ll need to look at how you can set yourself apart from them and stand out. Don’t play it safe and try and blend in, look at what you can do differently. Maybe even take a risk or two.
These are the things that you need to think about before you even start filming or even contact a video production company in Birmingham or elsewhere. We specialise in digital campaigns that include video marketing but most importantly consider how it can be incorporated into an overall digital strategy. Take a look at our digital marketing strategy service here for more information.
Blog writer: Adam Snelleksz is the marketing director of CMA Video and has worked in marketing for over 20 years. He has worked in video production in Birmingham for six years with CMA Video and has been using video for marketing for nearly 10 years. He also set up the video TV channel Blues TV, the official online channel of Birmingham City Football Club. Some of the projects that Adam has used promotional videos for include the Birmingham Half Marathon, the European Gymnastics Championships and the World BMX Championships.