A marketing video is now a daily part of a consumer’s life. Videos are consumed daily by consumers globally, and this opportunity cannot afford to be missed by your business.
78% of marketers who use video get more traffic to their website, and 71% of these marketers report that visitors spend more time on their website now that they are using video.
From creating a story to moving the viewer throughout the sales funnel, a successful marketing video requires many factors. Here are 20 secrets that you absolutely need to know.
1. Don’t Focus Solely on the Sale
A big marketing video mistake that is made so often is that businesses focus on selling a product or a service. The videos are usually “Sell, sell, sell!”
This is a mistake. Viewers lose interest quickly in videos that focus only on the sale; they need to be more than that.
2. Be Funny, Use Humor
Don’t be afraid to tap into the lighter side of what you do. Viewers love videos that show the humorous, funnier side to daily problems. Even executive decision makers enjoy fitting a giggle into the middle of their 9 to 5 grind.
Including humorous takes on problems that your business can solve is a great idea if done correctly.
3. Humanize Your Brand
Never be hesitant to show the faces behind what makes your brand tick. Viewers and customers enjoy being able to see the humans behind the brand.
You could interview employees, specialists in different divisions of your company and most importantly, the head honcho talking about his passion always goes down well with viewers.
4. Educate Everyone
If you’ve decided to put together a tutorial or a demonstration video, then focus on educating your audience. Make sure you’re clear in the first few seconds and the title of the video what the purpose of the video is.
Focus on educating the viewer with your subject matter. Viewers mostly watch a video with the purpose of learning something, use this to your advantage.
5. Focus on Solutions
Throughout your video marketing campaign, focus on solutions for your target audience. Dig into your support call archives and find problems that have come up often when clients have called your call center.
Use these frequently asked questions to build a library of problem-solving videos; it will be well received by your current and potential customers. And could even aid in closing a sale.
6. Trigger Emotional Responses
The human condition is empathy. Us humans are big softies. We feel what others feel. Use this to your advantage. Focus on triggering an emotional response from your audience.
Think about what type of emotion you want to draw out from your viewer? Do you joy? Do you want relief? Do you want understanding?
Once you know what emotion you’d like to evoke, then you can create a story in your video that will trigger that response and cause your viewer to share your video with others.
7. Take Advantage of your First 10 Seconds
Marketers have a very small window to truly catch the attention of their viewer. Use your first 10 seconds wisely.
One-fifth of viewers will exit a video in the first 10 seconds if they’re uninterested in watching the rest. The introduction to your video should be inspiring and entertaining. Tell the viewer what the video is about and don’t waste time getting into the main message.
8. Customize Your Video Thumbnail
Most web browsers won’t automatically play a video as you scroll past, or enter the website. Look at YouTube, for example; you have hundreds of thumbnails to look at before you click on the video you want to see.
Your thumbnail should be eye-catching and relevant, and very self-explanatory.
It should make your viewer want to click on your video straight away, and stand out from videos of a similar message.
9. Target Relevant Audiences
Once you’ve posted your video online, and it’s been placed on social media. Your targeting is critical.
Very similar to how you wouldn’t market your business or product to someone who wouldn’t purchase it, why would you want someone to watch your video who wouldn’t find it appealing?
When posting your video onto social media platforms, make sure your targeting is set to the right audience for the message you’re trying to send.
10. Absence of Sound and With Sound
Most viewers will watch video on mobile, with no sound. You need to be mindful of this when creating your marketing video. If your video is optimized only for watching with the sound on, you’ll lose those viewers who watch with the sound off.
If a viewers smartphone is on silent, a video will automatically play with the sound off. You need to anticipate this.
Plan for video content that can be viewed in both ways as best you can.
11. Include a Call To Action
Your videos will have a purpose whether they’re educational, brand-focused or another type of video content. There will be something that you want your viewer to do when he’s done watching. Include this strategy.
You can either place a call to action:
- In your video title
- In the video’s description
- Inside the actual video itself
Think about where the call to action will work best. You can be smart when it comes to this, think about actions like pointing towards the side of the frame where the description might sit, and tell them to click a link.
It’s all about where your customer goes to, after they’ve finished watching, you need to tell them this. Your video has a purpose, to increase your conversion rate, it’s that simple!
12. Consider Brand Collaboration
A great way to get your videos out there is to consider collaboration. Think about other brands that could go hand in hand with yours, and how you might collaborate on a video together.
Alternatively, a smart move with an influencer who uses your brand and has purchasing power influence for your relevant audience.
If you work with the right person or the right brand, you won’t only be reaching their audience; you’ll be reaching a whole new audience for yourself. Thereby increasing your reach and brand awareness by their followers, and your own.
It is a great way to find a mutually beneficial situation, where both brands get to grow their reach.
13. Short and Sweet
Long-winded videos don’t get nearly as much watch time as their shorter and sweeter counterparts. The two-minute window is always a good rule of thumb to try and stick to.
The average watch time of a video online is two minutes; you don’t want to lose your viewer before this time is up, resulting in your message not being given.
Keep your videos focused on the message you’re trying to send, on the result you’re trying to get and how to keep your viewer watching until the very end.
It’s easier to do this if you script your videos beforehand, and stick to that script as best you can.
14. Stimulating Titles
Just like the title of a hard copy book.
Or the title of a newspaper headline.
Or the name of a movie.
You won’t pick it up if the title doesn’t grab you right from the start. Marketing videos are exactly the same. Focus on engaging, interesting headings for your video.
Make sure that even by just reading the heading your viewers will know what they’re getting and what they’ll learn by the end of it.
Remember, putting your keywords into your titles will also assist with SEO in the long run.
15. Make it Mobile Friendly
Gone are the days where all searching is done on a desktop.
Over half of the video content is viewed on mobile. 92% of mobile video viewers share content with other users.
28% of smartphone users watch a video on their device at least once per day.
40% of the global watch time on YouTube comes from mobile devices.
You need to ensure that your videos are made for mobile, as well as desktop according to all of these stats.
Viewers report leaving a video after a few seconds if it isn’t easily viewed on their mobile phone. And only 5% of people will have enough interest to find that video again once on the desktop. The window for attention is very small.
Your videos should be optimized for watching on mobile; there should be no frustrating black borders. Your video should be viewable in landscape or portrait view, as most mobile users are unlikely to flip their phone to watch a video better.
16. Focus on Production Quality
There’s no harm in having amateur videos for your brand in the online world. Live videos on most social media platforms are filmed from mobile devices. This is okay.
BUT…
When it comes to your brand’s videos, these videos need to be of superior quality.
You need to make sure that you have the budget to produce these videos with proper equipment or even hire a production team to assist you with it. There are years of experience that go into creating the perfect video. Simple slideshow videos are no longer what the world wants to see.
Consumers want to see the seamless flow from movement to diagrams, and back to products, this comes with amazing editing software and the recording with the right equipment. Don’t downplay what a professionally produced film series could do for your brand. You won’t regret it.
17. Create an Element of Interactivity
Interactive video is no longer a thing of the future; it is here, now.
Think about videos that can be recorded for 360-degree viewing; this is interactivity at its finest. It’s a great way to bring the viewer right into the environment you’re in, with you and to experience it with you.
Alternatively, branching is a great way to get viewers to interact. Have you seen the new Bear Grylls show on Netflix, where you can choose the outcome of what happens? This is what we’re talking about!
Given the viewer choices through your videos.
18. Optimize for SEO and Social Media
SEO is a term we’re all too familiar with. Your videos need to include parts of your SEO strategy in them, think keywords and web traffic increase.
If your videos are optimized for SEO, they can only increase your search rankings.
Your videos should also be optimized for social media, focus on the social media platforms that your brand is active on, and make sure the videos are made flexible to be viewed on each one.
19. Tell a Story That Has a Purpose
A story usually has a purpose: the introduction, the conflict, the climax, and the conclusion. You can’t tell a great story if you omit any of these. Your video should tell a story.
This could either be in videos that stand alone as their own story, or a series of videos that create a following so that your viewer will want to come back and see what happens next.
You need to plan your story. Think beyond just one video.
Think of a series of videos, break a larger story into a series of smaller, shorter videos. This also allows “inter-video” referencing, and gives you the opportunity to tell people to check out previous videos or videos that are still to be published.
20. Create a Campaign
When planning for a marketing video you need to think long term. It’s great to have a once-off video that does a great job, but eventually, it will stop being shared, and your potential reach will get to its maximum.
You need to plan for an ongoing campaign. Plan for a series of videos that will have a longer lifespan and keep telling a story to your customers and potential customers.
Marketing Video Success
Your marketing video success is not out of reach. Focus on the 20 tips we’ve given you, try to implement each of them as often as you can and throughout your entire campaign.
If you’re unsure, search our library of resources for more information on video marketing success!
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