How To Produce Effective Marketing Videos (Part I)
Corporate marketing methods have evolved over time, but the last ten years have seen an explosion in the use of video as a primary marketing tool. This is the first in a series of articles about the production of effective marketing videos.
Corporate marketing methods have evolved over time, but the last ten years have seen an explosion in the use of video as a primary marketing tool. This is the first in a series of articles about the production of effective marketing videos. The mission of this article is to introduce you to the initial steps of the production process: the planning phase.
A Change of Focus in Video Production
In the early days of video marketing, it was quantity that mattered most with less emphasis on the analytics and return on investment (ROI) it provided. Did the video reach the right audience? Was it creating the intended response in the viewer? Companies did not give much thought to these questions; at the time, just getting their messages out as frequently as possible was the priority.
Fast forward to today’s marketing strategies and you will find that it is the complete opposite. Video marketing is a holistic business approach that requires production teams to consider a targeted, actionable and measurable way to reach and impact their viewer. Production quality, audience identification and analysis, as well as analytics have become indispensable concepts and tools for marketers.
Know Your Audience
So how critical is it to have these factors embedded into the planning phase of your video production? Let’s first consider the need for marketing videos. According to the current statistics, people are looking to video first and often before making purchasing decisions. Check out these numbers:
72% of customers say they prefer to learn about a product or service by way of video. (Hubspot)
78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day. (Hubspot)
85% of consumers want to see more video content from brands (Hubspot) and will look for videos related to a product or service before visiting the company. (Hubspot)
81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% since 2019. (Hubspot)
By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15% higher than it was in 2017. (Cisco)
Social network video ad spending (U.S. only) is predicted to jump to $14.89 billion in 2021; that’s an increase of nearly $10 billion since 2017. (Forbes)
What these numbers reveal is that 1) most people prefer watching a video first in order to learn about products and services, 2) that businesses have recognized this and 3) organizations are drastically increasing their budgets in this area of marketing in order to be more effective in reaching their customers.
So, with these things in mind, the next question might be, “What do I need to do in the planning phase to produce an effective video?”
It all starts with a simple question, but the answer is crucial: Exactly, who is it that you want to reach?
Pitching to the Right Audience
Regardless of the industry, the first priority when producing an effective marketing video is to know who it is that you are trying to reach. Every person viewing your marketing video is in one of four main stages which we call, “the customer journey”. Each stage has a specific audience type which is why the first goal in planning an effective marketing video is to figure out which audience type you are trying to reach. Take a look at these stages and see which audience type your organization is trying to reach:
Customer Journey
Stage I: Awareness (Audience type: Consumers that are not yet aware of your company or organization and products/services)
Stage II: Consideration (Audience type: Consumers that may or may not be aware of your company or organization BUT are actively searching for similar companies and/or products/services)
Stage III: Action (Audience type: Consumers that know your company or organization and are ready to make a purchase or join decision)
Stage IV: Support (Audience type: Current customers and members)
Once you have determined your target audience, it is important to recognize that each stage and respective audience requires their own videos with unique messages. Why? Because with each stage and varying audience your SMART goals (which we discuss in depth in an upcoming article) and metrics will be different.
Trying to produce a marketing video that covers multiple stages and audience types will create a longer, “mixed-mission” video. For example, attempting to create a single "awareness" and "action" video will lead to a lengthy video that is unable to hold the attention of key audiences. Often this means your viewer will skip ahead through the video or worse, ignore the video altogether. Along with missed viewers these videos lead to lots of wasted marketing dollars.
That’s why when planning an effective marketing video, the very first step is to be laser focused on a specific audience type. Once you know the target audience, it’s time to set SMART goals and metrics. This too is part of your planning phase and is important to the effectiveness of your video. So, stay tuned for our upcoming blog post on how to match the right goals and metrics to your target audience.
Please check back in the coming days for our next post where we’ll dig a little deeper into creating a video that reaches your intended audience with the right goals and measurements for optimal effectiveness. Thanks for reading.
To learn more about effective marketing video production click here www.kaimanbros.com/contact
Creating Effective eLearning Content
Digital learning (e-Learning) is a popular way to train employees because it combines all of the intriguing and engaging aspects of social media with traditional learning. Using video-based training enables anywhere, anytime and any device learning.
Today’s world is loaded with social media and high-tech, ever-changing technology, right? But did you realize that companies are seeing a direct effect on their employee training programs. Gone are the traditional classroom trainings where employees listen to a real live trainer and maybe follow along with a handbook.
These days, digital learning (e-Learning) is a popular way to train employees because it combines all the intriguing and engaging aspects that make social media sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Pinterest so popular.
To get the most out of your e-Learning courses, take notes from what these social media sites provide. When you incorporate social media type features into your e-Learning course you get an effective course where engagement and retention soars. Let’s look at three critical things that have worked for the hottest social media sites and you should do when building your e-Learning course.
KEEP IT SHORT. Do you know why Facebook is such a hit? It’s their short, direct messages. And they have a statistics to prove it. Facebook’s study found that posts with only 100-250 characters were 60% more likely to be shared, liked or commented on. These shorter posts received more engagement. It is the engaging that is critical to raises retention levels in the viewer! Studies show that we only remember about half of a message immediately after we hear it and after 8 hours only about 35% (Adler & Towne, 1993). This is why your best chance at having effectively trained employees is to keep your e-Learning courses short and to the point. So here are just a few tips to remember when developing short courses:
Avoid adding information that is irrelevant. If it isn’t necessary keep it out!
Try breaking up complex information into several courses and make these short messages memorable. Use a combination of videos, text and interactive features to really make the information stick.
KEEP IT VISUAL. The reason Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and all the other social media networks are so popular is because of the enormous amount of visual content. Check out these stats: 100 million people actively watch videos on Youtube every week, pictures and videos on Pinterest have more traffic then posts from Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and StumbleUpon combined. As for Facebook, videos are shared 12x more than any text and link combined. So why are videos more popular? A few reasons- they are bright and colorful, they tell a story and they don’t require a lot of effort from the viewer. But besides the great features of videos- they do more than what any text can do. Having visual content increases recall and retention in viewers by 65%. This is the kind of retention you want in your employees, right? Therefore, it is critical that your e-Learning courses be visually appealing. Just be sure to have a variety of visual content and don’t forget to keep them short!
Keep it Engaging. The best teachers know that students learn about 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear but 70% and 80% of what they discuss and experience (William Glasser). So the goal in your e-Learning courses should be to engage your employee- help them grasp the information and then do something with it immediately afterwards. There active engagement helps them experience what they have just learned. Some of the best ways to have engaging courses is with interactive games, tests and surveys.
You want your e-Learning courses to be as impactful and as effective as possible. Remembering to keep those courses short, visual and engaging will produce a well-trained employee.