Having a strong video on your home page, landing page, or social profiles can make an enormous difference to your bottom line. That’s because video is an incredibly customer-friendly form of content, and can help you make your case to buyers in a way that’s clear, emotional, and compelling.
While most business owners and marketing managers understand the power of video, however, many struggle to produce effective clips. Unfortunately, with video there isn’t a lot of middle ground between success and failure. Either you post something that helps you generate great results, or you see your videos ignored by buyers.
So how can you get the attention, credibility, and results you’re looking for? Generating online marketing videos is a creative endeavor, which means there isn’t any such thing as a standard formula that works every time. Still, we have noticed over the past few years that there are some steps you can take to produce the perfect clip. Let’s take them one by one.
Identify Your Purpose and Audience
Who is your online marketing video for? Think beyond general terms like “customers,” and consider exactly what type of buyer you want to find your video. Ask yourself what their needs are, and what their knowledge level about the topic might be. Also think carefully about the actions you’ll want viewers to take when they have finished watching.
Thinking these items through will help you to narrow in on subjects and titles and develop an outline and working script that speaks to the concerns of your core customers.
Emphasize Video Production Quality
In some ways, we might be living in the Golden Age of Internet Video. Costs for things like lighting, high-definition cameras, microphones and software editing suites have come way down in recent years. That means there’s no excuse for releasing a grainy clip or one with poor sound quality.
If you don’t have the equipment on hand to produce professional, high-quality video, work with a team that does. It won’t cost you much, and the difference in the impressions you’ll make on customers is enormous.
Note: this is not to say you cannot use videos from your mobile device on your social media channels. In fact, those types of videos often have a much higher engagement on social networks. They come off more authentic and less sell-y.
Edit Your Videos but Don’t Overproduce Them
In some ways, editing is the most important part of the video production process. However, it’s also something that a lot of business owners and marketing managers tend to get wrong. That’s because videos tend to get better as they become shorter and crisper. Tough as it might be, you should cut out as many extraneous elements from your clips as you possibly can.
At the same time, avoid the temptation to include too many quick cuts and special effects. A few can add a nice effect to your video, but you don’t want viewers paying more attention to special sounds or animations than they do to your message.
Ask the Viewer to Do Something
Every online video your company produces should end with an invitation for the viewer to do something. That might be a purchase, an email subscription, a reservations or a visit to your website. What’s important is that you don’t waste the attention you’ve gotten from the prospect. Use the occasion to try to generate a conversion.
Think about it this way: You’ve gotten someone to pay attention to your video clip for a couple of minutes. What can they do now that will help them to learn more while increasing your odds of making a sale?
Promote Your Online Marketing Video
Even the best marketing clips don’t have much value to your business if customers don’t see them. That’s why it’s important to have a strong promotional plan in place to help you rack up views, shares, and conversions.
Promoting online videos is a big topic, though, which is why we are going to devote a separate post to the subject. Come back soon and check out part two.
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