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As we all know video is ‘the one medium to rule them all’. But hold your horses Sauron, what if there were a million rings of power out there? The one ring might lose its impact a little if every hobbit and his gardener had one? And that’s the reality of video marketing. Yes its a really powerful tool, yes it can deliver you results. But when you understand the sheer amount of other content you’re up against, you realise that’s it harder than you think to get your video content performing to its full killer potential.
And the stats bear it out – Nielsen found recently that only 47% of content is even seen by its target audience, let alone liked, shared or engaged with. The reality is that our social channels are fast becoming a graveyard of branded video content that sits unloved and mostly unwatched. So how do you make sure your next video campaign really sings? We know from experience that if you get these 5 things right, it's likely you’ll be on to a sure-fire winner:
Clarity over Mixed Messages
It may seem harmless, if not helpful, to squeeze in a few extra benefits or reasons-to-care. But that list of ‘must have messages’ starts to muddle the brief and muddy the water. We’re here to tell you that your branded video should land one message and one message only. Throw a bunch of tennis balls at someone and the likelihood is they’ll drop them all. Throw them just one… well you know the rest. And it’s the same with messages. If you want your video to be memorable and impactful for your audience, stick to one message.
Practically that means keeping your brief short and concise and focused on… yep you guessed it, the one message. And once that message is agreed get buy in from all the key stakeholders so it doesn’t get hijacked later in the process. And if you really need to focus on some extra messaging, think about how you could tackle this stuff in other video outputs.
Stand-out over Nice
There’s almost nothing worse than a bad piece of content is there? Well as strange as it sounds you’re almost worse off making something mediocre. It's not awful, it looks kind of nice, but feels a quite familiar, you know, a little bit… well… meh. And this is the content that your audience will forget in a millisecond. And it’s the type of content you’ll get if you stick to the familiar. Ideas that don’t feel familiar, that have no reference points, can be scary. But these are also the ideas that will make your brand stand out, make your audience remember what you say, and ultimately drive sales through the content you create.
So look at the kind of content your competitors are making and make sure you steer well clear of any ideas that operate in the same territory. Try to embrace the unfamiliar, the ideas that feel scary, and understand that ultimately those are the ones that will likely deliver game changing results for you and your brand.
Action over Likes
Content marketers love getting likes. And hey, who doesn’t appreciate a bit of validation? But while likes can be an important measure of engagement, they are no the be all and end all. What we should all ultimately be looking for is action. We want to turn viewers into do-ers and create content that drives action and outcomes. So it's important to measure what matters.
You need to think about what you want viewers to do when they have watched your video. Make that a key part of your brief. Often that depends on which stage of the buyer journey you are working in. If it's awareness you’re after then likes, comments and shares are appropriate. But as you go further down the buyer journey you’re likely to want far more defined actions. Whether that’s website clicks, subscribing to news, recommending to a friend or ultimately buying your product. It’s important to define and measure success from the get-go.
Emotional over Rational
Human emotion is a powerful thing. When it comes to marketing and decision making, research actually tells us that it's feels that close the deals. We might think that our brand choices are largely rational. When asked about their purchases, people tend to cite reasons like price or product features. But research from behavioural science and psychology tells us that our choices are far less rational than that. It’s our emotional and instinctive impulses that drive consumer decision-making. Video is a great tool to convey a huge gamut of different emotions so it’s important to focus on how to connect to audiences in this way rather than bombarding them with rational reasons to buy your product or service.
Practically there are some tried and tested ways of making content more emotive. Ask yourself how the character, audience or emotion has changed by the end of your video? This change in states, or story arc, is an important emotional leaver. Also make sure your content is relatable to your audience. Seeing themselves in something generates an instant emotional hit. Finally use surprise to get a reaction. Set something up that audiences can’t look away from, something they feel compelled to see resolve.
Tailored over Boilerplate
There are lots of different ways your audience can see and interact with your content. This gives you a great opportunity for multiple touch points. BUT you need to understand that audiences use their different social channels for different reasons. They arrive with different mind states and the content they see is presented in quite radically different ways. Campaigns needs a multiverse of tailored content that specifically works for each platform and channel. The days of bashing out a couple of cutdowns of your main film are long gone.
Challenge your creative agency to come up with a channel specific approach to content. Think about how your audience uses each social platform, what kind of content is most effective and how they are likely to view it. Look at video formats that suit each channel and plan for that way ahead of doing any filming. And finally understand where your audience are in the buyer journey and tailor your messaging for this.
So there you have it, the 5 commandments of creating great video content. We’ll be digging into each one in more detail in the coming months, so look out for more top tips and practical advice.
