In the last decade, the digital landscape has changed significantly. People are phasing out desktop and laptop computers and instead, are picking up their mobile phones and tablets. What’s more, the way people look at content has changed dramatically. Video marketing has stamped itself as the wave of now and the foreseeable future.
Companies across the globe have recognised its prominence on social media platforms and are seeking to capitalise. Large companies continue to invest in its future, coupled with advancements evolving on various social media channels to integrate new video options.
These videos are utilised in ways to build brand loyalty. Always looking for avenues to reach their target market, everyone from the Mom and Pop shop down the street to multi-million dollar corporations is realising the benefits that come from video advertising. They reach their customers and potential customers.
The simple exercise of creating a video and posting it is not the answer, however. Millions exist on social media. What can you do to “stand apart” from your competition? You want to create content that is engaging and will prompt your target market to action.
Use video as your marketing friend. It is a tool, one that can educate the viewers. Additionally, your videos should entertain, capture the viewer’s attention, and form a persuasive case for your brand.
The ideas that are formulated prior to the video production are important, this is common sense. How to create a video that will stand alone and stir the interest of your target market is what we are interested in.
Secrets to Video Success
Engage
The social media landscape is flooded with advertisements in various forms, to capture attention. This is easy to do. What is difficult, and marketing departments work endless hours to identify, is how to engage their customers. First, let’s do a quick review of the basic sales cycle.
A clear understanding of who you are trying to reach will reap rewards as your ideas can be better clarified and thus a proper presentation can be planned. There are numerous definitions of the stages in a customer’s lifecycle. Let’s not revisit our classes from college, instead, we will stick to the basics.
We have prospects, and then we have our customers. A target market encompasses both groups. In order to engage, narrow down your scope. Take the idea and customise it in your video for the specific audience. You can cast a large net in a body of water blindly, or cast a smaller one where you know the school of fish are.
Now that you know who this video is for, create content that is entertaining and informative. This builds loyalty, especially if you can educate your target market with instructional videos or demos for a new product launch.
Short and Sweet Please
The next time you are in line at the grocery store or local coffee shop, take a moment to observe how someone scrolls through the social media channel they are on. Their fingers keep moving, don’t they?
Your videos should be short and to the point, preferably 30 seconds or less. In this instant gratification society that we live, consumers don’t care to watch a 2-minute 30-second commercial video, it turns them off.
With a short video presentation, your target market will be more likely to view the video more than once, so your “ask” will be fresher in their memory with each view. We are busy people these days, keep it simple and short to keep their attention engaged.
Consistent Quantity
This falls in line with how we are taught to improve our SEO ratings. By the way, consistent video posts will help your SEO, as Google’s algorithms continue to boost those who have a strong video presence.
Your social media followers will increase when you present to them consistent quality material. The options available to your target market are infinite. However, the quality options are limited. A consistent flow of short, fun, informative videos will result in increased followers and brand loyalty. As previously mentioned, it will also boost your SEO ratings.
Open Door Collaboration
Resist the urge to keep the feedback and decisions limited to a few. The fixed mindset crowd would like to have control over all aspects of the project. Instead, view your social media video campaign with a growth mindset.
Encourage feedback from all areas of the company. Do this before the video is posted. Perhaps you can send the video out to a select number of co-workers and management. There is software available so that they can comment on each “slide” of the video.
Do you review each of your follower’s comments? A proactive measure to take is to assign one person to closely monitor social media activity. Then, they can personally reach out to those who may have questions or concerns. This is a great way to build brand loyalty.
Take your ideas and put them to work for your company. Casting a large net may seem the easiest way to capturing your audience, resist the urge to do so. Your target market is smart and short on time. Engage your audience with short, quality videos that inform them. Reward your followers with a steady stream. Finally, keep an open mind and door for feedback.
So that’s it then! Video content is arguably the future of content marketing. With a recent Forbes report suggesting that 90% of customers use videos to help them make purchasing decisions, it would be silly not to capitalise on the opportunities it can generate. Speak to one of the experts at Grow Digital Marketing if you’d like to know more about how video can help grow your business.
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