By 2017 it’s estimated that 74% of all internet traffic will be video (source). So its perhaps not surprising that most businesses are making web video a key part of their marketing strategy. While the audience for web video is huge, making sure that you are hitting your marketing goals in the highly competitive online environment, can be more challenging. Here we will share seven of our top tips for producing a more effective web video.
Tip #1 Understand Your Audience
Creating an effective web video begins with determining who you want to talk to. Once you understand intended audience it’s possible to tailor a message to speak directly to them. At the most basic you should have an idea of the age, sex and language that the audience will speak, but you can dive far deeper by creating buyer personas which detail to a granular level, the personality of the intended audience. LinkedIn can be a great place to help you research and profile your buyer personas.
Tip #2 Be Authentic
Very often a client will focus on the key messages that they want to deliver within a video but this can be detrimental to the outcome of the overall video. Key messages often feel unnatural or are worded in a very precise way which may not sound natural when they are being read. This often comes into play when a celebrity is involved as a brand ambassador and the temptation is to think, ‘wouldn’t it be great if so-and-so said our key messages verbatim.’ However, if the delivery is unnatural, the message will not connect with the audience and the celebrity’s impact will have been wasted. I will always favour an honest, heartfelt message describing why the celebrity works with the brand, over a perfectly recited key message.
If key messages need to be inserted into a video, my advice would be to do it in a natural, authentic way that builds trust with the audience. Staff members and loyal customers can be great brand ambassadors and if they are left to extol the virtues of your company they can deliver key messages but phrased in their own natural language that will come across as genuine to the audience.
Tip #3 Be Concise
There is of course no set length for a web video but generally we advise that the-shorter-the-better. This doesn’t mean that you should leave out important content, but you should consider stripping it back to an amount content that your intended audience can absorb in one sitting. Often we see brands trying to cram in a lot of content because on paper all the comments say something important about the brand but viewers don’t see the video in the same way.
When reviewing video footage Marketing Managers will be listening out for great comments that highlight details of their product or service but the audience will let the video wash over them and will have their own reason for clicking play. You are asking for a slice of their precious time and rewarding them with a fast paced video that gets straight to the point and only delivers the most salient messages is both considerate and necessary to ensure that most people will stick with your video until the end.
You can always break the video footage into separate parts and give interested viewers the chance to watch more content if they choose to do so, but a long video can turn off some viewers who feel that they don’t have time to watch the full video so why bother staring it in the first place. YouTube annotations are your friend when you are leading viewers on a journey to find more content that follows on from the video they have just viewed.
Tip #4: Balance Quality vs Time vs Budget
Budgets vary wildly for web videos but like most services there is a quality vs time vs money slider that can be skewed more in one direction at the sacrifice of the others. If budget is tight then quality and length of time it takes to create the video will be affected. If you need your video with a really fast turnaround then expect to pay a bit more and for the quality to be slightly less than if you had a long lead time. If quality is your priority then you would want to spend longer on it and to allocate more budget for it.
Finding the right sweet spot is something your video production company can help you with. It helps to build up a relationship with a company in order to build trust. Maybe try them out on a small job and if they deliver above and beyond your expectations then try them out on a bigger project. Soon you will find where the quality, time and budget slider works for them and you can adjust your expectations accordingly.
If you need a web video that will resonate with your target audience and achieve your marketing goals, then Bold Content is the solution you are looking for. Whether you already have a creative concept for your web video or you just want advice, we are here to help.
Call us on 0203 637 1467 or use our contact form below.