Video marketing – Content marketing 2.0

Is the written word already a thing of the past? If you look at the habits of mil­len­ni­als, you would no doubt come to the con­clu­sion that no gen­er­a­tion has ever been this hungry for video content. The most popular media content today is the so-called UGC videos (User Generated Content). This type of video can be viewed millions of times on many different platforms such as YouTube or Vine.

To keep up with the times, marketing struc­tures have to adapt to user pref­er­ences. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, companies must re­struc­ture their campaigns if they want to reach mil­len­ni­als. While tra­di­tion­al marketing still includes long-es­tab­lished marketing such as news­pa­pers and radio campaigns, video marketing con­cen­trates more on new au­dio­vi­su­al channels. Tele­vi­sion only plays a marginal role. In­te­grat­ing video marketing into in­no­v­a­tive campaigns leads to promising op­por­tu­ni­ties, which will greatly increase the target group reach.

The lust for original content is steadily growing, and the video clip format has almost overtaken the written word. Many users find videos easier and more modern compared to com­pre­hen­sive articles. The figures speak for them­selves with 55% of people watching videos online daily, and almost 50% of internet users looking for videos related to a product or service before they come to the store.

The video on demand market includes pay-per-view, video downloads, and streaming media. In 2016, the market share was over 42% in the U.S., making it the top country to use video on demand. Online videos are quickly becoming the most important means for all users to satisfy their need for in­for­ma­tion and en­ter­tain­ment. Small business owners should def­i­nite­ly follow suit to not miss out on this trend.

Video clips have been more than pure en­ter­tain­ment for a long time since they have now become a unique style of online com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It’s not only YouTubers and bloggers using video clips to set the scene with their own online concept, but also startups and companies in all sectors rely on video marketing. Often, they use a style that offers the viewer a mix of in­for­ma­tion and en­ter­tain­ment.

They make use of the format’s char­ac­ter­is­tics: spon­ta­neous video clips convey a feeling of immediacy and honesty, which is ben­e­fi­cial to the brand and/or the product being ad­ver­tised. The campaign ini­tia­tors can therefore advertise their products in an informal framework without having to appear too com­mer­cial.

Before you begin producing clips for video marketing, you should have a clear idea in mind. The usual rules apply here when de­vel­op­ing a marketing campaign: first, determine which target group you want to reach. Then, define the core outline of the campaign, and tailor it to the interests of the people in the target group. 

Now you need to consider which role your video should play in the campaign. Is this an ad­ver­tis­ing strategy or simply a short clip, which you hope will go viral and generate attention? The optimal spread is a crucial factor in online video marketing. Boring films won’t be shared by social media users so it’s therefore crucial to be original and imag­i­na­tive in order to achieve a viral effect.

Video marketing planning also varies depending on the purpose of the clip. For example, if you want to explain how a product works, it is a good idea to include an animation. If you plan to apply for crowd­fund­ing, you need to factor in some tes­ti­mo­ni­als.

Although the pop­u­lar­i­ty of video marketing is growing steadily, make sure not to neglect the important basic re­quire­ments to ensure the produced clips are as suc­cess­ful as possible. Nowadays, it isn’t enough to create well-produced film material or to attempt an original idea in a low-budget way. The success of video marketing depends on how well the content spreads, therefore one has to make it as easy as possible for the user to share the content. Company-owned social media channels on Twitter and/or Facebook often have a small reach since the number of organic likes is rel­a­tive­ly hard to achieve. The followers are usually the company’s own employees or users that are close to the business in some other way. YouTube is most popular, since the platform spe­cial­izes in videos and short clips. In addition to Google, YouTube ex­pe­ri­ences the most search requests by users from around the world. A suc­cess­ful clip won’t just remain a local phe­nom­e­non, but will also spread further afield. If the focus is on in­ter­na­tion­al spread, you should make the video easy to un­der­stand and, if possible, add subtitles. The subject of the video must be appealing to the user and the message should be easy to un­der­stand in a short time. However, besides the content, the keyword ‘op­ti­miza­tion’ is also crucial for the video’s success. For a good hit rate among users, you should include the ap­pro­pri­ate keywords in the video’s title and de­scrip­tion. Research these first and use the ones that are searched for the most fre­quent­ly. In addition to YouTube, there are other platforms on which the public can find your videos. For users with more artistic re­quire­ments, Vimeo is a good place to start. Compared to YouTube, this platform offers better technical pos­si­bil­i­ties for uploading high-quality videos online. The com­pres­sion rate is not as severe as it is with the com­pe­ti­tion, and for a small fee, you can upload entire movies in high framerate and res­o­lu­tion via a Premium account. Social media top dog, Facebook, has also jumped on the video marketing bandwagon. The network recently in­tro­duced the autoplay feature, which au­to­mat­i­cal­ly starts video clips as they appear in a user’s feed. Users’ reactions to this new feature weren’t as good as hoped, since it made it almost im­pos­si­ble to escape from videos in their feed. However, from the per­spec­tive of ad­ver­tis­ers, the autoplay feature offers higher chances of click rates and shares. The fastest booming section of the web is the mobile sector. In video marketing, it’s therefore essential to optimize clips for tablets and smart­phones. The younger gen­er­a­tion is using mobile devices more than computers, and the platforms are adapting to this. It’s possible to make use of all of Instagram and Snapchat’s functions on mobile devices.

The decisive advantage of a video marketing campaign lies in the medium’s mul­ti­me­dia quality. Au­dio­vi­su­al content generates more attention than a written ad­ver­tise­ment with images or a com­mer­cial on the radio. A video can com­mu­ni­cate in­for­ma­tion in a bundled form without boring or over­whelm­ing the consumer. Human emotion can be best conveyed in cinematic language, therefore video marketing is best suited for gen­er­at­ing a spectrum of emotional responses.

Clips and videos don’t only enable you to arouse the interest of your customers and followers, but in­te­grat­ing videos in your site also increases your search engine ranking. In addition, you can give your visitors the op­por­tu­ni­ty to write comments and share their ex­pe­ri­ences. This is how you create organic interest in your videos, and with some luck, your clips will be shared e.g. by a share button which you can set up.

If you want to sell a product, you should create a video that explains the product’s features in detail. This could lead to visitors staying longer on your website. The more detailed the in­for­ma­tion is, the more likely a higher con­ver­sion rate is.

Tutorials are a popular form of en­ter­tain­ment on YouTube. Many companies use short promo clips to explain their scope of activity to a wider audience. If you impress visitors with an original clip, your brand recog­ni­tion will increase. Creative videos are well received and are therefore rec­om­mend­ed.

The standards of com­mer­cial video pro­duc­tion have continued to evolve over the course of dig­i­ti­za­tion. Nowadays, it’s possible to create at­trac­tive water and aerial pho­tographs yourself without enlisting the help of expensive film teams or needing a big budget. However, if you do not have the pos­si­bil­i­ty or the time to film your own, you can buy the raw material from stock photo providers (e.g. Shut­ter­stock). The ad­van­tages of this material is the con­sis­tent high quality of the images as well as the pre-fulfilled legal re­quire­ments and universal ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty. You just need to buy the required media once and then you can use it in various campaigns.

Not all companies have a big marketing budget available, for example, startups may find it difficult to obtain financial resources. You don’t need much, however, to create a good video: these videos are often likeable and don’t make a secret of their low pro­duc­tion ex­pen­di­ture, and instead choose to win people over with wit and artistic as­pi­ra­tion. On the other hand, a boring topic won’t gain any fans no matter how great the res­o­lu­tion is. Films only offer so much – the original idea is what counts.

However, you shouldn’t cut corners in the wrong places, for example, by making a new video out of old material thrown together. Missing parts and unsmooth tran­si­tions are enough to make a mockery out of your video. In video marketing, you should therefore have some knowledge of how to create a video and how to implement it.

There’s no limit for how much a video should cost, but if you don’t want your film to look like it’s been filmed with a smart­phone, you should an­tic­i­pate a four-figure cost for the film pro­duc­tion. There are also offers available where you can get the total package for less, but you should stay away and rather look for a video pro­duc­tion partner with whom you can plan long-term projects.

Over the years, in­di­vid­ual video marketing strate­gies have evolved on in­di­vid­ual social media platforms. Using the following tips for the five major social media channels, you can create videos that are tailored to the most popular platforms.

Facebook – the best option for viral videos

Videos on Facebook should be fun, en­ter­tain­ing, emotional, and have a high share factor. If you are planning Facebook videos, you should pri­or­i­tize these factors, since a clip on Facebook will only reach its full potential after a high number of shares.

Facebook offers ad­ver­tis­ers a variety of ways to precisely tailor video marketing to potential customers. Metrics such as personal interests, locations, page visits, and more, are available as targeting options. Facebook has been focusing the news feed al­go­rithms on video content for a long time now. This means more organic reach and growth for marketers.

Here are some practical tips for creating suc­cess­ful Facebook videos:

• Add subtitles to your video. 85% of videos on Facebook are played without sound.
• The first three seconds count. Facebook’s autoplay feature registers anything after three seconds as a complete video view.
• Use the res­o­lu­tion formats 720p or 1080p HD with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Export your video in the format and res­o­lu­tion in which it was filmed.
• Create a com­pelling title for your Facebook live sessions to get more viewers.

Many brands and in­flu­encers have found their niche on YouTube. Es­tab­lished YouTube per­son­al­i­ties have dis­cov­ered a formula for success on the largest video platform, and have a large number of loyal followers. For most users, YouTube serves a very different (and still important) function. YouTube processes more than 3 billion search queries per month and is the second largest search engine directly after Google – the owner of YouTube.

When you upload and optimize videos on YouTube, you can then embed them easily into your website. Create videos that provide value for your audience and optimize the clips with subtitles, tags, and detailed de­scrip­tions.

Here is a short list of the best practices for video marketing via YouTube:

• Add subtitles to your video. YouTube videos with subtitles receive up to 40% more views.
• The first 3-10 seconds count. 20-25% of viewers watch less than 10 seconds of a video.
• In addition to the metadata, use apt video de­scrip­tions and tags to improve your SEO rankings.
• Use the high-res­o­lu­tion formats 720p or 1080p HD with an aspect ratio of 16:9.

For younger users, Snapchat is already a well-es­tab­lished form of online com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This makes the platform an important channel for video marketing if you want to reach a young target group.

Snapchat users watch an in­cred­i­ble 10 billion videos a day. The videos then disappear because they aren’t saved by default, although this doesn’t affect their pop­u­lar­i­ty at all. The in­cred­i­ble numbers promise tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties for companies to increase their reach. The per­cep­tion limit of the (mostly young) users doesn’t seem to be exhausted, the content volume can grow further still.

Many brands and companies are looking for an ideal formula for gen­er­at­ing the most user en­gage­ment as possible on this rel­a­tive­ly new platform. Popular ideas so far have been per­son­al­ized filters and animated masks that can be used for selfies.

Here’s a short list of helpful tips for video marketing on Snapchat:

• Add drawings and text to your videos. 33% of all videos on Snapchat are viewed without sound.
• The first 3-10 seconds count. 20-25% of viewers watch less than 10 seconds of a video.
• Record in portrait mode since this is the most prevalent format on Snapchat and users are used to it.
• Note that Snapchat users can get bored quickly. Be sure to create en­ter­tain­ing and useful content.

When Instagram was in­tro­duced for the first time in 2013, more than 5 million videos were shared within the first 24 hours. A similar trend was recently observed. With the in­tro­duc­tion of 'Instagram Stories', the network became a key player when it came to social videos. The feature is directly inspired by Snapchat. Before it es­tab­lish­es itself as a main­stream marketing tool, however, companies and marketers have to test what works on the new medium. The creators need to be certain that the function provides many new per­spec­tives for marketing on the platform.

Here are some tips for video marketing on Instagram:

• Videos on Instagram are muted by default. The user has to tap the screen to turn on the sound.
• Part of the appeal of Instagram is the quality of the content. The quality level of the videos should cor­re­spond with the quality of the photos.
• Posts with at least one hashtag receive 12% more en­gage­ment. Don’t forget to optimize the caption and the tags ac­cord­ing­ly.
• Instagram Stories enable you to upload videos for up to 24 hours after they are added to your phone.
• Instagram Stories are an ideal format for enabling you to look behind the scenes of a campaign or event. The clips are so spon­ta­neous and instant that they give the viewer a sense of au­then­tic­i­ty.

Twitter is the silent hero when it comes to social video content. While everyone is talking about Snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube, Twitter continues to work on a video platform and develop new ways for companies to share their videos on the popular social media platform. 82% of Twitter users view video content, and 41% of these say that Twitter is an optimal platform for dis­cov­er­ing visual video content.

Social media marketing experts know that you can use Twitter in a very personal way if you take the time to interact. Those who engage in dis­cus­sions with in­di­vid­ual users directly promote the re­la­tion­ship between potential customers and their company. Therefore, you should create videos with per­son­al­ly appealing content and take extra time to respond au­then­ti­cal­ly.

Tips for suc­cess­ful Twitter videos:

• Add people to your videos. Clips that show people in the first few seconds, are clicked on twice as much as those that don’t.
• Tell a story. Clearly struc­tured videos that have a rec­og­niz­able in­tro­duc­tion, a middle section, and a con­clu­sion, are the most popular among Twitter users.
• Videos that target simple con­ver­sa­tion are shared 15% more fre­quent­ly.
• The maximum video length is 140 seconds with a file size of up to 512 MB. The supported video formats for mobile ap­pli­ca­tions are MP4 and MOV.