Nick BuchheitVideo marketing is coming of age. From YouTube to Instagram TV, and TikTok, everywhere you look there are videos; and no wonder, with research suggesting that online video now accounts for more than half of all mobile data traffic.
Unfortunately, not all marketers are reaping the rewards. There is little point in creating web content that nobody wants to watch, and the competition for attention is fierce. So how can you make your video marketing more engaging?
Leverage Great Storytelling About People
Nothing is more interesting to human beings, than stories about other human beings. As human being, we understand, make sense of, and remember things through stories. For something to feel relevant to us, we need to be able to place it in a larger narrative.
And yet, many marketers forget this fundamental truth and create videos revolving around things and products instead of people. This is usually a mistake.
Related reading: Creating a Story Arch For Corporate Storytelling
Include Your Customers or Target Audience in the Video
The first question everyone asks themselves before taking the time to click and view something online is this: “What’s in it for me?”. This means you need to make sure to convey the answer to that as early and as clearly as possible. By making your target audience part of your videos and letting them answer it, you can create videos with an authentic feel – that automatically attracts the right viewers.
Tell the Story Through Your Customers Perspective
Many marketers make the mistake of focusing on the product they’re selling, and how great it is. The problem with that approach is that nobody cares. Nobody care about all the prices you’ve won or how many cool features you have, if you’ve not first conveyed the value you bring. This is why businesses need to start with an outside-in approach to communication, as opposed to an inside-out mindset.
Choose Locations That Resonate With Your Customers
Don’t film in your office just because it’s convenient or cheap. A quick and efficient way to to create engaging vidoe content that captures your target audience’s attention is to film in places that are relevant to them. If you’re selling an app for teachers, film in a school and not a studio. If you’re selling golf clubs, take the time to film at the golf course. And so on.
Use the Voice of Your Customers
Using the voice of the customer, in marketing often referred to as VoC, is one of the most powerful marketing tactics that exist. By letting customers tell their peers about your product, you will automatically get the right tonality, vocabulary, and USPs in your videos. While telling everyone your own product is amazing can often seem like empty and very biased bragging, letting your customers do it for you creates a much more authentic vibe.
Related reading: 5 Steps to a Successful Video Marketing Strategy
Use the Voice of Your Employees
Another way to capture authentic stories about the impact of your products or your brand is by letting your employees or other people involved or touched by your mission tell them. By inviting the viewers into your warehouses and interviewing the professionals involved in making your products, or by interviewing locals who’ve benefited from your CSR work, you can create engaging and compelling video marketing.
Remember That Constraints Fuel Creative
To make truly engaging video marketing content, courage and creativity are key components. Getting started with video creation can sometimes feel overwhelming, and many marketers think it requires huge budgets – but don’t feel intimidated. In fact, often limitations are the very thing that can help spur creativity. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone allows for creativity to take over, which will result in more engaging and unique video marketing campaigns.
Get Creative About Distribution
Another way to increase engagement and get more people to engage with your videos is to deliver them in personalized and unexpected ways. Yes you can hyper-target via a multitude of channels – and thats important. However, there are other unique ways to deliver videos and personalize that delivery. Perhaps you choose to include them in your newsletter, in your cold outreach campaigns, or as part of nurturing drips to accelerate the buyer journey. Either way, incorporating the right videos at the right time in your marketing will add a level of thoughtfulness and bring a human touch to your marketing efforts.
Key Takeaways
As an increasing number of brands are catching up to the notion that video marketing is the marketing that brings the best ROI, the competition for attention and engagement is ever-increasing.
- Leverage great storytelling about people
- Include your customers or target audience in the video
- Tell the story through your customers perspective
- Choose Locations That Resonate With Your Customers
- Use the Voice of Your Customers
- Use the Voice of Your Employees
- Remember That Constraints Fuel Creative
- Get Creative About Distribution
By implementing these 8 steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating engaging and unique video marketing that helps your brand stand out and get noticed in the market. Getting started with video can feel like a daunting task, but the brands that do never look back. No other medium has the power to engage and connect with your audience on an emotional level the same way that videos do.
Covalent is a video marketing production company specializing in authentic and engaging videos. Whether you’re looking for B2B videos, B2C videos, animated videos, or any other style of corporate videos, we’re happy to he