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Make a Successful Marketing Video In Spite of Your Client
As video production professionals we are often asked by our clients and the organizations we work for to produce videos for the internet. Confusion often arises around the purpose and the goals of the video, not to mention trying to define what a “good video” should look like. A customer will often ask for an internet marketing video or worse, a “viral video,” without really understanding the roles and purposes of video on the internet or how to measure its success. For those of us in video production we know that there are many types of videos produced at different levels of quality. A highly produced 30 second spot could cost $100,000+ and a video blog would entail the time it took to turn on the web cam and talk for five minutes.
How will the video be used?
When talking to your client about online marketing videos it is important to establish how the video will be used. Marketing videos generally follow the same principles of inbound or closed loop marketing or the classic sales funnel. You need to attract visitors to your website, you need to convert them to a sale and you need to keep them engaged after the sale. For online marketing videos this falls into three areas:
- Outreach & Traffic Video: These are the videos that are usually found on YouTube and promoted through social media. Their goal is to get viewers to visit a website or go to a landing page. They should be easy to share and appeal to the target market with a clear call to action. The goal may also be to raise awareness rather than to drive traffic to the website. The production quality can be low or high depending on the audience and the goals of the company.
- Conversion or Sales Video: This is the video on the website or the landing page that convinces the visitor to buy or sign up. This video should reflect the values and image of the company and usually should have the highest production values appropriate for the company or organization.
- Customer Retention and Engagement Videos: These are the videos customers see after the sale. They can be training videos, how-to-videos, webinars, company updates, slide shows or even Google+ Hangouts. The purpose is to keep your client’s customers engaged. It doesn’t have to be highly produced; it just needs to be useful.
I go into a bit more detail on these in my blog: The 3 Stages of Video Marketing.
What are the video’s goals?
When talking to clients about their video it is important to find out their goals and how they will measure success.
- What is the goal of the video? To drive traffic, raise awareness, convert sales or engage customers?
- Who is the audience? Be wary of any client who says “everyone” or they want the video to “go viral.” Get them to be very specific about their audience.
- What is the call-to-action? This is especially important for outreach and conversion videos.
- Where will the videos be seen? On line of course, but on the website; on Facebook; via Twitter?
- How will the video be promoted? This will help you decide where to put the video and how to make the calls-to-action.
- Does the video reflect the image, persona and goals of the company or organization? It is going to help the client’s audience take the right action?
- How will you measure success? What is more important: views, traffic or sales? What metrics will you use? What will constitute a success and what will be a failure?
- Does the production quality help or hinder the video’s goals and objectives?
Being able to answer these questions and measure the results will not only help you determine the success of your marketing video but what type of marketing video you produce in the first place. The tools and methods you use will vary but remember success is dependent on the goals you set and if you have reached those goals.
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