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8 Ways to Convince Your Boss to Invest in Video Marketing

February 12, 2013 by 13 Comments

 

We’ve seen this movie before…

Remember a few years back when you were trying to convince your boss that your business needed a real website – not just a ‘web presence’ (an html version of your brochure.) Fast forward to today… finally, your website has evolved to become the information and transactional epicenter of your business (congrats!) but you realize that’s still not enough. Now, everywhere you look on the web you see video.  Every social media ‘poke’, ‘share’, ‘link’, ‘favorite’ and ‘like’ is about some new video that everyone is talking about. Big brands are all over video, your friend’s business has been using video for years now and yet there you and your company are, still finessing the text in your value proposition.

What to do? You know that doing video poorly is a waste of time and money. How do you convince your boss it’s time to invest in Video Marketing? Here are eight business arguments you can use to convince your boss that marketing with video should be a top priority for your business:

1. Social Media is more social with video. If social media is part of your marketing mix (it should be) and you want your content and your messages to be shared, include a video with it. Why? A recent report by Brafton Media indicates that online video is the key driver to effective social marketing and that social media marketing with video should be a priority initiative for marketers in 2013 .The report outlines the three basic reasons that video and social media are such a good fit: People like watching video online, people tend to share things they like and creating sharable content differentiates you from your competitors. The study concludes that ’Brands that create video clips for their specific audiences are likely to see success if videos are shared on social sites, as internet users spend 2.5x more time watching short videos that are personally relevant.’

2. Video generates higher engagement. According to Facebooks best-practices guide, posts including a video generate about 100% more engagement than the average post. Dave Marsey from Digitas tells us in this video that video is one of the key triggers that can drive viewer engagement – that increase in engagement ultimately leads to higher revenue. Video also converts! The research group Visual Web Optimizer ran A/B split tests with video on a specific test offer and found a 46% increase in conversion rates with video compared with just text. The folks at Marketing Experiments have found similar results with video but what’s most interesting is that they’ve also discovered that an offer than combines both strong text AND video is the most effective. Including both formats allows the user to consume the content in the manner which is must suitable to user.

3. Video viewing drives purchase behavior. A recent IDG study reported that ’64% of consumers have researched a product as a result of watching a tech-related video in recent months and close to half of them then looked for a product in a retail store (45%), visited a vendor website or contacted a vendor for information (45%), or purchased a product (44%).’ The same IDG study goes on to explain how much digital is part of consumers lives and that video is becoming the centerpiece of that consumer experience. According to Internet Retailer, over 50% of the people who watch online videos claim that those videos make them more confident about buying a product. This same report also stated that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not. According to Reel SEO, video has become so influential that ’4 in 10 shoppers visited a store online or in-person as a direct result of watching a video. Today, nearly 1 in 3 shoppers use YouTube to shop for apparel.’

4. Quality video impacts customer perceptions and behaviors.  A 2012 study by Unrly media found that viewer enjoyment of branded video is important because it has a direct impact on key brand metrics. Viewers who enjoyed the video they watched demonstrated 139% higher brand association, 97% higher purchase intent, 35% higher brand favorability, and 14% higher brand recall than their counterparts who did not enjoy the video.

5, Professionally produced  video content is good… and so is User Generated. Comscore released a study that looked at the sales effectivenees of professionally produced videos. Not surprising was the lift in preference for both featured products and the Brands total line was 25% higher after watching the professionally produced video. The User-generated video still generated stronger purchase presence at a lower 16% but what’s interesting is that the combination of professionally produced AND user-generated video produced a combined 35% increase in purchase preference.

6. Video helps your site with SEO. According to Search Engine Watch, ’Google and other search engines work to have a mix of content types displayed in search results (a.k.a., blended search results). For this reason, they give a higher ranking to video content than other forms of Web content in order to make sure that searches consistently display mixed search results.’ (There is an often misquoted 2008 research report conducted by Forrestor that claimed anywhere from a 50% to a 500% lift in search engine performance with the use of video. Forrestor stills agrees in principle with the findings of the report but doesn’t provide any specific performance reference.) A post by Jeremy Scott at REELSEO claims that videos in universal search results have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts. 

7. Adding digital video to a TV media plan is very effective. Comscore has released a study looking at the effectiveness of traditional broadcast advertising and online ad buying. Key findings indicate adding a digital video component to a TV media plan can increase reach very efficiently. The report shows that digital video ad formats are just as effective as TV ads and that multi-screen viewers (especially in the younger age segments) need to be marketed to on multiple screens.

8. Video adoption metrics.. (The numbers you see quoted most often) There’s a wealth of statistical information concerning the adoption of video and some of these trends may be relevant to your business. It’s always best to lead with direct evidence, but if that isn’t enough here is a list of trends and stats that you can overwhelm your boss with:

- Youtube attracts a kazillion* viewers a month and a bazillion* videos are uploaded every second. (*estimates)
- 22% of small businesses plan to post a video to YouTube in the next 12 months
- Online video ad spending will double over the next four years.
- Rich media ads with video generate 6 times as many post-ad site visits as standard banner ads.
- Over 90% of advertisers plan to use VANs (video advertising networks) in the coming year.
- 87% of brand and agency marketers use video for content marketing.
- 76% of marketers plan to increase their use of video marketing in the next year.
- Online video has taken the lead from television viewing (84% to 83%) in a recent survey conducted by Nielsen.
- 7 out of 10 B2B marketers use online video. Up 35% from last year.
- 40% of all QR codes take the user to some kind of video content
- Click-thru rates rose 7% to 13& when the word ‘video’ was included in the subject line.
- Forbes Magazine published a report stating 65% of Senior Executives have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video online.
- By 2015 Google predicts that over 50% of all display ads will be rich media ads.

In late 2009 I wrote a blog post declaring that 2010 would be the year that all companies become media companies. I got a little ahead of myself with that prediction but we are beginning to see many companies move beyond simple text and photos online and begin to develop engaging sharable media assets that help explain and promote the unique value offered by their brand.

 

 

Note: This post is also found in the TOP 10 POSTS Category of this blog.

 

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, Top 10 Posts, Video Marketing Tagged With:

9 Things to Consider Before You Shoot a Testimonial Video

November 28, 2012 by 6 Comments

 

 

No one really trusts you or what you have to say about your own company. Why would they? But people will listen to other people’s opinions about your company. If they know and trust that person – so much the better. Even if they don’t, they are more likely to believe a stranger (or better yet, a bunch of strangers) talking about you rather than you talking about you. That’s why testimonial videos are so powerful.

So is any testimonial video a good one? Not necessarily. It has to accomplish three important things:
1. It has be / feel authentic.  ‘Be’ is always better, but ‘feel’ is the next best thing. (We’re talking about marketing here….)
2. It has to be interesting. A talking head is still a talking head no matter what they are saying. Plan on having something interesting going on in the video. (Showing a customer using your product or service is a good place to start.)
3. It has to deliver a message which is relevant and that resonates.  Hearing a customer say “ABC Inc. provided great service… ” is not particularly informative.

 

Before you begin your next testimonial video here are nine things that you should consider:

1. Have you scheduled a pre-shoot meeting?  The best investment of time you can make is to schedule a pre-shoot meeting with the interviewee before the shoot to take them through the process. One of the reasons this doesn’t happen is cost – often your client won’t want to pay for the additional time to prepare for the shoot but this is arguably the most important time investment on the entire project. You get to know your interviewee, you get them familiar (and therefore comfortable) with you and the filming process, you get to do a site inspection prior to shooting and you get to find out the type of things that they may or may not want to say when you start shooting. All of this gives you time to plan and prepare for the shoot.

2. What is the overall style of the video? Is your video simply a talking head of someone sitting on their living room couch or behind their office desk or is it a video that incorporates footage of your customer actually using your product or service? Budget will dictate how much effort you put into your video but it doesn’t require much more effort to shoot the person you are interviewing actually doing something. Planning is usually the problem here. Unless your talking head is truly engaging (most are not) you should at least consider using two cameras for multiple angles (which makes the video easier to watch and helps you cut between sound bites) and you should also consider getting your interviewee physically doing something.

3. Who is speaking and who is on camera? This is an important decision to make upfront. Having a non-speaking spouse (as an example) or non-speaking business colleagues in a video takes away from the dynamic feel of the presentation. If multiple people are speaking and contributing relatively equally – that’s great. But if you have a person in the shot who isn’t speaking, that person will take the energy/attention away from the speaker. Two people are distracting unless their interaction is interesting and complimentary. Perhaps the single biggest challenge is the speaker themselves. Are they articulate, and more important, are they comfortable in front of a camera? If your answer is ‘no’ to these first two points then they had better be good at taking direction otherwise it’s going to be painful. I remember hearing comments about a testimonial video I had shot saying that my client was so lucky to have such a good speaker to represent them.  I wish the viewers could have been there during the shoot… direction and editing can cover up a world of hurt.

 4. What do you want the speaker to say? This is the single most important thing to consider. You don’t just show up with a camera, ask some questions and hope for the best. Before you approach your customer for an endorsement you have to know exactly what you want to hear them say and you have to know that they are receptive to saying it otherwise you may end up wasting everyone’s time. Just because you ask a question doesn’t mean you are going to get the answer you want. Even if you get the answer you want it may not be delivered in a suitable manner (i.e. a distracted ‘Ya… they showed up on time” versus an enthusiastic “Those guys where here exactly when they said would be.” . Arriving equipped to an interview with the right questions is only half the battle. You also need to be equipped with the knowledge of the exact sound bites that you need to hear otherwise you might end up staring blankly at your editing screen wondering what to do with all the useless footage you just shot. The questions don’t matter – it’s the answers you care about. Who’s responsibility is it to make sure the sound bites are exactly what you need?

5. How do you plan on structuring your soundbites? Let’s assume you get exactly what you wanted from your customer – great delivery and great content. Do you lead with a power statement that nicely concludes what you are going to see in the video or do you just start with the answer to the first question? What you place first is critical in video today. Online viewers today have attention spans similar to that of a house fly. You need to ensure that the message you deliver at the beginning of the video makes people think – ‘that’s interesting, tell me more.” I’ve seen too many testimonial videos that start with 30 seconds or more of preamble: “Well now… Bob from ABC Inc. gave me a call on Tuesday… no, it was Wednesday…  ’cause that’s when me and Earl go bowling, anyway, Bob gives me a call and asks me how my bowling game is doing – funny thing about that is… ”

6. How are the testimonial videos being presented? Are you doing one testimonial video or do you plan on doing a series of them. Like resume references, it’s not terribly difficult to get at least one person to say something nice about you. The more voices that support your message the better. If you are planning more than one testimonial video you should try to structure the videos so there is repetition on key brand elements and there is also new information in each video. If the videos are identical people won’t watch more than two because they will expect that they are all the same. If you are planning a series of testimonial videos you should label them clearly so that people can select the videos that relate to their specific concerns. (I.e “Bob Smith from Acme explains how ABC Inc saved him $4000 in research costs”)

7. What is the graphic and titling structure? How do you start your video.  I just watch a really well produced testimonial video that had 35 seconds of introductory branding and text. I wonder if anyone other than me made it through that intro. Do you start with shots of your interviewee, b-roll shots of your interviewee or do you begin with corporate branding and titling? Getting to the message as quickly as possible is critical. Do you include on-screen text anywhere in the video to support what is being said in the video? Using on-screen text in your video helps to reinforce a message BUT it may also make the video look more like a corporate/promotional video rather than a testimonial video. (I.E. Having the word ‘Lifesaver’ come up on-screen as someone uses that word to describe your service is probably too much.)

8. Do you include other support material in the video? As an example, if you are doing a renovation (house, car, person… etc) testimonial video, do you include a ‘before’ shot. Do you illustrate what the ‘problem’ that was solved by your company? It’s always better to show, rather than tell the viewer what the ‘problem’ was – that’s the whole reason to use video. Do you shoot b-roll to support the benefit of your product or service? (The answer is ‘Yes’). B-roll can include anything relating to the content being discussed.

9. What shooting style do you use in your interview? Is the interviewee sitting down or standing up? Are they in and around the thing the product or service that you delivered for them? (I.e. The most typical interview shot you see is someone sitting on a coach against the wall or someone sitting at a desk. Both are visually quite dull. It’s much easier to light and frame a shot if you can get move them and have them looking engaged – people often look ‘trapped’ sitting behind a desk or in the corner of a room on a chair.  This definitely takes more planning and cooperation from your interviewee but if you show up at someone’s office and capture a talking head interview with your iPhone it’s going to look like you showed up at someone’s office and captured a talking head interview with your iPhone.

9+. Do you choreograph your b-roll.?  Yes. Assuming that you want to make your testimonial video interesting to watch you are going to have to get people doing something that shows them engaged with your product or service. Remember, a testimonial video isn’t about you, it’s about the affect your product or service had on that person. Wherever possible you should try to demonstrate the use and benefit of your product or service which could mean purposefully getting the interviewee to do something more than standing in front of your camera. The chance of them doing something spontaneous that looks good on camera is low so you are going to have to tell them what you want them to do. An argument can be made that choreographing anything is disingenuous and takes away from the authenticity of the piece. While true, you have to balance this with the need to convey important information and get people to watch the video.

 

Considering all of these questions should help you begin to frame and deliver an effective testimonial video.

 

** Special Note: For those creating Testimonial Videos in the US here is a link to the 2009 FTC Guidelines governing Endorsements and Testimonials. (Thanks to Gavin Bryan-Tansley for providing this reference.)

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Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Managing Video Projects, Marketing with Video, Starting a Video Project, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: , ,

Video Portraits – Is there a market (need) for this?

September 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Video Portrait – Michael Ball from One Market Media on Vimeo.

 

Should a portrait be ‘moving?’

Video will continue to find new forms and change how we market our products, our services… and ourselves. Some months ago while editing I created this little vignette out of a ‘hero shot’ of an expert who was part of a series we were producing. I did it for fun, sent him the file and he thought it was great. End of story. (I have no idea what, if anything, he did with it.) Then while cleaning up files I came across the clip and wondered whether this could or should be a new form. I haven’t seen this explicit form used before and don’t even know if it has a name but I’m sure there are many who have experimented with ‘moving portraits’ or ‘video portraits.’

The question is:  Is there a need (market) for this type of video / photography? (This type of media sits at the intersection of videography and photography.) On the positive side of the ledger these videos tell more of a ‘story’ – you get a little more information in a hundred and fifty frames than you do in one. They can also be a lot more engaging if done well. The biggest question around the use of this new form is ‘where the heck would I use this?’ Thumbnail photos are universal today – if you click on them you typically get a larger version to peruse. While video can’t easily replace that function I could see this form, as an example, used in the ‘about us’ section of a website – especially in the creative services sector where being a bit ‘non-standard’ is usually a good thing.

Video won’t ever replace text… or photography, but more information communicated in an effective manner is always a good thing. What do you think. Is there a place for Video Portraits?

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Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: ,

How to Create a Video Production Brief

June 12, 2012 by 2 Comments




Video is growing faster than any other component of the marketing mix and yet businesses continue to struggle to develop marketing videos that have a measurable impact on sales.

This post explains why preparing a video production brief is necessary and provides guidelines as to what
should be included in your next video production brief.

Whether you are creating video in-house or hiring a production company to develop your next video you need to be able to communicate the context and goals of your video project.

 

Why is a video production brief important. 

A project brief is standard tool used in marketing. If you are developing creative for an ad you would provide your agency with a creative brief. If you were developing a new product design you would provide your design house with a project brief. If you were developing a new website you would provide your developer with a design brief. A search marketing brief is now becoming standard practice on SEO engagements. So why not video?

Corporate video has quickly evolved from television commercials and corporate overview videos. Today, video can and does touch ever aspect of marketing from mass media to tactical, hyper-targeted marketing programs. Like social media, the adoption of online video has evolved much faster as a consumer tool than as a corporate tool. With new advances in technology the means of production have dropped to such an extent that now any business can, and does produce video – a lot of it experimental and most of it quite ineffective. Blaming your lack of success on YouTube or on ‘all the hype around video’ however, misses the point.

Toady we’re in what the Gartner Group refers to as the ‘Trough of Disillusionment.’ “We’re tired of the hype around video, quite frankly we haven’t seen the results and we don’t think video is really going to help us.” That statement is probably true for many companies today. Video for the sake of doing video is a waste of money. Video without a plan is a waste of money. Creating videos because your competition is doing so, or because ‘your website is getting boring’ is also a bad idea. Like those companies a few years back that chose to develop a ‘web presence’ and built digital brochures, most companies today fail to tie strategic targets, and more important, accountability into the video production process.

Video isn’t going away – quite the contrary. Video is unsurpassed as a tool of both engagement and persuasion. As the chart above illustrates we’re at the point now where (hopefully) we are moving beyond hype and statistics (who cares how much video is uploaded or consumed every hour), through the trough of disillusionment (” I can’t understand why the one hour video that my cousin shot of me talking didn’t move the dial”) and into a period that ties business results with video production. How do you achieve this synergy? Focus. Focus on objectives, focus on your audience and their business problems and most importantly, focus on (measuring) results.

The process of creating a video production brief causes you to answer tough questions about your business
(“do we really want to say that…”) and it serves as a document to help you engage and shortlist prospective video production companies.

 

Guidelines for your Video Production Brief. 

The following should be included in the brief you hand off to the team responsible for creating your next video project. If you can’t provide all of the following categories of information to your production team (with some detail) then you may not be ready to start your project:

Company background

How are you situated in your market? How is your company perceived by your customers? (Ask a couple of them… you may be surprised by what you hear.) What are your key brand attributes? Why are you different? Where do you want to be in one year? These questions are all important context that helps your production company understand why video might be helpful in promoting your company. This should be the easiest part of the process. Often it’s not.

Focus of Video

Do you want to promote a product, a service, your customer support, your entire company, or something else. (You can’t promote them all at once.) You need to be able to provide sufficient detail about exactly what it is you are promoting. What problems do you solve for your customer? Is your solution unique? How do you differentiate yourself in the marketplace – price, technology, service, selection, experience, etc? You’re not looking at business outcomes here – you are determining the specifics of the subject matter in the video. No one but you knows the answers to these questions. Making your video production team guess at (or worse, make up) your key areas of focus is never a good idea.

Competition

Who is your competition? Do they use video to market themselves? Is it effective? How and why should your video be different (or similar) to their video.

Target audience

Exactly who is it you are trying to reach and why. What are their unique attributes. Have you built persona’s for your key audience. (I.e Sally is a 28 year old product marketing manager for a high tech firm who is married with no children…. etc.). This is one of the most difficult questions for businesses to answer- not because they don’t know who their audience is but because they are concerned about having too narrow a focus. Fortunately the cost of video production is considerably lower than it was just five years ago so it’s possible to build more tactical video solutions for each audience.

Where is your audience? (This question is new…and very important.) How do you best reach your prospects and customers in a multi-channel universe. Will your customer be accessing your video on a desktop PC, mobile device, in-store, via broadcast network or some other means? Each channel has unique demands and the video created should be tailored to that channel.

Business Goals

What are the specific business goals that you want the video to drive? Views, downloads, traffic, referrals, awareness, clicks, inquiries, shares, links, ‘likes’, calls, sales, etc? You have to be able to identify specific goals otherwise you will never know if your investment was worthwhile. Knowing this will help your video production company to determine the best approach to creating your video.

Preferences

A great place to start is to show a prospective video production company a reference video and say “I think this video works really well, here’s why…” The video you show may not be the best approach but it may be the best way to communicate your preferences, biases and opinions to your prospective production house. Video has a lot of moving parts and there are many ways to highlight your understanding of your audience’s business problem. Having a reference video that you have seen and like as a starting point can be a great way to move forward.

Timelines and budget

When will the project start and when is the completed video required? Have you allocated a budget for the project? If you have it’s a good idea to communicate the budget and ask the video production companies exactly what they can deliver for that budget. The alternative is hiding the budget and asking everyone to guess at your budget. This forces the video production company to make assumptions about the number of shooting days, locations, actors, number of cameras, type of equipment, amount of motion graphics and all of the other variables that go into the creation of a video. The only way to get a useful comparison is to ask production companies to provide detailed treatments and estimates based on these assumptions.

It would also be helpful to share your decision criteria and selection process with prospective production houses.

Conclusion

Creating the above brief may seem like a daunting task. For busy marketers a quick email or phone call may seem like the more expedient approach but the time taken to fully define the requirements and context of the job will almost certainly lead to better business results.

 

{ Note: Distribution and promotion of your video is a separate (but important) activity and beyond the scope of this post.}

Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Managing Video Projects, Marketing with Video, Resources, Starting a Video Project, Top 10 Posts, video production Tagged With:

Corporate Video Production – What works today and why.

April 3, 2012 by 6 Comments

Over the last few years the use and application of corporate video has undergone significant change.  We’re moving inexorably from the text web to the ‘next web.’ Whatever this evolution may bring, one thing is certain – video and interactive media will play a growing role in how all companies position and promote themselves.

We’ve put together a chart to highlight some of the key changes that have taken place in corporate video production:

 

Traditional approach What works today What’s changed?
Focus of corporate video Your business or product Solving your customer’s problems The focus of video used to be just about promoting your ‘brand ‘- that usually meant a lot of talk about yourself.
Budget Large Small – Medium Production costs have dropped and corporations are being far more tactical with their use of video today.
Access to videos Tightly controlled by the sales team or marketing Created with the express purpose of being shared… everywhere. Social marketing isn’t just a trend – It’s now become a business necessity.  People trust friends and colleagues considerably more than they trust corporations.
Primary delivery
method		 - Tradeshows
- Meetings
- Sales Calls		 Web, as well as other traditional methods Soon, everything will be ‘online’ – broadcast media, corporate communications, presentations, etc.
Typical message delivery Actor, presenter or professional voice-over Real people saying real things Your customer is more skeptical than ever. Actors still have a place in video, but nothing can replace the value of a real employee representing your company in your corporate video.
Desired perception of a corporate video Authoritative  Informative  ’Pizzazz’ isn’t what it used to be. Sounding helpful is better than sounding important. ‘Important’ is about you. ‘Helpful’ is really about the customer.
Frequency of production 1 or 2 videos a year 10’s or even 100’s of videos It used to be that marketing would set aside $50,000 for one video. Today it might make more sense to set aside $50,000 for ten or more videos.
Scope of video production Broad – a single video covered as much ground as possible Narrow – video focuses on a specific audience with a targeted message There will always be a place for large scale video productions but the vast majority of videos will be targeted videos delivering a single message to a single audience.
Where videos are found on a corporate website In your ‘video’ section Wherever customers need to view video on your site No one comes to your site looking for a video (unless you are YouTube).  They come to your site looking to solve a business problem.
Where videos should be found On your website Wherever your client happens to be: YouTube, a business portal, on their mobile phone, searching, etc.) Your website isn’t the ‘destination’ you think it is. Creating content that can be viewed wherever your customer happens to be makes a lot of sense.
Uses of Video - TV Commercials
- Sales  Presentations
- Homepage of your website.		 - Customer Testimonials
- Video Case studies
-  Product ‘explainer’ videos
- Product FAQ
- Event promotion
- Recruiting
- Viral Video
- Content marketing
- Infomercials
- Interactive video
- Branded entertainment
- Video press releases
- Community relations videos
- etc.
- click here to discover  51 ways to use video to promote your business		 The number of uses of video continues to grow every day.

 

This is the first part in a two-part post. The next post will look at managing your next corporate video project by developing a video production brief.

 

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Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, Online Video Industry, Resources, Top 10 Posts Tagged With: , ,

Five things that make a marketing video effective.

December 15, 2011 by 5 Comments

This video is very effective.  It’s fun, it’s memorable, it’s evocative and it’s something that you want to share.  It informs you, it engages you, it moves you and it’s very well done. Wow.

Sponsored by RIOTUR, the City of Rio de Janeiro’s tourism authority, this video was created to support RIO’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. RIO won the bid making it the first South American city to host the Olympic games. I have to believe that this video contributed in at least some small way to RIO’s successful bid.

Like Paris, San Francisco, Vancouver and Venice, RIO is blessed with iconic scenery and natural beauty so an argument could be made that creating a video to promote the city shouldn’t be that difficult. There’s more to it than beautiful shots, however. This video works for a number of reasons:

1. There’s a strong story-line that carries the video. By story-line, I don’t mean ‘boy meets girl, boy leaves girl, etc.” The story-line is much more subtle in this video, but just as important. Music is at the heart of the video. Music not only sets the mood and pace of this video, it becomes clear that music is a core element that makes up the character of the city and the people of RIO. That’s the story being told. Music is an integral part of the culture. That’s a very compelling story.

2. The video is engaging. You want to watch the video, you are interested to see what comes next. This is a difficult thing to do in a video – make the viewer want to keep watching.

3. It solves a specific business problem. The business problem for the Olympic committee was ‘what city do we chose for the 2016 Olympics?’ RIOTUR provides ample reasons for IOC judges to consider RIO as the 2016 destination city: RIO is a ‘lifestyle city’ as evidenced by the myriad of activities shown in the video; RIO has a strong and obvious tradition of sports; RIO already has existing sporting facilities that could accommodate some of the different events; RIO will be a huge draw as a destination for travelers which will ensure that the games are well attended; and like the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the natural beauty of the hosting city will certainly have a halo effect on the games themselves.

4. Simple message. Show me don’t tell me. No talking heads, no spoken words, no happy talk or marketing bluster, just a compelling video highlighting the people, the lifestyle and the beauty of RIO all centered around a theme of music and culture.

5. The video is very well produced. From the inclusion of familiar iconic scenary like the cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain and the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking the city to an array of lifestyle and beauty shots of the city and it’s inhabitants, this video covers all bases.  A clever concept interweaving a combination of sound and music is complemented by beautiful cinematography and great editing.

I don’t know the name of the company that produced this video but they deserve a lot of credit for helping RIO win the 2016 Olympic bid.

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video and Government, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

10 Reasons Why Your Marketing Video Isn’t Working?

September 7, 2011 by 4 Comments

You just spent $2,000, $20,000 or $200,000 on your most recent corporate video project and it didn’t move the dial. What happened?

The creation of your corporate video should follow a structured development process. When it doesn’t your chance of success is low. Here are ten common mistakes made by companies developing marketing videos:

1. Poorly defined objectives.
Can you easily fill in the following blanks?: This video will help ___{this audience}____  understand that our product or service solves ___{this problem}___  and provides ____ {these benefits)____ . We will measure the success of this video by ___{this rating mechanism}____.
If you can’t clearly and succinctly fill in the first three blanks chances are your video will fail to achieve any measurable results.  If you can’t fill in the last blank you’ll never know what was achieved.

2. No clear message(s).
 “Expertocom is a world leader in the provisioning of leading edge solutions and robust, mission critical systems to it’s global client base.” Uh-huh. Even if you have a well defined audience, problem statement and benefit, you still need to communicate in clear and convincing manner. Some common mistakes:
- The video is all about you. No one cares about you, they only care about how you can solve their problem.
- B2N (Business to No one) If your message is so general that it applies to everyone it probably won’t resonate with anyone. Be specific. Pick one audience and deliver one really strong, concise message tailored to that specific audience’s needs.
- Jargon-loading. If you “utilize leading-edge best practices to incentivize and leverage your best-of-breed base through groundbreaking, synergistic and outside-the-box thinking” then… no one will understand you.
- Saying too much. “I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter but I didn’t have time to write a short one” – Mark Twain. It’s really difficult to be succinct. It also seems risky. Script-by-committee is death to most video projects. In video, shorter is almost always better.

3. Your video doesn’t resonate with your audience.
The best messages work on a visceral level. They make you think, even better, they make you feel something.  If your video is dull (i.e. a talking head) and if you don’t use video effectively (show me, don’t tell me!) then you will quickly lose your audience. Facts are important but a good story is better. While it may be interesting to note that your lubricant is 27% more viscous than any other on the market it may be more interesting to show that your product is the one that your local fire department depends on. Translating the key benefits you are trying to illustrate into ideas and building that into a compelling visual story is done before any crew show up to start shooting.  This is the most important part of the video development process and it’s also the hardest to get right, yet it’s usually the piece that gets the least attention. How do you find a company with this type of experience? Look at their previous work. If it’s not engaging, yours won’t be either.

4. Loose, or no processes at all to develop and promote the video.
The most important part of the video production process is pre-production. Chances are that if you are either surprised or disappointed by the results of your video it is because the planning process was flawed. A well defined storyboard should tell everyone involved exactly what is being said and what visuals are being shown to support those messages. A shotlist tells you exactly what needs to be shot, with whom and when.  When the video is shot and edited a marketing plan tells you exactly what the video is supposed to accomplish, how you are going to get your video in front of your intended audience (…who may or may not ever show up at your website) and how the results of the video should be measured. Again, all of this happens before anyone shows up with a camera. If your video production company tells you what your video should look like with little or no input from you – it probably won’t help your business.

5. You started with creative.
“Our President has this really cool idea!” Just like graphic design is the last step in the pre-development phase of a website (often it is first),  ’creative’ is the last step in the development of a video script and storyboard. Again… too often it is first. Creativity is an essential part of the video production process but it should never be be the tail wagging the dog. Sure, if you have a budget to create a whack of branded entertainment, that’s a different story – but for most corporate video projects, branded entertainment is not the goal.

6. Your video doesn’t support your brand.
 Too often, videos are created in isolation. Your brand is the sum total of all of the experiences people have with your company, that includes video. Your video has to support and complement the tone and key messages that you want associated with your brand. {Warning: Wacky viral videos often do more harm than good.)  Video production is not an isolated activity. Your video production company has to understand how you are marketing your business and has to be keen to engage with your marketing department and /or the marketing agency that is helping guide your brand.

7. Budget isn’t large enough.
“We took a couple thousand out of our cleaning budget to do this video.” “Yep, that’s all we’ve got, but we still want it to look like Avatar.” “My cousin Eddy said it would only cost him $400 to make the same video.” The cost of video production has decreased dramatically over the last five years. That said, there is little point in developing a video if you haven’t allocated a reasonable budget for the project. What does a video cost: Here are 25 factors and their prices that go into the cost of developing a corporate video.

8. Wrong type of video.
There are many different styles, structures and purposes for corporate video. Here are 51 different types of video you can develop to promote your business.  A thirty second pre-roll promotion video is probably too long and a one minute recruitment video is probably too short. Hiring actors to speak to a technical audience isn’t a good idea.  Putting your President on camera may (or may not be) a good idea. A talking head is often a waste of time.  A detailed technical video won’t resonate with people in the awareness phase of the sales cycle but can work very well for people in the consideration phase. What type of video you develop and what structure you use for the video is just as important as what messages you chose.

9. No call to action.
What do you want people to do after they have watched your video? If you don’t know, your viewer won’t either.

10. No distribution, SEO or promotion plan.
 Even if your video is great, if no one sees it you’ve wasted your money. Are you optimizing a webpage with keywords to help promote the video? Are you promoting the video on industry portals or other related sites where you intended audience might be? Have you developed an email campaign to promote the video to key audiences? Do you have a process to move prospective viewers through your sales cycle once they have viewed the video? Have you tested the video before widely launching it to make sure it accomplishes what you want it to? Do you have any budget for changes or do you assume that you’ll get it exactly right the first time through? Do you have a social media campaign, a PR campaign, a media campaign or some other promotional activity to build interest and awareness for the video?

The video production piece (shooting and editing) represents about 1/3 of the total value in the video development process. Planning (building the right messages for your audience) and promotion (making sure the video is seen) are both equally important.

 

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{Note: regarding ‘Jargon -Loading’, thanks to Lindsey McCaffrey for inspiration on ‘Words and phrases I don’t want to see in your copy‘}

Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Managing Video Projects, Marketing with Video, Resources, Starting a Video Project, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Top 10 Posts, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: ,

Marketing lessons from presidential candidacy videos.

May 16, 2011 by 1 Comment

Barring a political catastrophe, President Obama will likely be re-elected in 2012. So while discussions around the outcome of these videos are probably moot, it’s still instructive to see how the committed (or nearly committed) presidential candidates are using video (not just news interviews or TV spots) to position themselves. Companies large and small would benefit from both lessons learned and mistakes made in these videos.

Newt Gingrich {Grade: F}

As John Stewart pointed out last week – it looks like Newt’s video was shot in a Sears portrait studio. This video is all Newt. Nothing to see but Newt’s ample cranium for over two minutes. Talking heads are one the most common and least valuable uses of video.  Most are dull and forgettable – like this one. The message, if you listened to it, is pretty much a litany of cliches and generic promises. Video is a visual medium. Show people what you are talking about. Better yet, get other people to talk about what is important to them. No one wants to hear your company president blather on for two minutes about your product or service either. Show people the benefits of the product. Appeal to the buyers emotions. Get satisfied customers to gush about how your product changed their lives. Sure, if your candidate (or CEO) looks like JFK or Ronald Reagan then a bit of camera time is probably a good thing. This video is old school, it’s dull and there is absolutely no reason to share it with anyone.

Mitt Romney {Grade: D+}

This video has a number of things going for it that Newt’s doesn’t: 1. Mitt took the time to shoot the video somewhere (no doubt this video will solidify the New Hampshire High School football vote), 2. Let’s face it – Mitt looks like he was pulled out of central casting (“hey, we need a presidential looking guy… and not Martin Sheen”), 3. Mitt makes reference to conversations with people and speaks about their concerns. 4. It didn’t looked too staged. (Of course it’s staged – all of these things are staged. There is no ‘real’ in reality TV) but at least he made the effort to be seen in a fairly natural setting. The video felt comfortable – that’s a good thing. But in the end it is was still dull and there were very few messages or ideas that really stick with you in this video. People understand and remember if you tell them and show them what you are talking about. If you sell fertilizer (a purely coincidental choice of analogy…) it would make some sense to get your spokesperson out on a farm delivering your message – so kudos to team Mitt for that. But wouldn’t it be better hearing a farmer describe how and why your fertilizer is the best stuff around.

Tim Pawlenty  {Grade B}

I give this video a lot of credit, it has it all: Epic soundtrack – check. Lots of special effects (especially ‘lens flare’) – check. Lot’s of quick cuts and shaky camera – check. This would have made a good movie trailer or John Mellancamp video. No question it’s slick, maybe too slick, but there is no denying it gets and keeps your attention, it delivers well on a few key messages and it is something you would share, or at least want to watch all the way through. Problem is Tim is going to find it difficult to live up to the hype of this video. I’m not sure he’s really that cool in real life.

President Obama {Grade B}

I really like this video because it focuses on real people saying real things (sure it’s staged… this is marketing we’re talking about) but it does what the Obama campaign team do so well and what few republican teams seem to grasp – it seems to relate to people on a human level. It makes a real connection. (Those connections drive involvement which wins elections.) Obama isn’t even in this video (he’s got a day job that precludes him from appearing too ‘campaigny’) but that doesn’t really matter. People talking about Obama on a personal level resonates with many people – it’ll stick and it’ll get people thinking. Most of the other videos don’t make you think – they don’t try very hard to engage you – they just talk about what they think you want to hear.  Whether you are promoting a new cleaning solvent or your presidential candidacy the message has to resonate – it has to appeal emotionally or you’re wasting your time.

 

Bonus Video:

Congressman Paul Ryan’s Pathway to Prosperity {Grade A-}

Ryan won’t be running in 2012 but this is still a great video that shows how to effectively promote an idea. (Isn’t that what the elections should be about…) I’m not going to comment on the oversimplification of some very complicated issues being shown in this video but I do believe the style and approach are very effective. Probably the best of the lot. It’s well produced, interesting to watch and more importantly, it communicates something of lasting value. It gives you a clear (at least in Ryan’s mind) view of where he sees the specific problems and discusses how these problems should be addresses. The biggest issue with most political videos is that they are usually forgettable, have little lasting value and most importantly, they never make a convincing point. Ryan has taken a stand and also taken the time to clearly and effectively communicate his position on a very specific issue.  Any company would benefit from taking this type of approach: Clearly identifying a specific pain, addressing the specific solution(s) to stop that pain, and most important - clearly demonstrating the benefits of fixing that pain. Marketing 101. Kudos to Ryan for this. See you in 2016.

{Follow-up note: Time magazine just named Ryan as a runner-up for their ‘Time, Man of the Year“.  And while Ryan claims in this article he doesn’t have the fire in his belly to be President, I’d be willing to bet that  will change in the near future.}

Even more bonus videos

Go to Ron Paul’s site and watch some of his older videos – they’re the most fun to watch.  He’s the only guy who you believe isn’t just saying whatever is needed to get elected. You actually feel that he believes what he says and probably won’t change his mind once elected. (He doesn’t stand a chance.)

 

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video and Government Tagged With: , , ,

Web video best practices? – Salesforce.com chooses YouTube

February 6, 2011 by 2 Comments

Salesforce provides cloud-based CRM tools and is a global leader in web-based services.  With over 1500 videos it’s safe to say that Salesforce is fully committed to web video as a means of reaching their customers and driving new business. If the internet is important to your business the above Saleforce video case study will show you how web-based video can support your ongoing business objectives. Saleforce presented this video at a recent Google B2B Think conference.

The video shows why Saleforce has chosen YouTube to manage their video assets,  promote awareness and drive new leads to the company. Some highlights from the video:

- YouTube is now one of Salesforce’s most important online marketing tactics.
- Saleforce equates their YouTube effort to adding 46 sales reps.
- Interestingly, one of the reasons Saleforce chose YouTube as their video delivery platform was that it was one of the most trusted by users.
- They have seen much greater success with video SEO since using YouTube to host their video.
- They have also tested YouTube Display Ads, Promoted Videos and on video Calls to action.

Many businesses today are considering what is the best option for hosting their marketing video. Obviously Salesforce isn’t concerned about issues such as YouTube being blocked by some sites or the possibility of other videos being shown around your video if you happen to click through to the YouTube site itself.  Should they be?

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, Online Video Industry, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Video is becoming a critical information source for senior executives

January 25, 2011 by 1 Comment

Work-related videos are driving senior executives to take action.

Forbes Insights, in association with Google, surveyed more than 300 C-level and senior executives at large U.S. companies ($500 million-plus in annual revenues) to learn more about how they are approaching Web video as a source of business-related information. The results are both surprising and important for anyone who’s job it is to communicate with and influence senior executives in any sized company.

The graphic above (created by eMarketer) illustrates post video-viewing intent. Clearly video’s influence is growing and will only continue to grow in the coming years. The following is a summary of some of the findings of the Forbes/Google research:

1. In some cases executives prefer video to text. When asked “If video and text covering the same topic are on the same Web page, which would you watch first,” 59% chose video and 37% chose text.

2. The top 3 objectives when watching business-related YouTube videos are: 1. Testimonials (29%), 2. Product demonstrations (28%) and 3. Product reviews (29%).

3. Video is social. 54% of senior executives share work related videos with colleagues at least once a week.

4. “Longer” videos are preferred. Conventional wisdom (it is usually neither…) has it that 2 minutes is the “absolute limit” for business related video. When asked, 47% of executives preferred a length of 3-5 minutes, followed by 36% preferring 1-3 minutes and 9% preferring over five minutes.

5. Video causes executive to take action. Overall, 65% have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video. Younger executives, however, may be more fully engaged with this type of media, and appear more likely to make a purchase, call a vendor, or respond to an ad.

Forbes summarizes these trends well – “While the Web itself is in the midst of a video makeover, executives are transforming their habits to be more open to video—the non-text Web—as a highly reliable and trusted source for gathering and filtering business information.”

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, Video Statistics Tagged With: , , ,
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