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So you want to use more video in your marketing but there’s something stopping you. There are some recurring themes when you ask this question.
Thanks to the team at DigitalDNA for the opporunity to contribute this video marketing article to their blog on the Digital DNA website.
Over the last number of months as I’ve spoken to more and more people about video marketing it’s become apparent that there are a lot of people currently living in a place where they’d like to do more with video but they just can’t get started.
Every time they open their social media accounts it’s all they see. Any time they’re catching up on the latest marketing trends there it is again – video, video, video.
But there’s something in the way. What is it that is stopping people doing more with video and making it central to their marketing efforts?
Over the course of the several hundred conversations I’ve had on this subject recently there are some recurring themes when we get to the ‘what’s stopping you?’ question.
“I’d like to be confident enough to make my own videos.”
The first issue seems to be confidence to take the leap and get started – with making your own video content as the natural first step.
This lack of confidence comes from a lack of experience in video production and the fact that it’s a leap into the unknown.
Although most of us walk around with a video camera in our pocket for most of the time we’re awake shooting occasional footage, we never have to think about the shot that we’re getting.
It’s most often a friend or child or pet doing something cute or stupid. Filming a performance as a keepsake whether it be at a school or live music event.
This doesn’t prepare us for the move into video marketing as it involves reactive filming of random events.
Successful video marketing requires a planned approach to creating the type of content that will help us to achieve our overall objectives.
So how do we fix this?
Ironically, the first step in gaining the confidence to embrace video marketing is to put the video camera back in your pocket and have a think about the type of video that you’d like to create.
This leads us into the second common reason that people give for not doing more video marketing…
“I’m not creative enough.”
In my experience working with and for marketing professionals over the last 20 years this is just not the case – so why do people think like this when it comes to video marketing?
The creativity needed for success with video marketing exists across all the people, sectors and businesses that I have encountered – there just needs to be a process that helps to unlock it.
The definition of creativity is “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something”. This is what marketing teams are doing up and down the country every single day. So there is no reason why this creativity can’t be applied effectively to your video marketing efforts.
Unlocking the creativity you need for successful video marketing is very simple – and it’s all about connecting the video that we make to our overall business objectives. Once we understand this we can then start thinking specifically about the kind of video that we need to create.
What are the key hooks that we can use to grab the attention of our target audience?
Then it’s just about getting the script right and understanding the best footage that will help to support the message that we’re trying to get across.
The third recurring question when it comes to video marketing is…
“How do I make my video stand out?”
We’ve all seen the scary video statistics intended to give us the kick we need to start doing more video marketing.
The problem is all this information just makes us wonder how we’re ever going to be able to produce video content that stands out.
72 hours of new video are added to Youtube every hour – WOW!
These statistics are a distraction and a barrier to action.
What we need to focus on is not how many other people are producing video content, or how many new videos are being added to Facebook every day – but rather go back to basics and ask the question ‘what is the size of my potential audience and how can I make sure I reach them in the right place, at the right time and with the right message?’.
A recalibration is needed in relation to what we expect from our video marketing efforts.
How many people have you heard say that they’d love to make a viral video – despite the fact that they’re in the very early stages of their video efforts.
I’d love to build a social network with over 2 billion monthly active users – but the reality is that if I was starting off there would probably be a few smaller objectives that I’d set myself first.
The desire to create a viral video is an unhelpful ambition for anyone thinking about doing more video marketing – firstly because it’s big enough to scare you into doing nothing and secondly because it focuses on the video itself as the end rather than on the results you’d like to achieve that will prove that video can work for your business.
Instead of asking “How do i make my video stand out?” we should be asking “How do I make my video stand out for my audience, in my sector?”
This refocuses us on current priorities whether they be new customer acquisition, new product or service promotion, lead generation or event registration to name a few.
It makes it a lot easier to see what we need to do in order to be successful with our video marketing efforts – understand our customer’s pain points and relate how our product, service or event can take the pain away.
Another great thing about video is that with our audience’s attention spans being very short the focus needs to be very clear when it comes to what we’re selling and how well we understand the problem, our solution and our point of difference.
From this perspective video marketing provides a very good foundation for refining and refreshing all of our marketing efforts.
The next barrier to video marketing relates to the process involved in creating your video content…
“I’d like to get a solid workflow in place.”
Put very simply there are 5 stages to your video marketing workflow:
1 – The Idea: what are we trying to achieve and how can video help? What sort of video do we need?
2 – The Filming: writing your script, detailing your video storyboard and shooting your video.
3 – The Editing: putting the final product together.
4 – The Audience: who is it for? Where will they watch it? When will they watch it? How will we get it in front of them?
5 – The Conversion: What do we want them to do next? Where are we sending them? What does the customer journey look like? What are the metrics?
And finally, at the end of the process one barrier still remains…
“I don’t have time.”
You’re busy. I get it.
I’ve been that soldier with websites and events and case studies and email marketing and sales support and product marketing and everything else going on.
The time you’ll need to make this work can be reduced by creating your video marketing process to fit around all of the other priorities you have.
Create the time to host your first idea generation session and you’ll notice a lot of new video ideas come to the fore – which in itself acts as a spur to get the rest of the process in place in a way that allows you to deliver your exciting new content.
While you may not have time – you need to make time.
Video is how a large part of how your audience wants to consume content.
We can deliver on this requirement – or we can lose exposure to the very audience that we need in order to sell more.
If there’s something else stopping you when it comes you using more video in your marketin efforts then I’d love to hear about it. Find me on Twitter @blueskyvideoguy.
I’m also on Facebook and Linkedin.
