Top 5 Best Practices for Successful Video Marketing

Understand your audience

Create a plan for your video that targets the viewer directly. How are they influenced? What are their needs? What do they value? All these considerations impact the tone and style of the video. The more you know about your audience the better... failure to do this may lead you to fall at the first crucial hurdle: relevance. A relevant video is an engaging one; great video marketing always provides value to the viewer in one way or another.

The best way to approach creating a video that is relevant to your viewer is to focus on them as an individual. Personalised video is tailored to each viewer; therefore, the consumer knows you are speaking to them on a 1-on-1 level, serving content that they either want or need. From addressing the viewer directly by their name, to provide valuable insights into their consumer behaviour. The value-offering is never questioned by the viewer with a personalised video… Furthermore, to really cement the effectiveness of personalised video, 93% of companies who use personalised video content experience an increase in conversion rates. (eConsultancy)

Make an impact in the first few seconds

The first few seconds are a crucial part of inciting and retaining viewer engagement in a successful marketing videoThe 21^st-century audience’s attention span is only getting shorter as we are getting more and more bombarded with social media content, especially short-form video with the sharp rise of TikTok. Wyzowl states that “our attention span has markedly decreased in just 15 years. In 2000, it was 12 seconds. Now, 15 years later, it’s shrunk significantly to 8.25 seconds…” putting some truth to the saying ‘attention span of a goldfish’, which at 9 seconds long, now surpasses ours! At VideoSmart we know that personalised video is the ultimate way to overcome the attention span challenge and grab the watcher’s attention – making sure to increase watch time and drive click-throughs through the roof. In fact, personalised videos have an 86% average click-through rate, compared with 34% in generic (non-personalised) videos.

Keep it short

Short-form content is on the rise, influenced by platforms such as TikTok and the new launch of YouTube Shorts in 2021 as a bid to keep up with video consumer trends. With our short attention span, streamlining your video is the only way to ensure that your message gets across. Industry analysts predict that in 2022 short-form video marketing will be more popular than ever, with over 70% of marketers using it.

If you can effectively communicate your key messages in a shorter amount of time, then the general rule is that the audience will find it easier to digest. HubSpot reported this year that “only the top 5% of video retain 77% of viewers on average till the last second.” So, you’d better get your message in when it counts!

Create a good quality product

It is important to create a professional-looking video using reputable resources. We believe in using industry-leading voiceover artists, video editors, animators, and scriptwriters to create a product of the highest quality. When every moment of your video matters, this can make all the difference for the end viewer; leading to an increase in = view time, social media shares, and action rates. This gets your customer to where you need them to be in their journey with you or your business, effortlessly.

With even the smallest of creators filming great quality video content and recording clear and engaging voiceovers on the likes of TikTok and Instagram just using their phone, marketeers in the B2B and B2C space have no excuse to skimp on quality. Recording a clear, professional voiceover is vital to creating an accessible video, tone is also a great tool for conveying the more subtle messaging of your video, and it goes without saying, that every video should provide subtitles. As many as 69% of people watch videos with the sound off when in public places.

Consider your delivery channels

Think strategically about the where, how, and why of the delivery of your video. The delivery of your video must be purposeful; it may very well be a key step in your customer’s journey. Will you embed your video into a branded landing page? Post it via social media? Host it on your App? Every step must be intuitive, for example, internally linking back to your core website via your video’s landing page can help promote your products and services, and even boost your website’s traffic. Want to progress them down the sales funnel naturally via your top-quality video? Get the most out of their engagement by using our interactive technology to build clickable call-to-action buttons linking to the next stage in the video itself.

Video mobile optimisation

Always optimise your video and its delivery channel for mobile, in 2021 55% of page views in came from mobile devices. It is important to cater to today’s on-the-go audience. Notably, mobile phones have a 59 % worldwide market share vs 38.65% for desktop computers. Failure to make mobile optimisation a priority can detract from the video you have used resources to produce as it can run the risk of not looking professional. This can have a detrimental effect on the time the user spends on video. Use Google’s mobile-friendly test to check if your website is optimized for mobile devices.

At VideoSmart, we can help your business to navigate video marketing in a way that effectively engages your audience and promotes your products and services. Our team of experts and industry-leading marketing technology stack will create the best personalised video product available. Contact us today at hello@videosmart.com for a no-commitment consultation on how to use video to drive results for your business.