Drum roll, please… and the Academy Award for Best Business Video goes to Acme Corporation for their new Turbo Widget product. We’re not quite sure what a Turbo Widget is (or does), but the video certainly looks good. It’s a good thing their friends and family watched the video, because their prospects, customers, and business partners certainly didn’t. And if those people didn’t see it, then they certainly didn’t turn that video into a business transaction. But at least it looked good. Damn good, in fact.
Seen this before? Are you guilty? We all are. Fortunately things are changing for the better and video marketing is leading that charge. However, like so many other viable market opportunities, charlatans and alchemists quickly look to fill the void. (“We’ll make your video viral with video marketing.”) I’m amazed at how much “video marketing” chatter there is out there, but I haven’t heard about what video marketing actually is. Enough is enough, so let’s define it because it matters to your business strategy, your marketing initiatives, and your return on video investment.
Video marketing is:
Getting the right video in front of the right audience to trigger the right action.
Simple? Yes. Powerful? Yes. Effective? Only if you link all three (video, audience, action) together. When you link these components, you get positive and measurable results. When you don’t, you’ve created anawareness campaign, a term used by marketers to describe an initiative that resulted in no business action. It was acceptable ten years ago, but not in today’s highly-competitive business climate.
Though we’ll be exploring each of the theses “rights” in greater detail over the coming months, it makes sense to look at each briefly now.
Right Video. A great video is on message and delivers a clear and compelling point. The right video sticks. If there’s an on-screen speaker, it’s someone the audience can relate to. If there is animation or motion graphics, it amplifies the value proposition rather than detracts or distracts from it. Video marketing uses the right video content, which doesn’t necessary mean over-done and expensive production.
Right Audience. These are the people who will use the video as part of an informed decision. The audience can either be consumers or businesses, but they have to see the video. We’ve already stated that the right video sticks, but it only sticks with the right target audience. The new world of online video allows for much more precise and economical targeting, but it requires both strategic planning and metrics-based tactical execution. Video marketing is about getting the video seen by the people who care.
Right Action. Don’t make people think too hard; they have enough on their minds. There’s a simple question from the target audience that so many marketers just don’t answer: “What do you want me to do?” Unlike other types of media, video makes the audience far more likely to do something. (Read: take action.) If the video is on YouTube, give the audience a link back to a website where they can get more information, communicate with someone, or place an order. The action you want them to take must be aligned with the video, but it must also be natural to audience, otherwise they’ll walk away. Video marketing incorporates video seamlessly into the transaction path.
Video marketing is about getting the right video in front of right audience to trigger the right action. Unless you take this approach, your video may well be a bust, Academy Award or not.