Video is one of the most versatile and valuable tools that modern marketers can have in their box of tricks. It enables you to craft a message that you’re happy with and enables that message told the way you want to tell it, consistently and to everyone. It’s the ultimate flexible communication tool: you create it once and publish it everywhere; your website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, presentations… you get the picture.
The point of a good video is to show your clients and prospective clients what your additional copy tells them. Traditionally, if someone lands on your site, they’re faced with a pretty straightforward option – navigate and read – but this takes time and mental effort. Most people are lazy. I’m lazy. I bet you’re even lazy (sometimes).
I bet even reading this is exhausting for you. You’re having to move your eyes relentlessly from left to right over and over again because I was too selfish to do this as a video interview you could just watch… probably on your smartphone… whilst riding a horse. If I had, this would be over by now and you’d know how it ends. Which is my point entirely: video is an easy, accessible and engaging medium to help you tell your story – quickly.
However, a lot of companies are still frightened of video, but this, more often than not, is because they get too bogged down in the tech behind it. Instead they should be focusing on the content and the quality. Take Vine for example – it’s effectively a punch-line format that’s instantly gratifying and shareable that people have used brilliantly to target audiences that love to tweet. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for you. You shouldn’t build your ideas around a tool or a trend. Instead, you should build your ideas around, well, your ideas! Use those trends as vehicles to get your ideas out there, but only if they’re relevant to you target audience. Let them work for you, not the other way around.
Here’s some of my do’s and don’ts when it comes to using video on your website:
Do put it front and centre so people landing on your site can access it quickly and easily.
Do keep it short. “You can find out everything you need to know about us in 60 seconds here or 11 and a half minutes here, because we assume you have that kind of time.” Which would you pick?
Do keep it simple. I always assume most clients want to know three things about a business. Firstly, can they do what we need them to? Secondly, can they do it at a price we consider good value? And thirdly, even if the answer to both of those questions is yes, do we want these guys to be the ones we work with? Think of your videos as ‘headlines’ providing people with core takeaways that encourage them to explore further.
Don’t use video as just another format to provide existing information that can be found elsewhere on your site. It’s a visual medium, use it to show, not just to tell.
Don’t use video content to explain complexity, packing it with too many facts, figures and statistics. “60% of the time, 90% of the people I didn’t ask found videos that did this 70% less memorably”.
Don’t cover too much ground. You’re better off with three 60 second videos on different areas of your business or services than one 3+ minutes video covering everything. Some of the content may not be relevant to everyone.
It’s also important to note that with flash effectively dead as an online video format, make sure you create your video in the highest resolution format your budget will allow. With a high quality, preferably HD source, your production company will be able to deliver in pretty much any encoded format for any channel now and in the near future.
Currently the two main options for streaming video on your website are to either host it on your own site, or create a space to ‘pull in’ a video from an existing channel such as Vimeo or YouTube. The latter is often the most direct and easy route to go down as you can ‘publish’ it once and direct it anywhere. It’s also easy to update and, of course, provides the opportunity to be discovered outside of your own site.
Finally… Increasingly, a prospect’s first experience of a new brand or business is a video experience. So, dear reader, why, why, why would you not want that video to bear all the hallmarks of quality, clarity, professionalism and charm that you strive to deliver elsewhere? Even if you have a small budget, compromise on complexity not quality. It’s fine to do something simple. Just make sure to do it very well.
Rob Crombie, head of video at Sneak
Originally posted October 21 M&M Global