Building Brand Awareness in 2025
Increasing brand awareness is a top goal for B2B companies in 2025. But what is a brand? And how can you evolve it to meet your changing company...
5 min read
Katie Steelman Fri, Mar 07, 2014
There’s no denying that the growth of online video has become a major marketing consideration in the past few years. In December 2013, 188.2 million people in the U.S. watched 52.4 billion online content videos (comScore), and the number of online video users is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2016 (Cisco). More than half of executives look for more information after seeing a product or service in a video (Forbes), and 57 percent of consumers say that product videos make them more confident in a purchase (MediaPost).
Part of video’s appeal is its ability to tell a good story and to evoke emotion. Think about how you feel watching those adorable Cheerios ads, or the heartwarming Apple and Kohls commercials from this holiday season (darn those onions, am I right?). Many times a video can express something that words can’t. In fact, the information retained for one minute of online video is equal to that of 1.8 million written words, or about 3,600 web pages (Forrester via Video Brewery).
Other times, video is a practical choice. Tutorial videos, for example, can help explain a difficult concept or product application. During the planning for the optics summer camp for inner city high school students, we watched a dozen engineers gather around a brief YouTube video explaining an optical design concept. It's a proven resource for this audience, as it conveys complex technical information in a more lucid, visual way.
There are many types of videos you can make besides the sentimental brand story and the pragmatic how-to. Here are some other options:
Consider your end goals when deciding what kind of video to make. Are you trying to recruit new talent? Position your company as a thought leader? Help customers understand a new product? The format and content of your video should reflect what you ultimately want it to achieve.
Many factors contribute to video’s effectiveness, but in general, a good video is:
Videos should be pertinent to your target audience’s needs and interests as well as timely. Most often, timeliness will simply mean promoting your own product releases and events as they happen, but sometimes you might be able to tie your video into new industry developments or other current events. ASE Optics, for example, made a video in 2011 about their products for vibration control technology. In the video, they mentioned how this technology was used in aerial imaging to survey the 2010 Haiti earthquake damage. In this case, ASE cited an event still fresh in people’s minds and showed how their products were able to help in a difficult situation. Other companies, however, have gotten into trouble for inappropriate “newsjacking,” so if you’re going to reference current events in a business video, be sure to do it tactfully.
While timely videos are more likely to be watched initially, the best videos stay relevant well past their initial post date. For example, the Google+ Hangout we hosted with one of our clients was a live event, but the resulting video remains a valuable source of information and continues to gain views on YouTube.
Good videos can do more than live on YouTube or Vimeo, however. Make the most out of your videos by promoting and leveraging them across multiple channels. Consider including video in:
Even time-sensitive videos can be repurposed. For example, we recently re-promoted our client’s recap video of the 2013 APS March Meeting in lead-up to this year’s show.
Getting ready for APS March Meeting 2014? Watch our highlights video from last year's conference: http://t.co/kQpfBCkDev
— LakeShoreCryotronics (@LakeShoreCryo) February 21, 2014
A messy backdrop or excess ambient noise can distract viewers from even the best story. That’s why adequate preparation and careful staging are crucial to making a good video. Here are some pointers we learned while working with Diffinity Genomics on their RapidTip for PCR Purification demonstration video:
We had similar staging concerns when preparing for a Google+ Hangout with one of our clients. Check out the lessons learned from that experience in this post.
At the end of the day, what you really want your content to do is make people act on what they saw. Often this means driving them to your website, but it could also mean signing up for a webinar or downloading a whitepaper. Each of your videos should have a clear call to action, whether it’s in the video itself, in the YouTube description, or next to it on a webpage (preferably all of the above). Video platforms such as Wistia and Vidyard allow you to create custom CTAs and forms to include right on the video screen [Bonus: They can both be integrated with HubSpot!]
With the right preparation and clear goals in mind, you can create intriguing videos that get results. To learn more about creating video and other content as part of your marketing strategy, give us a call.
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