Invodo predicts that by 2017 74 per cent of internet traffic will originate from video consumption. On trend, video is replacing the top area of websites traditionally reserved for headlines. Video is bringing storytelling back to the web with entertainment value and visual interest.
It is easier to stream and produce video than it used to be, and it’s mobile friendly. This includes the next evolution of infographics – a moving infographic in the form of online video.
As video trends keep rolling, marketers must incorporate video as part of their online strategy to engage mobile users. Video, just like email, websites, and brochures; is a vehicle for content.
Below are seven best practices for understanding and satisfying your audience’s video cravings for mobile engagement:
1. Test your content
Discovering your audience’s desire for video begins with testing. Distribute variations of video content to learn how your audience responds to them. Request and address feedback from customers. Test content for length, style, distribution channel and messaging.
2. Decide on your outcome
When considering video as a content vehicle, you must understand what kind of outcome will most benefit your business. Videos can build brand awareness, drive sales; and increase web traffic. Video can help customers navigate through the sales funnel with ease. Tailor content, style, and calls-to-action to line up with the outcome you want from your video.
3. Consider a content strategy
Whether you are incorporating video into your social media channels, or embedding it into email and websites, your video requires strategic placement. Things to consider:
• How does your video support other content, such as whitepapers, presentations, contests, and events? Can video bring existing content, such as a whitepaper, to life?
• Can your video be used as part of a lead generation campaign?
• It’s generally best to keep your video under three minutes. If your content warrants more than three minutes, release a series of videos.
• Audio quality matters even more than video quality. Make sure voices are easily heard and understood. Consider localising your content if your audience speaks multiple languages.
• Avoid the ‘talking head’ – if your video is comprised of interviews, consider using the narrator as a voice-over or breaking up the interview(s) with visuals, and graphics.
4. Where to host your videos
Once your video is created, where do you put it for optimal viewing and engagement? YouTube is the most popular site to house videos. Since YouTube is the second largest search engine (behind Google, which owns YouTube), hosting video on the site means your content can be easily found when it’s paired with SEO friendly headlines and descriptions.
If mobile customers are key to your business, YouTube may just be one part of your hosting solution. While YouTube videos perform well on mobile devices, some functionality, such as annotations, may be lost, making it harder to drive traffic from YouTube back to your website. It may make sense to house your video content on a mobile optimised web page within your site – in addition to your YouTube channel.
Vimeo is a popular alternative or complement to YouTube. While YouTube is free, it is also ad-supported, which means there is competition for your customer’s attention. Vimeo charges a small fee, and is ad-free.
5. Include a call-to-action
Despite the many advantages of video for content marketing, some marketers don’t get the engagement they need. One small but powerful change that improves the effectiveness of most videos is to add or improve the call-to-action. Your video is telling your story and a call-to-action helps the viewer move through the sales funnel.
6. Promote your video
You aren’t doing your content justice if you don’t promote it once it’s posted. This is an opportunity to use social media, email, and paid search to share the video and to lead your audience to your content. We recommend a 60/40 rule – spend 60 per cent of your budget promoting the content, and 40 per cent creating it.
7. Analyse your engagement
While building your content strategy, measuring impact is just as important as testing. Typical metrics include views, shares, and comments. Effective marketers will evaluate site traffic driven by the video, uplift on sales, and impact on other social conversations. Measure the audience reactions that affect your business and ignore the rest. Prioritise measuring the action that you want taken, above all else. Views are meaningless if they don’t result in action.
In recent years, top brands have gone from housing just a few dozen YouTube videos to as many as 10,000 videos in a single year. The best performing videos are those that are part of a comprehensive strategy that prioritises the content needs of the customer. The challenge most marketers face when deploying video content is not the effort to get it produced and edited; it’s the critical step of understanding the audience, where they consume content, and what they need to see. It’s hard to create good content that works. Analyse and test to fine tune your video marketing approach.