Your Marketing Video Might Suck - Here's How To Make It Great

Ever wondered if your low budget marketing video isn’t all that great? It might even….suck? It’s possible. Just because you poured over it for weeks (or months) and included every conceivable relevant fact about your product does not mean that it’s going to actually support your marketing efforts. In fact, the wrong marketing video could do just the opposite.

So, what makes a marketing video truly effective? Well, you need a big black cauldron, eye of newt, half a lemon and a large helping of savvy. Just kidding! Well, except for the savvy. You really do need to know what you’re doing.

What Makes a Great Marketing Video?

We know video campaigns in marketing can be great, and in some cases, even revolutionary. You just have to look at everyone’s favorite marketing story – The Dollar Shave Club – to see the power a well-made video wields. These guys launched their now-successful company with a 93-second-long video, and had 12,000 orders within 2 days. Watch the video below – did it capture your attention? Did it make you want to continue watching? This is a fantastic example of a short-n-sweet marketing ad that grabbed the audience’s attention immediately and made them want to join the Dollar Shave Club subscription service. (While this video targets men, this subscription based service saves a ton on ladies’ razors too.)

Watch the video below – did it capture your attention? Did it make you want to continue watching? This is a fantastic example of a short-n-sweet marketing ad that grabbed the audience’s attention immediately and made them want to join the Dollar Shave Club subscription service. (While this video targets men, this subscription based service saves a ton on ladies’ razors too.)

TL;DR: Summary of Video Marketing Tips

Here are the summarized Video Marketing Tips from the article for those of you that prefer to skim:

Tell Your Audience Who You Are: Highlight your brand’s personality and offerings, making your message relatable and memorable.
Don’t Sell, Tell (Your Story): Utilize storytelling to present your brand’s journey and values, connecting with your audience on an emotional level.
Explain Yourself: Clearly articulate what your business is about and why it matters, avoiding jargon and focusing on the value you provide.
Appeal To Your Target Market: Tailor your video to resonate with the specific demographics interested in your brand, ensuring relevance and engagement.
Make It Snap Right From The Start: Capture your audience’s attention within the first few seconds to keep them watching.
Have A Clear Call To Action: Directly tell your viewers what you want them to do next, making your call to action unmistakable.
Get Found With Good SEO: Use Video SEO best practices to ensure your video is easily discoverable by your target audience.

Now, let’s get in depth.

Video Marketing Tip #1: Tell Your Audience Who You Are

First, your marketing video needs to tell your target consumers who you are as a brand (not as a person, people don’t necessarily care about your personal life unless you did something great or have a famous cat on Instagram). Your marketing video has to show off your brand’s personality, as well as highlight your products/services. Because there are probably thousands of competitors in your industry, in order to make customers choose you rather than them, you’ll need to give them more than just a great product. You need to appeal to them on a human level. You want them to relate to you and remember you, and you want your message to be real, honest, and to the point.

To be both relatable and memorable, you need to charismatic and real.

Video Marketing Tip #2: Don’t Sell, Tell (Your Story)

Your story will sell your product; you just have to tell it right. A good story has an introduction, a conflict, a climax and a resolution. Sit down and plan out how your story can attract your audience. Think about your brand’s beginnings, what you care about, how you make the world a better place to live. Don’t be afraid to experiment by telling different stories to different segments of your audience. Make sure your story stays succinct and on topic, and build a clear path to your conclusion (which is, presumably, a call to action of some kind. This will ensure that when you translate your story into a marketing video, it’s absolutely clear that getting involved with your brand or product is the solution to your audience’s problem.

Remember that it’s likely your audience wants to engage with brands that they truly connect with. They want to laugh; they want to feel like they have momentarily escaped the norm and are connecting to something that represents who they are. Understanding how your story best speaks to your audience will allow you to make stronger, deeper connections with them.

At VisualFizz, evoking an emotional response in audiences is the goal of everything we do for our marketing clients, both in the physical world and the digital world. Telling your story in a way that tugs at the heart strings (or the stomach strings, or the fear strings, or the) allows you to make meaningful connections with your audience.

Video Marketing Tip #3: Explain Yourself

One of the hardest tasks when defining a business: who you are and why should anyone care? A hurtful number of people are going to have no idea who you are or why they should give a damn about it, so it’s your job to tell them! Show your audience the tangible, concrete reasons why you are making the world a safer, easier, more productive, more fashionable, or just all around better place.

Thoroughly, but clearly, explaining your product or service can be tricky in itself. To start, open a blank document of your choice and write a brief mission statement. What do you provide? To whom do you provide it? What makes you unique? What value does this uniqueness bring to your audience? Avoid using the same buzzword-stuffed descriptions that are found on you or your competition’s business description pages.

For example, a not-great business description might be:

“VisualFizz is a synergistic full-service digital agency providing digital services to businesses everywhere. Work with us now!”

Instead, a better mission statement might be:

“VisualFizz is an experienced digital marketing agency that delivers memorable, lasting impressions to carefully selected audiences. Ready to create something unlike anything else?”

Once you’ve nailed down how you’ll explain your brand to your consumers and the value that your existence provides, include these points in your video transcript. Be honest, be clear, and be real – no one likes the feeling of their IQ dropping after reading/hearing nonsense marketing jargon.

Video Marketing Tip #4: Appeal To Your Target Market

Even if you make a bomb marketing video, it will be wildly unsuccessful if you target an audience who couldn’t care less about you or your product/service. To discover your target audience, identify the demographics of people who care about your mission and your product.

Visit the social media profiles of your competitors’ followers (easiest on Instagram + Twitter) to learn what matters to them the most, or research hashtags that are important to your brand and see what types of posts are associated with them. For example, a Yoga Mat company might discover that people who post using “yoga” also post with “health” or “fitness” or “wellness”.

Research public marketing data on your target age group or consumer type. There are countless ways to find statistics and data on just about any segment of the economy there is. Check out these resources, or head to Google and search “your product/service” + statistics + 2017 (you might have to do the previous year, depending on when you’re searching). Find out where your audience spends time online, what they care about, what devices they use, where they spend their money, what makes them who they are.

Learn your audience’s language and ways of speaking. Nothing will make you sound more ingenuine or off-target than using terminology or even slang that is not used by your target audience. You want your consumers to trust and associate with you, so you must ensure your message actually resonates with the people that are going to be buying your product.

Video Marketing Tip #5: Make It Snap Right From The Start

Generally, marketers have 5-10 seconds to capture a viewer’s attention before the person clicks away from the video ad. To encourage your viewers to continue learning about you until the end of the video, get straight to the point, grab their attention, and ignite their curiosity to see more. Make your audience laugh, inspire them, share useful information with them. Ask thought-provoking questions and use some creativity to convince your audience to continue to let you occupy their time.

Video ads are becoming more and more popular as mobile devices and native advertisement technologies continue to increase. Use your product video to show your audience only what will interest them. Don’t shout at them or use overly energetic antics. Show your audience how to use your product, or show them the results of joining your audience.

Learn more about how to hook your audience with your video content here.

Video Marketing Tip #6: Have A Clear Call To Action

Next, identify the precise action you want your audience to take after seeing your video. Popular calls to action include a prompt to place an order, send a content form, subscribe to an email list, or purchase your product in-store. Whatever action you’d like your audience to take, spell it out for your audience in black and white – tell them exactly what you’d like them to do. Build up excitement about your product/service during your video, then, when your audience relates and feels good about what your brand stands for, tell them exactly how to interact with you, where to find your product, or what to click in order to convert. Again, convey your unique value to the customer, and play up on the FOMO of going another minute without your product.

Video Marketing Tip #6: Get Found With Good SEO

Creating the perfect marketing video will only get you so far. Tag your video with meaningful tags, write clear and descriptive titles and descriptions, and follow SEO best practices to ensure your video is seen. Share on social media, and if your budget allows, promote your video with social media ads (social media ads can also be a great way to target extremely targeted, specific demographics based on a user’s social profile. Hosting your videos on your own domain is also critical for maximum SEO power. Link your video to other video playback landing pages and content. Iff you’re feeling extra fancy, add transcriptions where possible into the HTML of your video’s landing page. Lastly, make sure your social channels are clearly visible to the viewer at all times, and add share buttons to your landing pages to encourage others to share your content.

SEO bonus! Add A Transcript

Adding a video transcript the description of your video can support SEO goals for both your video and your brand. Make sure to include contextual keywords in this description / transcript as well. Learn more about Video SEO.