For many brands and marketers, video content stands as a sort of “holy grail” when it comes to managing a winning campaign. Standing as both a prized inclusion in a marketed message and a source of seemingly endless frustration, successfully chasing this offering often comes with a myriad amount of concerns and setbacks.However, generating great video content doesn’t have to follow this sometimes frightful and perilous path. With these five key tips in hand, your brand will be more than ready to take this challenge on and reap the rewards that come with a unique and engaging presence in the inbox.
Quality Is a Worthy Investment
When it comes to getting the most out of your video content, Karen J. Bannan of Advertising Age points out that placing an emphasis on quality is at the top of the list. While going down the budget route and skimping on editing and production values helps keep your bottom line protected in the short term, this approach is notorious for letting reach, impact, and – most importantly – conversion rates slip through the cracks.Think of it this way: If you opened up an email regarding a product or service that you were considering purchasing and it looked like someone slapped this offering together in a few minutes, how would you respond? Now put you audience in this position and it won’t take long to see that investing in professional services or the development of in-house capabilities can go a long way in terms of generating quality video content.
Incorporate Your Call to Action
Bannan goes on to suggest that this content should not only serve in a supporting role for your call to action (CTA), but also incorporate the CTA itself into the video. People naturally gravitate toward video content, so why not merge the two and use this willingness to watch to help spread your message? Otherwise, you not only miss out on the powerful one-two punch generated by this approach, but you’re also banking on the hope that readers with notoriously short attention spans will both click on your video and read the containing message as well.
Put Your Video Front and Center
As far as the placement of your video goes, it’s hard to go wrong with placing the video front and center within your message. Obviously you’ll still want to keep sizing and proportion considerations in mind – especially for any templates that respond to mobile devices via altered dimensions. However, the alternative of burying this valuable and impactful inclusion deep within your content is far from desirable or beneficial.
Keep Things Short and Sweet
Jumping back to the notion of audiences with short attention spans, Marketing Land’s Michael Litt suggests keeping things short and sweet as you develop and finalize this forthcoming video content. This doesn’t mean that you need to sacrifice quality or the core message of these offerings to stay on budget when it comes to time, but it doesn’t hurt to keep the specifics of optimal video length in mind as you lay out the framework for these selections.In terms of actual run-time, your best bet is to go with a video that is between 30 and 60 seconds long. Otherwise, you run the risk of boring or confusing the person on the other side of the screen.Litt does note that a key point worth mentioning here revolves around video content and its interaction with the phases of the “customer journey.” Essentially, consumers that are farther down this path or have a history with your company are more likely to consume longer content, so going over the 30 to 60 second range is okay if you’re dealing with a segment of experienced viewers.
Consider the GIF approach
The final piece of advice offered up by Litt tosses around the idea of skipping traditional video formats entirely. As crazy as this sounds initially, there’s actually a slew of benefits that come with saying goodbye to standard video content and converting these selections to the graphics interchange format (GIF.)By going the GIF route, you can transform shorter content into more digestible snippets, all while reducing bandwidth and load time issues for your audience. Naturally, you’ll want to steer clear of this choice for longer offerings, but it’s an idea that’s at least worth considering if your content falls on the shorter end of the scale.As you can see, making great video content does come with a significant investment of time and effort if you’re looking to do things the right way. However, with these tips in hand, your brand is now well on its way to building a powerful – and profitable – visual bond with contact list members from all walks of life.
