Manufacturing marketers have embraced video over the past few years. Eighty percent say they use pre-produced video for content marketing purposes, and 52 percent say video is one of their top three most effective content types. (2018 Manufacturing Content Marketing: 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America.)
Whether you’ve been using video for some time or are just getting started, here are some useful tips to help ensure that video is a successful component of your marketing mix.
General Video Guidelines
- Before producing any video, make sure you define the message you want to convey. Your video should have a single, focused message. There’s no time to ramble and meander.
- Make videos snappy and short, usually two minutes or less. A lot of B2B companies are keeping their videos to about one minute in length. These time constraints, rather than being limiting, offer lots of opportunity for creativity. Short videos work well on social media channels and on mobile devices. Video offers a good format to be entertaining and memorable. Give your brand a little personality.
- Tap into the emotions of your viewer, not just the rational and logical side. Research from the Harvard Business Review reports that emotional motivators such as a sense of belonging, feeling secure, succeeding in life, and feeling confident can drive customer behavior. Video—as opposed to a white paper or data sheet, for instance— is a great medium for creating that emotional connection.
- Consider adding captions to your video for viewers who play it without sound. If you embed the video on a web page, include a written script below the frame, which gives you an opportunity to use relevant keywords on the page.
Video Subject Matter
- Humanize and showcase your staff and your brand story. Keep the tone casual and light. Show the people behind your products.
- Let your customers do the talking. Solicit brief testimonials from satisfied customers. They can talk about your products, of course, but also service, support, or even an anecdote about an interaction with your company.
- Use videos to explain technical or complex concepts in a visual way.
- Create product demos or walkthroughs. Show the product in action. Use a host or narrator to add interest—don’t just show “things.”
- Produce videos at industry events to help keep your audience up to date about what’s going on. Find a thought leader and ask them a few questions. Have your “reporter” on the scene do a quick recap of the day’s events.
Video Metrics
- View Count—this is the umbrella metric that reveals how many people began watching your video. Note the word ‘began.’ It doesn’t mean the viewer finished watching. View count is a measure of reach and initial interest. Factors that affect this metric include what channels you use to distribute the video, where it’s placed on a page, the copy surrounding and promoting it, even the image you’ve chosen for the video thumbnail.
- Engagement—can be measured by tracking the amount of time a viewer spends watching your video. If you have a high drop-off rate, it means you’re losing your viewer’s attention, most likely to a lack of relevance. If you find a lot of viewers are leaving your video around the same spot, it means you have a boring part. Fix it.
- Click-through—measures the effectiveness of your call to action. Often placed at the end of the video, a call to action asks your viewer to take the next step, such as watching another video, downloading a piece of content, registering for an event or more. You also can experiment with placing a call to action somewhere in the middle of the video.
- Sharing—including share buttons on social media or web pages gives you a sense of relevancy and engagement. If your video is shared, it’s got something special going for it.
The use of video for content marketing purposes is likely to continue growing in the industrial sector. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll likely see greater success with your video efforts.