Step 1 – Discovery: Why Video Blogging Is A Vital Sign
There is obvious influence in show and tell. The real question remains, can content-only posts do both? Enter: the video blog. An all-encompassing media with impactful speech, visuals and nonverbal cues, which writing alone can’t punch.
The video blog is designed to give its viewers a glimpse of who a company is, what the flavors of its products or services are and why it matters to them. Answering the age-old marketing question of every hard-pressed site visitor, “What’s in it for me?”
First, what’s in it for the enterprise?
The case for nonprofit video included, it’s a known fact that companies benefit from money. Google Analytics, in turn, shares a little metric for the average session duration users spend, linking the more time spent to benefits like enhanced engagement, interest, brand loyalty, trust and, yes, sales. Comprehensive Media, reveals staggering insights on how video blogs win big with ten times the response rate and upwards of five percent more time spent on sites with video when compared to those with only content.
Excitement builds with a staggering 85 percent more users likely to buy (hello, ROI), topped with a 75 percent chance they’ll choose to watch a video over reading print. The same reason, perhaps, Netflix racks up 11 billion visitor hours each month (read: that’s a lot of How I Met Your Mother). What’s more, many ages 18 to 34 choose to view video content from mobile apps. A global phenomenon which began little more than a year ago, when mobile devices were predicted to become the main platform for viewing online video. All compared to the once-common pastime of traditional publishing, which has seen dramatic declines in sales as its competitor in the film industry balloons with multibillion dollar revenue.
Does this mean content is less important?
Absolutely not. Content drives between 80 and 90 percent of B2B marketing and is on the front lines of campaigns. Instead, the age of video blogging is a product of the modern day bombardment of technology. The ever-increasing digital world leaves businesses – and the individuals who run them – hungry for the human touch.
Truth or myth: Video is just the gravy?
It is said the human brain on some deep level cannot differentiate between what is seen and what is experienced (i.e., movie fiction vs. reality). This is why viewers cry in dramas or tense up in horror films, emotionally responding to the visual stimuli as if it were an actual heartache or threat. The biological mind is hardwired to attach immediate perception to the information it’s fed as an act of survival. Hello, marketing strategy. Because if this is true, the movie and video blog world interacts with its viewers on an experiential level, perceived by them as real-time interpersonal exchange. Companies, in sum, have an in into the minds and hearts of viewers.
In sum, video is not just the gravy. Content is not just the meat. Both mixed together are part of a healthy enterprise fitness and diet. Next step: how to present a video blog to expand influence, reach and sales.
Step 2 – Take Step One: Devise A Plan Of Action
The first step in mastering the power of the video blog is to decipher. Identify the concepts most important to the business at stake. Most importantly, pinpoint what exactly the viewer wants to hear or has time for.
Rather than complex strategy, combat the noise by starting simple. The following video from Wistia captures what it means to find relevance and market a business subliminally by actually playing to what the viewer believes is important to their business. For B2B, or business-to-business strategy, choose a topic relevant to the audience at hand:
It’s a consumer’s world. Gone are the days of brand-centric media, and hello are the treasures for those who jump ship. What? Literally. Companies need to get outside their own walls if they want to see success with key targets. The same reason why companies like Sparksight with objective, deliverable insights and outsider go-to-market strategies become irrevocably necessary to business success.
Video site Variety published an article on the consumer-driven era and its demand to be continually entertained. “It’s been (more than) 128 years since Thomas Edison first helped usher in theatrical exhibition…cinema has…dazzled crowds.” Fast forward to 2017: the unstoppable climb in technology. Today’s modern era has led consumers to catch wind of one truth: they are where the money’s at.
It’s no longer a chase-after-technology world. Consumers house entire cinemas in their back pockets. Rather than track down the next box office hit, they download videos on demand.
What does a video blog have to do with the enterprise?
Everything.
The rise in technology has overflowed to the nation, the world and even outside the planet. For businesses, the constant stream of information raises the urgency to beat competitors. Attention-grabbing video, authentic storytelling, and factual evidence let your brand stand a chance amidst the noise to ensure its audience will be wooed. More than wooed, come back. Better yet, track in their friends, other businesses, like ants to a bundt cake.
Step 3 – Creation: Impact Your Audience
In a world of overconsumption, viewers need calls to action. In other words, they seek direction from a business and want to know as quickly as possible, “Why do I need this?” A company has an average of seconds to minutes before viewers’ attention runs out. It’s important to forget optimal lengths designed to keep visitors on any given site. Instead, maintain one single rule of thumb:
How short should a video be? Answer: as short as possible.
A video’s job is simply to alert viewers of who the business is, how they should interact with it, what the purpose of the post is, and where to take the information given (this is called a call to action) and – most importantly – why. (Hint: the answer is always: “because ____ will benefit your business by ____(insert carefully, yet succinctly drawn out points).) Once complete, a company should check a video’s vitals.
Vitals:
- Does the vlog (video blog) answer the age-old question, “What’s in it for me?”
- On the same plane, does it address the specific consumer or business profile?
- Is there captivating imagery?
- Is it all about the business who launched it, or are some posts to benefit the viewer at hand?
- Are metrics in play to track the number of views for future success?
- Was big marketing data employed to design the video with business demographics, paint points and needs in mind?
Once all systems are go, a well-crafted video blog stands out among a very large crowd. Billions of viewers, to be exact. In the nearly infinite sum of what the world has deemed the Cloud.
Sparksight. Ignite Your Vision.™
