The Rules Of Effective Video Content

Video content is here to stay. People love to watch it, to share it and to engage with it. The stats prove it: Good video content makes better leads and give great results. BUT, not every video will work and give you the ROI you are looking for. Today's digital arena is flooded with content. We call it content chaos.
Within this anarchy of trends and ever-changing formats, some guidelines appear to be relevant across the board.
Here are three “do’s” and one important “don’t” to keep in mind as you’re planning your video content strategy.

1. Do make your video content part of your content strategy.
A video can have an effect alone but it works much better when it’s part of an overall strategy guiding leads through the customer journey. The characters in the video should match the audience’s persona and speak in their voice. The actions they see on the screen should dramatize the messages contained in the campaign. The story the video shows should be one chapter in the ongoing narrative of the content strategy so that viewers aren’t just engaged by the video they’re watching, they’re also motivated to participate in the rest of the campaign.

2. Do engage by addressing your audience’s real concerns.

AllState’s Mayhem videos didn’t just tell people they need insurance. They engaged their audience by showing them why they need insurance using examples any viewer could recognize.  The company had been using 61-year-old actor Dennis Haysbert in commercials that were aimed at older customers and which broadcast a message of security and reliability. Talking to younger customers, though, revealed that they were looking for cheap solutions.

“Mr. Mayhem” used a younger actor, personalized the risks that potential young customers usually prefer to ignore and moved the conversation from price to value. Because it showed, rather than explained, its audience’s concerns, and because it did in a way that appealed to that audience, the video content worked. Within a year, Mayhem was the third most-recognized character in insurance, behind the Geico gecko and Flo from Progressive Insurance.
Good video content shouldn’t just inform; it should engage and appeal through emotion as well as reason.

3. Do know your format.
When viewers are used to fast forwarding through commercials, video content has to match the format on which it’s being viewed. Videos on social media need to grab attention in the initial seconds and communicate the message within 30 seconds before users click away. Videos placed on corporate websites or on other distribution channels where visitors are actively looking for information can last longer but still have to entertain, engage and inform.

The videos that Bank of America posts to its Facebook page, for example, are typically less than a minute long; the shortest is just five seconds. On the bank’s YouTube channel, a video aimed at parents of teenagers lasts nearly eight minutes. That’s also the length of many of the videos on BetterMoneyHabits.com, a site on which the bank offers a series of training films that together provide a complete course on home financial management.

By matching the format of the video content to the needs of the customer identified in part based on where and how they’re engaging with the company, the bank is able to speak to the customer and maintain their interest.

4. Don’t do too much.
While Bank of America has created different videos to match the audience, a look through the Facebook videos of Lloyds Bank reveals the brand’s own learning process.  In 2013, the bank tried to explain mortgages using a direct narrative in a video that lasted six-and-a-half minutes. The video received just two likes.

The bank had tried to pack too much information into one video, in a format that didn’t suit the audience and with content that wasn’t engaging. More recent videos have generally remained below 90 seconds, stick to a single message and often win six-figure views.

Rules are always made to be broken but the new rules of video content have been based on and are dictated by user behavior. Unlike television, video content shows immediately what works and with which audience.

Click here and get your FREE copy of ASTELO's practical guide:
"101 Content Marketing - The New Face of Digital Marketing".