Video has slowly emerged as a dominant tool for digital marketers, with over 54% consumers stating they’d like to see more videos from brands they follow, and 87% of marketers now relying heavily on the same. While crafting your digital marketing plan, it is essential, therefore, to include video in your strategy to boost consumer engagement and brand affinity.
Having said that, it is equally essential to refrain from putting up videos for the sake of doing so. Repurposing old TVCs or company videos will hardly strike a chord with audiences that are now accustomed to valuable content that not only entertains them, but also informs them. So, keep the following in mind while creating video content for engagement:
Offer value first, brand later!
Continually stuffing each frame of your video with products or brand merchandise won’t get you very far. Ultimately, a viewer watches a video to get something out of it, rather than for the sake of understanding more about a brand. So, offer something they’ll find valuable before reminding them about your product. For instance, if your brand sells cleaning product, create relatable videos that show scenarios where your product shines – perhaps it’s a man washing his shirt after a woman throws a drink at him! Your aim must be to make the viewer have an emotional reaction.
Stay consistent with your tone!
If you cater to middle-aged Indian men, the last thing you need to sound like is a teenaged girl! Your brand’s voice sets the tone for all your communication, and this needs to stay consistent even when you’re venturing into a relatively young medium like videos. Your brand’s ideology must be evident in each video to establish a strong connection with audiences that subscribe to similar viewpoints, every time they watch your content.
Create a meaningful series!
While creating a video strategy, think about the kinds of series you can come up with and, most importantly, whether those series allow for sustainable ideation. If you cannot think of more than 2-3 ideas for a particular series, scrap that and move on. Additionally, it’s also important to make sure a single video makes complete sense when viewed on its own. This is to ensure that a consumer that stumbles upon a video still gets some value out of it, without having to watch the entire series.
Stick to a regular schedule!
Consistency trumps one-time viral hits (which are, in any case, quite rare). To truly keep your audience engaged with your brand, create a regular upload schedule and stick to it religiously. Your audience will come to expect communication on certain days and if you’re offering good content, they’ll also look forward to it.
With YouTube being the second most-used search engine (following Google itself), video content can prove to be a highly effective marketing tool for your brand, especially if you focus on answering consumer queries rather than just self-promotion.
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