Topic:
HubSpot,
Sales Tips
(4 Minute Read)
How to make a video for your business that actually works... Unfortunately, there's not a secret formula. If you're reading this blog, you've probably created a video for your business before. Did it receive the applause and recognition it deserved? Or did it (more likely) take a lot of time and budget, and end up being somewhat of a flop online?
The latter was the unpicking of Sunjay’s talk at Digital Gaggle November 2018, as he was both animated and exasperated at the typical failures of videos for businesses…which is normally the result of poor audience-understanding, or a ludicrous desire to “go viral”. You can understand why Sunjay and his team at Life Media UK have the mantra “Film with Thought”!
Here’s a quick summary of Sunjay’s tips on how to make a video for your business that actually works for sales and marketing:
First and foremost, you need to look at your sales funnel and brainstorm some ideas to fit within this. How can you nurture visitors to leads, and leads to customers, using video? It’s not just about awareness, but it’s about truly understanding your audience and knowing how to encourage them to take the next step.
Here’s a quick 1 minute overview from Sunjay, and a neat little sales equation:
(Dissatisfaction x vision) + first steps > resistance to change
Simply put: Highlight your visitor’s pain points/problems, make them desire change, then tell them how you’ll get there!
Seeing a viral video is inspiring. Having a viral video is awesome. Yet there is no magic formula behind going viral (see Tiff Maddox’ talk from 2017!) and many businesses feel like they need to do something out-of-the-ordinary to achieve success.
Yet the truth is, you should only do things you’re comfortable doing in real life. So put that lycra away and stop practicing your YMCA dance routine, and strip it back to the basics. Go and speak to your best salesperson and think about why they are successful. Do they educate, or add value in answering difficult questions? A video around this would be both representative of your brand, and useful to your audience.
It may sound simple, but really understanding the point behind your business video is key. Your objective could be (1) brand awareness (2) generating leads (3) education (4) stopping the scroll (5) pushing another piece of content or (6) attracting talent. Try not over complicate things though. Choose one, and stick with it!
Your video’s key objective will dictate the content, length, distribution, and how much money you should spend on video.
Your visitor has watched your video. Wonderful. Now what?
Adding a Call to Action (CTA) at the end of your video is vital in telling your audience what you want them to do next! For example, you could ask them to subscribe to your newsletter or tell them where to buy your product, or remind them when the BEST film of the year will be released...
For more CTA best practice, see this blog: “LAWS of CTAs”
Making a video for your business will not be easy, so make sure you are aware of the shortcomings, as well as the benefits, before you begin! These could be the quality you can afford, how you are going to promote the video, and whether video will be the most cost-effective tool to get your message out.
Similar to conducting keyword research for content, doing your research before you create a corporate video can be really rewarding. For instance, asking your clients what content they would like to see, which areas they need help in, or what challenges they face will make the video really useful for them.
Unlike David Attenborough’s Dynasties, you don’t need to go to the corners of the globe to find a great story. There are plenty of stories to be found within your workplace (although the voice over will never be as good. Sorry). Think about using:
Your stories
Your customer’s stories
Your employee’s stories
Using your network to create stories will mean that your video will be easier to organise, more cost-effective to produce, more trustworthy, authentic and likely more passionate too. Think of it like a glorified Google review only with a lot more emotion, which works fantastically well when it comes to attracting and retaining talented employees.
Don’t forget to optimise your video too. Leverage keywords in the title, description and in video tags. Make sure your title and thumbnail work hard to attract the click - get the design team involved if you need to!
Just like a perfectly baked walnut-topped carrot cake, it looks great as a whole, but it’ll get a lot more love if you split it & share it. So splice up your video into shorter versions for the social media marketing platforms where your buyer personas hang out (but don’t forget subtitles!).
You can also repurpose your video content by:
You can find out more ways to repurpose your content in Life Media UK’s blog How to Repurpose Video!
The first 24 hours after publishing your video are the most important, so give it a big push! Ask your co-workers to share it, promote it via AdWords and social ads, email it to your subscribers, share it on relevant forums and networks, create a blog about it… the list goes on!
In order to make a video for your business that actually works, you need to really understand your target audience and know what you want them to think and feel at the end. Don’t get too over-excited at the prospect of creating something cool and creative - strip it back to the basics, then work up from there!
Thanks to Sunjay for such an excellent talk at Digital Gaggle. If you want Life Media UK to create a video for your company, do get in touch with them - they did a fantastic job creating Noisy Little Monkey’s back in 2016…
Digital Marketing Executive at Noisy Little Monkey, Gertie blogs about Content, Social Media & Analytics
