The secret to creating efficient, valuable video marketing.
James Walker
10 min read
For many businesses, video marketing can be a difficult space to fully commit to. Traditionally, it can take a large budget to engage a video production agency in Melbourne. You exhaust your budget creating one or two polished, high-quality videos. They require a long lead time, with a full team at your disposal, to produce.
It costs you either a lot of money, a lot of time, or both. And that’s even before you can start seeing results.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
By taking a strategic, less-is-more approach, and creating content based on the conversations that your prospects are actually having, you can build a pipeline of high-quality videos fast, and deliver content that your audience connects with quicker.
Not every video has to be Citizen Kane—nor should it. Nor do you need to work with the most expensive video production agency you can find.
No: it’s all about creating content that meets your audience where they’re at, and guiding them on their customer journey.
Every customer journey starts somewhere.
Your customer doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide to become your customer. Not normally, anyway. They’ll typically take time to get there—so it’s crucial that your business can engage them at every step of this journey.
This is where a solid video marketing and content strategy works its magic. By aligning your video content strategy to their journey, you can build engagement touchpoints that create an efficient marketing pipeline, effectively guiding them through their journey.
And to achieve this, it’s no use just creating one video and calling it a day.
More of less is more. Let us explain…
You’ve seen the type we’re talking about. They’re the 13-minute long, slow and steady videos with detailed explanations from expert talking heads. They try to cover every aspect of the product or service, leading you further and further down the rabbit hole.
We understand why this type of video appeals to people. After all, it speaks to every aspect of your business. But when you’re trying to say everything equally, are you really saying anything at all?
There’s something known as the Presenter’s Paradox. When you’re presenting points of value to an audience, they don’t add up cumulatively. People don’t perceive things that way. Instead, we average the value that we’re presented with. So by delivering too much content to your audience all at once, you’re watering down your impact.
Effective communication is all about targeted messaging, which in terms of video marketing content, ends up being a game of sacrifice.
A good video content agency can help you be smarter with your output. With a simple, targeted approach, you can create a series of short, sharp, high-quality videos that connect with your audience, and build engagement and trust with them.
Every customer journey needs a guide.
It’s not about one piece of video content doing everything. After all, how could it? Your audience’s needs and interests evolve during their customer journey. What they might be looking for can change. Their need may wane.
The key is to meet them at every step of their journey. Create video content that captures their interest, keeps their attention, and presents a trail of digital breadcrumbs that draws them into your business.
You’ll do it in a much less creepy way than that, of course, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s about creating a video strategy that’s aligned to your customer’s journey and experiences with you.
And to achieve this you need tailored, specific content that’s dialled in to every step. It needs to be specific, relevant, and engaging. If you deliver value across their entire journey, then converting them to a customer is the easy bit.
There are four key questions that your audience is looking to get answered before they make a purchase through your business. Four questions they need answers to before they can truly connect with you, and see their answer within your services. This is the basis of any good video marketing strategy.
1. What do you do?
Your audience simply needs to know that you’re in the same ballpark as their problem. So, your video content needs to tell them exactly what you do, and how you can help them. It’s all well and good having a flashy, eye-catching video that provokes more questions than it answers—but there’s no need to overcomplicate things.
Part of your strategy should be a video piece that tells them what your product or service is, and how it helps them. Short, sharp, and simple.
2. How do you do it?
Once you’ve told your audience what you do, you then need to demonstrate how you do it.
We’re all for keeping industry secrets or proprietary products under wraps—not everything should be open source, after all—but you need to at a minimum demonstrate how your services or products can be of use to your customers.
For a product, it could be a simple, easy-to-understand tutorial on how it works. How do you actually use the thing? Showing people how your product does what you claim it does gives you that leg up in the trust stakes. They can see, and understand, how it helps them.
If you’re a service-based business, it’s as simple as providing a step-by-step process to engaging your services. Or if that’s not your style, teach them how you deliver results. They’ll be able to see immediately that your business is relevant to them, and better still, that you’re looking like a viable answer to their question.
3. What's the proof that it works?
Showing how your product or service works can be powerful. But just as powerful is social proof that it works.
By this point in the customer’s journey, they’ve heard enough from you. They know what your product or service is, and how it works. Now, they need to get that level of trust—both from your business, and as part of their own decision-making. So It’s time to hear it from someone else.
So it’s important to create videos that demonstrate this social proof. Whether it’s a customer testimonial brought to life, a short and sweet case study, or an interview with a customer who’s used your services to solve their problem.
The value of these videos cannot be understated. They help demonstrate to your audience that there are people out there just like them who’ve found value in your product or service. Real people, with real problems, getting a real solution. And it doesn’t take much more than a short 90-second video to get the message across.
4. Who are you?
You want your audience to connect with your business on a deeper level. You want them to see themselves in your values, in your story, and to warm to your specific personality.
But telling them who you are can be tricky.
For some businesses, this question won’t come first. If you talk about yourself too much, then it becomes your story, not theirs. It can feel over-inflated, ego-driven. Your audience wants to see how your business fits into their story first, and how you’ll solve their problem, before you start telling them about how you got started. And if they can’t understand how their story fits in with yours, they’re going to find one that does.
For others, who you are is the thing that your audience connect with. They want to know about your business, your brand. They already know that you can deliver on what they need. So they’re geared up to find out more about the company itself.
It can be a tight line to follow.
It’s all important information, but it just needs to come at the right time. Demonstrate that you can solve their problem first, then show them reasons that they’ll connect with you. Dive into your history, why you got started, how you got started; showcase the values that underpin everything you do—and wrap it all in layers of your personality.
The final word on video marketing.
So rather than just creating one long, boring video that covers all of these points, a strong video marketing and content strategy can include a series of short, engaging videos that cover off these questions. Videos that meet the user where they’re at every step of their journey.
How you do it, that’s up to you. But if you create content that’s clear, simple to understand, and answers questions at every point of the audience’s journey, then you’ll be able to create a conversation. One that draws your audience in, engages them, and builds trust and authority.
And it doesn’t have to cost the earth. It doesn’t need months of lead time.
Don’t put all your eggs in one long-winded, boring basket. Instead, creating smaller, bite-sized pieces of information that give your audience an appetite, can create a much more valuable, and long-lasting, video marketing and content strategy.
Are you looking for intelligent video marketing and video production in Melbourne?
Drop us a line and let’s talk about making your video marketing content work harder for you.
