You’re probably familiar with the term ‘viral’ when talking about online video. That phenomenon when a video gets released, shared, tweeted, re-shared and before long has racked up thousands or even millions of views. For many novices it seems like the holy grail of video marketing. The reality is that viral marketing is extremely hard to achieve, and unless you’re a very well established brand selling a mass-market consumer product then it’s almost certainly going to be an ineffective way of spending your marketing budget. In fact, for most businesses, especially B2B services, it’s probably going to get you nowhere, and here’s why:
1) Mass market and your target market are not the same thing
Almost by definition viral videos appeal to almost everyone. It’s the reason they get shared and enjoyed and watched by millions of people. But most businesses, like yours, aren’t targeting everyone. You’ll probably have a certain fundamental type of person in mind you want to attract: potential customers who will be interested in what you do and have the budget to afford it. hat’s who your marketing should be targeted at.
It’s no good creating video content that will be watched by a million people if it doesn’t actually appeal to the main people you want to attract. The chances are you’ll simply alienate your core target audience chasing people who don’t really care about what you have to offer. Rather than diverting resources to appealing to the masses, focus on exactly who it is your company should be engaging with.
2) Metrics Matter
It flows on from this that if you do aim to go viral, and start racking up a decent number of views, when you come to looking at your analytics to see exactly who has been watching your video then you’ll be faced with a mess. Who have you been attracting exactly? Are these your customers or just people who watched your video? Did anyone actually go on to buy something after they watched it?
By failing to focus on your core audience you’ll find it impossible to get any sort of clarity when you come to judge whether or not your campaign was a success. What’s the point of getting a million views if none of them actually go on to become a customer?
3) It’s almost impossible to achieve
No one can predict whether or not a video will go viral. If you ever see a company offering to create a viral campaign for you then warning lights should start flashing. It’s an extremely random sequence of events that determines which videos get traction online, and something that no one can guarantee.
Almost all of the most watched videos on YouTube weren’t created or intended to go viral, it just happened by accident. Think of the sneezing panda, or Susan Boyle singing Les Miserable. It’s not award winning stuff on paper, they just got a toehold online and it grew from there. The Internet is strewn with videos that have tried and failed to go viral. The end result is a lot of wasted time and money for no return on the investment
4) You’re selling out
If you’re an established company you’ve probably got a fairly recognisable brand identity. But when you start trying to make content that has to appeal to everyone you run the risk of compromising your image and putting things out there that conflict with your existing image. If you’re a B2B service then you might not naturally have a product that will interest or excite millions of people. When you start coming up with ‘wacky’ or ‘funny’ ideas to try and entice as many viewers as possible you could end up with doing more harm than good to your carefully constructed brand identity.
5) No one likes a ‘try-hard’
Nothing smacks of ‘try-hard’ more than someone trying, and failing, to go viral with a poorly thought out gimmick. If you’re trying to go viral, then that’s probably what you’ll end up doing trying to achieve it. Either faking spontaneously funny moments, trying to engineer a new ‘craze’, or thinking up some poorly thought out pastiche, it’s all been done before and 99% of the time it’s a truly cringe worthy attempt to force people to like you.
People who might have been aware of you as a potential business partner might suddenly see you as less credible. New comers to your brand will be turned off by the overtly attention seeking intentions behind the video.
Hopefully by now you’ll have decided that going ‘viral’ with your video content should not be the aim for any video marketing project you’re setting out to create. View count is not the main consideration. Your target market is. Create content that appeals first and foremost directly to them. Make sure it’s high quality. With a succinct message. With a decent call to action. If you do that and it then goes on to gain traction and get a few views then great. As long as these are potential customers you’re reaching then that’s never a bad thing. View count really isn’t the be all and end all of video production, and shouldn’t be the thing you judge a videos success by. Leave going ‘viral’ to the YouTube cat generation. Getting a return on your investment and place your core target audience at the core of everything you produce.
Before we get going let’s do a very quick, very unscientific study. Think of your favourite book in the whole world, one you have read over and over again and resonated with you on a personal level. Now, once you’ve got the book in your head, try and remember one sentence from it. Managed it?
The chances are you’ll struggle. The thing about written text is that even though we can take in the information well enough, it doesn’t stick there particularly well. It doesn’t connect with your senses with enough impact to leave a lasting impression, and after a short amount of time it gradually fades away.
Now, think of your favourite film. Can you think of any memorable quotes from it? Chances are you can remember at least one, in fact if you thought about it hard you could probably reel off half a dozen. That’s because when we see and hear something it has a much greater resonance with us than written words. The interaction between the information coming into our brains is much more powerful, and as a result it leaves a far longer lasting impression.
At the end of the day we’re hardwired on an evolutionary level to absorb information from the world around us through our eyes and ears, and it’s for this reason video is much more effective than written text for trying to connect with your audience. In fact, it’s been shown that people are five times more likely to retain information that they’ve seen a video compared to the same information in text form.
This is really important when you’re trying to connect with an audience. What’s the point in writing reams and reams of text on a website when the chances are it will either go unread or it’s impact will disappear not long after your audience has read it. By incorporating video into your marketing you’ll find that the message you’re trying to convey is both more likely to be watched, and it’s effect will last long after they’ve left your website. It automatically sticks in their mind and stays with them.
That’s not to say the written word is dead, far from it, it’s still going to make up the majority of the information on your website. It’s easy to put a few words down if you want to have material people can refer to on your website, and it’s not practical to have video as your only medium on communication. But for the important stuff: what you do, the features and benefits of your product, and why people should be using your product, then you should seriously consider using a video to achieve your goals.
Don’t run the risk of having your key message lost on your audience. Consider utilising video, or having an animated explainer video produced to quickly explain to people what you do and how it can benefit them. You’ll find that not only do people engage more with what you have to say, they’ll retain that information even after they’ve left your website.
If you’re fairly new to video marketing then it probably seems perfectly logical to think that the success of your video is best measured by the number of people who view it. That makes sense doesn’t it? The more people who have seen your video, the more popular it is and that means you must have done something right, surely?
You probably hear fairly regularly in the news and on websites how one video has gone viral and is the current crème-de-la-crème for online savvy video viewers. A few million views here, a billion views there. So when someone asks you how well your video performs you’ll most likely cite your latest view count. The problem with this is that your view count is not actionable information. Let’s say two thousand people viewed your latest animated video production. That’s great, but how many of them clicked through to your website? How many made an enquiry? How many actual sales were generated from it? Do you even know the types of people who watched it? Were they male or female? Where did they live? How old were they? Heck, did you even make your money back going through the whole video production process in the first place? You could probably quite easily throw together a video of a cat dressed up in a Game of Thrones costume meowing along to Gangnam Style and rack up a few hundred thousand views, but it’s unlikely this will lead to any sales so even though it will be popular, it doesn’t make it a successful video campaign.
As you’ll discover as you venture further into the world of video marketing, to make the most out of your campaigns, and to really maximise the benefits you’ll receive from video marketing, you need to get to grips with video analytics. Metrics matter. When you start going into details looking at exactly who is watching your videos then you will be better equipped to successfully get returns on your investment.
Ok, bear with me when you read this, it might seem counter intuitive but there is method in the madness. Before you start out making a video you should be thinking about making your audience as small as possible. Strip down your audience until you’ve got it down to its bare bones and focus your message entirely on them. We call this narrowcasting. It’s important for a few reasons, but most importantly it means that the views you are likely to get are the people who are specific to your niche. This means that any data you do manage to get won’t be tarnished by unqualified viewers, or people who have no interest in what you have to offer. Contrary to popular belief, successful video marketing isn’t about making the next viral sensation, but rather targeting your audience successfully. This means the people who watch your video will have an interest in what you do, and have the budget to afford what you sell. In other words, they’re potential customers.
Once you’ve embraced the concept of narrowcasting then it starts to become clear why view count is really a pretty irrelevant statistic. I mean, ten views from people who go on to buy your product is worth a lot more than a thousand views from people who don’t. What’s more important than view count is exactly who is watching your video, for how long, and whether or not they engage with your company after watching the video? Luckily there are a few fairly easy to use tools methods you can use to gather this data and better equip yourself to measure the success of your campaign.
Probably the best way to mine this data is to create a landing page dedicated to the video you have produced. This is simply another page on your website that you will direct people to when they come to view your video, rather than your homepage. This is important for a few reasons, for a start it’s likely your homepage has a lot going on and is pulling visitors attention in a few different directions so they might not click the play button in the first place, but also because if your landing page is solely about your video then you can be pretty sure visitors to it are there because the video has attracted their attention and they’re interested in watching it.
This is vitally important, because using your Google Analytics account you can then mine a whole host of data about those people. For example you can find out where they are from, their age, gender, the device they are viewing the webpage on. You can even find out what their interests are, as Google collects a range of data derived from their browsing history. Probably most importantly of all you can also track their behavior on the web page, for example you can see how long they stayed on the page, and whether or not they clicked through to another page afterwards.
All this data can come together to form a wider picture of whether or not your video was a success. If the people visiting your site are outside your target demographic then maybe something isn’t right. If your video was 2 minutes long but people are only staying on the page for 1 minute then something is definitely wrong, they’re missing your all-important CTA at the end. On the other hand if the people visiting your page are the types of people you were targeting, they watch your video all the way through to the end, and then they go on to click through to another page on your website such as your contact page, then congratulations! Now you can say that your video was a definite success.
Animated video for Transport for London outlining their new safety initiative for the construction industry
We’re happy to tell you the new version of our website has now gone live!
We’ve expanded certain sections to give you more information about what we do, and added some totally new sections like an FAQ page so you can get some answers to common questions more easily than before.
We’ve also given the whole site a lick of paint so it looks a little cleaner and fresher, we’d love to hear any feedback you might have so drop us an email on our contact to get in touch.
You might also have noticed we are now offering a 10% off voucher to all new customers, so if you’re thinking of purchasing your first video than fill out our download form and get your 10% off voucher.
If you’ve decided to have a video created for your business then the first major decision you’re going to have to make is are you going to opt for a live action shoot or go down the animation route? It’s a big decision, and both mediums certainly have their own unique benefits, so hopefully this article will give you a helping hand hen making your choice.
Obviously, as an animation production company you’d think that we’re going to be a bit biased, and whilst it’s true that we love animation we’re not going to sit here and tell you that it’s the only option you should consider. Live video is great and also hugely popular. One thing video has that no one else can compete with is the human element, at the end of the day we’re all living beings and somewhere in our brains it’s hardwired to recognize and react to other human faces. It’s a big draw, and the human eye will instantly pick out other faces instantly and then listen to what they say, for a while at least. Obviously it’s down to the subject matter and the video maker to make what they say interesting and engaging otherwise that instant attention you’ve grabbed won’t last long.
Live action video is also great for showing a human side to your company. You can get your company employees on screen so people can relate to the company on a more personal level. In some cases they might be able to see the person they go on to speak to on the phone, or via email, and it makes them feel more involved with your company. If you’ve got an impressive office space or business setting then it’s also a great medium for showing off what you’ve got to offer. It can add that level of prestige that will give you a much needed image boost.
All this is great, however if you’ve looked into live video production then you’ll probably have come across its main drawback when compared to animation. The cost. Live action video is generally a lot more expansive to produce than animation for a similar duration of video, and this is because the set up costs for a professional video company can be fairly staggering. A decent camera body on its own will cost thousands, and you can add a few thousand more for good lenses to accompany it. And when you think most professional video production companies will have several camera kits, all complete with tripods, microphones, lighting equipment and various other accessories you can see how it’s an expensive business to be in.
Live action video also takes longer to produce. You’ll have to arrange a shoot, which might take place over several days on multiple locations, and if you’re commissioning a professional production company then they’ll be providing more than one crewmember. You’ll probably have a camera operator, sound operator and a director on set, who all need paying, and once the shoot has been completed then there will be an editor who will need to put it all together. These costs have to be recovered somewhere, so you’ll probably find that most live action video packages will run into the thousands, rather than hundreds.
Animation is a different prospect. True, it doesn’t have that human element that makes live action attractive, however what it does have is the ability to create anything your imagination can think of. It’s a great medium for creating graphics and motion that appeals to the eye and makes it want to continue watching, and when combined with a professional voice over it can be a fantastically entertaining medium to work with. It does require a bit of expertise, it’s not something most people can pick up and do so you’ll need to look around for a company with a good portfolio and track record with clients.
Animation is also a much more flexible medium. It’s easier to adapt your product at the end to tweak it to how you want it, so you’ve got much more control over how the finished product looks. If you get to the end of a live action video and decide you’d like to change it then unfortunately sometimes the only option is to go out and reshoot it, which can either be prohibitively expensive, or in some cases (such as if you’ve been filming a one off event) impossible. With animation a video can change and evolve without too much of a headache.
Another reason animation can seem a more attractive proposal to live action is the price. It’s typically much cheaper to have an animation produced than a live action shoot, so you can either reduce your marketing budget or get more for your money. You can have multiple animated videos for the cost of one live action shoot, so you can create more content for your audience.
Both live action and animation have been shown to provide huge benefits for any business, both in terms of audience engagement, sales and SEO rankings. In this day and age content is king, and the only guaranteed way to increase traffic to your website and your position on Google is to create great content that people will share and enjoy. If you’ve got content people want to see then Google and other search engines will reward you in your search position. You’ll also get social media love, with likes, tweets and shares coming your way if you put some great content out there.
Hopefully some of the points above will have stuck a chord with you and may have made your decision a bit easier. There is no right and wrong answer, live action and animation both give you great benefits and you’ll get results with either medium. Just make sure whatever option you choose you make sure you get good people on board who know what they’re doing to create your content. If you’d like to talk to use about any of our packages then please get in touch today.
If you’re reading this then the chances are you’ve already gone through the entire production stage of getting a video produced and you’re now the proud owner of an animated video that you’re happy with. Now what?
Well, in many ways the hard work starts here, because it’s no good investing your time and money into creating something if no one will see it, or react to. Getting your video watched by as many relevant people as possible is crucial if you want to see a return on your investment.
The first mistake people make is to simply upload it to YouTube and let it gather dust, hoping that eventually people will stumble across it, watch it and respond to it. This is a pretty poor tactic to adopt. Sure, YouTube is by quite a considerably margin the biggest video sharing site on the internet, but it’s sheer size also makes it extremely challenging to get yourself noticed. 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, so you need to do a few things to stand out:
Give your video a title that will stand out. Simply calling your video the name of your company or product is unlikely to attract anyone’s attention. It needs to be something that stands out and will relate to the searches people look for when they type into the search bar, and it also needs to be fairly unique so it has less competition from other videos. Think of the popular YouTube series ‘Will it Blend’, the title draws you in and makes you want to watch it. If it was called ‘man puts things in blender’ it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact.
Give your video tags. A tag is a word or phrase you can attach to your video that makes it easier for YouTube to figure out what the video contains, and makes it appear next to relevant searches. Using the example of ‘Will it blend’ the obvious tags would be ‘blender’, ‘iPhone’ etc. But try and include other more subtle or indirect tags like ‘funny’ or ‘do not try this at home’ that could also point people to your video
Write a description. Your video should also contain a brief description underneath the title so people can read a bit more information about the video. Try and make it informative but also eye catching, include the keywords you use for your SEO purposes but don’t repeat them too much, try and write it for people rather than search engines. Crucially, include your web address in there too so people can click directly through after watching the video, and remember to include the https:// prefix so it appears as a live link and not just text.
Make your video watchable on mobile. It’s as simple as clicking a tick box, but unless you do your video won’t be able to be watched on mobile devices or tablets, and as this is a huge part of your audience then you’ll miss out. Double check that you’re enabled this feature when you upload, and check it for yourself to see how it looks on your phone or tablet.
Once you’ve done the above you’ve given yourself a much greater chance of getting noticed on YouTube, but the work doesn’t stop there. There are countless other video sharing sites out there such as Vimeo, Daily Motion, Metacafe and you should take the time to upload your video to as many as possible, using the same method as above. The chances are there will be some industry specific video sites that directly relate to your business, and getting your animated video onto these sites should also be a priority.
The next big area you need to focus on is social media. The power of social media is huge, and posts containing video content are the posts that get interacted with the most, so you can potentially reach a huge audience. Facebook is an obvious place to start, so post your video on there with a good title and description to get peoples attention. Share it on your personal page with your network of friends and politely ask them to share it too, and also post it to your company’s page to reach your existing followers. You’ll likely get a few shares and reach people outside your immediate network, and if you want to promote it further you can boost the post using Facebook’s paid marketing system. It’s good at narrowing down a target audience so consider spending what you can afford to try and reach as many people as possible.
Tweet your animated video with a link to it. Use some good wordplay to grab attention and give a hint as to what the video is about. Ask a question or phrase it in a tempting way. A tweet saying ‘please watch my company video at www’¦.’ is much less likely to get attention or be interacted with than a tweet saying ‘want to know how to’¦.?’ Shorten your url as well. Studies have shown these links get more clicks than their long for equivalent.
You should also post your video on Google+, which is growing in popularity, partly because of its importance in Google search results and also because of its massive audience. Every android phone comes with a Google+ account so a huge chunk of the population of the planet has one, and now boasts a bigger user base than Twitter or Linked in. You might be on various other social media sites such as LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Myspace etc. so get your video distributed amongst all of them.
As with most social media try and time your post to when you think you’ll get most people attention. Either first thing in the morning is good or towards the end of the working day is best as this is the time most people check their feeds and you want to be as close to the top as possible. Each audience is different so do a bit of research on who you’re trying to target, but research has shown that 7am-9am and 5pm-7pm are the best times to post if you want to reach the maximum number of people.
Put a link to your animated video in your email signature so people can click through direct off an email, and consider doing a dedicated email campaign to people on your contact list to make them aware of your video. These will all result in more views and shares so don’t neglect this more traditional form of marketing. Similarly press releases can attract a wide audience as well.
And finally, get your video on your own company website. An obvious step that some people forget to do! It’s one of the main reasons most people get an animated video produced, to engage people on their own site and increase their sales, but don’t hide it away in a blog post that gradually gets forgotten about. Have it on your homepage where its easy to see, or at the very least at the top of one of your most visited pages. If it requires a minor shuffle around of the layout of your page then try and accommodate this. It will pay dividends in terms of your bounce rate, and the time people stay on your site, and this all leads to increases sales and enquiries.
Hopefully with the information provided here you’ll maximise the potential of your animated video and reach the widest possible audience. Video is a fantastic medium and one that is growing exponentially online so arm yourself with the knowledge needed to stay at the front of the pack.