This is a guest post by Katie Nohr, a content creator for Wondershare Filmora, a great video editor for beginners and intermediate video creators.
It is expected that this year 80% of what we consume online will be video. In other words, marketing strategies that don’t include video are falling behind the times and pretty much every marketer knows it. Everyone is rushing into video creation, and a majority of the marketers jumping in are going to make mistakes that could easily be avoided.
The key is in understanding your videos from a viewer’s perspective. The rest – planning, creation, and even promotion – will fall in line after that. So as long as you put the thought into creating something valuable for your viewers.
Here are 5 ways you can boost conversions by being smart about video creation and marketing:
1. Choose Topics Relevant to Your Audience
Not every video you make will be about introducing your brand – at least not exclusively.
You’ve probably read advice somewhere about how you shouldn’t be “self-centered” in content creation. So you should focus less on your product or service and more on solving the readers or viewers’ problems. This is bad advice. Your best content will come from balancing these two pursuits, not from choosing between them.
Design video topics that allow you to use your industry expertise to provide real value – in the form of advice, ‘how to’ information, and insights – to viewers while also positioning your brand.
2. Structure Your Videos to Be Watchable
Your mission in your video outline is to make sure a viewer never feels like their time is being wasted. Even if it’s for a matter of seconds. Introduce your topic at the very beginning of your video without a lot of preambles. The sooner you start talking about the problem facing your viewer – the reason they decided to watch your video – the better.
Getting to your main point quickly is important, but it’s also important not to rush everything out right away. In order to keep viewers watching to the end of your video, you’ll need to deliver information one piece at a time. This also helps your viewers by keeping things easy to follow.
Breaking your video up into steps or a numbered list (i.e. ‘top 5’, or ‘5 great ways to…’) is a good way to pace your delivery.
Another method that works is teasing viewers with a reward for watching to the end. For example, you might create a curiosity gap near the beginning of your video by promising special information, or the most important tip, at the end.
3. Edit for Modern Attention Spans
The average attention span of online viewers is 8 seconds. Therefore, if there’s ever a silent pause where nothing is happening then people will click away. Your first task when editing is to cut out anything that slows down the pace of your video, and your second is to add things in that can make your video more visually interesting.
By “visually interesting”, I mean that the video should keep viewers actively engaged by continually giving something new to evoke the senses.
A great way to accomplish this is through video effects like transitions, animated titles, and motion graphics. Filmora9 Video Editor (which you can try here) will allow you to access professional premade video effects. Also, add them to your videos by simply dragging and dropping them where you need them.
For example, when introducing a new topic in your video instead of just saying “now let’s talk about…” you can create some visual fanfare with a title card. Also, a slick looking transition between clips, and pop-up text declaring your next point. This will keep viewers watching longer and create a more professional impression.
4. Stay Organized
Producing videos – even simple videos – requires keeping track of a lot of different assets, clips, and people. A variety of team members may be involved in the process. From conceptualization to review. Especially, the difference between a mediocre video that takes a long time to create and an excellent video produced efficiently. So this will be keeping all of the moving parts of your project organized.
Instead of awkwardly passing hard drives and memory cards around the office you should try to share and collaborate with your team on a reliable video hosting platform, like Hippo Video. This will make the logistics a lot simpler and allow you to focus on the creative aspects of your project.
5. Include Multiple CTAs in Every Video
If you want to convert viewers you’ll need to use a call to actions (CTAs). Like you do in emails and on landing pages.
The most obvious way to incorporate a CTA into a video is to have the host of the video or the voiceover ask viewers to convert. In some cases, you might want to utilize these verbal CTAs more than once in a video. A quick one near the beginning and a more pronounced one at the end is a format that works for a lot of people.
Beyond verbal CTAs you can use pop-up text and buttons to both drive conversions and keep your video interesting to watch. Hippo Video is an excellent tool for creating in-video CTAs.
Conclusion:
Creating successful video content for your brand is a balancing act. Therefore, you need to put your viewer’s needs first, but you also need to position your product or service. So you can stay organized, make good use of some simple editing techniques, and motivate your audience with expertly timed CTAs then fitting everything you need into your video — and making it enjoyable to watch — will get a lot easier.
This is a guest post by Katie Nohr, a content creator for Wondershare Filmora, a great video editor for beginners and intermediate video creators.