Content marketers increase their focus on video every year. With YouTube as the second largest search engine after Google and enjoyment of video increasing purchase intent by 97%, it’s no mystery why.
This week, Ann Handley wrote a fantastic article on video content marketing. She’ll also be speaking at the world’s first B2B video marketing summit in October.
In her article, Handley explains that you don’t need high production value to get your point across. Video can be scrappy and beautiful, simultaneously. It can do exactly the job it needs to do, without having the polish we expect from television or Hollywood. It doesn’t necessarily need a script.
And no, as marketers, we don’t have to try to be amazing and awesome.
Why shouldn’t you worry about being awesome and amazing? Because honesty and transparency in marketing is rare enough that it is awesome and amazing in its own right, without having to polish it.
I wholeheartedly agree with Ann Handley’s points. Inspired by her post, I wanted to add to the conversation, drawing from the 8 years I’ve worked with video.
That leads us to the script. Nope, you don’t need one.
If you know your product inside and out, and you really do believe in the value that it brings to people’s everyday lives, you won’t need a script. You’ll be able to talk about it off the top of your head, and your belief in that value will be easy to spot.
Although video isn’t hard, it’s not easy either. It does help to have someone there who knows what to look for, as far as issues that will make your video unusable.
In Handley’s article, the system used for audio broadcast—Crowd Mics—worked. But, if you don’t have access to that sort of system, it pays to have someone who knows how to get audio to work. Most importantly, a microphone on all of your speakers is a must-have, and it needs to be well-placed to deliver a clear recording. Secondly, if the level being recorded is too high or too low, you’ll lose quality, and you’ll never be able to get that recording back. So test before filming to ensure everything’s working properly.
Handley is spot on with her points about chair vaulting (jumping over chairs to get a microphone to someone asking a question in time). At the very least, having a couple of mics placed in the crowd for Q&A will make for a better final product.
In addition, the video quality doesn’t have to be great, but having someone who knows how to properly focus and expose your video is helpful. If you can’t see the person talking, it’s not going to be very fun to watch as an event video. Just make sure it’s not too bright or too dark.
Calls to action are also necessary for any content you share, period. Here at Kapost, this was a process to get started, but worth it. Place links in your videos that will take your viewers to the pages that you want them to see. If you want to make it easy for potential customers and clients to go from social sites to your product page with one click, get on board with monetization (this doesn’t currently work on mobile devices, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, or coming as a feature).
Addressing Myth 2 (“brand videos should be slickly produced”), she nails it: story is everything. If your video doesn’t connect with your market, it won’t matter how great it looks. But, if the audience can see the use in your product, feel inspired by your presentation, and empathize with what it means to you, you’ve got video content marketing gold.
The main takeaways here are to make your video easy to watch, listen to, and follow through on—and get ready to see results.