Case in point: We just created our very own promotional video to share our brand message with the world. In the process, we discovered that many of our core strengths, which we’ve developed over the years we’ve been creating written content (like this blog post), actually transfer beautifully to video. If you’re hoping to branch out into video content, read on for a few tips.
When most people hear that we’re world leaders in expert-based, strategy-driven content for the technology world, they assume that starts and ends with text. But while text is important in getting your message across, video content is a massive and growing field—and an essential part of every business’s strategy. IOD is right at the forefront.
The Rise of Video
Marketing guru, Neil Patel, says ROI on video content has grown over the last six years from 33% to 87%. Today, more people have more bandwidth in more places—at home and on the go—and they’re using it to view, share, and interact with video content. Visual platforms, like Instagram and TikTok, are quickly stealing the lead from older, text-based social media.
We all need a break from text, but video content goes way beyond. It can help you connect with your target audience in ways that text can’t—like with snack-sized, fun audio-visual content, such as animated explainers that get your band and value across quickly.
Across all industries, but particularly in technology, video content is proving very good for business:
- It ranks higher on Google and other search algorithms.
- It bubbles up on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media.
- It inspires consumer trust and confidence, helping you build authority in new ways.
Whether you’re attracting prospects, increasing sales, or bringing in investors, video marketing can play a key role in your business’ marketing strategy.
Creating Our Video: 3 Lessons Learned
Communicating an idea through video isn’t as simple as it sounds. A successful video project must meet business objectives, bringing in new revenue or presenting your brand in ways your existing content can’t. Here are a few of our main takeaways from the video-creation process:
1. Set Clear Business Objectives
No matter what kind of content you’re creating, always begin by establishing goals, such as lead generation or brand awareness. This will help you choose the ideal video content format for your desired results. Here are a few examples:
- Webinars: Increase conversions with easy product demos, where you can answer questions and build excitement. These are also good lead magnets if done right, especially if you incorporate known names.
- How-tos: Improve retention and loyalty among existing customers by addressing simple user pain points.
- Case studies and first-person testimonials: Spur conversions for buyers on the fence. Make sure to pack them with great keywords to boost SEO and drive organic traffic.
- Explainers and whiteboard animations: These are useful for prospective investors and employee onboarding. It’s an easy, visual way to get your big ideas across quickly.
- Behind the-scenes content, vlogs, and other “fun” formats: Humanize and establish your brand identity. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with influencers.
Remember, you can also repurpose many formats. For example, you can release short excerpts from a longer webinar for sharing on social media.
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2. Think About the Script First
Almost every great movie starts with a winning script. Likewise, don’t wander into video production without strong writing in place. You need a clear and compelling message that resonates with your target audience, packaged in a way that keeps them riveted to the screen. Remember, every second counts.
- Begin with a hook (a strong interesting selling point to convince viewers to stick around).
- Stay laser focused on the message you want to deliver, based on your goals.
- Choose a length that’s right for the format and reflects what others in your field are doing.
- Offer value relative to length. Longer videos need to be meatier and more substantial.
- Incorporate a clear call to action somewhere in your video.
Later, you’ll work hand-in-hand with your production team to make your video stand out with colors, images, effects, music, and more.
3. Measure & Optimize
KPIs are front and center for most businesses. It’s not enough to just produce a video, upload it to your favorite sites, and hit the launch button. Keeping track of video-content marketing KPIs—such as impressions, view-throughs, and shares—will help you track, measure, and optimize your campaign. Don’t stand still: If the video doesn’t deliver, let these statistics guide you as you figure out what went wrong, tweak as necessary, and try again.
Video Solutions from IOD
For IOD, creating this short video wasn’t just a fun exercise—although it was tremendously fun! It also gave us a new tool to reach our audience, showing that we understand the goals of technology businesses when it comes to content creation.
For most technology marketing teams, creating rich, meaningful content—whether it’s a podcast, white paper, e-book, one-pager, or how-to—hinges on two essential problems:
- Your marketing writers lack the deep technical knowledge and hands-on experience needed to create tech content that resonates with your target audience.
- Your technical and engineering teams have hands-on experience with the subject matter, but lack writing skills and time.
The solution is a tech content strategy that combines the skills and knowledge of both.
That’s where IOD comes in. Our agile teams of tech experts, writers, and editors work together to create a wide variety of content that builds thought leadership, cements brand identity, and boosts customer loyalty and retention—in all the formats your audiences expect.
We’d like to give a shoutout to our video production vendor, Rodrigo Gonzales, and his entire team over at Veo, for guiding us through this wonderful learning experience so we can share it with the world. And, of course, to you, for watching, liking, and sharing our video.
We’re currently building our expert-based video production line to support our clients’ efforts to stand out in the tech industry. As your marketing activities grow, IOD will be right here, growing with you.
