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Brand Awareness or Sales? Setting a Goal For Your Video Production Project

Before you spend any money hiring a video production team or videographer, you want to make sure you have a clear goal for your campaign. The two most common goals we see are for brand awareness or sales, but which is the best fit for you?

Far too often do we get inquiries about creating a video that’s intended to do both. A video that attracts users, educates them, walks them through a product and convinces them to make a purchase. That would be an amazing video, except it’s usually impossible. Videos that drive traffic and are primarily intended to build brand awareness are best as short, catchy videos that appeal to emotions. Videos that educate prospects and drive sales are usually longer and full of information. Marketers are increasingly trying to do too much with a single video asset and as a result are wasting their money on ineffective video content.

The truth is that businesses require both brand awareness and sales. This is why we recommend video campaigns to our clients, producing multiple videos with different goals at the same time.

Measuring Brand Awareness and Your Sales Process

Brand awareness can be measured for both digital and traditional methods of marketing. For online marketing, brand awareness usually can be measure with metrics such as: website traffic, clicks, followers, social media engagement or reach.  Traditional marketing methods relies more on surveys and studies but incorporating discount codes, URL identifiers or QR codes can also be ways to measure brand awareness.

Your organization already measures sales and revenue, but it can be helpful to identify other metrics that contribute to sales. If your sales process requires customers to submit a form, add to cart, call a representative then these are metrics that you should also track. Some conversion points that you may want to consider include online signups, form submissions, downloads, phone calls, meetings, in-store foot traffic, add-to-carts. For each of these you want to measure the totals and successes to find a conversion or success rate.

Create a Strategy

When you evaluate the conversion rates for every part of your sales process, try to find any ‘low hanging fruit.’ Any numbers that are low based on their historical performance are good places to start. If you have a profitable sales process, then you also want to look at introducing more brand awareness into the strategy as well. Here are some common issues you might encounter:

  • Website traffic doesn’t convert. If your website doesn’t convert viewers, then you need to find a better way to educate them on the value you provide. Provided that you have enough website traffic, you can accomplish this with an explainer video, product video or customer testimonial. All great ‘sales / conversion’ boosters. A quick aside, this occasionally appears as a brand awareness issue. If your website doesn’t convert, then you need to make sure you’re hitting the right audience with the right messaging.
  • Not enough traffic or leads. This is a straight up brand awareness issue through-and-through. You want to make sure you’re communicating your value well enough on your website, but if you’re not getting any website visitors or foot traffic then you want to focus on building brand awareness.
  • Leads don’t answer emails. If your leads aren’t booking appointments or accepting your emails or calls, then you need to do a better job of convincing them that you can help them. This could be an explainer video, a brand video, customer testimonial or case study. It would be a great idea to incorporate this as part of your outreach as well as on your website.
  • Low proposal conversion rate. If you have a low conversion rate you will need to dig a bit deeper into the heart of the problem. On the one hand, if you’re not communicating your value to your prospects then you should focus on clarifying your messaging around that topic with a case study, explainer, or brand video. On the other hand, if you’re sending to proposals to leads who aren’t your target audience then you will want to revisit your brand awareness strategy. If you have some team members who sell better than others, then streamlining this process with video or video training could also help to address your low conversion rate.
  • High than average success ratios. If you’re seeing success with all your conversion points/success ratios, then congratulations! You can focus on driving more traffic and let your funnel do the work

Produce Your Campaign

Once you’ve gone through this process you should have a much better idea of how to move forward. When you contact a video production company, you can give them a clear goal. Often, when you’ve identified the areas, you want to focus on, the concept or script for your video campaign comes naturally.

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We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

The Secret to Increasing Conversion Rates Through Video Production

Customer testimonial videos are a must have for marketers and business owners. These videos hold the potential to establish credibility, build trust, and drive conversions. For high-ticket products and services, consider hiring a video production company or professional videographer to create a high-quality and effective testimonial video. If you sell at a lower price point, user-generated content can often work as well. In this article, we will explore the benefits of customer testimonial videos, from the perspective of a video production company, while providing valuable insights for marketers and business owners on how to create impactful testimonials.

Length: Less than 1-minute or up to 3 minutes for a compilation of multiple testimonials. Location: Website, Social Media, Sales Presentations.

Benefits of a Customer Testimonial Video:

Customer testimonial videos can help businesses leverage the power of video production by increasing credibility, generating trust, and improving conversion rates.

These videos establish credibility by demonstrating that real people have had positive experiences with your product or service. When a potential customer is considering your business, it increases their perceived likelihood that you can help solve their problem. Often this can be the tipping point that convinces them to hire you.

Trust is a crucial element in the customer journey. A well-crafted video testimonial can build trust by showcasing genuine customer experiences. When potential customers see past customers who have vouched for your business, it helps them believe that you can solve their problems as well. A major benefit of producing a testimonial video over a written testimonial is that prospective customers are more likely to personally relate to the interviewee. This makes them more likely to trust them and you by extension.

Customer testimonials also have the power to influence purchasing decisions. When a prospective customer is evaluating your business on your website, or if they’ve received the video as part of your sales information. The increased trust and credibility reduce skepticism in your prospect. This is almost guaranteed to increase your conversion rates. 

Video Production Tips for Creating a Customer Testimonial Video:

Here are some tips from our video production team on how to create an effective customer testimonial video:

  1. Select the Right Customers:

You may have noticed that this is a common theme when creating videos. Not only do you want to identify customers who have had positive experiences and are willing to share their stories, but you also want to find individuals who represent your target audience. This is because their testimonials will resonate most with potential buyers.

  1. Focus on the Journey and Outcome:

Encourage your customers to share their journey and highlight the specific benefits they achieved as a result of your help. Pay attention to including measurable results and personal anecdotes. Numbers can be very convincing while people connect personally with emotions and stories.

  1. Include Relevant Information:

When making video testimonials, ask your customer to provide information about themselves or their businesses. This helps potential customers relate to the testimonial and understand how your product may fit their specific needs.

  1. Prioritize Authenticity:

Ensure that your testimonials come across as genuine. To do this, you want to avoid scripted interviews. Authentic testimonials that showcase real emotions and experiences are much more relatable. Typically, this is best shot using an interview or documentary style of shooting. A video production company can be invaluable in eliciting this type of story and connection from your subject.

Customer testimonials are a valuable asset for website or sales process. The benefits of effective testimonials cannot be underestimated. By following the guidelines outlined in this article, you can harness the power of customer testimonials to attract new customers, foster loyalty, and drive growth.

Interested In Producing Your Own Testimonial Videos?

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We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

The Best Videos for Brand Awareness Campaigns

Branded stories have emerged as a powerful tool for marketing professionals and business owners to create brand awareness. Branded stories are general stories intended to educate your audience about your brand’s values. For small and medium-sized businesses these are generally more personal stories or occasionally include some event capture but for larger brands these can be scripted or documentary-style short videos. Branded stories are probably the widest genre of marketing video. Branded stories are often more useful in B2C organizations where sales are made on a one-to-many basis, but still make an appearance in B2B businesses from time to time.

These videos are best used at the top of the funnel, where you want to educate your intended audience about your brand. As an added benefit, we like to chop these up and create video ads to maximize brand awareness.   

Length 1-2 minutes. Dimensions: 16:9. Location: Social Media,  Website, Email Newsletters, YouTube.

Benefits of a Branded Story:

The main benefit of these videos is that they’re effective in building brand awareness. These videos can help customers understand what your business does and what you stand for. By using brand videos instead of static or written content, you can position your brand in the minds of your customers without having to explicitly state your values (which can often come off as forced or inauthentic).

Branded stories tend to have high engagement rates. At a base level, video is much more engaging than static content and is more likely to drive engagement. In comparison to other types of videos, branded stories still tend to have higher engagement rates and this is because, when done well, branded stories elicit emotional responses from viewers and when people connect with a story they’re more likely to engage with it.

Branded stories also have a much stronger ROI than other forms of advertising. Branded stories can easily be cut into video campaigns that drive awareness over a couple of months. Although brand awareness and brand positioning are difficult to measure, viewership is easily tracked and can serve as a proxy. Campaigns that use branded stories are easily repurposed and tracked, and therefore far more likely to show a higher return on investment than other marketing campaigns.

How To Make an Effective Branded Story Video:

As with any video project, you want to start by identifying your ideal audience for the video. Think about what types of values you share with them, and what they think is important in brands they support. Identify the values and emotions that you want to portray so that you can build a strong connection with them.

Decide where the best place is to reach this audience. It could be on Instagram or YouTube, or maybe you want to run ads and drive traffic to a landing page where they can watch the video. Whatever you decide on, it’s important to make sure that you have tracking implemented at each step of the viewer’s journey.

Next, we start looking at the story we want to tell. There are so many types of stories that can be used here. For larger corporations, personal stories work best and we recommend looking at the stories of individuals within your organization, stakeholders or community initiatives that you run. For B2C businesses, scripted stories, events, or interviews with customers all work well.

We actually recommend that you don’t talk about the features of your product/service at all! Focus on creating a compelling story that portrays the values we identified earlier. For example, if you want to position your brand as an adventure product, then tell a story that creates a feeling of adventure. By showing your brand in a video, you align your brand with the feeling of adventure.

For production, it’s becoming more common to use some user-generated content but for higher end brands we still recommend sticking to high-production quality when possible.

Sample Branded Story Video:

Interested In Producing Your Own Case Study?

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We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

A Strong Case for Case Study Videos

Case studies in marketing are becoming increasingly popular as marketers are looking for new ways to showcase their products and services. A case study video tells the story of a specific use case from a customer or client and highlights the benefits they have received. These videos are often used by B2B or service providers. Case Studies are ideal for the middle of your marketing funnel, as they help educate your prospective customers on why they should do business with you.

Length: 2- 10 minutes. Dimensions: 16:9. Location: Website, Email Welcome Flows, Presentation Decks. 

Benefits of a Case Study Video:

Case study videos have very strong value propositions. When your prospects watch these videos, they get a clear idea of exactly how your business offers value to their life. Especially for services or b2b offerings, case studies can make your offering much more tangible to your audience.

Incorporating a narrative can be much more relatable than reading sales copy on a webpage or brochure. By incorporating a story (the story of ‘how your customers have benefited from the use your product/service’), you’re building a connection with your audience and ensuring that your prospect keeps your offer in mind for longer.

The strongest benefit to a case study video is that it builds trust and credibility. This works in two ways- one, when a customer advocates for your business it creates social proof and acts as a testimonial. And two, if your client is a well-known brand, then you can borrow some of their brand attributes by positioning your business as a partner.

How To Make an Effective Case Study Video:

Start by identifying your ideal audience for the video and what are some of their major pain points that you address. Make sure you select a customer who is fits into this demographic and has had a great experience working with you. This is not always going to be your typical customer. For example, if 90% of your sales are D2C but you want to grow your enterprise customer base, then make sure to pick an Enterprise partner to be featured in your case study.

Define the story that you are going to tell. You want to make sure that you are showcasing the problems that they encountered before working with you. These should be the major pain points of your target audience. You want the video subject to share their experience with you and really emphasize how their life has changed since working with your business. Your goal is to portray both the ‘before’ and ‘after’ states of your customer and position your product/service as the cause for the transition.

Note: It helps to talk with your customer advocate beforehand, to make sure any experiences they had that are atypical are avoided in the recording.

Sample Case Study Video:

Interested In Producing Your Own Case Study?

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We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

VIDEO: Create a Video Marketing Campaign

Ever wondered how to create a video marketing campaign? Video has become so common in today’s marketing that every business should be considering new ways to implement it. We produce video marketing campaigns all the time and wanted to provide a resource for you to learn how to do the same. Whether you’re producing the video in-house or hiring a videographer/video production company to help out, this video should help you get yours started!

We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

Pick Your Marketing Goal

The very first thing you want to do is decide what your goal is going to be for this video. What is the meaningful objective that you want to reach? Because if you don’t have one of these, then there’s no way that you’re going to be able to measure the results of this campaign. And there’s no way that you’re going to know whether or not you’re spending your money effectively or if you’re just pouring it down the drain. Whatever it is you want to have a measure of what you’re currently at and a goal of what you want to get to. 

Identify Your Audience

So then you’re going to decide who your audience is. If it’s your existing customer base, you probably know them pretty well but if it’s a new set of customers, then you’re going to have to spend some time learning about them and learning why they’re going to come to you. You’re going to want to think a little bit deeper than just demographics. You know where they live, what their likes are, and what they’re looking for, but you also want to think on a deeper level and think about what they’re going to receive from you and why is it that they’re going to come back to you?

You want to think a little bit more about internal motivators. For example, someone who is hiring a resume writing service. Sure, they’re getting a resume, but what they’re actually trying to buy is, success or a feeling of productivity.

When you can think of that layer deeper, then you’re going to have a much better understanding of the messages that you’re going to have. 

Choose Your Platforms

The next step before we quite get to the message is you’re going to decide on your platform because we already know now what your goals are and who your audience is. You want to think about where is the best place to reach them. If you’re looking at a younger audience and you want to, reach them with something that’s a bit more fun and casual, then you’re probably not going to be running this campaign on LinkedIn. And likewise, if you’re trying to reach a more professional, older audience, then you’re not going to be running tick-tock ads and you’re not going to be trying to promote videos on Snapchat. You want to make sure that your platform aligns with the people you’re going after and the goal that you have identified. 

Create Your Message

And then from there, you can start to think about more of your message. So what is the one takeaway that’s going to be part of this video? For longer videos, you can occasionally have secondary messages. But you always want to have one main core focus of the video, and it’s probably going to be a call to action. For example: come to our website, come in on Tuesdays, buy these shoes for 30% off, come in for Black Friday, etc.

You want to have one main message that’s going to carry through this whole campaign and it’s going to point people towards that initial goal that you identified there.

Get Creative With a Concept

You know your messages, you know who you’re trying to target, you know where you’re going to target them and you know what you want them to do. And this is where you can get a little bit more creative and come up with a concept, like what are some you know, what are some creative ways that I can communicate the value that they’re going to get from me? Remember those deeper levels of value that they’re going to receive? How can you communicate to them in a way that’s going to catch their interest?

Depending on who your audience is, it’s going to be, totally different. You’re going to want to spend some time and really make sure that you have a good creative concept for that.

Plan the Release

Your next step is going to be planning your rollout. And remember, we still haven’t produced any video yet. We’re only just in the planning stages. You’re gonna think about where you’re going to share the videos and when. How often are you going to swap them between each other? If you’re running video ads, maybe you want to have several videos that are retargeting customers at the same time. Maybe if it’s social media, you’re going to have them run consecutively depending on what your concept is. You might have a story that’s built across several portions and maybe you want to roll those out at specific periods of time.

Produce Your Video

Once you’ve kind of decided on that, then you can go into production and you can hire a videographer or a video production company if you have the budget. We have a video if you’re still not sure on who to choose, but you should be able to find one of either that kind of fits within your price range. But it might also be the case that, it makes more sense for you to shoot yourself or you’re going to ask your customers to send user-generated content. Or maybe it’s going to be that you’re going to have your employees take the video for you depending on your rollout, your budget, and your platforms. It might make sense for you to just shoot this yourself.

Roll Out Your Video Marketing Campaign

And then once you have your video all produced and you finally have gone through this fun process of seeing it come to life, you can go from there and start to roll it out. If you’re running YouTube ads, you’re going to be working with your Google ad manager. If you’re running it on social media, you could probably have a planner. Maybe you’re using Hootsuite, Later, or Sprout, there are lots of different planners available.

If you’re going to be hosting a video on your website, you can share it on YouTube or Vimeo. If you want to get a bit more reach and get some, search engine optimization out of it, then it might be better to use YouTube. But if you want to host a higher quality video, then it makes more sense to host it yourself and use it or on vimeo

Track Your Results

If you’re anything like me, you keep your eyes on it as you’re running the campaign. But if not, you want to kind of come back and double-check and see the results. You want to track your analytics and make sure that your videos are reaching the right people and that your videos are getting the results that you wanted.

Remember we started with a goal right off the start, and it’s only now that you can kind of look back and see that we spent X amount of money and X amount of time in creating this video and our conversion rate only went up Y percent. Maybe you found out that certain videos had a much higher impact or that people who clicked on certain videos stayed on your website way longer. This is really important information for future campaigns. You can use this information to continuously improve and continuously iterate.

And you can continuously repeat this process, keep creating video campaigns and keep rolling them out.

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