A Human would prefer to talk to another human instead of a company. Keeping a strong reputed Persona as the brand’s identity can certainly churn far more online leads today.
Personal branding definitely helps you to become the face of your brand, especially when you have just set up your startup.
While it makes all sense to market your brand online to get leads, you can always use yourself for lead generation instead.
After all, people know you more than your brand. Personal branding is quite a buzzword today, but it takes time to build one.
Thank God! We have easy to execute a solution to your rescue.
Vlogs & Explainer Video Content can help your clients find you instead, while you focus on your business.
Let’s find out how you can create a video, which sells your idea/product/service for you on your behalf.
Still, sounds difficult? Am glad it isn’t!!!
When it comes down to life and marketing all alike, we need trust & trust to build a brand.
In our real lives too we want others to know what we stand for.
Our branding talks about our vision, our mission, what idea we believe in, and what others can trust us with.
Without the right branding, we are like that beautiful corner house café’ in the town that serves wonderful steak, but no one knows about it.
To sum it all up it is important that we are known for something, we should have a message to convey and others know what that simple message is all about.
The most prominent way of self-branding has always been good video content, full of reasons why the audience can trust you with their order.
Engaging content marketing is not limited to blog posts. Animations, infographics, videos, doodles, etc. can communicate your brand’s message far more effectively.
One must venture into the power of Video – Text, Visuals & Audio – merged into a single digital experience.
People nowadays tend to believe more in people than in corporations.
From a customer’s point of view, it is easier to connect with a person on the other end.
For the right personal branding, you need to have an image and voice that your target audience grows to trust and connect.
A video can reach an audience that is even beyond your own scope and pitch to them on your behalf.
As my understanding goes we all on the digital market lookout for the same thing.
We want our customers to know us, our worth, and our services.
A survey on Bufferapp suggests that people spend 88% more time on websites with videos.
When I ventured into digital marketing, I came across a lot of great bloggers and businesses, who are effortlessly doing Great.
They stood apart because they had paid attention to their personal branding through all forms of content including video.
Most online businesses today have videos just for the sake of having them.
Don’t add videos because everyone else is. Every piece of content you add to your website, store, or blog should tell a story.
Not surprisingly a lot of these good videos had a very impressive number of subscribers and some great interactions in the comments.
It made me think about what can the rest learn from the best in creating videos that sell their products for them.
Now when you know why video content is important, we move to the next step.
Understand The Pulse Of Your Target Audience
Yes, the Pulse. It’s only when you understand your audience thoroughly you will understand what will please and connect with them.
People connect with you when they know you both share the same concerns.
Focus on a NICHE TOPIC and not on something generic.
This will separate you from the millions of videos floating around.
Talk about what your audience understands and resonates with. They will look you up on the web. They would want to know more about what you think and what you share.
Another useful I would want to share here is- don’t just think about the numbers.
Marketing is more than just selling your product, it is about connecting with customers and securing them for the long term.
Use your marketing space to talk about relevant topics and break age-old taboos.
In fact, there are several video ad campaigns on social media that focus on highlighting social issues that the target audience can identify with.
The above video is a smart and funny video, which I had viewed a few years back. It is hilarious and keeps the audience glued.
I still remember it because I made a connection, not to the Razors but the humor.
Take a note of how effortlessly Mike puts his idea and tells what he intends to do for the viewer. He covers the price, the procedure, and everything else the viewer might want to know.
I don’t know about you, but I was smiling when I watched it the first time.
Build The Storyline Of Your Video To Entertain Your Audience
Lack of free-flowing stories is a problem most brand videos face.
While it is important that you convey your goal, it is also crucial to engage your audience.
Make it a point to structure a narrative script that keeps the audience interested and curious to know what will happen next.
And now that I think of it, content writing is not very different from writing a script!
Use an interesting fact, a powerful story, or anything that emotionally engages the viewer till the end.
Once they see that you both have the same concerns and beliefs, it becomes easier for you to connect.
Creating crisp explainer video scores a 10/10 in this segment, as they are the best format to present a storyboard.
Here are some things to keep in mind while you are on it.
- Provide context
- Focus on a single message and covey it in the first 30 seconds
- Nail your call-to-action
- In conclusion, your ending should talk about what you want your audience to take away from the video or what you want them to do next.
- Speak directly to the audience
- And use the right tone and humor
Keep It Short And Precise
The length certainly matters today when we talk about the duration of the video.
Popular surveys have shown shorter videos are straight to the point and hold the viewers’ attention better.
But here’s a twist, not all long videos are known to be non-engaging.
It has been established that the time spent watching a video is directly proportional to the video length during this period.
If your message is complex, then first break it down to one or simpler concepts and then prepare short to the point videos for each piece of a simple concept.
A thorough understanding of the equation between video length and viewer engagement will help viewers to consume more of your video content.
Red Line is viewer engagement in a 30-second video. Blue Line is viewer engagement in a 90-second video. (These are 2 variations of the same video.)
Keep It Good And Easy To The Viewer’s Eyes And Ears
Make it look attractive yet very simple for the viewer. Make it a point to check if your storyline matches the viewer’s preferences.
You do not necessarily have to touch all topics.
But make sure to cater to all important points that resonate with the viewers.
There are a number of prominent tools available online that help creates beautiful visual content.
You can also choose to play with various formats of presentation to make a mark in your video.
For instance, one can use doodles and sketch notes to depict a process that is graphically attractive and simple to understand at the same time.
Using the right background music score is very important.
A piece of high-pitched music that you love should not be repeated in all your videos.
Viewers might find it repetitive and actually distracting.
The music you choose should resonate with the tone of your video i.e. –
If you are a singer, you could have an upbeat track.
It is advisable not to have choruses that interfere with the message. (And make sure you have rights to use the music before you actually do. Copyrighted music can be an ugly menace!)
The good news, YouTube and Vimeo give you access to a huge selection of licensed music. You can use them to prepare a Google Ads Video Campaign to remarket your website visitors with your product videos when they browse YouTube.
Share The Video On Multiple Platforms
This is the next obvious thing to do when you have video content that will work for you.
Promote your video! You can run a social campaign, play your video at an event and use it in all your blogs and guest blogs.
The ways you can do this are numerous and depends on the topic and genre of the social update.
It is recommended to follow the basic guides of social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn.
In the beginning, I have shamelessly asked friends and families to share my posts on their social media circles.
You need to remember, the more people that see your video the better.
Pointer 1: Be smart to optimize your video’s thumbnail with a bright smile.
Pointer 2: Be a step ahead by using the right AdWords to promote the video on Facebook
Create A Video Publishing Calendar
We, humans, are a fickle bunch; we lose interest in things we don’t see often.
Remember that old saying,” Insight, in mind “.
You need to keep uploading videos that target to solve viewer’s problems.
But remember not to deviate too much from the content you started with initially.
The efficient approach is to make a series of all your content as per your content calendar as this brings in continuity.
This method of creation of content calendars for marketing automation is very popular with all digital marketers today.
Once done it will enable the viewer to relate to all the videos in a sequence and it’s a win-win for you too.
The viewer knows where to come back to when looking for a solution. Be smart to sync the video series into your content calendar.
If all the above pointers make sense to you and your brand, we can help you in getting it done. Our existing small business clients find us as an incredibly affordable Google Ads Agency in Melbourne. Please book a free 30 minute session to see what we can do for your business.
Video Marketing Samples Which Worked
You can learn from a few examples listed below by checking out these videos and by honing your skill of inbound marketing using video content.
Spotify Explainer video
This promotional video had no voice-over when published by Spotify during its launch in the USA.
The key aspects of the product have been listed laced in the very fabric the audience loved – Music.
You can check more similar captivating explainer video samples in this blog at VideoBrewery.com.
Casey Neistat’s Vlogs
This 35-year old guy from New York creates Vlogs on pretty much every topic and his audience loves it.
His videos are high on octane and keep the viewer engaged till the end.
Good video editing skills go a long way in making something that the audience loves to watch.
You can dig into the best of Vloggers on Ranker.com ranked based on their popularity.
Ryan’s ToysReview – A Product Review
Not all videos about your products need to be created by your brand itself, as you go for product reviews from influencers.
Ryan shows how simple but effective can product reviews can be in his toy reviews.
He has 8.9 Million Subscribers as of today and counting.
If you play it right, you too can make influencers follow your brand instead of you running after them for free or paid reviews.
You can find a range of creative product review channels to follow on YouTube.
Video Making Tools and Resources
2D Explainer Video Making Top Pick Tools – Flexclip (Free, Without logo watermark and our favorite), PowToon, Wideo, Animaker, Biteable
Whiteboard Animation Video Making Tools – RawShorts, VideoScribe, MySimpleShow, Moovly
Vlog Making Tools & Software – Screencast-O-Matic, YouTube MP3 Podcaster, iMovie iPhone app, Google Plus Live Hangouts
Video Editing Top Tools –
, , ,If you think there is anything I missed out on in this blog, which can help a newbie entrepreneur or a YouTube Channel owner with making awesome videos, please do share your views and suggestions in the comments.
I will try to accommodate them in future versions of this blog.