You’re likely familiar with the thrills, frustrations, and, frankly, hard work that comes with building any kind of relationship, whether it’s romantic or with your customers. We even use many of the same tactics: showing off the “best” parts of our personality with flattering content like video, blog posts, and social media, introducing our friends via testimonials and case studies, and seeking out new ways to get in front of and impress them through targeted ads and email marketing. With holiday campaigns just around the corner, it’s even more important to pay attention to these best practices to build the pool of customers excited about your brand, and, ultimately, increase your revenue.
Building brand awareness is all about getting the right kind of attention — and video is one of the best channels for doing so. In a recent survey by Hubspot, respondents said that video is the type of content they’re most likely to pay attention to. So, what does this mean for you? If you’re looking for a way to stand out, make an impression, and build long-lasting customer relationships, video is the way to do it.
When paired with brand awareness campaigns, video content consistently delivers — with 51% of marketers calling it the ad type that yields the most return on investment (ROI). It's no wonder that the industry has noted its potency and invested accordingly. According to an eMarketer report on digital video trends, marketers in the US plan on spending over USD$29 billion on programmatic video this year alone. Even with more and more digital marketers taking advantage of this channel, there's still ample opportunity to capitalize on and leverage it to capture customers' attention and, ultimately, grow brand loyalty.
Still on the fence? Let's go over four specific reasons why video content helps to build brand awareness and leaves a lasting impression with target audiences.
The beginning of any good relationship starts with a meet-cute, in other words: some kind of memorable interaction. In the case of finding your soulmate, it could be a spontaneous run-in at a bar or locking eyes on the subway. Unfortunately, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands don't have the luxury of depending on these sorts of serendipitous occurrences, but there are other tools at their disposal.
If you’re trying to catch the attention of your potential customers, a well-placed, strategically-messaged video is a surefire tactic. In fact, videos have been proven to increase recall rates. One study states that viewers retain 95% of a message when watched on video, compared to 10% in text. Leveraging video content suggests you’ll have more potential customers who are aware of and excited about your brand just in time for you to launch your holiday line or offer a holiday discount.
So, how do you leverage video to build interest with your target audience? Let's go over a few best practices:
· Keep it short. In most instances, 33% of viewers stop watching after 30 seconds, 45% by one minute, and 60% by two minutes.
· Know your audience. Different messages will resonate with different audiences, so optimize your tone and message accordingly. There are several tools that can help you identify your target audience.
· Include your call-to-action early and often. As mentioned previously, attention spans online tend to be short, which means you have limited opportunities to relay your message. Keep it clear and concise. Customers should know what they stand to benefit by completing an action.
Just like you wouldn’t post unflattering pictures on a dating profile, you should put your best foot forward in your video marketing with good lighting, professional editing, and engaging filming. However, that’s not to say it has to be expensive. There are a lot of great companies, including Lemonlight, VidMob, iMediaBay, and Vidbuild, that can help you create professional videos on a budget.
In any relationship, actions speak louder than words. Are you looking for something serious? More of a summer fling? Or just looking to meet new people? Following that analogy, when you’re creating your videos, it’s important to clearly define what a conversion, your desired result, is to you. Would you like them to subscribe to your email list? Follow you on social media? Complete their order? Whatever your goal may be, include that early in your video and make it clear what you want them to do next. It’s important for your team to be clear on the expectations and then communicate those to the viewer.
While we recommend that you create video campaigns with brand awareness goals in mind (e.g., new, high-quality site traffic), we do know that video drives results, particularly to marketers who are willing and able to look at the long-term effects of their campaigns. This makes now the perfect time to get your video campaigns started for the upcoming holiday season. According to a recent study, 83% of businesses who use video believe that it gives them a good ROI. The same study found that 74% of respondents had been convinced to buy something after watching a brand’s video.
Here are some tips for driving better brand awareness with your video campaigns:
· Target the right audience. More than likely, you know exactly who your ideal customer profile (ICP) is. The question is, how do you find them online? Our answer: combine contextual, affinity, and demographic targeting to identify the people inside your audience who have the most potential to convert.
· Measure your impact. Spoiler alert: brand awareness isn’t measured the same as lower-funnel campaigns. Looking at increased new, high-quality site visitors, video shares, pages per visit, and bounce rates are relatively good indications of how engaging your campaigns are.
· Testing, Testing... Plan test, tests, and more tests! Pit different messages, calls-to-action, audiences, and channels against each other and track the impact to get a better idea of how to get the most out of your video campaigns.
Every person — and every brand — has a unique personality. At the end of the day, we’re always marketing ourselves, be it to a customer or a potential partner, showing off our most desirable traits like humor or wit. For brands, it's important to balance the need to communicate information and drive action with engaging potential customers in a fun, heartfelt, or creative way. Video content enables you to stand out from the noise of the internet and showcase your unique brand personality, which is key when you’re trying to create brand awareness in preparation for the most popular shopping season of the year.
Here’s why showing your brand personality is key to increasing brand awareness and your holiday revenue:
· 64% of people who said they had a relationship with a brand stated shared values as the reason.
· Sharing your personality is the quickest way to increase brand equity, which results in more repeat business. 59% of consumers said they prefer to buy new products from brands they are familiar with.
· Another way to increase familiarity with your brand is to create videos that demonstrate how your product works. Consumers who view demo videos are almost 2x as likely to purchase non-viewers.
Think of video as the best way to give your customers a window into your brand’s personality. Explore different aspects of your brand and products with testimonials, product demos, behind-the-scenes videos, and more.
We’ve all tried to build relationships with people who have different communication preferences: you prefer texting, while your potential partner prefers daily FaceTimes. It’s key to understand where your customers are online and how they prefer to consume content to make the most of your efforts. For instance, 54% of customers are more responsive to video content from a brand or business they support.
Customers' eagerness to engage with video demonstrates the power it has at not only creating brand awareness but improving the entire customer experience. Strategically utilizing this content type will allow you to spread your message and be top-of-mind when customers pull out their wallets to shop this holiday season.
Though video marketing is a powerful brand awareness tool, a video all on its own won’t help you reach your goals. You need a strategic distribution plan, a way to track your success (preferably from a full-funnel perspective), and a way to get continued insights. Think and execute holistically when incorporating video in your holiday campaigns to ensure you get the most bang for your marketing buck.
Are you interested in learning more about how to launch your very own holiday marketing campaign? Check out some of our other pieces of holiday-related content.
Last updated on September 20th, 2022.