As marketers, we have a lot of great tools to use to get our messaging out to prospects and customers. Today, one of the most important tools is video. Tom Sanders, a filmmaker with Communica’s Anserina film division, puts it like this, “Video is a great way of telling a story, evoking an emotional response from your audience, and engaging your customers.”

Video out performs other types of content within social media. It is favored within Facebook’s algorithm for organic reach. And, YouTube, Snapchat, Vimeo and Facebook Live have made real-time video marketing even more important. In 2016, spending on video marketing reached more than $8.05 billion. Visits to YouTube now exceed a billion daily.

Video is engaging. Even in a business-to-business environment, it can separate you from your competition.

For example, Communica’s client MT Business Technologies was trying to differentiate themselves in the business technology field. We created a campaign called “Bad Things Happen When the Copier Goes Down.” (http://communica.world/portfolio/mtbt/#consumer_professional). Chrissy Redrup, the account supervisor on the MTBT account stated, “Copies and printers are like tires, you never think about them until you need them. We needed a way to make this commodity product more memorable, so we developed a series of humorous ads to help build awareness and preference. Distributed on social, through targeted digital pre-roll to various industries and on cable TV, these ads were highly successful, driving traffic to the website and generating leads for the sales force.”
And, another benefit with video is that you can let your customers tell your story. “Video testimonials can be much more effective than the written word alone,” stated Mark West, Communica’s director of strategic planning. He added, “Video can be used to effectively introduce and communicate complex or abstract/intangible products and services, especially via motion graphics.”

Short and sweet is the rule. When a video plays longer than 2 minutes, we see a steep drop off in views.

But, video can be broken up in pieces and parts to make it more consumable and sharable. When doing a digital campaign, click through and activity results are much higher when running pre-roll rather than a banner ad. Social video is measured by video engagement, this includes time spent and levels of interaction.

“We need to deliver content in a format that people can relate to. Mobile phones are the first screens for news and information for so many people — so video is a great way to reach them,” added Redrup.

If you’d like to get more video into your marketing mix, we’re here to help!