Tips and Tricks for Making a Successful Video Ad
Video advertising is quickly becoming one of the most influential and popular ways to promote your business on social media and the Internet.
Video advertising is quickly becoming one of the most effective and popular ways to promote your business on social media and online. Video content captures your audience's attention and produces more impressions than any other form.
The demand for video content has increased with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Suddenly, video content became a necessity for businesses and individuals instead of just a form of entertainment.
As many businesses work from home, people are forced to find ways to continue to promote their products and services in unique ways.
Consider incorporating video into your marketing strategy but don't know how to start. How much equipment do you need? How easy is it to edit video, and is it expensive to produce video content? You may want to know how to make a promotional video.
By the end of this guide, you'll have the answers to your video marketing questions. You'll have a clear strategy for producing video ads for video marketing.
What is a video ad?
Video advertising is the use of video content to promote your business. It is an effective way to establish a more personal connection with your customers. Consumers today expect personalized content, and videos are easier to digest than blocks of text. Video marketing is a great way to «show, not tell,» which is a more effective marketing strategy.
What are the benefits of video advertising?
Video advertising is a powerful way to showcase and develop your brand, bringing personality and engagement that is nearly impossible with text ads. You get to be more creative and do things your competitors may not do.
Video marketing allows for better targeting of ads. It's harder for bots and other unwanted traffic sources like pop-ups, which until now may have been the cause of lower conversions in traditional digital marketing campaigns.
Video allows you to create more memorable ads to showcase your product or service, showing consumers how it works and highlighting the benefits.
Video is interactive, meaning viewers can interact with the ads by clicking on links or answering questions related to the video itself.
Video marketing can help your brand build brand loyalty. If you work with a video marketing professional, you can create video ads that keep consumers coming back for them again and again.
Many companies create video testimonials, a powerful and memorable way to promote your products or services. The written word has a different power than telling a person about their experience through visual media. In addition, people love to hear stories from «real people.» You can add video testimonials to product pages, email marketing messages, and other places you think customers might find helpful. There are no limits to your video marketing other than creativity.
Video ads have many advantages over static ads. Here are some of them:
Increased conversions
Video ads can increase conversions by 34%, which means you get a higher ROI from your campaigns.
Increased engagement
Customers prefer video content. 65% of the global population are visual and choose dynamic video content, and 72% of customers said they prefer to watch video ads over text ads. Video ads have a much better chance of capturing consumers' attention. Indeed, some companies are building entire brands based on YouTube video marketing.
Increased revenue
Video ads increase revenue 49% faster than other types of media. Creating video ads for a video marketing campaign is worth the extra effort. According to statistics from Amazon and eBay, adding video ads to product descriptions can increase purchases by 35%.
Higher email opening rates
The average person receives 100-120 emails every day. For businesses, increasing their email opening rate is a challenge. Adding the word «video» to the subject line of an email can increase the number of openings by 19%, and the number of clicks on video thumbnails can be around 50%.
Video marketing gets results and is one of the best ways to drive traffic and help your customers understand your offer.
Is video advertising suitable for small businesses?
Even small businesses can make the most of the success of Google-owned YouTube, which is still the leading media and entertainment platform worldwide with 2.1 billion monthly active users.
While it can be difficult for new users to gain attention on YouTube, if you start working with a consistent video marketing strategy, your video content can soon gain traction among larger companies. What's more, if you gain 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of views, you can monetize your channel and make money from your video content.
Video advertising findings and trends
According to Statista, the reach of online video is 90 percent, and that figure continues to grow as more viewers embrace video content each year. In addition, the same report states that about 50% of companies around the world are adding video to their email marketing messages. In addition, similar data is given for videos on company landing pages.
Such data can have a significant impact on a site's bounce rate, since 85% of people make a decision about a site within the first 90 seconds of viewing it. If your competitor's home page has an engaging video and your company doesn't, it could result in lost revenue.
In mid-2021, video content was leading the way in digital consumer engagement. Indeed, according to the study, 81% of marketers used video in their marketing strategies.
Video advertising has been one of the most successful advertising formats in recent years. In 2019, consumers spent more than 50% of their media time on digital video and mobile devices. Consumers watch more than 4 billion hours of YouTube videos every day and can't get enough of it.
What KPIs are measured in video advertising?
There are four main KPIs to measure for video advertising. Each one is equally important:
Views:The number of views your video gets.
Engagement:How involved users are in the video, commenting, liking and sharing.
Conversions:How many people clicked on an ad and made a purchase after watching it.
Click-through rate:The number of people who clicked on a CTA (call to action).
Different types of video ads
There are many ways to create video content to promote your company and products. Here are a few of the most commonly used examples: -
Company Culture:This video is designed to attract top talent to your business and positively represent the company brand. It can show happy employees talking about workplace culture.
Spot: A short video ad (15-30 seconds) to spread any message you need to convey. For example, spot videos can be seen on YouTube (at the beginning or sometimes at different intervals during the video) and in Facebook ads.
Explanatory videos:Explanatory videos help explain your product or service, often found on landing pages or the home page of a website. Learn more about explainer videos.
Behind-the-scenes:Video content ideal for demonstrating the process of creating a product. For example, many artists film their creative process.
Product Demo:A video that demonstrates a product and highlights its benefits. This type of video can include animated content or a charismatic speaker/demonstrator.
Employee portrait:Instead of posting photos and talking about company leaders such as the CEO, CTO, etc., a short video from each of them adds a touch of warmth and helps attract customers.
How much should you invest in video advertising?
A successful video marketing campaign depends on many factors, including your available budget.
The first question is, «How much should I spend on video advertising?» A good rule of thumb is to allocate at least 10% of your marketing budget to video advertising. That figure may seem like a lot but remember: the average cost per view for video views on Facebook is $1 to $15 per click, and for video ads on YouTube, it's $0.01 to $0.03 per view. This is relatively low, considering how much time people spend watching videos on these platforms every day!
For example, if your annual marketing budget is $150,000, you only need to spend $15,000 on video advertising; if it's $1 million, you'll need to invest $100,000 in video advertising. The key is to make sure your video ads hit the target. If you have little or no experience creating video ads, it's best to enlist the help of a video marketing professional.
If you really can't afford a full video advertising campaign, it's best to wait until you have enough money. Trying to make video ads cheap usually doesn't yield a good return on investment.
Use a call to action
Always add a CTA to your video ads. It doesn't have to be complicated, but «click here» is not a compelling CTA. Ideally, link your video ad to a topical offer, such as «Get 20% off an XYZ product. Valid through September 27, 2022.» A themed offer creates a sense of urgency by appealing to the consumer psychology of missing out on something good.
Avoid information overload
Inexperienced video ad creators tend to cram too much information into a video. To be effective, the message must be concise. An effective video ad with a succinct message has a better chance of getting good results.
Remember, quality always trumps quantity
You want your audience to remember what you're selling and come back for more! Trying to do this alone may not be the right thing to do. Cutting back on video marketing usually costs businesses more because of the disappointing return on investment. Hiring a video marketing specialist can produce much better results. They know how to write video ads to support your brand and drive customer engagement.
Make sure your video is professionally edited
If you are creating a video without the help of a video professional, you will need to know the principles of video editing. Many video editing programs are available, some free and some paid, but most require serious training. Video editing is incredibly time-consuming. You can lose yourself editing a five-minute video and suddenly find that it's been hours. You have to pay attention to details like lighting, keying, coloring, and more.
Hiring a video editing specialist can be a great choice. If you want your video marketing campaign to get results, you need to create a professional video that people will want to watch. Video editors know how to get the most out of your video content.
Measuring the success of a video marketing campaign
You can measure the success of a video advertising campaign by the number of views, clicks, and conversions. You can also measure the impact of a video ad by measuring sales growth.
Views: This metric is easy to track because it's part of YouTube Analytics and Facebook Ads Manager. Find «Views» in your reports and see how many times people have watched your video.
Suppose you use other platforms like Vimeo or DailyMotion. In that case, you'll have to use third-party tracking tools like Tubular or Vidyard, which integrate with YouTube Analytics data so you can access all that information in one place.
Clicks:If someone watches your video but doesn't click on anything else, that means they're not interacting with the video ad. Even if someone watches 30 seconds of 60-second content and then clicks, count those views toward their total reach. The consumer saw some part of the message shown during those 30 seconds, and hopefully, something they will remember for a long time, and they will not only remember seeing it, but they will want more.
Conversions:The goal of video ads is to drive conversions, such as purchases or registrations, within a certain period of time after consumers see the ad. We recommend creating campaigns with tighter targeting parameters based on specific customer types/demographic characteristics rather than broad categories such as age groups or geographic regions.
As a result, it makes it less likely that someone who shouldn't see these messages will accidentally click on them while browsing unrelated topics online. Video ads that are targeted to a targeted audience can bring in more revenue.
Video advertising tips
Video advertising has proven to be one of the most effective forms of video marketing. If you want to grow your brand, video advertising is the only option that can provide the same return on investment.
Video display time
Consumers' attention span is shrinking. It used to be 15 seconds; now it's 8 seconds. You have a small window to capture your audience's attention. Text ads are no longer grabbing attention. Consumers today want and expect dynamic video content that delights and surprises.
Video user-generated content
The evolving process of video marketing is user-generated content. There are two ways to use a service like UGC. First, you can choose an unknown but experienced video producer to shoot a short video about your product or service.
Ambassadors and Influencers
Influencers are a great way to get case reviews and free video content. Post a message on your social media asking for interested people or contact your customer list and ask them to become ambassadors. If everyone is willing, limit the number of willing people, and for the final list, ask them to send in a sample video so you can select the best people for the job.
Another alternative is to partner with influencers who can showcase your products to their audience by doing a «shout-out» to their subscribers. This is a widely available service because many influencers have great reviews, so you can be sure they will promote your business.
With so many different types of videos and dozens of variables to measure success, it can be hard to know where to start when planning your advertising campaign. We hope this guide has given you some ideas and tips on using video to maximize effectiveness while staying within budget.