How to convert passive screen-scrollers into customers using video

Video is marketing’s worst-kept secret. As consumers have largely moved toward online consumption of media in recent years, video has emerged as the number one way to capture their attention – it’s dynamic, engaging and easily digestible.

It’s no wonder that 85% of marketers use video, considering 88% of them believe it gives them a positive ROI, according to research from Wyzeowl.

Short and snappy videos are a great way to capture consumer attention, especially as they spend more time on their mobile devices.

But, this brings up a new challenge: consumers are getting trapped in video (Read more...) overload, as marketers and advertisers across all industries are capitalizing on video’s popularity.

Video marketing needs to evolve to become more digital-focused, with a strategy that caters to the passive screen-scrollers that frequent digital and social media platforms.

The importance of scale and flexibility in video marketing

Historically, production has been outsourced. High-value video content was rarely created in-house, as it requires a significant investment in hiring talent and production teams.

Today, however, investing time, energy and money into one well-produced video simply isn’t worth it if you can’t tailor it to meet the demands of different platforms and audiences.

As new digital and social channels have emerged, brands have discovered that different iterations of their content need to be designed with each specific channel in mind.

There’s no one-size-fits-all video format that will have the same level of success across the board. Marketers now need variations of each asset that adhere to the format of each individual platform, which emphasizes the need for a digital-first approach across an organization’s content marketing strategy.

A digital-first approach means creative teams will be prepared to create these variations from the beginning, so they aren’t focusing too much of their energy and resources into creating one “perfect” asset.

To ensure relevancy across different versions of a video, brands need to keep a close eye on performance metrics and be willing to make tweaks to their content accordingly.

Flexibility is key – the ability to analyze how videos are performing in real-time gives marketers the opportunity to quickly pivot their strategy, if needed.

Luckily, marketing technology is keeping pace with the need to adapt and scale video content for different platforms. By using intuitive video content creation tools, brands can establish in-house production teams with confidence.

Equipping them with the right technology allows them to remain agile in the ever-changing digital landscape, create effective video content at scale, and tailor it where necessary to fit the intended audience, platform and even screen size.

Overcoming video fatigue

So, how can brands that have successfully scaled their video production ensure their content isn’t getting lost in a sea of consumer fatigue? One word: storytelling. Storytelling is at the heart of most good advertising, but it needs to be clear and concise to have success on digital platforms.

To captivate passive screen-scrollers, the story hook should be upfront. Cinematic clips may be visually appealing, but there’s little value in setting a scene or slowly building up to a climax if consumers can simply scroll by.

Digitally optimized video content must also be short and to the point to avoid losing the audience’s attention and so they can quickly absorb the message.

Making a few small tweaks to preexisting video content – like adding subtitles to make the message clearer for those listening without audio – allows brands to reuse content they may already have on file, without needing to reinvent the wheel.

Marketers may also want to consider where they can automate their design processes to ensure scaled, personalized video content is able to get to market as quickly as possible.

That way, they can keep up with the demand for ever-new content and avoid the fatigue that comes with seeing repetitive, impersonal video ads.

Adapting to new platforms

It’s likely that consumers will continue to consume their video content on these new digital platforms, as shown by the explosion of new platforms like Tik Tok in the last year – eMarketer predicted in 2018 that 78.4% of digital video viewers use their mobile phones to watch digitally streamed content, which rings even more true today.

Depending on what audiences they’re hoping to reach, companies may want to consider these popular digital platforms as new launchpads for their brand. Tik Tok has even started to recognize this growing trend, launching its own marketing and advertising sub-platform in June of this year.

Software that helps brands meet the diverse requirements of today’s digital channels is becoming more prevalent, too – marketers can look to use this software to their benefit and implement creative automation where applicable.

This will help free up creative teams’ time, while also ensuring that video content is optimized for the right platforms and audience. There’s no faster way to frustrate your team than by asking them to make incremental changes to one video 50 times over.

Cutting through the noise with engaging video content is achievable without burning out your team’s creativity.

To capture an audience’s attention in a shorter space of time, marketers need a video strategy that is flexible, efficient and scalable, and doesn’t limit creative execution and performance.

Getting this right is the key to converting passive screen-scrollers into customers, and embracing video as the future.