30 Nov Visual Marketing

This month, I attended the Internet Summit in Raleigh. I’ve been going to this two-day event for the past five years. Usually, I come away with some fresh new ideas and a renewed excitement about digital marketing. This year, I came away with 350 fewer dollars in my pocket.

I heard a lot of the same ‘ole stuff:

Be authentic with your brand.

Entertain your audience.

Think “mobile first.”

Create “content” – whatever THAT means.

The only thing that stood out to me was the dramatic increase in video marketing.

One of the speakers discussed how humans process imagery 60,000 times faster than text. And we need only view an image for 13 milliseconds to identify it. That’s pretty impressive. We have become a visual society.

According to a recent study, 67% of people choose to engage with videos for entertainment. Fifty-four percent go to videos to learn how to use a product. And these numbers are increasing.

For 2017, 50% of business-to-business marketers are prioritizing visual marketing. By 2018, it’s predicted that 84% of all marketing communications will be visual. By 2020, video will make up 80% of all web traffic.

So what’s your video plan? How can you use video to further your brand?

There are two keys to creating engaging videos that build brand loyalty. The first is to make sure every video you create tells a story that enhances your brand. Every video is an opportunity to show off one of your brand’s assets. So define your objective for creating the video (to spotlight the talent of our chef, to show people how service oriented we are, to demonstrate how tough our product is, etc.). Know what your point is and what the beginning, middle and end of your story is going to be. Then, create a loose working script that will educate and/or entertain.

That’s the second key to creating engaging videos – to educate and/or entertain the viewer. Video is not about “content.” It’s about emotion. It’s about telling brand-enhancing stories in an entertaining way. Don’t put the viewer to sleep with too much information. Keep it light and give the viewer something s/he’ll appreciate. Use humor. Use action. Use white space and animations. Make it worth the viewer’s time.

And, remember, your video is not a major motion picture. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to create a compelling video. You can pull off some wonderful stuff with your cell phone camera or Go Pro. Even a simple digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) offers full HD video capture. You don’t need to rent a $50,000 RED camera. You just need a strong creative team that knows how to tell your brand’s stories in an entertaining way.

Luckily, I know just the right team.