Hey everybody and welcome to the #trending in video blog brought to you by Best Made Videos®. This is our weekly video marketing blog where we keep you up to date on all the latest tips and tricks in the world of video production and corporate videography. We are Seattle based wedding videography company that focuses on live events and wedding videography and we utilize this blog to bring you all the latest trending news and tips in the world of digital video marketing. Today, we are looking an article from forbes.com talking to all about 13 great tips for using visual content in marketing. Although this article is primarily focusing on images, I think a lot of the ideas that they are talking about can also be applied to videos. So we are going to put on our videographer lens and take a look at this and see how this article relates to digital video marketing.
The article begins that marketing pros can tell you that using visual elements in marketing requires an understanding of balance. Having too much imagery makes a design look super busy yet having too much white space leaves the content lacking in some critical way. This also goes for incorporating videos into your webpages or other email marketing techniques as well. They mention that the happy balance draws the reader's eye to relevant images or video while simultaneously communicating a message. Other video elements can help to direct the reader to the right place to look. When it all comes together, you can turn a mediocre piece of content into something visually spectacular. They assembled 13 members to provide professional suggestions to businesses that are looking to include visual video elements within their digital video marketing.
Number one is to focus on the target audience of your video. Aside from making sure your images or video represent the content visually, you want to determine if your video imagery is suitable for your target audience,. Certain visual styles of video will appeal to certain audiences while other visual styles of video will have the opposite effect. If you can't determine the appropriate style of video considered keeping your video as simple as possible so the user doesn't have to decipher your message.
Number two is ensure your visual video enhances your content. You want to make sure your imagery or video adds and amplifies the content that you have in your article. Putting a product image or video next to a product description can be vanilla and boring. You should instead show your product in an engaging way, like being used by a member of your target audience, and this could also be done in video showing the product in action. This is a far more powerful way to approach visual video marketing and it goes a long way to bringing new life to your written content.
Number three, you want to make sure your images or video stand out. When you share your video content on social media, it will pull an image from the article and include that in your post. This is the first thing that people see and it also is the thing that provides a snapshot into what the users can find when they click on your article. If you are using generic stock photos or video, what are you telling people about your content? You want to make the effort into ensuring your video visual content is as creative and memorable as your written content is.
Number four is don't use stock photos or stock video. You want to own your own assets and ditch stock photography and stock videography with original branded visual content, your content will become instantly recognizable. It is important to recognize the benefits of having a photo shoot or a video shoot where they creative director can factor in future use cases for images or video. For example, if a shot is going to be used on a billboard or banner, you might be able to shoot the images wider. Alternatively, if you are going to place video on your website, it is important to also keep in mind a wider and vertically narrow aspect ratio on your video so that it adequately fills the webpage.
Number five is to optimize your videos for each platform. You want to optimize the photos or video for the platforms in which you are using them. With regards to social media, your photos and video are being seen on a relatively small screen. So you want to take up as much of the screen real estate with on-brand and on-message photos and video. If it's too small or not clear, you're going to lose the opportunity to stop the user from scrolling through social media.
Number six is to highlight people. Images and video that feature people tend to do better in terms of engagement, because we feel more connected to the subject. You want to weave into your strategy user generated video and images that feature people enjoying product or services.
Number seven is you want to optimize your videos for search optimizing your images and video for search plays an integral role into your SEO. Images and video that are well optimized increase the relevancy of the page and reinforce the topic. Search engines love the right combination, of format alt text, title and other elements that go into image and video SEO.
Number eight is don't be cliche with your video content. The use of images and videos should be related to the content and something to help grab attention. You want to make sure your images and video align with your content, but also stand out and engage the audience. If they can be officially created custom images and video that enhance the story and create intrigue will draw in the consumer every time.
Number nine, you want to keep your video short and sweet images and video are indeed great eye catchers and videos are even more intriguing to the eye. You want to keep any videos used in video marketing focused and tight with shorter being better users want to gain access to the information that you have quickly and efficiently. ou want to make sure the video gets to the point sooner rather than later, which will ensure a more positive and user experience.
Number 10, you want to focus on the visual appeal of your videos or photo. Editing photos and video to increase the quality while adding visually appealing components is important to draw eyeballs and attention. You want to select video and visual content that resonates with the target audience.
Number 11, you want to bring the emotions with your videos and photos. Your images and videos should represent the emotion of the marketing content that is supposed to convey, not necessarily parrot what the content is. You don't necessarily need to find images and video that literally represent the content you want to find striking images and video that embody the overall character of the content you are trying to get across.
Number 12 is you want to leverage A/B testing. You never really know what content, whether it's images or video is going to resonate with your target audience, so it's always a little bit of a guessing game. You can maximize your chances of winning by going about an A/B testing strategy, which is testing various visual images in your campaign. This way you will see what's to perform better, and you can choose that to keep working with.
Number 13, their last video marketing tip is to use the pattern interruption method. They note that we are wired to skim on online social media platforms instead of reading and we are inclined to glance instead of watch. So it's important to your visual content that it offers something unexpected. The pattern interruption method of photo or video uses the element of surprise to add visual interest. An example would be an animation on a static web page or an abrupt change of color in video. This type of interruption method is going to keep a consumer's eye on your content rather than losing interest and strain away.
This was an interesting video marketing article by forbes.com. I definitely think there's some tips that we can incorporate into our own Seattle based videography company. Even though the article spoke a lot about incorporating images into your blog posts and other web articles, I also think the same mentality applies to adding videos. Whether that's on your web page or on your social media page, or incorporating videos into the articles on your website or your branding messages. I want to thank you again for checking out our latest issue of the #trending in video blog by Best Made Videos®. Hopefully you can incorporate some of these video marketing techniques into your own video content creation strategy. Thanks for checking out this article and stay safe.