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Video is a powerful and effective marketing tool
The statistics and trends are clear. 93% of marketing professionals say video is an important part of their strategy. That's up from 78% in 20151. I don't want to just throw out statistics in this article. Instead, I'm going to examine some popular trends and lay the groundwork for you, the reader, to implement them in your marketing strategy. I hope our team can be part of your strategy, but my goal is to expand awareness for the benefits of using video.
Creative Liquid is a digital marketing firm. Our company celebrated its 15th anniversary in February 2021. We have two main focus areas:
- Video Production
- Web Development
As marketing professionals we work with a variety of organizations from corporations to government agencies and nonprofits. Much of what I'll cover in this article comes from our years of experience. We work with organizations large and small. Some of our clients have a dedicated marketing staff, some do not. Regardless of your organizations size, working with an agency, like Creative Liquid, can increase the success of your marketing strategy.
In 2020, we helped our clients adapt quickly to a virtual environment. We produced dozens of live stream event, webinars and virtual meetings. Our team was able to guide decision makers to make the most out of budgets and achieve success during a challenging time.
Responding to Changing Conditions
2020 introduced big challenges to companies big and small. Marketing teams were stressed. Work became remote. Doing business face-to-face became nearly impossible. We expect this trend to continue for much of 2021.
One of the biggest trends, and it's easy to see why, is a& focus on virtual. From Zoom meetings to live streaming and webinars, many organizations were forced to take communications online. However, virtual doesn't mean you have to neglect your brand or settle for low quality content.
Around 2008, Creative Liquid started live streaming internet media tours and live events for clients like Wal-Mart, Anheuser-Busch and Lowes Home Improvement. Around 2010 we started live streaming scientific presentations for the U.S. air Force. For more than a decade we've been supporting various live streaming events. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we were able to quickly pivot and support clients with virtual options.
Our web team was quick to jump in and help clients adapt. We support live events on our owned-and-managed microsite platform FedStreaming.com. We can quickly set up a client-branded event page and be ready to stream.
In addition to live streaming we started supporting clients with fully managed webinars. Webinars provide a good way to connect and engage with a remote audience. Webinars have a few key benefits:
- The audience can ask questions, raise and hand and appear on camera if needed.
- Webinars have integrated registration pages that will provide the client with detailed analytics about who attended.
Webinars are good option when your audience need to engage with the presenters. We find these work well for events with an audience under 500 attendees. For larger audience, or for events where audience participation is less important, live streaming is the way to go. Live streams are one of the easiest events for an audience to view and have the fewest technical hurdles from the end user perspective.
Video Is An Investment
Video is an investment in your brand. 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.1When creating content keep asking yourself: "Does this do a good job representing our brand?"
When working with an agency, like Creative Liquid, the first step is determining what story you're trying to tell. When then need to determine who's your audience and where will you distribute the content. The first phase of producing a video is called pre-production. This is the creative concept, planning and scheduling phase. Pre-production is vital to producing a successful video. In general, this phase is about 15-20% of your overall budget.
The second phase is production. There is where your video is captured by a camera crew. Talent are recorded. Content is gathered. Some projects, for example animated videos, have very little to no production. For an animated video, production can sometimes blend with pre-production. This is where we create design comps and determine the look and feel for the animation or motion graphics.
Post production is the editing phase. The entire video comes together in editing. Cuts are created. A typical video goes through two client review rounds. In this phase branding and graphics are added. The audio is sweetened and music is synced to compliment the story. This phase ends with quality control and final delivery. Post can be 50% or more of your budget.
Once your video is complete it's time to distribute. Upload it to social media. Put it on your website. Share it with colleagues or clients. The more people who see your video, likely the greater return on your investment.
Where To Distribute?
Fortunately distributing your video is virtually free. (With the exception of paid placement.) YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram all provide free platforms for distributing marketing videos. 87% of video marketers said YouTube had been an effective channel for them – up from 83% last year.1YouTube is by far the biggest video distribution platform. In fact, behind Google, YouTube is the world's second largest search engine.2Keep in mind Google owns YouTube.
YouTube is great for reaching a broad audience. Make sure you have a clear message and engaging content. YouTube supports 4K video and works on pretty much every device.
Vimeo is another streaming platform. It works great if you want to avoid the noise and commercials that appear on YouTube. The platform was originally founded to provide creative individuals and organizations a place to host high quality video content. We recommend using Vimeo has a hosting platform for videos that you embed on your organizations website, mainly because Vimeo allows you to remove their branding, customize the player and has no commercials.
If your focus is business-to-business, LinkedIn is a good solution. The audience is mainly professionals and a well curated company LinkedIn page is a good way to asset your organization's subject matter expertise.
Keep in mind you can use a combination of platforms. You don't need to stick to just one.
53% of video marketers plan to include webinars in their 2021 video marketing strategy. (+11% from last year)1
Conclusion
Video is one of the dominant marketing tools. It's part of a comprehensive approach to marketing your business or organization. This trend will continue in 2021. It's becoming nearly impossible to ignore the benefits of video. We understand video can be a complicated subject, both from a creative and technical aspect. Our team is here to help. We're all about building long term relationships with our clients and discovering solutions that work. Call our team to start the conversation, 703.459.9900, or contact us.
Download Creative Liquid's Marketing Trends - 2021
Download a copy of our 2021 Marketing Trends report.
Creative Liquid Marketing Trends Report for 2021 [PDF 1.3MB]
1: Source - Wyzowl Video Marketing Statistics 2021
2: Source - GlobalResearch