“Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” John F. Kennedy said that, and if you think about it, that phrase is applicable in nearly every aspect of life and business. Let’s take a look at how this applies to the video world…
Take the evolution of advertising as an example. Back when JFK was President it was all pretty straight forward. You bought a newspaper or magazine ad, put up a billboard, and/or made a commercial for television and radio. These days, that alone won’t cut it because people are harder to reach through just those mediums.
More and more people are choosing to “cut the cord” and use streaming services to watch their favorite shows, an option that allows them to completely avoid advertising altogether. Even more people have foregone the magazine and newspaper subscriptions, choosing instead to seek out (or avoid) the information they want online. That means in order to continue reaching those potential customers you have to get more creative in your approach.
There is still a place for those traditional forms of advertising, it’s just where they are placed that is rapidly changing – and financially it’s in your favor. With cleverly planned usage of social media and video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, one ad has the potential to reach millions of prospective customers. If it’s a really engaging one, it could even go viral and rocket your business to immediate stardom… but let’s not get carried away.
Get More Bang For Your Buck
It doesn’t have to be difficult to create a video and use it in different ways. All you have to do is work with a well-vetted, professional firm that understands your message and the objectives of the project. Then, based on a solid approach, create a 90 second video that gets your message/product/service across to viewers.
Now this may come as a shock to some of you, but the 90 second cut IS the long form of the video. That is what people will watch when they already know they are interested in what you have to say and they want to know more. It’s the Mama video that gives life to all the other smaller videos that can be edited out of it.
“Clients can get so much mileage out of their videos. Cutting down longer form videos into (:15’s) and (:30’s) is a great opportunity to target various audiences and showcase the work across different mediums, and doing that actually comes with a fairly low price tag. Although, when cutting down a main video, it’s important to be strategic about the story you want to convey for each version,” said Craig Ciali, Sr. Director/Producer at Snapshot Interactive.
A recent Google research study compared the effectiveness of three different videos on YouTube (:15, :30 and 2:17) and found that the view through rate for the :30 video outperformed them all. In fact it was 30% more effective than the :15, and the 2:17 video fell somewhere in between. Food for thought when you’re considering run-time for your spots. You can read the entire study here.
Typically the long-form video will go somewhere on your website (perhaps in the “about us” section). It should also be placed on all the video-sharing websites so anyone can run across it by searching for specific keywords. If viewers like it, they can easily share it on their own social media so their friends can see it, and so on.
This video is also great to showcase in sales presentations where you have more of a captive audience, or at events and tradeshows. Just remember that hearing video at trade shows can be difficult, so another option to consider is adding a version with graphic callouts). Either way, the video should always be compelling and showcase your story in a way that viewers can relate to.
That same story can be edited down into shorter formats to be used on social media, the front page of your website, on television and anywhere else where you need strategic advertising for viewers who are literally being bombarded with ads from every angle. This is also your chance to change up the story a bit. “It’s important to remember that usually a lot of great interview comments and video b-roll captured during your shoot fall to the cutting room floor. There’s always a possibility to revisit content that didn’t make it into the first edit,” says Ciali.
(Pro tip: Creating a version of your video that has subtitles can be very helpful for Facebook where videos automatically play but have no sound.)
As always, the Snapshot team is here to help you develop a strategy that will help you meet your goals. All you have to do is let us know!
