What Makes a Marketing Video Effective?

It’s been made very clear, video is a powerful marketing tool that is absolutely essential at any and all stages of the marketing and sales funnel. Whether it’s the early stages of building company awareness and generating trust around your product or services, or the latter stages of converting the prospective client into a paying customer, if you want to know What Makes a Marketing Video Effective you’re going to have to dive into the specifics surrounding marketing video production.

To help you understand What Makes a Marketing Video Effective, we’ve broken down many of the most important elements of a successful marketing video into 6 actionable items. From story delivery to distribution, this is what makes a marketing video effective. (Hint: follow these tips to create an effective marketing video for your brand!)

1. Storytelling Not Sales

The most effective marketing videos don’t focus on sales. They are not salesy at all actually. Instead, if you’re wondering What Makes a Marketing Video Effective, you’re going to need to focus on storytelling. Social media is all about sharing your story. So are the most powerful marketing videos! 

Brands that use storytelling to reach their audience and create value will automatically connect with and generate sales from their audience. In fact, some of the best marketing videos share in depth stories which directly communicate the vision, mission, and values of the brand to the consumer audience.

2. Hook the Viewer from the Start

If you really want to know What Makes a Marketing Video Effective, you’re going to have to hook the viewer! Attention spans are shorter than ever. In fact, consumers today have attention spans just a little bit longer than Dory, the fish on Finding Nemo, they’re 8.5 seconds on average. This means you’ve got under 10 seconds to capture the interest of your viewer and engage them.

The most effective marketing videos hook the audience quickly so that they stick around for the rest of the story. The first few seconds should clarify what the video is about and why it’s important. Then, you must deliver – don’t promise something you won’t deliver! EVER!

3. Know the Target Audience

If you’re still not sure What Makes a Marketing Video Effective, think about the importance of knowing your target audience. Whether you’ll distribute your video on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, your website or anywhere else – you must know who you are trying to reach with your content.

All of the video should target a specific audience. The words, the images, the music and sound – it should all speak to the target audience.  The most powerful marketing videos are the result of extensive research and in-depth knowledge of the target audience.

4. Optimize for Sound “Off”

If you’re producing marketing videos for social media that include heavy use of words and narration that is required to understand the video, you’re making a huge mistake. The majority of viewers will experience your video without sound.  In fact, 85% of videos that are viewed on Facebook are done so without the sound on.

Marketing videos are effective because they use visuals to share the important details of your brand’s story without the need for lengthy words or other sounds. As you think about your video, make sure that you’re considering visuals that will help your audience to pick up on your story without turning up the volume.

5. Meaningful & Appropriate CTAs

You can have a great marketing video, if it doesn’t have a meaningful and appropriate CTA.  There are a number of potential call to action elements that you can include in your video based on your video goals and other factors. Generally, the most effective marketing videos include CTAs such as:

Subscribe to my Channel

Follow my Page

Like my Page

Share this post with friends

Common on this video

Check out this other video

Tell us what you think

Sign up for our list

There really are a lot of ways that you can incorporate a call to action into your videos to make them more effective for your own individual marketing needs.

6. Optimized for Organic Search

Finally, if you’re still wondering What Makes a Marketing Video Effective, consider SEO. Video optimization is incredibly important. You cannot have an “If you build it, They will Come” attitude. This simply isn’t going to work. The most effective marketing videos are the result of extensive planning, research and ongoing commitment to the target audience, and optimization.

If you’re not sure how to optimize your video, there are entire posts about this on the Team Beverly Boy Blog, but bare minimum you should be prepared for the following:

Use a keyword rich title.

Include keywords in your captions.

Make sure to tag your videos.

Use a keyword rich description.

Different platforms will provide different options in regards to optimizing your videos before you upload them fully or distribute them. Make sure that you fill out all of the optimization options and that you do so with unique descriptions, titles, and tags.

So, What Makes a Marketing Video Effective? It’s going to target the correct audience, tell a story that they can resonate with, hook the viewer in the first few seconds, and make sense with or without sound. Additionally, the most effective marketing videos are optimized for search and include CTAs that drive viewers to perform a particular action