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Going Global? A Video Marketing Strategy Is Your Key to Success

Video Marketing, , , ,

Thanks to digital advancements taking place all around the world, global strategies are more accessible than ever to enterprise and even mid-level brands. New corners of the world can be reached through mobile technology and high-speed internet access, and many companies recognize that a strong, local market can be complemented by incremental growth of its brands in international markets.

So, consider this: as VP of marketing for a company working primarily in domestic, English-speaking markets, you’ve recently been asked to develop a video marketing strategy for international audiences.

This is a big task: every international audience will present a different set of cultural and language barriers. Language alone can put certain types of content at high risk of being ineffective, unless you include individual translations in your strategy—and even then, supporting the writers, translators, and editors needed to produce this content en masse may not be sustainable.

Video has an advantage in that it is primarily visual, which means it can help bridge language gaps. It isn’t the cheapest form of content—but as production costs go down, video has some interesting cost advantages that give it a leg up where global marketing is concerned. Already, brands are finding ways to leverage video as a medium that helps brands cross borders and language barriers to meet new, interested consumers.

Video’s Global Growth

It’s no secret that video continues to gain prominence as a major driver of online traffic. In developed markets, this is because high-speed internet access, along with video-friendly mobile devices, makes it easy to stream video content from any location.

This high-speed infrastructure has been slower to come to developing parts of the world, but it is reaching these consumers nonetheless. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Complete Forecast, video is projected to account for 82 percent of all global consumer internet traffic by 2020. Between 2015 and 2020, the average broadband speed experienced by global internet users is projected to nearly double. More than four billion people will be connected to the internet, and they’ll be watching video more than ever.

Brands have recognized this change and they’ve invested in video marketing strategy accordingly. In many cases, though, these strategies are still built for English-speaking audiences. Language does create certain limitations, but some brands are finding ways to make video content more universal.

How Brands Create for International Audiences

Creativity is a great asset when building video strategy for multilingual audiences. The language barrier is a top concern for tourism brands, which inevitably cater to audiences spanning the globe. In this department, Vienna’s tourism channel on YouTube is a shining example. They release videos on a regular basis to drive tourism and interest in Austria’s capital city. These videos reach a global audience by being produced in several languages: it is the same video content, only with the narration and in-video text changed.

These videos aren’t only available in Viennese German and English, but also less-common languages, like American Sign Language.

Sign Language

In other cases, brands are leveraging video by encouraging user-generated content. Of course, it’s very on-brand for GoPro to lead by example. The company has become a global sensation by mass-producing the hardware needed to capture exotic experiences from the firsthand experience of brave, adventuring souls. This is an easy use of video for GoPro because the experience of its content isn’t bound by language—you don’t need to know English to appreciate a video of a Swedish man enjoying a little run of snowmobile paragliding:

Meanwhile, video-based demonstrations and instructional videos can be educational and useful to consumers even if they have to rely on the visual. As Forbes points out, San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee has produced a run of video content that teaches consumers the finer points of making coffee, including demonstrations on how to properly roast and prepare coffee beans.

Even if these videos are produced in another language, the consumer might still be able to use the video to learn simply through his familiarity with the product and a focus on proper technique. Brands can aid these non-native speakers by making sure that the visual step-by-step demonstrations are clear and strong, so that they can see what’s happening from one step to the next, even if they can’t understand the accompanying words.

Tracking Your Success

Measurement is important for any campaign, but video targeting international audiences can be a little tricky. Certain tracking channels will need their own adjustments to serve the larger campaign. While analytics solutions like Google Analytics (GA) provide strong, basic data that can track conversions and microconversions driven by your video content, you will need to do the work of creating channels that GA can track to get a better sense of your video engagement efforts.

Strategies like tracking email sign-ups and website browsing are great, and they’re good for supplementing actions like YouTube channel follows, if you’re making use of such a publishing platform. Other calls to action built into the video can be tracked through analytics. Most importantly, your analytics tool will need to be able to segment by country or region so that you can see how global marketing strategy is working in different parts of the world. Poor performance in a specific area can be due to lack of interest, the language barrier, or any number of reasons.

Your brand might be focused on a few select countries and regions rather than the world at large, so it isn’t necessary to target peak performance in every case. But poor performance in a country you have prioritized will demand that you take a second look, not just at the quality of the content itself, but also what cultural variables may be inhibiting its engagement with that local audience.

As a channel that can leverage language, visuals, music and other types of content to build a connection with consumers, video is uniquely positioned as the global marketing strategy of the future. As high-speed internet reaches further around the globe, expect video consumption to stay on the rise.

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The stunning destruction at Oroville Dam and the work ahead

Video Marketing, , , ,

A craterlike hole that has surfaced in the middle portion on Oroville Dam’s main spillway, a 3,000-foot structure lined in concrete. (Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources via Getty Images)

When authorities were forced to use Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway, as recent storms caused the adjacent reservoir to swell, they expected to let water flow for at least 32 hours, 58 at the most.

But after just less than a day, the emergency spillway in California’s gold country was at risk of failing. A craterlike hole had surfaced Sunday. Officials feared the worst: That further erosion would cause the spillway to collapse, clearing the way for a 30-foot-wall of water from the overfull reservoir to engulf surrounding areas.

“It’s just amazing,” said Ron Stork, an environmentalist who warned state and federal officials 12 years ago that the emergency spillway, which is no more than a 1,700-foot concrete weir that empties into a dirt hillside, was unsafe. “It’s like the rock was melting.”

The hole is so massive that by Monday, according to media reports, officials had to use helicopters to drop loads of rocks into it. Meanwhile, the dam’s main spillway, a 3,000-foot structure lined in concrete, also has its own mammoth craterlike hole. Both were the result of erosion as high volumes of water came gushing from the reservoir.

[The government was warned that the Oroville Dam emergency spillway was unsafe. It didn’t listen.]

The past few days’ events, which displaced nearly 200,000 area residents for about two days, raise several questions about why the infrastructure failed in the first place and what long-term fixes should happen to avoid future catastrophe.

The California Department of Water Resources, which owns and operates the dam and reservoir, has started planning for those long-term fixes, a spokeswoman said. Options that are under consideration include reconstructing the main spillway and lining the emergency spillway with concrete. Any of those options would likely cost millions of dollars. Requesting federal dollars to help with repairs is a possibility, though no decisions have been made.

Details of the reconstruction plan are still being determined, according to the agency.

“Once this is over with, once they get the water down, they’ll have to do some investigative work and determine what caused this in the first place,” said Dusty Myers, an engineer and president of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. “How did they lose material underneath? What caused it to collapse? [The answers] will dictate what work they do.”

By Monday, officials had started filling the hole in the emergency spillway with tons of rock. That’s a temporary fix to prepare for a series of storms that are expected to hit the area over the next few days. They’ve also doubled the flow of water out of the main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second, with the hope of lowering the lake level by 50 feet to leave room for upcoming rain.

By Tuesday afternoon, residents were allowed back into their homes, according to media reports. Officials also said that the flow of water being released from the dam is “sustainable” and has reduced the possibility of the lake overflowing, the Los Angeles Times reported.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said during a news briefing Tuesday that President Trump is “keeping a close eye” on the Oroville Dam emergency, a “textbook example” of the country’s need for better infrastructure, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair. In order to prevent the next disaster, we will pursue the president’s vision for overhaul of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure,” Spicer said.

Marcia Hale, president of Building America’s Future, a bipartisan group of elected officials advocating for investment in infrastructure, agreed.

[‘I’m terrified I’m not going to have a home to come home to’]

“This is clearly a mammoth problem for the state of California,” Hale said. “But it highlights the fact that many of our dams around the country need attention. They need to be refurbished, repaired and brought into the 21st century.”

Spicer’s remarks come the day after California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wrote a letter to the White House describing the scope of the damages and requesting for federal assistance for some of the residents who were forced to evacuate.

“I have determined this incident is of such severity and magnitude that continued effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments and supplemental federal assistance is necessary to save lives and to protect property, public health and safety, and to lessen the effects of this serious situation,” Brown wrote.

Brown’s letter does not address the possibility of asking for federal dollars to help pay for reconstruction.

One possible avenue for federal funding is legislation that President Barack Obama signed in December, Hale said. The Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, or WIIN, is a major water infrastructure package that allocates $12 billion to water projects around the country.

[California and President Trump are going to war with each other]

But the cost of repairing the nation’s federal dams far surpasses that number. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates that rehabilitating federal dams would cost more than $57 billion.

The possible need for federal funds for California comes at a time when the state’s relationship with the president continues to sour. Just earlier this month, Trump threatened to “defund” the state partly because of its sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants.

During a news conference Monday evening, Brown said he’s not worried that the president’s criticism of California would prevent the state from receiving aid for the Oroville dam emergency.

Hale agreed.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people affected by this,” Hale said. “It’s an infrastructure problem, not a political problem.”

READ MORE:

The Lake Oroville dam stress test isn’t over — more rain this week, then spring thaw

188,000 evacuated as California’s massive Oroville Dam threatens catastrophic floods

See photos as thousands are evacuated after Oroville Dam threatens floods

Flynn’s swift downfall: From a phone call in the Dominican Republic to a forced resignation at the White House

Video Marketing, , , ,

Michael Flynn was at a beachside resort in the Dominican Republic, a stretch of sand and sun that he and his wife had visited for years, when he took a few moments out of their post-election vacation for a call with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

As a veteran intelligence officer, Flynn must have known that a call with a Russian official in Washington would be intercepted by the U.S. government, pored over by FBI analysts and possibly even shared with the White House.

But six weeks later, Flynn was forced out of his job as national security adviser to President Trump over what was said in that conversation and Flynn’s inability to be truthful about it with then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence and other officials now in senior positions at the White House.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that “the level of trust between the president and General Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change.”

But Flynn’s removal was also the culmination of swirling forces and resentment unleashed by the 2016 election. He embodied the bitterly partisan nature of the contest, leading “Lock her up” chants directed at Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the Republican National Convention. His unusual association with Russia — and the discovery of his secret communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak — fanned suspicion among senior Obama administration officials of a more sinister aspect to Russia’s interference in the election. And ultimately, Flynn’s misleading statements about the Kislyak calls added to broader concerns about the Trump administration’s regard for the truth.

The sequence connecting Flynn’s call and his dismissal came to involve two presidents warily passing power, the leaders of national security agencies including the FBI and CIA, and incoming and outgoing transition officials who regarded one another with significant distrust.

Senior Obama administration officials said they felt so uncertain about the nature of the Flynn-Kislyak relationship that they took it upon themselves to scale back what they told Flynn and others on his incoming national security team, particularly on sensitive matters related to Russia. Officials emphasized, however, that there was no formal decision to limit information sharing with the Trump transition team.

“We did decide to not share with them certain things about Russia,” a former senior Obama administration official said. “We just thought, who knew? Would that information be safe?”

Flynn’s rising profile in the Trump campaign appears to have coincided with a resumption of his contacts with Kislyak. The two first met in 2013, when Flynn, then the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, met with military intelligence officials in Moscow on a trip that the Russian diplomat helped to arrange and coordinate.

As Moscow’s lead envoy in Washington, Kislyak’s communications were routinely monitored by the FBI, including diplomatic reports he filed with Moscow in which he documented his interactions with Flynn, according to current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

At the same time, Russian intelligence services were carrying out an assault on the election, delivering troves of emails stolen from Democratic Party servers to the WikiLeaks Web site, according to U.S. officials. U.S. intelligence agencies later concluded that the effort was designed to destabilize U.S. democracy, damage Clinton’s prospects and help elect Trump.

No evidence has surfaced to suggest that Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak were in any way tied to the Russian operation. Nevertheless, by mid-December, senior officials in the Obama White House began to hear about Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak, both from intelligence reports and other sources.

Obama administration officials weren’t sure what to make of the communications. To some, they appeared to be consistent with the kind of diplomatic outreach expected of any incoming administration. To others, already alarmed by the scale of the Russian interference in the U.S. election, the frequency of the contacts seemed excessive and the lack of any effort by Flynn to coordinate his calls with the State Department was regarded with growing suspicion.

Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, did not give Flynn advance notice of the sanctions that the White House planned to impose on Russia over its meddling in the election. Instead, Denis McDonough, who at the time was Obama’s chief of staff, waited until the sanctions were announced to inform his Trump counterpart, a former administration official said.

The measures that Obama announced on Dec. 29 included the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian intelligence officers from the United States, and the forced closure of Russian-owned compound in Maryland and New York used as resortlike retreats for that country’s spies and diplomats.

Flynn had a flurry of communications with Kislyak in the days leading up to that announcement, including, by his account, an exchange of holiday greetings via text message on Dec. 25. The two also traded phone calls that Flynn said were limited to condolences over the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey and the downing of a Russian aircraft, as well as a preliminary conversation about setting up a phone call between Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and Trump.

By that time, Flynn and his wife were in the Dominican Republic for a beachside respite before he moved into one of the most demanding jobs in the White House. It was there, at a resort on the eastern tip of the country, that Flynn fielded a Kislyak call as sanctions were announced.

“He got a hold of me,” Flynn said in the Post interview, “I was on vacation, actually, with my wife.”

The digital packets streaming between their phones were intercepted by the FBI, using capabilities provided by the National Security Agency, as part of its routine surveillance of Kislyak. An FBI agent prepared a brief intelligence report summing up the contents of the conversation, officials said.

The report was not widely circulated and might have attracted only scant attention were it not for a Putin move that baffled Washington. Rather than retaliate against the United States with comparable sanctions — standard practice during the Cold War, and afterward — Putin seemed to greet Obama’s punitive measures with an indifferent shrug.

Putin’s reaction — praised by Trump in a tweet saying “I always knew he was very smart” — sent officials at the White House, State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies scrambling for clues. What they began to focus on, in early January, were Flynn’s calls with Kislyak.

On Jan. 5, FBI Director James B. Comey, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. briefed Obama and a small group of his top White House advisers on the contents of a classified intelligence report showing that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump. That’s when White House officials learned that the FBI was investigating the Flynn-Kislyak calls. “The Flynn-Kislyak relationship was highlighted,” a former senior U.S. official said, adding that the bureau made clear “that there was an actual investigation” underway.

The Obama administration at times seemed almost paralyzed about how to respond to Russia’s unprecedented attack on the U.S. election system, even as officials watched it unfold. It wasn’t until weeks after the election that the Obama administration sought to punish Russia.

The Obama team was similarly slow in its deliberations over whether and how to confront the fledgling Trump administration over what it had uncovered in Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak.

The issue was forced out into the open on Jan. 12 in an op-ed by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. The piece revealed Flynn’s calls with Kislyak and called for an explanation from the White House on whether the two men had discussed sanctions.

Pence and other members of the Trump transition team, still a week away from assuming power, checked with Flynn before they publicly denied that sanctions had been discussed during the call with Kislyak.

Sally Q. Yates, then the deputy attorney general, Clapper and Brennan wanted to inform the Trump White House that Flynn had misled Pence and other officials. They were concerned that Moscow could use the lie to blackmail Flynn and didn’t feel comfortable leaving Pence in the dark about being misled.

On Obama’s last full day in office, Jan. 19, Clapper and Brennan made the case to Comey for informing the Trump team about Flynn. The FBI director pushed back primarily on the grounds that notifying the new administration could complicate the agency’s investigation. The bureau, Comey also insisted, shouldn’t be “the truth police,” according to an official familiar with his thinking at the time. “In other words, if there’s not a violation of law here, it’s not our job to go and tell the vice president that he’s been lied to.”

In the days following Trump’s inauguration, FBI agents interviewed Flynn about his calls with Kislyak. That removed the basis for Comey’s earlier objection to notifying the White House, current and former officials said. It is unclear whether Flynn gave the agents an accurate account of his calls with Kislyak. If not, officials said he could find himself in serious legal jeopardy. The FBI interview with Flynn was first reported by the New York Times.

On Jan. 26, Yates notified White House counsel Donald McGahn about the concerns that she and the former intelligence chiefs had about Flynn’s misrepresentations to Pence and others. McGahn, in turn, informed Trump, leading to a review of whether Flynn had violated any laws. White House lawyers quickly concluded that no laws had been broken, according to Spicer.

In his letter of resignation, ­Flynn said that he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador,” and that he had merely sought “to facilitate a smooth transition and begin to build the necessary relationships” for Trump with foreign leaders.

Current and former U.S. officials described that assertion as implausible, noting that sanctions were such a prominent subject of Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak that it seems unlikely he could have forgotten.

Spicer also suggested that ­Flynn’s false account of the sanctions discussion was part of a troubling pattern, saying that a “series of issues and series of statements and pronouncements” had damaged Flynn’s standing beyond repair.

Flynn’s version of events finally started to crumble on Feb. 7, when he was informed that The Post was preparing to publish an article about his discussion of sanctions with Kislyak, citing nine current and former U.S. officials. Flynn, at first, stood by his denials. Then, one day later, he acknowledged through a spokesman that he might have discussed sanctions but couldn’t recall.

Pence finally learned from The Post — two weeks after McGahn — that Flynn had misled him. It would appear that neither McGahn nor Trump had informed him of the false statements.

After Flynn apologized to Pence, the vice president seemed open to allowing Flynn to remain in place, according to a senior administration official. But Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff who had also come to Flynn’s defense in January, “didn’t want to let it go,” the official added.

How Video Marketing Can Transform Your Funnel

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The way your customers consume content continues to evolve. Video marketing is all the rage and continues to be a hot topic for brands large and small.

With the rise of live video and video content, we’re viewing more content than we ever have before. We’re learning through each view. We’re finding new audiences that engage with our material. We’re including innovative storytelling and unique ways to grab attention and build relationships.

How are you leveraging video marketing for your audience?

This may seem like a loaded question. It’s about your video platform. It’s also about the story you’re trying to tell. According to findings by HubSpot, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

Whether that story is to advertise a product or service, deliver information, provide entertainment, or build trust, that’s up to you.

Video marketing takes on many forms. From the big brands that are able to display ads on Snapchat to the small business owners looking to make a splash with video, remember your target audience and create a unique experience to get ahead of the game.

Go Live on Social Platforms

Your social media feeds are filling up with live video. If you have something to announce or promote, go live on your company’s Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter feed. Understand that each platform has a different audience, so put snippets of information on each platform to keep them interested and engaged.

Audiences love live video because it’s authentic content. It’s an immediate reaction and message directly to your audience. There’s no script; there’s no editing and master versions.

Of the companies that have experimented with Facebook Live, 78% said that the platform was an effective marketing tool.

Why Use Live Video?

Show your human side. Provide a sneak peek into company events or new products. Live video has the chance to become the face of your business. As a marketer, you want to reach the highest number of people.

  • Communicate Corporate or Organizational Values
  • Create Relationships Communicate With Your Audience
  • Showcase Your Brand
  • Conduct a QA Session to Learn About Your Followers

Pick your channel appropriately. Attract your audience and increase your following. Whether your audience is on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, develop a strategy to reach them. Don’t be in all places at once.

Snapchat and Instagram users like quick, consumable content. You can also try Stories, which are videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours (and coming to Facebook soon). Facebook users may watch a short video or a longer form video. Know your audience and deliver content that appeals to your users.

Gary Vaynerchuk has built a personal brand with video marketing, using Instagram Live, Snapchat, and YouTube daily mashups to build awareness and market himself. Jay Shetty is an international motivational speaker that speaks on Facebook Live and holds QA’s on Huffington Post and other platforms. Both go viral, and both have adapted to the changing video landscape. Take a lesson from these two entrepreneurs to master your video marketing strategy.

For brand audiences, according to Livestream, 80% of users would rather watch a live video than read a blog post and 82% prefer live video to regular social media posts.

As a brand, there’s no better opportunity to humanize yourself and engage in a one-on-one conversation with your audience than through live video on social media. Leverage that for your brand.

video-marketing

My company, 1SEO.com Digital Agency, often uses video to reach a wider audience.

Utilize Video Advertisements

Boosting and displaying video advertisements allows you to hone in on your target audience. To users across mobile, social, and desktop computers, you can capture attention with brief, appealing advertisements.

Develop a cross-channel campaign—websites, social platforms, mobile devices, connected televisions—to reach users at all stages of brand discovery or the purchasing process across all devices.

In-stream video advertisements are your ads that play within other video content. It’s a great way for your brand to include a short segment in front of viewers already looking for video content. From pre-roll ads before a video plays, mid-roll ads during a piece of content, or an ad after a video plays, you have a unique opportunity to get your message heard quickly.

Keep video ads short and tight, delivering value with minimal distraction to viewers. For ads, it’s important to display strong calls to action both at the beginning and end of the video. When you invest in a quality production, your viewers will be interested and engaged.

On social media, your ads are present as your target audience is scrolling through their news feeds. Social ads are increasingly shared, resulting in a further organic reach and more chance for conversions. Your video plays on mobile and social without sound, so make sure your message is clear and you start your video with compelling images that increase conversion rates.

Pay attention to mobile video ads. Your audience is consuming video content at a rapid rate on mobile devices, and they’re paying more attention to ads they’re presented. Leverage your brand by staying ahead and taking advantage of this growing market.

Through banner ads, display video content for your brand on sites that your target audience already use regularly. This can help build trust for your brand and assist in the discovery process at key points in your audience decision making.

Videos in Your Email Campaigns

In my personal experience, emails sent out that have the word [VIDEO] in the subject line, tend to get more opens and more clicks than a subject line that doesn’t include the word video. HubSpot found that videos in an email lead to a 200-300% increase in click-through rate.

That’s not very surprising. Our inboxes are flooded with email after email. As we’re shifting to a visual world, it’s no surprise that emails with video get more interaction. It leads to success and interaction with your audience.

Your email marketing campaigns are developed for various reasons, and different types of video see different types of engagement and playback. For emails, videos with the best performance include:

  • Product Descriptions Demonstrations
  • Customer Testimonials
  • Educational Training Videos
  • Event Promotions

Whether you embed the video in your email or create a static image with a play button to indicate a video, you’ll see more interaction and an increased click-through rate from your email campaigns.

Prominently Feature Videos on Important Landing Pages

For your PPC and SEO campaigns, you rely on the power and influence of the content on your landing page to drive leads. Gain an advantage by embedding an interactive, educational video on your landing page.

According to findings by HubSpot, including a video on your landing page can increase conversion by 80%. Ads are increasingly linking directly to video landing pages.

Having a short video as a teaser to answer a question or garner interest, together with a call to action and phone number or contact box, will lead to more conversions. Videos make content easier to digest. A higher percentage of viewers will retain your message when they watch a video as compared to reading text on a landing page.

Capture the attention with a headline that stands out. Use text on the page that is easy to skim and is consumable, then feature a video above the fold that shows visitors to the page exactly what they’d be looking for from your company.

Keep your videos in line with your brand strategy. Learn what your audience is looking for from your company. Whether you’re showing how to use your software, what makes your products stand out, how to trust your services, or the value your company provides, you’ll improve your click-through rates and increase conversions.

Video Analytics to Guide Your Strategy

More and more businesses are investing in video content creation, using advanced analytics to determine much more than the basic metric of views. See how your viewers are engaging with your videos, determine a level of interest, and track more insightful measures.

Video analytics help you get more video engagement and increase your play rate. Track insights related to:

  • Impressions
  • Device Types
  • Play Rates
  • Referral Sources
  • Total Views per Viewer

When you embed a video on your site or social media, there are different tools that will help you understand how many conversions or sales are coming from your video campaigns. The most evident and most-used video metric is YouTube Insights, which gives you traffic sources, audience retention, demographics, playback locations, and more.

One of the best tools you can invest in include Wistia. This tool directly tracks engagement with your videos. You can determine which viewers finished your video and actions they take afterward. The value of Wistia is its integration into your sales funnel so you can make informed decisions.

If you’re creating videos for brand awareness purposes, you’ll find value in Brandwatch, which helps deliver key insights into the opinions of your audience. Identify more opportunities and build brand awareness.

Use video analytics to guide your strategy. With analytics, you’ll learn how effective your video marketing campaigns are, and how they complement your other marketing efforts.

Produce Create Interactive Videos for Your Audience

You may think of videos as a passive form of marketing. Audiences tend not to watch commercials and we’re often not giving our full attention to YouTube videos. According to MarketingProfs, your audience is in a shift from a passive to interactive experience, and you should be taking advantage of it.

There are various ways you can keep viewers engaged throughout an educational video with surveys, clickable URLs, and additional content that can retain user focus and drive action.

Interactive videos draw a higher engagement rate, which leads to more conversions and sales. Interactive media brings a personalized experience to your audience. They’ll view your videos longer, share more on social platforms, and interact more frequently with your content.

With consumer choice on a particular video, they’re selecting their own path to conversion. Gather insights on the intent of your audience, and generate qualified customers that help grow your business.

MarketingProfs found that 35% of marketers used a more sophisticated approach to video marketing from 2015 to 2016. Expect that trend to continue in the years ahead. Make informed decisions through video analytics, and leverage your business over your competition with a unique video approach.

Conclusion

Marketers that are ahead of the curve are using video throughout the marketing funnel and for more than just brand awareness. They’re there to educate. They’re there to entertain.

Whether organic or paid video marketing, the opportunities are endless if you take the right approach. You want to get your brand and your message in front of the right audience. Video is a powerful platform giving you tremendous opportunity.

Video marketing is one of the smartest ways to market your business. Think creatively, create content that is personal, and impact your audience with a video campaign that drives business results.

 

Featured Image: Image by BJ Bergey. Used with permission.
In-post Photo: Image by BJ Bergey. Used with permission.

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Which 2017 Super Bowl Ads Won Video Marketing’s Big Game?

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Sports fans know who won Super Bowl 2017. It was the New England Patriots, who overcame a 25-point deficit in the third quarter to beat the Atlanta Falcons by a score of 34 to 28 in overtime. But, a week later, video marketers aren’t really sure which of the 2017  Super Bowl ads won the big game. Why? Well, the outcome kinda, sorta depends on which metrics you happen to use.

For example, ‘Hero’s Journey’ Starring Melissa McCarthy’ was ranked the top commercial in the 29th annual USA TODAY Ad Meter.

“Hero’s Journey” got a score of 7.47 from this year’s Ad Meter panel, beating out “All-New Honda CR-V 2017 Big Game Commercial – Yearbooks,” which got a score of 6.97. If these metrics seem a little obscure, they’re only trotted out on special occasions like the Super Bowl or Rio Olympics.

Speaking of overtime, the winner of the YouTube AdBlitz won’t be announced until Wednesday, Feb. 15. All we know at this point is the top ads (based on Game Day views) as of Monday, Feb. 6 at 2 a.m. ET. In the top spot was “Budweiser 2017 Super Bowl Commercial | ‘Born The Hard Way’.”

It was followed by “Ghost Spuds | Bud Light Super Bowl Commercial 2017 feat. Spuds MacKenzie.” But, sports fans have already learned – and video marketers should already realize by now – that knowing who was ahead last week in the AdBlitz voting is probably as irrelevant as knowing who was ahead at half-time during the Big Game.

By the way, this isn’t a scientific wild-ass guess. I’ve already looked at the Tubular Labs data for the first three days of videos related to this year’s Super Bowl. The top video from a brand – both in total views and views in its first three days – is the YouTube version of “A Better Super Bowl | NFL Hyundai Super Bowl LI.” At last count, it had 25.8 million total views. And it got 21.2 million of those views in the first three days.

In second place is the Facebook version, which is entitled, “ICYMI: These troops couldn’t be home for Super Bowl LI, so we brought home to them.” At last count, it had 9.2 million total views. And it got all 9.2 million of those views in the first three days.

However, I also looked at Tubular Labs data for engagements and saw some different results. In first place, with 135,000 total engagements (likes, shares, and comments) at last count is the Facebook version of “Watch the Official Cleaner of Super Bowl LI get dirty in his sexy new Super Bowl ad.” It is followed by “ICYMI: These troops couldn’t be home for Super Bowl LI, so we brought home to them,” which had 99,200 total engagements at last count.

If you look at engagement rate, which the number of engagements divided by the number of views, you get different results, once again. The top Super Bowl video ad – with an engagement rate 3.0x greater than average – is the YouTube version of “Google Home | 2017 Super Bowl Commercial.”

It was followed by the YouTube version of “Super Bowl Commercial 2017: Our Bar | Michelob ULTRA,” which had an engagement rate 1.2x greater than average. But wait, there’s more!

Super Bowl Brand Lift for NFL

Three days after the Big Game, the YouGov BrandIndex reported that the NFL itself came away from the Super Bowl with large spikes in consumer perception metrics, and they may have a record-setting comeback to thank for that. The NFL’s Buzz (“If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?”) improved from 5.2 before the Super Bowl (Jan. 1-14). That score improved to 29.7 after the Big Game (Feb. 6-8). And the NFL’s Word of Mouth (“Which of the following brands have you talked about with friends and family in the past two weeks, whether in person, online or through social media?”) improved from 30.3 before the Big Game to 51.0 afterwards.

Following the NFL in Buzz was Avocados from Mexico, which improved its score from 3.8 before the Big Game to 21.2 afterwards. And Following the NFL in Word of Mouth was Skittles, which improved its score from 5.6 to 18.3. The YouGov BrandIndex also reported that Avocados from Mexico had the highest score when it came to improving its purchase consideration, YouGov BrandIndex’s indicator of potential sales revenue.

Avocados from Mexico had a baseline score of 14.4, before the Super Bowl (Jan. 1-14). That score improved to 29.7 after the Big Game (Feb. 6-8). In second place was Snickers, which used a live Super Bowl commercial to improve its purchase consideration from 31.3 before the Big Game to 41.9 afterwards.

Different Metrics Give Different Results

So, who cares if different metrics produce different winners? Well, I saw the perfect answer last week in an article by The New York Times, which quoted remarks made by Marc S. Pritchard, the chief brand officer at Procter Gamble, at a recent conference held by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Pritchard said, “We spend enormous amounts of time trying to understand, analyze and explain the differences between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Pandora, YouTube and the dozens of different viewability standards claimed to be right metric for each platform.” He added, “Think about that for a moment. It would be like each NFL football team having a different standard of yards needed for a first down.”

I totally agree. And having different metrics determine different winners among Super Bowls ads is also kinda, sorta like having different goals and objectives for the Big Game. Did we want to end up on top of a chart, any chart, so we could mention that the next time we need to look for a new client or a new job? Or, was our Super Bowl ad trying to increase brand lift, engagement, buzz, word of mouth, purchase intent, or sales of our company’s or client’s product?

In addition, consider what happened when the fourth quarter ended in a 28-28 tie and went into overtime. (Hint: For sports fans, there was a coin toss to see who got the football first. For Big Game advertisers, four more TV commercials ran in the overtime period, bringing the total ad load in Super Bowl 2017 to 51 minutes, 30 seconds. That made this the second-most ad-cluttered Big Game behind only Super Bowl 2013, which totaled 51:40.)

So, was overtime a good thing or a bad thing? You’ll get different answers from New England fans than you’ll get from Atlanta fans. And if you’ve paid $5 million for a 30-second spot, how do you feel? Oh, and consider this: Super Bowl 2017 was watched by 111.3 million people in the US, according to Nielsen. That’s the smallest TV audience since 2013.

Mar-a-Lago planning pics raising security concerns

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WASHINGTON — Photos snapped at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida showing him engaged in what appeared to be an international security meeting over dinner — in full view of members of a swanky exclusive club on the property — only added to the list of problems for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn before his resignation last night.

Richard DeAgazio, a 72-year-old Boston-based businessman and part-time actor, captured photos Saturday of Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and several Trump aides reviewing documents on the estate’s candlelit patio dining room by the light of aides’ cellphones — all in full view of the other diners. The photos were taken just as news broke that North Korea conducted its farthest-reaching missile test launch yet.

“HOLY MOLY!!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan,” DeAgazio said in a Facebook post, which included a photo of him with the member of Trump’s security team responsible for carrying the nuclear launch code in a briefcase known as the “football.”

The Facebook post was later made private, then DeAgazio deleted his Facebook account altogether. Efforts by the Herald to reach him were unsuccessful, but he told The Washington Post seeing Trump in action shows “he’s a man of the people.”

But security experts and Democratic leaders laid the blame for the incident with Flynn, who was already under fire for charges that he spoke with Russian officials before Trump was sworn into office.

“This provides further evidence that the Trump national security apparatus has not yet gotten its act together,” said Andrew J. Bacevich, professor emeritus in international relations and history at Boston University.

“As national security adviser, (Flynn) would be the individual primarily responsible for ensuring that national security decisions are made and information disseminated in careful and orderly way,” said Bacevich, a former U.S. Army officer.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also blamed Flynn in a tweet, one of a number of Democrats that called for him to be ousted in the hours before he resigned: “There’s no excuse for letting an international crisis play out in front of a bunch of country club members like dinner theater. #FireFlynn”

Last night White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump and Abe were discussing logistics about the press briefing they held, and they had been briefed before the dinner.

4 Predictions for Video Marketing in 2017

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Brad Jefferson, CEO at Animoto highlights how the omnipresence of video content in 2017 will impact everything from marketing strategy to the job market

When I shared my predictions on the video space with MarTech Advisor around this time last year, online video consumption was on a steady rise. Today, video consumption is at an all-time high — in fact, in 2017, video content will represent 74 percent of all internet traffic. And as a result, more marketers than ever will be using the medium to connect with consumers.

Here are four trends we can expect to see this year:

1.Businesses embrace more than just video; they embrace video marketing strategy

In November 2014, Mark Zuckerberg predicted that the majority of Facebook traffic would be video in five years. The rate of growth of video on Facebook has consistently increased. In 2014, Facebook saw two billion daily video views on their platform. A recent report from Facebook shows that, in just a year, the social media platform is now driving over 8 billion video views per day. Numbers like this show that it will be vital for large and small brands alike to make video a part of their marketing strategy if they want to remain competitive.

2. In 2016, SMB’s followed big business marketers. Now, big businesses turn to smaller businesses for social video inspiration

Last year, we predicted that SMB’s would be adopting the marketing trends of big brands, and they did, with more small businesses than ever embracing video. But now we’re seeing this theme reverse itself. This year, big brands and marketers will be following the trends of SMB’s, whose approach to social media relies heavily on DIY video creation. Professional marketers at large companies will become “DIY Marketers,” trading highly produced videos for scrappy but timely and engaging ones — even if they don’t have any video experience.

3. Video marketing will become a must-have job skill

For recent college graduates and job seekers, video marketing competency is a highly marketable skill that will grow in demand throughout 2017. College graduates have a native understanding of using video on social, which is an asset for companies who want to tell their story using video. In a survey Animoto conducted this year, surveying more than 1,000 professional marketers and 1,000 small- and medium-sized business owners, respondents said they view video marketing skills as a more desirable skill for their team in the next 12 months compared to email, design, and written marketing materials. (Animoto’s 2016 Social Video Forecast) Hubspot’s CEO, Brian Halligan, agrees– his advice? “Stop looking for that blogger and start looking for that videographer. 50% of your content mixture should be text and video. You need to make the shift to what your consumers are on.”

4. Business video uploads to Facebook will triple

In Facebook’s Q3 2017 earnings call, the company reported that 3 million businesses uploaded at least one video to their Facebook Business page per month. This number has doubled in the last six months, and I predict that pace will continue to gain steam. As video becomes an essential marketing tool, and software is available that makes it easy for any size business to create compelling video, I see there being 10 million businesses uploading video to their business page each month by end of 2017.

Whether you are a marketing video expert, or just beginning to experiment with the possibilities, 2017 will offer a great opportunity to expand your video marketing efforts and take advantage of all the medium has to offer to connect with your customers.