Yes. You need a promotional video.

See? That was easy. Now that you’ve agreed to spend a lot of money (relatively speaking) on a promotional video, it’s a good time to tell you what a promotional video is. A promotional video (or promo video) is a video that promotes a company/brand, product, service, or cause.

That definition may sound like a run-of-the-mill description of every advertisement you’ve ever seen, but there is nothing traditional about the modern promo video. Promo videos are a new front in the marketing war to stand out in infinite content space. “Infinite space” currently means 200 million active websites visited by 4.6 billion active users worldwide. Competition is medieval.

A quick note on the word “need,” as in “Do I Need a Promotional Video for My Business?” (Yes). Think of it this way. Twenty-five years ago, you didn’t need a website, and two years ago, you didn’t need a face mask.

Did we mention many types of promotional videos exist (so you may want more than one)? Here is a list of effective promo videos:

• Product Demo
• Customer Testimonial Video
• Explainer Video
• Company/Work Culture Video
• Product Review Video
• Corporate Event Video

One type of promotional video may be more effective for your specific business needs than another, but it is a statistical fact that all of them are effective (so you may want more than two). Why? What do they have in common? Promo videos are:

• Short
• Compelling
• Memorable
• Inspiring
• High-quality
• Professional storytelling
• Animation or live-action

Let’s take a promotional video tour so you can get an idea of why a promo video may be just the thing your marketing department needs to do.

Product Demo/Tour Video

Fun statistic: 69% of consumers prefer product demos when trying to decide if they are going to purchase a product or not. (Wyzowl)

Product demos show a product in action. We’re not talking about some dry run-down on how to use a lawnmower. Product demos are short, engaging, high-quality videos that use advanced storytelling through animation or live-action to get your prospective customer to reach for their wallet.

Customer Testimonial

Fun statistic: One of the top three most effective types of video content is customer testimonials. (Marketinghy)

A compelling customer testimonial video takes us on the hero’s journey. The customer is the hero and your company/product/service is the guide who helps the hero make it to the happily ever after. The formula is the same.

A person describes how idyllic their life was before a significant problem intruded and made everything terrible. Then they discover your product, and it changes everything back to the way it was before – but better. Ka’ching!

Explainer Video

Fun statistic: According to Strategic, 91% of people watch an Explainer Video when purchasing.

So many people already watch Explainer Videos on such a frequent basis they would probably find it funny that there is a term for them. An explainer video explains how a product, service, or feature works. You sell Widgets.

Your Explainer Video explains how your Widget works, how to use it, and why your Widget is the best Widget of all time.

Company/Work Culture Video

Fun statistic: Brands receive three times the positive word-of-mouth if the companies that make them inspire a higher emotional intensity. (Sprout Social)

Videos to promote your company are a little like the end of “Wizard of Oz.” You pull back the curtain, so consumers can get to know the people behind their favorite brands or learn about a company’s internal culture.

Company/work culture videos can help form a deeper and more long-term relationship with your customer base or give top talent a glimpse into why they may want to bring their professional expertise to your company.

Product Review Video

Fun statistic: “62% of consumers watch product review videos before making a purchase.” (MediaKix)

A product review video sounds like a customer testimonial. Still, the reviewer is not a happy customer but a third-party, unbiased expert or influencer in a field related to the product or service.

Think of a product review video as the Consumer Reports of promotional videos. Perceived as neutral but knowledgeable, a reviewer’s demonstration of the product and measured opinion of its performance carries a lot of weight with potential customers.

Corporate Event Video

Fun statistic: “Video of a live event increases brand favorability by 63%.” (Twitter)

Live product launches are the quintessential corporate event video, but they certainly are not limited to only that form. Live streaming an event creates buzz and excitement about a new product, or line, or partnership – whatever the case may be.

Event videos can be live-streamed or promoted on social media platforms like Facebook (Facebook Live and Facebook Stories) and Instagram (Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels).

Conclusion

That is an impressive list of options and metrics. Any business can benefit from some type of promotional video. Start slow if you need to, or if your resources are limited.

Choose the kind of promotional video that will help your organization the most and dive in. Promotional videos offer new and creative ways for brands to reach and connect with customers.

The wide range of promo video options and the diverse topographies of social media networks create unprecedented opportunities to micro-target the most likely prospects to convert into loyal customers and for a brand to demonstrate different, more human, characteristics to the public.

Corporate personhood is a legal term, but it should be a marketing one. The more a company operates as a person, the more likely it will make more enduring “person-to-person” connections.

Online marketing’s magic is a mix of creativity and data science. Industry analysts predict video (creativity) will soon be 80% of all internet traffic.

Real-time analytics (data science) allow brands to mitigate risks, real or imagined, and develop online marketing strategies that respond in an agile and nimble way to an ever-evolving marketing landscape — all while forming a deeper connection with its customers.

The marketing is creative but data-driven, and the data is clear – every business needs a promotional video… or three.

“If you build it, they will come.”

That is the famous line from W.P. Kinsella’s book-turned-hit movie, “Shoeless Joe: Field of Dreams,” about a magic baseball field where the ghosts of the greatest baseball players reunite to play ball just for fun.

All kinds of people from all sorts of places journey to the field to watch their favorite players from by-gone eras, united by nostalgia and a love for the game.

In 1965, with money and research funded by the U.S government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) an MIT professor connected a computer in Massachusetts to a computer in California, and the internet was born.

Forty years later, three forward-thinking individuals who worked for PayPal, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, built the internet’s angel-funded field of dreams and called it YouTube.

Instead of a magic field where only players of incomparable skill and renown compete, YouTube is a video-sharing wonderland that, in 16 short years, has grown in power and influence rivaled only by its parent company, Google and Facebook.

Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, is more significant. Facebook has more active users. But YouTube is the #2 most popular social media platform worldwide, and its currency is the most popular medium worldwide – video.

Video traffic will be over 80% of all internet traffic by 2022. That’s NEXT year. Only 60% of the human race is online. Streaming technology improves every year, which makes watching a video online more manageable and more accessible.

Mobile technology, and cellular networks, improve every year, which has a similar positive impact on user-generated video-sharing platforms. More than any other company, YouTube will benefit from the skyrocketing growth and popularity of video streaming, so it’s worth a delve into YouTube’s brief history.

As promised in the title, a barrage of fantastic video ideas for YouTube beginners will follow YouTube’s timeline.

YouTube Essential Facts

Founded:                  February 14, 2005

Founders:                 Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim

Headquarters:          San Bruno, California

Parent Company:     Google, LLC (2006-present)

Advertising:             Google Ads

The following is anecdotal, but a specific individual and his friends, who may or not be related to an unnamed content writer, live on YouTube. Kids don’t realize something other than streaming exists and prefer user-generated content.

More than that, however, a kid will set up a YouTube channel, swipe the closest iPhone, and start filming. Soon your backyard Spielberg posts original content and gets LIKES from all over the world. YouTube is not just watching. It’s participating.

Anecdotal for sure, but sometimes stories you hear people tell are backed up by hard science. From Backlinko.com (Jan 2021):

• YouTube’s 2020 revenue was $19.8 billion.
• YouTube currently has 2 billion users.
• 9% of global internet users access YouTube monthly.
• Every day, viewers consume more than a billion hours of YouTube content.
• YouTube’s 2.2 billion users make it the #2 social media platform worldwide.
• India has approximately 225 million YouTube users, the most of any country. The United States follows, with 197 million.
• People between the ages of 15-35 are YouTube’s dedicated users.
• Globally, women use YouTube more than men.
• 6% of YouTube channels have fewer than 10,000 subscribers.
• Quarterly YouTube ad revenue is over $5 billion.
• In 60 days. more content is uploaded to YouTube than the combined content created by the three major U.S. networks in the past 60 years.
• On average, individual YouTube content creators receive between $3-$5 per 1000 views.
• YouTube’s ad revenue in 2021’s 2^nd quarter almost doubled to $7 billion.

Not too shabby for a company still in its awkward teenage years!

YouTube Timeline

2005              YouTube launches with Jawed Karim’s “Me at the zoo” video.

2006              Google, LLC buys YouTube for $1.65 billion (that was fast!)

2007              YouTube expands into nine countries and launches a mobile site.

2010              YouTube’s market share reaches 43%, with 14 billion video views.

2011              YouTube’s daily video views top 3 billion and 48 hours of new videos are uploaded every minute.

2012              8 million people watch a YouTube live stream of Australian skydiver Felix Baumgartner jump from a helium balloon twenty-four miles above the Earth.

2014              Susan Wojcicki appointed CEO.

2015              YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and YouTube Gaming launch.

2016               Streaming service YouTube TV launches.

2018               YouTube Premium launches.

That’s the story of how YouTube became one the largest advertising networks in the history of humanity. Oh, the humanity! YouTube is digital marketing, and social media marketing rolled into one giant juggernaut.

Individual creators, potential customers, and regular people with unique ideas for videos are part of the YouTube community — all waiting for the world to discover.

Current YouTube Products/Services

• YouTube Premium (monthly subscription service, YouTube & YouTube Music ad-free)
• YouTube TV (streaming service, monthly subscription)
• YouTube Movies & Shows (Buy, Rent, Free with Ads)
• YouTube Music (Free with ads and limited features, Premium ad-free with all features)
• YouTube Live (live-streaming events)
• YouTube Kids
• YouTube Creator Academy
• YouTube for Artists

Back to the field of dreams. What makes YouTube a field of dreams is that it’s a dream for different reasons to different people.

Some people are addicted to watching user-generated video content, and they can’t get enough. Others are brand builders and marketing gurus who want to reach and influence YouTube’s 2 billion users.

Many are content creators who love producing videos and uploading them for the world to see – not to mention profit share through Google AdSense. Then there’s the top category of YouTube celebrities and influencers who are getting rich through the medium.

Nothing speaks louder than earning money hand over fist. For people who want traditional professional entertainment, YouTube TV and YouTube Premium offer those options as well.

YouTube Video Ideas for Beginners in 2021

Now that you’re an expert on YouTube’s history and clout, it’s time to launch your million-dollar YouTube channel. The best way to stand out on YouTube is to be your category.

However, for beginners, an excellent place to start is with the top ten most popular types of videos on YouTube. Know your audience! These types of content are what viewers watch the most (so these categories are also the most competitive).

1. Product Review Videos

The #1 type of YouTube video are product reviews. Researching products online before making a purchase is an almost daily ritual for most people. Product reviews are popular because viewers trust the source, typically an expert in a related field to the content, a consumer advocate, or an influencer with cred.

The source doesn’t matter as long as it’s a trusted source, isn’t a customer testimonial video from the product’s creator, and isn’t a paid review. Product reviews must be objective and free from bias.

2. How-To Videos

Many YouTube channels are how-to videos only and have millions of active subscribers. When you need to know how to do something, YouTube is the fastest way to find someone to teach it to you.

Warning: beauty influencers may dominate this category, but if you have a particular skill, you believe is worth teaching, and you can do it entertainingly, How-to-Videos may be the category for you.

3. Vlogs

These personal online video blogs are time-consuming but offer influencers (think beauty and travel) an authentic way to connect with their viewers by inviting them into their daily lives.

More than content, there are technical aspects to producing a Vlog that requires advanced specialized skills, so a successful Vlog has a great deal of dedicated, collaborative work that goes into it. Those efforts pay off.

Vlogs are viewers’ third most popular type of video to watch. For those who profit from their content or YouTube personas, Vlogs are their best vehicle, even if it means producing relevant content on a regular basis.

4. Gaming Videos

The gaming industry is more profitable than Hollywood and U.S. sports teams combined – and one of YouTube’s most popular video formats. If you’re a gaming enthusiast or champion, your gaming channel with Gameplay Video may be your dream come true.

5. Comedy/Skit Videos

If you can make people laugh, you’re the life of the party. The same is true on YouTube. Comedy pushes all of our happy buttons. Beauty influencers like to use comedy skits in their videos to add a more human dimension to what can seem posed and plastic.

6. Haul Videos

A consumer, statistically most likely a woman, shows the world what she bought on her latest spending spree in a haul video. To varying degrees, she talks about the experience or product in greater detail.

Haul videos evolved out of “unboxing” videos (#10) but are more informal and freeform. Brands love Haul videos because they organically showcase their products.

7. Tag or Challenge Videos

Tag videos show viewers multiple content creators performing the same video challenge. The competitive format and watching participants’ unique way of interpreting the same challenge puts tag videos at #7.

8. Favorites/Best of Videos

This category is very popular with beauty and fashion creators and influencers. Favorites videos are an intimate look at the products a YouTuber uses and loves. Like a product review, if you can build trust between viewers, they will tune in to hear your opinion, which may influence the viewer when they turn buyers.

9. Educational Videos

“Knowledge for the sake of knowledge!” That’s Harvard’s motto. Irony aside, the internet is the most resource-rich institution since the Library of Alexandria burned in 48 BCE. Viewers can find videos about any subject and in any form.

PhDs in Ancient History can guide you through the most influential ancient civilizations, and beauty Vloggers can post educational videos about products they love, whether educational in the more traditional sense or commerce; an educational channel is about sharing knowledge.

10. Unboxing Videos

Unboxing videos are the Christmas morning of videos. YouTubers love unboxing stuff, and viewers love watching them unbox stuff. Like Unboxing videos’ younger sibling, Haul videos, brands love this format because it gives their new and existing products an organic unveiling to discriminating consumers from a trusted source.

If you believe these ten video ideas for YouTube beginners are a lot to digest, please keep in mind these ideas are the most popular, not the only ones. Here’s a quick list of other video types to consider (in alphabetical order):

• Explainer Videos
• Daily Routine Videos
• Funny Videos
• Life Video
• Music Videos
• Opinion Video
• Reaction Videos
• Response Video
• Tips Videos
• Travel Videos

If you don’t see a niche in the list above, hundreds of more content ideas exist (not an exaggeration). Enthusiasts of every kind can find a video to match their interest.  Any content creator can find a corner of the YouTube community where they can feel connected and contribute.

Conclusion

Your field of dreams awaits. Play ball!

Corporate videos aren’t new – there are just more types of videos, and, in the age of instant analytics, they are more effective. Companies leverage the power of video for internal employees and an increasing number of external users.

Typically hosted on a company’s website, featured in direct marketing campaigns, or distributed through company-run social media accounts, corporate video content is an excellent way for a company/brand to diversify its multi-media profile and reach existing and potential customers in innovative ways.

When your company’s creative team sequesters in a room for its first corporate video brainstorming session (recommended), one of the first items on the written, distributed-in-advance agenda (recommended) is to decide if Animation or Live-Action will better serve the type of video you plan to make.

Animation is a popular and often more preferable creative approach to video. One only needs to look at the current Japanese anime craze to understand how deeply rooted animation is in our shared global culture.

Yet, live-action video production with top-notch storytelling remains one of the best and most memorable ways to connect with people – and, when done right, can be an enriching, collaborative endeavor.

This article is an exercise. Below, a list of ten types of corporate videos. Read through them and think about which way you would go – Animation or Live-Action.

Staff training. For example, you need to teach new employees how a specific type of meeting runs and why.

1. Safety: For example, your company is in biotech and handles hazardous materials. Safety is paramount, and video is the best way to communicate that core message.
2. Corporate Event Videos: For example, a new product launch. Apple Inc. loves new product launch videos.
3. Trade show videos: For example, every year, an auto show sponsored by major global car brands is held in several major cities to introduce new vehicles, concept cars, and showcase classic cars. Everywhere you look, a slick video of a car, or SUV, or EV doing miraculous things. Some videos give you a tour of the vehicle – or through the car’s engine!
4. Explainer videos: There are so many examples, here are just two. One, online recipe sites with explainer videos showing how to prepare a dish. Two, new product features explainer videos.
5. Client and customer testimonial videos: It’s a good thing Yelp reviews aren’t videos. That would be a dismal set of business-killing videos for sure. However, if YOU make the customer testimonials, you can control the narrative.
6. Company/brand promotional videos: This category is to promote something other than a company’s product or brand. For example, a company that partners with a charity makes a video promoting its cause.
7. Education Videos: In this case, the company is a school, college, or university. Over the last year, Covid-19 drove significant growth in videos produced for education. Schools from kindergarten to graduate school moved online. Video conferencing (e.g., Zoom) and video (e.g., Flipchart) are the two pillars of virtual learning.
8. Billionaires in space videos: A new category for videos that are a unique and groundbreaking spectacle. For example, recent videos of billionaires and their friends bouncing around rocket ship cabins in zero gravity. Space tourism is coming to the (wealthy) masses, and the footage we’ve all seen on the news will be in so many investor/promotional/corporate videos there is no doubt editors are already working their magic.

The Case for Live-Action

There is an allure to live-action production. Everybody gets to pretend they’re on a big Hollywood movie set for a couple of days and call it a wrap. However, video production is a complex process with many creative and technical complexities.

Companies should always consider hiring video production professionals over the DIY approach. Their expertise is needed all the more on live-action productions.

The mission is to connect with your target audience in a meaningful, memorable way as quickly as possible. Live-action may be your best option for the following reasons:

1. Viewers form an emotional connection with characters (or real people featured in a video) they feel are like them and whose stories resonate in their own lives. The human element prevails.
2. Only live-action captures the full range of human emotions. A tone, a gesture, an eccentricity are just a few subtle ways humans communicate humor, anxiety, confidence, happiness, sadness, and on and on.
3. Visual storytelling is an art form with a blueprint found in every human culture throughout recorded history. There is not more effective way to communicate. Full stop.
4. Video’s impact can only reach its full potential through live-action. Go back to the example of car videos at car shows. Showcasing the beauty and power of a sexy new sports car is better served by live-action footage.
5. Video is king, and celebrities are the king of videos. Without dispute, featuring a celebrity or legitimate influencer in a video will typically increase its reach, audience engagement, conversion rates, and overall ROI.

Cons of Live-Action

Consider these downsides when producing live-action video content.

1. Managing the human element of video production is challenging and unpredictable. For example, the talent in the video will most likely require special handling for which there is no handbook. Good luck.
2. Video production companies produce videos for a wide range of budgets, but there is no way around the fact that the least expensive live-action video production is costly. You can cut corners in many ways, but you can’t get around necessary expenses like lighting equipment.
3. A live-action shoot is susceptible to setbacks. For example, your video project’s big shot is a spectacular sunset that morphs into the brand’s logo, but when the day of the shoot arrives, it rains for a week.

The Case for Animation

Let’s all go to the lobby!

Let’s all go to the lobby!

Let’s all go to the lobby!

To get ourselves a treat!

If you don’t know that song, do yourself a favor, go to YouTube, and cut and paste the lyrics into the search bar. This vintage animated video content encouraging 1950s movie-goers to hit the concession stand during intermission will not disappoint. (Yes, intermission.

For our younger viewers, intermission is the live-action version of pausing the DVR, stream, video game, or whatever it is online you are watching).

Seven decades later, movie exhibitors still use some version of that animated video to get 2021 movie-goers to hit the concession stand. And now there’s beer and wine, so have at it. Animation video’s endurance should make it an automatic component of any video content marketing strategy.

The mission is to connect with your target audience in a meaningful, memorable way as quickly as possible. Animation may beno your best option for the following reasons:

1. Animation explains a complex idea in visually dynamic ways. For that reason, many explainer videos use animation. A stellar example is documentarian Errol Morris’s use of CGI animation in “Brief History of Time.” The animation explains the late theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s complicated ideas to people who aren’t geniuses.
2. A brand can commission a visual style that integrates its overall branding strategy and is designed to reach targeted demographics.
3. Animated video’s potential is as limitless as the human imagination. The Big Bang created the entire universe everywhere in a single moment. Animation is artistry’s big bang, able to create entire universes everywhere in a single moment. Or at least 15 seconds!
4. Animation allows us to go where we cannot go. Once again, go back to the car videos at car shows. There are just as many animated videos as there are live-action ones. Instead of a sleek concept car gliding along a coastal highway, we journey into the inner workings of the most advanced electric motor in development. It is quite the odyssey.
5. Animation’s remarkable craftsmanship and ability to magnify the human experience is the reason the top ten highest-grossing animated films each made over one billion dollars. One billion! In contrast, the top five live-action films made over two billion, but 6-10 are on par with animation. Not too shabby!

Cons of Animation

Consider these downsides when producing animated video content.

1. Animated video production is typically more extended than live-action. Depending on the video style and production process, turnaround times can drag out.
2. Animated video costs can be a barrier to entry. A professional animator is a rare commodity, and animation studios are even more so.
3. Animation is a different type of production. An animation script is different from a live-action script.   Animation options are different from live-action options. Animation video cost is different, which is essential when drawing up a budget.

The Case for Animation & Live-Action

Two classic examples of the harmonious marriage of animated and live-action videos provide all you need to think about the third way – both! A note: many live-action videos already include animation in the form of animated graphics and visual effects.

1. The live-action/animated “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was a first in so many ways it’s a whole article. The movie provided an incredible showcase of what is possible when video combines the best of both worlds.
2. Another example is Norwegian one-hit-wonder pop music band Ah- Ha’s 1985 music video for their song, “Take on Me.” Warner Brothers paired the band with American director Steve Barron and American animator Mike Patterson. The resulting video became iconic and its emotional impact lasted a lot longer than A-Ha’s career.

Conclusion

Animation vs. Live-Action is an important but mostly easy decision facing companies producing corporate videos. Each type of corporate video lends itself to one medium or the other. The answer reveals itself during development for the big ideas that do not favor one direction or another in the early stages. Each medium can be marketing magic.

In the 1997 Oscar-winning feature film, “Wag the Dog,” to divert attention from a presidential scandal, an expert spin doctor, Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), hires a seasoned Hollywood producer, Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman), to manufacture a war. Motss’ stories about challenges he has faced producing past films are priceless:

Stanley Motss

The war isn’t over ’til I say it’s over. This is my picture – this is NOT the CIA’s picture. You think you’re in a tight spot now? Alright, Conrad, try making The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – tell ’em, King.

Fad King

Three of the horsemen died.

Stanley Motss

Hear what he’s saying? Three of the horsemen DIED. Two weeks before the end of principal photography. This is NOTHING. This is nothing, this is – this is – this is just, “Act One, The War.” Now we really do need an Act Two.

“THIS IS NOTHING!” is the attitude you should adopt right now because when you start making your video, everything will go wrong. Whatever it is you think will happen isn’t going to happen, and what does happen will not be anything predictable or preventable (for the most part).

It’s a war, alright, so when everything falls apart, and you wish you had gone door-to-door with flyers instead, just remember that THREE OF THE HORSEMEN DIED! Out of four!

[ONE] You Fall for the DIY Trap

It doesn’t matter that your niece’s 15-second lip-synching TikTok video has 250,000 likes, and she’s only seven years old. She can’t make professional video ads, and neither can 99.9% of the people who work for you. Successfully producing a video requires more than .1 of a person.

If you needed heart surgery, a clear-thinking individual wouldn’t say, “You know, I think I’m just going to do it myself.”

1. Shooting video is complicated. Shooting a video at your kid’s game is not difficult. Shooting video with perfect sound and fantastic performances, if applicable, is a highly specialized skill. If anything goes wrong on your video shoot, you have no ad. Producing organic videos that encapsulate a brand’s entire message is challenging, which is why movie studios hire top talent to mitigate the risk and not kids with halo lights. Viral video rarities make headlines but are statistically insignificant.
2. Post-Production: Congratulations! You now have hours of video and sound that do not add up to anything until an entirely new group of skilled artisans get their hands on it and assemble it into the groundbreaking brand-making digital video of everybody’s dreams. Editing requires another layer of expertise that isn’t on your staff. Hire professionals.

[TWO] Audiopocalypse

The term “video” is misleading. Your “video” is really “audio-video.” That’s where the term “A/V” comes from – “Audio/Video.” In 2021, effective online digital marketing unlocks the full potential of both sound and picture.

Unfortunately, the sound is an afterthought to the majority of the participants in a video production, which results in a long list of potential points of failure throughout the campaign’s life cycle.

Pre-Production:

1. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. In a script, writers craft each word and action with great care, but the sound is almost non-existent. Sound is what the production people will do later on. Or the company will add a jingle or pay to use a popular song. Presto! Sound! The first way to avoid an Audiopocalypse is to put sound on equal footing with video from the first moment of your first brainstorming session.
2. You choose a great song for your ad, then in post you discover the cost to use it is triple the size of your budget. Do your homework.

Production:

1. The sound and the video must sync. The only exception to this rule, for some reason nobody can fully explain, is if the content originates in Japan and is dubbed into English. In that case, if it syncs, somebody will get fired, but in every other scenario involving video content.
2. Due to the unpredictability of video production, the recorded sound may not be professional grade. Sound quality issues are common, and are no reason to panic. However, fixing it requires additional work in post, which costs money (I hope you budgeted for it), needs your talent to return (scheduling nightmare), and a talented sound editor.

Post-Production:

1. Post-production effects are not professional grade. Much of the sound you hear is recorded in a studio. A sound engineer records everything from a car door slamming to a dog barking in the studio. If any of the completed work isn’t good, it may affect the overall quality of the final video.
2. The sound editing is terrible. That is your worst nightmare. You hired a professional, yet still, somehow, the last word of every line of dialogue cuts off.
3. The original song you commissioned is horrible, and nobody likes it. Bad songs happen a lot. Nothing will kill a video faster than a bad song – or the wrong song. Fun Fact: Sylvester Stallone’s younger brother Frank wrote a song called “Take it Back” for the 1979 mega-hit “Rocky.” You probably don’t remember it. Nobody does.

[THREE] Your Video is Held Hostage by Creative Differences

Any member of the professional creator community knows that “creative differences” mean that all hell has broken loose. The result is that your production has come to an inglorious halt. Think of the partisan gridlock in the United States Congress. Creative differences on a video shoot are the same thing, just with better-looking people.

1. Creative differences between talent. The worst. Creative differences between talent are like a bad date that gets progressively worse and never ends. Content creators are moody, and a creative ad campaign may unleash an ugly human element common in film/video productions.
2. Creative differences between marketing agency and production team. Choose your production company wisely. Yes, their technical capabilities must be flawless, but be sure you get along with the people. At some point, there will be conflicts that leadership must resolve to ensure the project’s success. The production talent sees themselves as independent creators, not as part of a marketing campaign.
3. Creative differences between client and marketing agency/production team. Making compelling videos involves many different types of people with different agendas. However, an advertising campaign begins and ends with the client. Nobody is heading to Cannes to walk the red carpet after completing your agency’s latest explainer videos.

[FOUR] The Film Shoot Does Not Go According to Plan

Never once in the history of filmmaking has a film/video shoot gone according to plan — the original nickelodeon flickers included. In 1900, it took half a day to film a train coming down the track. Don’t get cocky because there are billionaires in space. THREE out of FOUR of the Horsemen died. This stuff isn’t easy.

1. Your shoot goes off schedule and off-budget. A production’s kiss of death is to get behind schedule. Video production is like a taxi. You’re trapped in the back seat, and you can’t get out until the ride is over and every second the meter is running. If you get the wrong red light, you’ll miss ten green ones, and then you’ll be even more behind schedule. And all the while, the meter climbs.
2. You created a corporate budget for video production. Your film shoot will not go according to plan if your production runs out of petty cash halfway into your first day of principal photography, or you go into post-production without the money for looping (or ADR – additional dialog recording). Or maybe you committed the cardinal sin of production and short-changed the Crafts Services. Now you have fifty angry crew members who have suddenly forgotten how to pull focus and flip the lights on, and only last-minute catering from Zankou Chicken (read: premium price) will ensure the viability of your project.

[FIVE]  Distribution is Mishandled

1. Buying Ad Time. It does not matter how great or funny your video is if nobody sees it. Choosing the right channel at the right time with the best reach for your brand and selecting the ad that is the perfect length and tone for a brand’s target audiences is a distribution jigsaw puzzle. Your video may languish without the credit it deserves if all the pieces do not fit together seamlessly.
2. New media madness. YouTube Marketing, Vimeo, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Twitter, Facebook Video Feed, Google Ads, and the list keeps growing. Every distribution channel has its own rules and regulations, culture and customs, and users who engage in different ways. A killer ad on TikTok may flop on YouTube. A brand’s potential customers are out there, but one size does not fit all. If you’ve invested in a single ad, chop it up and maximize its use. Please take advantage of your video partners’ drive to maximize their profits! For example, YouTube does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Between YouTube Kids, YouTube Studio, YouTube Red, and YouTube Analytics, YouTube is begging you to reach your customers with creative messages. Add new campaign settings like Video Discovery Ads (aka TrueView Discovery Ads) give marketers new real estate to build their brands.
3. Video formats vary from channel to channel. Knowing what video ad format you need is essential. Plan on delivery of your final video in formats optimized for each channel. Do not have the quality or effectiveness of your video downgraded because it’s the wrong format. Optimize for each channel. For example, optimize mobile video for mobile users.

Video has now become an essential channel for marketers. Over 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube daily, videos garner more shares than text and images combined, and videos on landing pages increase conversion. Video helps you break through the clutter provides the ability to engage with your client deeply.

Consumers love video because it is easily digested and often more engaging and entertaining than the written word. Many people (65%) are visual learners, not to mention consumers can be lazy. This makes video the perfect way to tell your story. If you’re not using video as part of your marketing mix, you are missing out. 

So, here are our 5 tips to improve your video marketing today.

What Makes Great Video Marketing?

A great marketing video tells a concise and cohesive story. Create an arc when telling a story that takes your audience on a journey from the first frame to the last frame. A great video needs to bring value to the viewer. Focus on your customer and what your product does for him. A video that is focused purely on sales or branding will fall flat. There is too much noise out there for this to resonate. If you are not entertaining, educating, or otherwise engaging your audience, you may need to reevaluate your content. 

Tell a Story to Improve Your Video Marketing

Videos have emotive capabilities, which is what makes the medium so powerful. Make maximum use of that speaking to your customer’s needs and wants. 

Think about making the client say, “Hey, that’s me. I need that.”

A too overtly sales-focused video will fall flat, while if you focus on the value, you provide to your customers, that is much more likely to resonate. Put a call to action at the end of the video and a URL to capture the leads, but you must first engage them.

Everyone loves a good story. Find a way to tell yours in a way that is interesting and relevant. Talk about how you impact customers, how you make a difference, or the people behind your product. Pull back the curtain. This is a great chance to show your personality and show your company culture. Let your audience know what sets you apart and why they need you. 

Don’t be boring! You don’t need to be a master comic, but humor does work if you can find a way to do it effectively and consistently with your brand. People want to laugh and to feel enlightened. Don’t feel constrained from using humor, and don’t try to emulate what others have already done. 

Hook Them in the First 10 Seconds

Attention spans are short these days. It is said the average attention span is just 8.5 seconds. That means with all the content out there competing with your video; you have only a few seconds to convince your audience that your video is for them. Your story has to come alive very quickly so you can avoid the scroll. The viewer must understand very quickly what the video is about and that it is worth their precious time to watch it. Creating a hook is a great way to do this. 

Try piquing the viewer’s interest by asking a question. Your video must demonstrate its value to the viewer and tell them why they should watch it. It can make them laugh, address a problem they have, teach them something new, or inspire them to act. 

Target the Right Audience

Facebook is an excellent platform for distributing your content. It stands out because of the ability to be hyper-targetted in your audience. Be sure you understand who your perfect customer is before creating a video or doing any marketing! Know your basics like age, gender, and location. Then dig deeper. You can choose up to 16 “interests” to hone in on your client. 

Remember that videos autoplay on Facebook in]unless the phone is on silent mode. This means you should be mindful of telling your story in a way that works with and without sound. Some tips are to use great visuals, text descriptions, and subtitles. 

Don’t Fear Pre-Generated Content

Social proof can be compelling. Showing your happy customers who look like your viewers or share their problems using your solution is a very compelling way to build a strong video. And guess what? People love to see themselves in videos and are happy to star in your video and be your brand evangelist. Find ways to get your customers to create videos of them using your product or service or talking about how it solved their problems, and you have a home run. The bonus is they will share and share with friends, family, and on their channels. 

Optimize Your Videos for SEO

Creating a killer video that is engaging and tells your story compellingly and entertainingly is only half of the battle. You need to be sure your video gets found. There are many tactics to do this. First and foremost, you want to upload the video to your site to host on your own domain before sharing it out on other platforms.

You’ll want to enable embedding on your video to increase the chance of getting inbound links. Create a video sitemap, and be sure your descriptions are strong. This will let Google’s spiders understand what your video is about and the content. Spend the time to get this right. Be sure your video is correctly tagged with relevant keywords and that your video is explained with full descriptions and titles that are unique. All of this will help you rank. 

Facebook and YouTube both let you upload a thumbnail to sit alongside your video. This is an effective way to grab attention and prep them for the video before it starts playing. Your thumbnail should begin to tell your story while telling the viewer what to expect. Facebook is a great platform, but be sure to take advantage of their targeting to get to your perfect audience. 

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, so it is the obvious channel to share your video. Some tips are to add a great thumbnail. This could make or break the success of your video. Think of it as your book cover! This is what will attract people and get them to click. Your thumbnail should match up with the first 10 seconds of your video-, which should be your best content anyhow. Create a killer headline that is searchable and promises a solution. Don’t forget to tag!

 Optimize your content by using a CTA. It does not have to be a sale or sign up. Alternate CTA’s that may be more in keeping with your goals for the video and the video’s content might be to subscribe, follow or like, share, comment, or check out other content. 

Instagram reportedly has over a billion active users per month and 500 million daily Instagram stories. There are 130 million Instagram users in the US, and the average browsing time for a visitor is 53 minutes per day. Instagram is second to Facebook in terms of users, and there are now more than 25 billion business accounts on the platform. If you’re not using Instagram, you may be missing a significant opportunity to grow your brand, your audience and increase sales. Here we will explore some tips for creating memorable Instagram ads and campaigns. 

Will Instagram work for my business?

Instagram is an essential platform for any sized business. An active Instagram presence and consistent posting can help build your brand awareness. Instagram also now provides for e-commerce sales via their “Shop” tab on the Instagram home dock. Customers can purchase directly from you or your shoppable posts, which let you add tags to the products shown in your photos that link to the description, pricing, and a “shop now” button that links to your online store. It is reported that 72% of Instagram users have purchased products on the platform. Whether your goal is brand building, audience building, or sales, Instagram is a platform that can work for you. 

• Stories are a great way to show your audience who you are. Live stories can show behind-the-scenes peeks at your company and people, helping to build rapport and make you relatable.
• Partnering with the right influencer can give your brand a significant boost, and Instagram ads are a key to extend your reach and find new customers. You can target a lookalike audience and collect data that will help you collect data that will be usable on other platforms. 

Create a Killer Instagram Campaign

The key to a killer campaign on any platform is to be very clear on your marketing goal and who your target audience is. There are several types of goals that can be met on Instagram. Every element of your campaign must be aligned and focused on a single specific and measurable goals. Your strategy may be the longer-term purpose of being on Instagram, and a campaign is a sprint that is shorter and more intense. Here are some types of Instagram marketing campaigns. There are several broad categories of campaigns that can be optimized for different goals and tactics. 

•  Awareness campaign – Instagram is an excellent platform for increasing your brand’s visibility with new audiences. Think about using it to showcase new products and show what is exciting and different about your brand. 
• Sale or promotion – Instagram can be a powerful place to run sales or promotions with special discounts or offers for your followers. Provide a unique discount code just for your followers. Holidays and certain times of year are a great time are an excellent opportunity to run flash sales-driving pre-sales before a launch or to move seasonal inventory.
• Drive engagement – There are many ways to run contests that will support your goals. For example, if your goal is to expand your reach, the contest would ask users to tag a friend, and asking them to enter through a form will grow your email list. 
• Product launch – If you’re launching a new product, create camping to build anticipation and excitement. You can show off the benefits and value of the product. 
• User-Generated Content – User-generated content provides social proof that can make your product soar. You can have them showing how your product is used and what it meant to them. Create a unique hashtag to tie the campaign together. Use compelling content in other campaigns, as users love to see their content used by a brand. 

Top Instagram Tips

Here are some tips to help you optimize your use of Instagram. 

• Use the tools created for business users: The tools are much like those on Facebook. Insights will let you view impressions, engagement data, and a breakdown of user demographics like age, gender, location, or active hours. Use this data to perfect your Instagram campaigns and to help you target other platforms. This provides the best view of how users are interacting with your content. 
• Create sponsored ads: Ads have become quite prevalent on Instagram. You can promote just one ad or multiple ads using the carousel format. You can promote beyond your audience to a similar audience to increase the reach of your ads. Use ads that are engaging to your target or use your best posts in the form of an ad. There are several forms of sponsored ads, including photos, video, carousel or dynamic ads, Stories or Stories Canvas. 
• Use Instagram Stories: Instagram Stories can be very useful in lead generation. They come in a slideshow format that shows for 24 hours. A user clicks on it to view. They are displayed at the top of a user’s timeline, where a user will look first. Experiment with various formats like photo, video, live video, or Boomerangs. Use a Boomerang that plays on a loop. You can have unlimited Stories at any time. 
• Develop an interactive, branded hashtag: Interactive hashtags are a great way to encourage engagement. Customers can use that tag to post their own user-generated content. Users can then search through all posts relating to your brand. Hashtags are free, and every time it is used, your brand is being exposed. Consider using your slogan or tagline if you have one. 
• Think about when you are posting: Over-posting can turn off your audience and can make them unfollow you. You must post consistently so you can stay in their newsfeed. Try to post only on peak days and times. You can find this info in your analysis. Typically, Mondays and Thursdays are the best days, and Wednesdays and Sundays are the worst but check your brand’s data. Mornings from 8-9 are typically a great time to post. Use a scheduling tool to set these post times up.
• Track the metrics that matter to your brand and goals: You can only improve your campaigns when you understand their performance. Measurable results will tell you what is working and what isn’t. There are three key metrics that you should analyze. The number of followers is often considered a vanity metric. It is, but the growth rate is important. That growth rate will tell you if the content you are posting and your time you’re posting at is right for you. Next, average engagement is important. Look t the average engagement percentage of total followers and average engagement of each post to see how your page performs. Finally, look at your CTR, which will tell you how many people are clicking through to your site. The average CTR on Instagram is .94%. Work on improving this critical metric. 
• Cross-promote your posts to build synergy: To get a good start on building your Instagram followers. If you are engaging through Twitter, Facebook, or even email, encourage your followers to check out your Instagram content. You can share some of your Instagram posts on the other platforms as well. Facebook owns Instagram, so Instagram, so cross-posts to Facebook do well. 
•  Honor and express your brand consistently: As on any social media platform, have a strategy and a brand personality. Avoid random posts. Try to show a personality that resonates with your audience. Use images, colors, and fonts tied to your brand, and avoid anything that is off-brand. You want your followers to associate certain characteristics with your brand. 

Instagram is the place to go for image sharing, and you should do what you can to capture some of that vast marketing opportunity. Take advantage of the free tools, use the platform’s features, and be consistent in using Instagram to grow your audience and make sales. Not sure where you want to start with your social platforms? C&I has the expertise to get you the viewership you’re seeking. Give us a holler and let’s make you a social superstar.

Running a Successful Connected TV (CTV) Campaign

If you have not integrated connected TV (or CTV) into your marketing mix, you are behind the power curve. Connected TV is taken over the digital advertising world and shows no signs of slowing up. It is expected that by 2022 over 204.1 million viewers will be watching connected TV programming.

CTV is any TV that can be connected to the internet and can stream digital content at the viewer’s convenience. CTV can be viewed as a subset of over-the-top (OTT), which includes applications and services that don’t require subscriptions to traditional pay-TV or cable services. 

TV advertising is great for telling a longer story more visually. Think of CTV as an extension of that, in that you are showing the ad to a highly targeted audience group. And, format matters. They see your message on a full-size screen in a comfortable and familiar environment. Why would you not use CTV?

• Why you need CTV in your marketing mix nowHere are our top reasons that you should!

Affordability

Connected TV is the screen where the most digital impressions are shown- even surpassing mobile. A CTV ad can be purchased at a much more reasonable price per CPM, and as you take advantage of targeting insight, it becomes more and more efficient. 

Exceptional Targeting Capabilities

Extraordinary targeting abilities provide better audience efficiency and reduce media waster and the worry of reaching irrelevant viewers and households. Some examples of targeting capabilities:

• 1-st party audiences such as visitors to your home page or past purchasers.
• Lookalike audiences to target households that look just like your most valuable customers.
• Segments to target households on traits like age, gender income, kids, vacationers, or shopping intent.

Retargeting

In addition to great targeting for your prospecting campaigns, you can step it up a notch. CTV allows for high;y relevant retargeting campaigns. A viewer sees your CTV ad on TV at home. You can then retarget them across their other devices, such as laptops, to present a tremendous cross-device approach that follows and facilitates the buyer journey.

Real-time measurement

How many times have you seen the analysis of a campaign only after it is completed? You may wait weeks or months- when there is nothing to be done about the results. CTV allows you to track and measure digital metrics, video completion rates, and offline impact like store traffic. This will enable you to adjust and optimize as you go.

Holistic Campaigns

CTV can be very effective on outs own, but you can take it to a new level when you integrate it into a full media mix. To capture your audience wherever they are online, leverage your native display and video with your CTV for a homerun. IT is reported that over 70% of adults browse their phone or tablet while watching TV.

Catching them in this second screen behavior is meeting them where they are. Remember, the TV screen is non-click. Let’s move them over to an actionable device. 

Brand Building

You may not be at Super Bowl level of ad spend, but you can get that brand enhancement by making yourself present in the viewing experience. Get your highly viewable, non-skippable ads in from of your engaged audience, and you’ll see the best ad performance of your life. 

Best practices to take your CTV advertising up a notch.

CTV continues to evolve and grow, and many agencies and pros are struggling to create the next best strategy. Here are three strategies that we are seeing on the net and seem to be irrefutable. 

• We live in sensory overload. There is no doubt. The minute a show ends, the viewer is scanning his phone or laptop. Our goal as advertisers to get our message heard. This calls for a blended CTV/ Connected TV approach with other supporting ad channels in a carefully thought out way. We best do this by leveraging multiple platforms and devices but avoiding the heavy-handedness of being too intrusive. The timing must be perfect, and the messaging must be nuanced and remain relevant to the buyer’s journey. We want to be subtle and seem fluid, like a sequential story being told. Being spammy or too repetitive will not yield the success we want. 
• Be studied about the timing and pacing of your campaign. Again, start at the beginning. What metric are we chasing, and what do we want to spend to get there? For this, we test, test, and test some more. We use intuition and common sense to think about dinner time, drive time, etc. Use what you know about your customers and their behaviors. Equally important as the time of day is pacing. Make it smooth, and space it out to avoid breaking the back only a few days into the campaign. Start slowly and only increase your spending when you have the data to convince you to do so. Set some intermediary points to evaluate the campaign, the spend, and the timing. 
• Don’t overlook the value of a lookalike audience. We all know what declining attention spans mean. Even the hottest and stickiest ad will fatigue when running against the same audience. Use the data you’ve gleaned from your campaign’s success and construct a lookalike campaign to replicate your success with the first group and expand your reach. 

Turning viewers into customers

IF you are ready to get real measurable ROI from your TV ads, you need CTV. Marketers can focus their ads on audiences they know will connect with their messaging. They can track site visits, conversions, and other critical metrics directly back to CTV the campaign. 

CTV campaigns are perfect for driving site visits and conversions. The combination of ads across various channels makes the message stick and feel authentic. Your message is kept top of mind across and multiple devices, platforms. A winning combination of CTV and display ads will drive the brand familiarity and trust that translates into conversions. 

Measurement of CTV

Proper measurement of your CTV campaign will quickly show its value over linear TV when done correctly. 

Here are some do’s and don’t for beginners.

• Start by remembering that you can not measure CTV in the same way linear TV is measured. Linear TV measurement is abstract and does not provide statistical modeling. We are working with best guesses. 
• CTV functions as a simple digital programmatic ad but with a commercial vs. a banner ad. It uses a digital measure that offers precise details. 
• Finally, the expectations must be to view the whole customer journey, track conversions and activity in 3rd part analytics solutions. 

Correct CTV measurement releases a leave of insight that is not available with linear TV. You’ll know how many people saw the ads, how many watched the complete ad, and how many dropped out before the ad finished. 

More tracking kicks in after the ad runs. We then can drill into other channels, paid search, social performance other devices visited. Ongoing monitoring of the site reveals visitors originating from the campaign and follows through with actual performance and sales activity. Attribution is key and a big part of the puzzle when understanding the powerhouse that CTV is part of your total marketing mix. 

3 Keys to Successful CTV Advertising

Executing a successful CTV campaign has many more moving parts than a traditional TV, but the rewards are many! Day parts sell traditional or linear TV. In contrast, OTT or CTV is usually sold on an addressable basis, meaning you’re buying specific factors like demos, interest, or previous purchase behavior.

• That decision of what you want your audience to look like is critical. Before making any decisions, you’ll need to drill down on the goals for this specific campaign. Are you building the brand, introducing a new product, or targeting an increase in sales or site visits. You must define this very clearly. 
• The next step is to evaluate the digital platforms available to you. You will probably build your audience platform by platform as each has strengths in various places of the customer journey. Give though also to incremental reach or viewers that your current ad spend is not getting to.
• Finally, context matters. Make sure your ads are running around programming that is high quality and relevant to your audience. 

By the end of 2020, more than 30% of households in the United States were streaming video content through Connected TV or CTV. That figure exceeds the number of cable TV subscribers by several million. According to a Nielsen report, total streaming TV time has increased 74 % among viewers since last year.

The study also revealed that 25 % of adults have subscriptions to multiple video streaming services. Current projections show that this trend is expected to continue with no end in sight as the number of video streaming services increases. As a result, media buyers are now allocating ad dollars once intended for linear television to CTV; the latest delivery vehicle in the realm of digital advertising.

 Making The Marketing Spend Economical and Effective

Digital marketers are following their example, with more and more of them reconfiguring budgets to accommodate more CTV channel advertising than other digital platforms. To stay relevant to consumers, brands are rapidly adapting to this new shift in the media landscape.

The need to remain flexible to maximize this latest form of advertising, is motivating advertisers to readjust their marketing strategies completely. Savvy marketers who have seen new media outlets emerge, realize that it’s only a matter of time before CTV becomes the dominant platform on which to advertise as we move further into a digital world.

Marketers across all product categories are incorporating CTV into their marketing plans due to its hyper-targeting ability, A/B testing capability, the potential for personalization, and the same measurability of metrics as found on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

Connected TV: Smart TVs And Smarter Target Audiences

The surge in CTV digital advertising results from the rising ubiquity of smart televisions with internet connectivity in American homes. While this trend was already clearly visible as smart televisions quickly became more and more affordable, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting quarantines forced the entire country to rely on their televisions or computers for entertainment.

Consequently, the number of smart TVs purchased and subscriptions to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video has skyrocketed. Marketers have seen the writing on the wall and realize that CTV advertising is not only here to stay but will most likely become one of the dominant methods of marketing and promotion.

 The growing popularity of CTV advertising can be attributed to several factors. First, media buyers love the bang for the ad buck they can get due to CTV being a fraction of the cost of buying time on broadcast and even cable TV.

CTV advertising becomes even more appealing from a marketing budget standpoint because pre-existing creative assets used on other platforms can be repurposed. Spending becomes more strategic and less of a gamble than linear television and traditional cable.

 Next, the ability to target specific audiences and, to a certain extent, personalize ads means brands can create digital video advertising messages that are more likely to resonate and leave an impression on viewers.

 Finally, the testing and precise measuring capabilities of CTV advertising allow marketers to track results in real-time as consumers move through the marketing funnel.

 Anyone who streams their visual content from the internet can be targeted according to several criteria. Brands can target consumers based on their demographics, location, interests, in-market cues, or buying behaviors. With first-party data, brands can target current customers to increase loyalty or attract new customers.

It doesn’t matter which streaming service they use, which platform, which device they’re using, or when. As with other digital media platforms, by strategically applying data, advertisers can connect with the consumers they wish to target whenever and wherever they are watching.

 With the data-driven targeting of CTV, personalization of messaging to the consumer and tracking their customer journey has never been easier. This applies to repeat customers, first-time buyers, or prospects considering whether or not to transact.

 Any marketing plan which includes CTV, like all digital channels, is sure to provide invaluable data and unique, actionable insights into customer behavior along with measurable results. CTV allows for data collection across the entire funnel since it offers the targeting and measurement capabilities identical or, in some cases, superior to comparable media channels.

 Advertisers have quickly recognized that CTV advertising offers the unique benefits previously mentioned, plus the ability to identify someone who has viewed their ad on other platforms.

This allows for the retargeting of those customers across multiple devices. Different ways to measure the impressions generated by CTV include: using QR codes, foot traffic studies, brand life studies, and search demand lift studies, to name a few.

CTV enables brands to adjust their marketing strategy during the campaign using real-time creative performance measurement data. When integrated into a cross-channel marketing plan, CTV, with its audience-first angle, is a powerful complement to campaigns on other media delivery platforms. 

 Since CTV advertising seamlessly integrates with other digital programs, including social media efforts, it can supply an advertiser with data to define a brand’s entire media mix. CTV can be woven into a brand’s social campaign using the same creative across multiple devices.

This type of cross-device targeting is rapidly becoming standard practice as consumers now own numerous connected devices in addition to their smartphones and connected televisions. With access to key insights like the video completion rate and ad exposures that lead to transactions, CTV advertising can provide brands with user intelligence more definitively and precisely than linear TV ever could.

 

CTV viewing is expected to increase with additional content providers delivering their programming via streaming platform services based upon current trends. Furthermore, traditional TV advertising is on the wane as consumers continue to cut the cord in favor of streaming their entertainment.

As the technology develops and SMART TVs become even more sophisticated and video advertising becomes more personalized, the shift to CTV devices as the sole source of viewing content will accelerate. Marketing agencies have been waiting for the chance to focus their strategy while staying agile enough to capitalize on new opportunities among their target audience.

Much to their delight (and that of their advertiser clients), it has finally arrived as video streaming platforms become the next step in the evolution of digital video entertainment.

There has been a significant change in the past ten years in how we consume TV and entertainment. Millions of households have abandoned traditional TV watching due to the wide use of internet-powered television, or Smart TV. The programing continues to expand and improve, giving the consumer tons of affordable options to choose the type of content they prefer and when and how they want to watch it. They can stream on the big set in the living room or watch it privately on their tablet or over their phone. The options are many!

This means smart marketers have to adapt and transition to being where the viewers are. Connected TV video ads or CTV ads are a part of just about any good marketing mix today. It is challenging for traditional ads to keep pace with streaming technology, and OTT is beginning to outperform the conventional. 

What are CTV or connected TV Video Ads?

Connected TVs (or CTVs) are simply televisions that have access to the internet and can load or stream digital content. A Smart TV has an internet connection built-in, and standard TVs can be connected using smart devices like Roku, Xbox, or Playstation. The content that streams are usually video streaming via apps that have been downloaded. The content may also come from Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, or Chromecast. 

What is OTT (Over the top)?

Over the top (or OTT) is the video content shared, while CTV is the internet-connected TV. OTT stands for “over the top,” meaning the top of the “box.” It refers to video content that is accessed via the internet and not via traditional cable or satellite. Some examples of OTT providers would be Netflix, Disney+, or Peacock. 

OTT (Over the top) vs. CTV (Connected TV) – What’s the difference?

Many people use these terms interchangeably, but CTV is the method for delivering the content, or the device, while OTT is the actual content being viewed via CTV. Most OTT content is viewed via CTV. 

What is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the use of software to buy distal advertising. It used artificial intelligence and algorithms to purchase display space. An advertiser would not be able to efficiently choose each channel, site, and app for ad placement. So space is bought through DSPs or Demand Side Platforms that have partnerships across many sites. They use automation and artificial intelligence to bid, buy and place media efficiently. Google display ads work similarly. Google reached up to 70% of all sites out there through their network. 

OTT advertising vs. traditional cable or satellite advertising- what’ the difference?

Every marketer struggles with where their ad spends will work best for them. Video consumption is steeply rising, and we want to get our ads in front of those viewers, right? But how do we best achieve that? Marketers have relied on TV for many years, but with the shift in viewership to online-connected devices, programmatic OTT ads are now taking over. 

Traditional TV can be thought of as more of a shotgun approach. The stations have spots, and the advertisers buy and fill them, getting in front of whoever is watching and then hoping for the best. 

OTT ads have emerged as an option that is more efficient and focused and a much more measurable way to get in front of your audience. OTT ads offer lots more controls to ensure the messaging is airing at the optimum times for your ideal customer. Data collection provides detailed demographics, info on relevant audience segments, are in specific consumer interest categories. The ads can even be placed based on real-time bidding to get to the target audience at the right time. 

All of this technology means the brand can better control targeting, spend, timing and performance. Remember, traditional TV is shown to anyone who flips on the TV. Targeting is limited to gender, location, and age. With programmatic OTT advertising, every impression is served up to relevant audience segments. We are talking about a laser-focused campaign.  

CTV viewers are more engaged in the content they view and usually can’t fast forward through the ads. That’s a good thing. But also, it is a responsibility to produce appropriate and engaging advertising. From a cost perspective, CTV advertising helps reach audiences efficiently and at a much lower cost than traditional advertising. 

CTV ads are viewed all the way through, with an average completion rate of 98%. They run full screen, meaning no “below the fold ” issues that other digital opportunities may present. You can also retarget your OTT and CTV viewers across multiple devices, including laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. This keeps your message top of mind through the decision-making process. 

How does OTT targeting work? Personalization comes from “listening” to cues and sending messages to our segment, income range, zip code, ethnicity, and education level. They will also target interest categories, which is enormous for a marketer. They can target our ideal “avatar” or “persona,” bringing a level and targeting and efficiency previously unknown. 

Tracking Capabilities

Every marketer knows that tracker is everything. This sort of campaign “post-mortem” will ensure your future targeting and campaigns continue to build on learning and improvement. Some of the key metrics measured are video completion rate, the device’s performance, how consumers interact, and ad placement performance across various platforms. 

Sales or online engagement is an opportunity to drill down on the tracking to see what influenced the action taken and what calls-to-action were most effective. 

Some core metrics:

• Video completion rate
• Clicks from ad to the website
• Ad delivery by device
• Performance by the time of day
• Performance by specific days
• Ad viewer demographics. 

Content

OTT advertising is consumer-focused so that when a viewer logs into their favorite service, it is more intentional. They have chosen that platform at that time and will be more receptive to an ad. And the ads are not skippable. (This puts the burden on the marketer to make it good!) Your content must be designed for the consumer you’ve targeted, meet their personal needs, and give them an experience that feels personal and tailored for them. A random traditional TV ad can never approach this level of focus and targeting.

What is the future of traditional ad serving?

OTT subscriptions and CTV ownership continue to grow exponentially, creating a huge opportunity for marketers to reach ultra-targeted audiences across multiple devices. 

Some people have even given up traditional TV watching for all internet TV. 

In 2020, 80% of homes (or about 96 million Americans) had at least one connected TV. Americans are reported to spend more than an hour daily engaged with OTT content. 

Many believe we will see the “sunset” of traditional TV advertising in the coming years. CTV is the future of video advertising, and like Netflix, Amazon, and the other big guys produce more popular shows, more and more people are opting for the convenience of CTV. Millennials love CTV, and it is getting hard to target them on traditional TV or elsewhere. 

While conventional TV may have the ability to deliver enormous reach, CTV ads seem to be delivering the targeting and the performance. There is no doubt that OTT advertising belongs in the mix of every serious marketer. 

Leaders in the digital marketing field are building their cross-device marketing capabilities to take your audience targeting to a new level. Their focus is on intelligently connecting brands with their target audiences via connected TV (CTV) and other devices. This cross-device marketing enhances brands’ ability to reach their customers across desktop, tablet, mobile, and CTV devices. 

Cross-device marketing takes advantage of the many methods of device identification per person available and allows for real-time analytics and targeting that lets brands optimize their ad spend and target the right viewers on the right devices. This gives the viewer a holistic experience and increases the impact across multiple devices. Retargeting across different devices for a viewer can lead to more conversions. 

Clients seeing CTV ads and getting to your site on different devices

CTV advertising is at the center of cross-device marketing. According to a Facebook study, 94% of TV-watchers have their smartphone in hand as they watch TV! The power to drive the first impression through a connected TV, then retargeting the user via a separate device, is enormous. Traditional TV advertising has the goal of getting in front of as many eyeballs as possible and hoping for results. It’s almost impossible to measure results and adjust in real-time. Your campaign is often completed before changes can be made. 

CTV, along with retargeting is far more interactive, real-time, and A/B testable. You can follow the customer’s user journey with cross-device tracking, perhaps moving from CTV to laptop to a mobile device. You are meeting them where they are on their journey. A 2020 survey reports that an average American has access to more than ten connected devices in their household. Accurate, real-time cross-device marketing is vital! 

What data points are used for cross-device marketing?

Remember, buyers are not able to convert on your TV. So tracking them from when they see your ad to when they convert on your site is critical. The two main strategies for collecting data across multiple devices and tying them to an individual are probabilistic data and deterministic data.

Probabilistic data uses anonymous data points ranging from page visits to time of day and operating system used. This is complex but scalable. Deterministic data is collected based on login info for IDs, websites, and apps that link various devices. This would include logins for Hulu, Gmail, Netflix, Spotify, and more! So can we get the right message to the right person at the right time on the right device? Yes. Connected TV is at the heart of the strategy. Someone watching your CTV ads can be retarte4ed right after on one of their other devices. This takes the viewer from an unactionable CTV ad to relevant messaging on another device. You are now driving a curated experience that is moving the view along the customer journey. 

The point of advertising is to get your potential buyer interested and engaged, and then encourage them to take the action you are promoting- buy, fill out a survey, visit a site, etc. The best way to promote this is by meeting your buyer where he is on the journey. Track and target specific behaviors across devices. 

Cross-device tracking bridges the gap between CTV advertising and the retargeting that happens on another device. The tracking only retargets those who fully engaged with the TV ad, making it super-efficient. 

Cross-device tracking allows us to see a person who cycles miles per week because they log it on their smartphone. Geographic info comes into play for the local businesses. Demographics and technographic-like internet speed all come into play. And now you have a hyper-targeted campaign.  

Using data to increase sales

CTV ads are not clickable, but the ads are designed to create interest. Then cross-device marketing takes over to get your viewer to click, purchase, or take other action that you want him to take. You encourage this action by meeting him where he is on the customer journey. You are now serving up a curated and guided customer experience. 

Optimum targeting with CTV ads

People don’t like to feel targeted, so your cross-device marketing should be subtle and not heavy-handed. Nuance is everything. CTV allows for a “smart” approach to targeting and provides the platform for optimizing your campaign. Total viewing time on connected TV jumped 81% last year, with millions of shoppers in front of streaming TV at any time. Ad-supported TV is getting a big piece of that viewership. Research says that 73% of streaming viewers watch ad-supported CTV content and 45% of streaming viewers watch ad-supported CTV the most. CTV allows for direct-response performance and tying specific goals to the ad spend. 

Connected TV is excellent for putting your brand before new audiences and reconnecting with site visitors. Target your non-purchasers with a more aggressive offer to lure them back. Although viewers can watch CTV on mobile or desktop devices, the majority watch it on TV. Close to 90% use a second device while watching TV, making a solution that targets the TV screen important. 

Serving CTV ads to screens on networks like Hulu or ESPN makes sure you deliver a great experience. 

Most agencies track site visits following a completed ad view in a defined window of time. This is integrated into Google Analytics, letting you measure all the key metrics.

Example:

• Your viewer watched an ad on CTV.
• The user visits your site on his laptop within our defined window.
• The user converts on the laptop. 
• You now know that sales can be attributed to the ad and can manage your campaigns accordingly. 

Tracking and attribution

Tracking conversions driven by your advertising is essential. This means following the customer journey across devices and acquiring accurate, cross-device measurements. User visits from CTV campaigns are integrated into third-party solutions like Google Analytics. 

Cross-device marketing will facilitate “smart” marketing and help you optimize your spending. You can reach a broad audience through CTV advertising and yet, still have control over your advertising by purchasing by impression, which is targeted and personalized. You can set frequency caps, which limit the number of times a viewer sees your message to reduce waste and get you more out of every CTV dollar. 

You are also moving the customer along the buyer journey as you home the messaging and move him from a non-actionable platform to a purchase or action on a clickable device.

Cross-screen marketing can be a more significant investment than traditional, but the quality of the data is usually good enough to by far outweigh the cost. The real-time monitoring and post-campaign analysis provide valuable customer insights and a level of engagement that traditional advertising will never approach. 

Get ready to immerse and engage your audience and bring your conversions to a new high. CTV and cross-device marketing is here to stay and should be included in your marketing mix. 

In 2021, advertising with video online is king. You can stream video ads almost anywhere, including company websites. There is educational video, mobile video, video carousel ads, interactive video, explainer video, etc. The digital video inventory gets bigger every year, and the average video ad spend does too.

Marketers should consider best practices for the entire lifecycle of a video ad campaign. The Creative, Storytelling, Production and Distribution of digital video ads have best practices that take an idea and turn it into a dazzling video that exceeds client and ROI expectations.

Creative Best Practices

1. Align your stakeholders: Digital video is booming but hypercompetitive. Innovative ways to stand out and the machinations of the primary digital video advertising platforms continue to develop. Whether a brand is making one video or saturating the waves, a new level of marketing expertise is required to guide stakeholders through the many options they have. One size does not fit all. Each channel has its language and culture, and the most effective video ads are customized to thrive in each specific environment. Align your stakeholders on a creative video strategy.
2. Know your target audiences: Never before has the personalization of ad campaigns been so easy. Traditional demographic data along with real-time online analytics allow marketers to know their prospects better than their mothers. Each audience responds to a different creative approach.
3. Hold well-managed brainstorming sessions: Assemble your top creative talent, put them in a room (or Zoom, if you must), and hold inclusive, open, and documented brainstorming meetings that are a free-flow exchange of ideas.
4. Write an alluring logline and synopsis: The material goal of your brainstorming sessions should be to produce a pitch sheet with a great logline and detailed synopsis of the story your video tells. The logline and synopsis are the foundation of the following two stages – Storytelling and Production.
5. Conduct due diligence on how to create a real-world video production budget: At the end of the Creative stage, make a production budget. You and your production partners will revise the initial budget multiple times as the video campaign progresses. Familiarize yourself with the equipment and language of scriptwriting, video production, and, to the most significant degree possible, the tricks of the trade to keep your project budget from spinning out of control. If you hire a video production company, they will have their budget to reconcile with yours.

Video Storytelling Best Practices

1. Hire professional writers: To maximize the success of your video, partner with people whose expertise is words. Many people listen to video ads without watching them, so every word counts. Prospects should be able to understand your product and brand message even if they’re listening to it from the next room. The screenwriter and the production crew speak a common language.
2. Use the “Rule of Three” to tell the hero’s journey: Your hero is your customer. Tell their story in three acts: The Separation (beginning), Initiation (middle), and Return (end). The brand is the guide that helps the hero “Slay the Monster” or accompanies them on “The Quest.”
3. Create “silent” visual stories: Many people watch videos without sound. Your video storytelling should be easy to understand with no sound and have an emotional impact without voices and music, both accelerators of engagement. The video content should stand on its own.
4. Hook the viewer early: In the case of a digital video ad, hook the viewer in the first five seconds. We’ve all waited impatiently to click past an ad after a five-second countdown to get to the main content. Not every ad has a countdown clock, but marketers should proceed as if they are. A Facebook analysis of video marketing shows an almost 25% increase in brand awareness retention in videos that feature the brand in the first five seconds. Even if the viewer skips the ad, it still has enormous power.
5. 30-second videos are the sweet spot: Once again, each advertising channel is different, but digital video ads that are 30 seconds or less are the most effective and have the highest completion rate as a general rule. Yes, videos of other lengths are important, and some have greater engagement on specific platforms, but 30-second video ads are the most popular.

Video Production Best Practices

1. Hire a professional video production company: Video production is like getting your arm caught in a threshing machine. A video campaign can end in ruin if the quality of the ad doesn’t meet audience satisfaction. In addition, advancements in technology allow production professionals to create more for less money.
2. Listen to the pros: Video directors, editors, production designers, and other above-the-line talent are professional visual storytellers and know how to convert your 30-second script into an eye-grabbing brand bonanza.
3. Make sure your video has professional high-quality pictures and sound that is in sync with the video: Shooting video and syncing it with audio is complex, and many video productions end in disaster because the content lacks technical proficiency. Your target audiences may tune out if a viewer hears background noise or air conditioner noise instead of the brand’s advertising objective.
4. The higher the shooting ratio, the better: The shooting ratio is the amount of video footage you shoot vs. the amount you use. Your video ad will be many ads cut from the same footage, or, if you have a large budget, multiple ads cut into many versions. Strive to have as high of a shooting ratio as your budget, time, and talent allows. Give editors as many hours of video as possible to assemble an unforgettable brand message.
5. Almost anything can happen in an editing room: Once your footage is “in the can”, the creative process begins again. Yes, the editors cut and splice to client expectations, but as professional storytellers they can produce brand new spots not previously conceived, solve technical failures that may have occurred during shooting, and are masters of accommodating last minute client changes and additions. “Fix it in the editing room” is an expression for a reason.

Digital Video Distribution Best Practices

1. Hook the viewer with more than the story: You want your video’s story to hook the viewer in the first five seconds. Bolster those chances and enhance the user experience and increase retention by adding product photos, brand logos, other eye-catching graphics, and captions.
2. Optimize your video’s length and format for whichever social media platform on which it will/ run: All of the social media networks have different, ever-evolving technical specifications and algorithms. Analysis of video ads proves video ad formats, and other video ad specs impact the success of an online video. It takes extra effort to customize video advertising campaigns but your average conversion rate increases when video content fits with the channel and its regular users.
3. Mobile video ads are different: Keep in mind that a social network’s technical specifications may differ between “desktop” and “mobile/tablet” versions. Users’ viewing patterns vary as well. Mobile users have an average attention span that is short, so they respond to shorter videos. Most mobile users prefer vertical videos to landscape videos. While “mobile-first” ad spending is not as dedicated as overall video ad spends, mobile use and mobile-preferred user-generated video content platforms like TikTok are rising. Knowledge of the mobile ad space is critical to leverage video’s power entirely.
4. Test, Test, Test! Digital advertising platforms such as Google AdWords allow you to place different types and lengths of video ads on multiple platforms/sites. After a test run, analytics provided by the advertising platforms show which ads perform the best and on which channels. Marketers can adjust campaigns to maximize ROI.
5. Get the data: The most nerve-wracking part of any ad campaign is waiting to get the data that will tell you whether or not you’ve struck gold or struck out. Not only can you test your ads as described above, but the volume and depth of online analytics guarantee that no guesswork will be necessary to determine success or not. Get the data. Analyze it. Synthesize it. Then make course corrections as necessary.

The future of advertising has been digital video for so long it is safe to say the future has arrived. Significant indisputable data proves the rise and dominance of digital video advertising isn’t a trend but the new cornerstone of any compelling marketing mix.

Five reasons video ads are the future of advertising:

1. People like video ads.
2. Reach.
3. Measurable analytics.
4. Options.
5. Video is the perfect vehicle for emerging marketing trends.

People Like Video Ads

Online marketers know that digital video has demonstrable positive ROI because prospects engage at higher rates with video than any other medium. Video elevates the user experience. Statistics, surveys, and studies continue to validate the power of video marketing and the online digital landscape in which it lives:

• 85% of people feel more connected to a brand through video. (Renderforest)
• 69% of people prefer video over text when learning about a product or service. (SmallBizGenius)
• Video ads are the primary way prospects discover a new brand. (Renderforest)
• Online video’s global popularity continues to increase. By the end of 2021, Zenith Media predicts the average person will watch 100 minutes of online video per day. That equals twenty-five days of watching online videos. (Zenith Media)
• People watch four billion YouTube videos a day.
• 81% of people prefer video content on social media. (Renderforest)
• TikTok has 689 million active users. (DataReportal)
• Marketers’ ad spends on video have steadily increased and will continue to do so. (Wyzol)
• One-third of consumers purchase a product after seeing an effective video ad.
• Businesses reported video ads increased conversion rates by 31%, sales by 34%, website traffic by 51%, and brand awareness by 70%. (Renderforest)

The list of statistics that support video as king of the digital marketing domain could go on for another ten pages. The more ubiquitous online digital video becomes, the more it becomes a regular familiar feature of a prospect’s virtual world.

For example, it is hard to imagine an online search for a recipe that does not include an instructional video on preparing it. The recipe video is now standard, increasing a brand’s marketing real estate. For example, the brand can be The Food Network, which created and posted the video on their recipe page, or a kitchen knife company that runs a 30-second ad before the instructional video begins.

The result is a more significant number of people who see your video ad and an elevated customer experience that increases retention and brand loyalty.

Reach

The universe is infinite, and so is the world wide web.

Digital video has a reach hitherto unknown in the epic history of global communication. Like the spokes of Rome’s Via Appia stretching out to connect the furthest corners of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the internet has increased the number of people a message can reach in a transformative way.

Advertising channels optimized for video dominate the internet.

• A brand or business’s website.
• Video-friendly social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. A brand is likely to have a presence on multiple social media platforms, giving their videos a direct connection to their customers.
• Video creation and sharing platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and TikTok.
• Audio streaming platforms like Spotify and Pandora.

Other factors that increase digital video’s reach include:

• Content sharing. The digital age’s word of mouth is content sharing. When people like a video, they share it with their friends. For example, almost 1,000 videos are shared on Twitter every day. That costs the brand $0. Each time a video is shared, the ad’s ROI increases.
• Mobile advertising. People watch more videos on their phones than anywhere else, including tablets. Video ads optimized for smartphones create another opportunity for brands to reach their target audience. Nationwide 5G networks will accelerate mobile use.
• Email marketing videos. Direct email marketing is an effective way to connect with customers and drive action. The introduction of video into email marketing is new. However, 44% of people surveyed responded that they would view a video ad included in an email.
• Hyperlinked video ads. Hyperlinking video ads to post-click landing pages gives marketers a boomerang effect. The digital ad pushes across multiple online marketing channels. Still, with one click, the brand can direct prospects to a personalized web page designed to convert views/clicks to sales or some other desired action.
• Search Engine Optimization. The algorithms used by the major search engines favor video. A business website that includes video has a higher search ranking and leads potential customers to spend more time on their website. Win-win.

Measurable Analytics

In 1946, The Ford Motor Company hired ten World War II Air Force veterans called The Whiz Kids to apply military “operations research” and “management science” to its business. The Whiz Kids transformed Ford’s Planning Department into the first full-time private data science center.

The analytics research the department conducted resulted in, among other things, the design and manufacture of cars with safety features that made the death rate from auto accidents plummet.

The automated real-time data analytics at the modern digital marketer’s fingertips is beyond The Whiz Kids’ wildest dreams. Every online advertising platform offers advanced marketing analytics to track results like Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, etc.

Digital video benefits from these tools because the data supports its preeminence. Numbers tell a story, and digital video’s story is one of absolute supremacy. Almost 90% of digital marketers are happy with the ROI their video ad campaigns generate.

Options

Not all digital video ad campaigns are created equal.

There are so many types of digital videos that the options may seem overwhelming. Like an all-you-can-eat-buffet, there is something for everyone:

• Brand marketing videos
• Explainer videos.
• Corporate videos.
• Educational videos.
• Animated videos.
• 15-second videos.
• 30-second videos.
• 1-minute videos.
• Long-form videos.
• Logo animation.
• Entertaining
• Stories
• Reels
• Carousel ads
• Video discovery ads
• Bumper ads
• Masthead ads
• Collection ads
• Instant Experiences

The list goes on. Digital video’s flexibility and customization allow marketers to create the perfect type of ad that’s the ideal length for a specific audience on a particular channel. The number of creative options and video formats a brand can choose to advance its message is one of the primary behind-the-scenes benefits of video marketing.

The hypercompetitive online marketing world is ever-evolving. Marketers invent new types of videos to stay one step ahead of competitors and the marketplace.

Digital Video is the Perfect Vehicle for Emerging Marketing Trends

The future of advertising has many facets, only one of which is video. However, video is a medium that can leverage the full potential of significant emerging marketing trends.

The future of video advertising will incorporate storization, personalization, branded programmatic advertising, and psychological marketing, rolled into one mega term yet to be coined. Integration as content strategy aligns with an overall move toward marketing techniques that produce a positive emotional response with the viewer.

The idea is that marketing efforts that create lifelong loyal customers are a more noble and cost-effective use of advertising dollars than a quick one-time sales conversion.

Video with great storytelling that conveys a relatable message is ideal for advancing digital advertising devices designed to form a long-term emotional bond with the customer.

Conclusion

The digital video wars have just begun. Video as a marketing kingmaker is a foregone conclusion, yet its future is more powerful and complex than previously predicted. Competition to produce video stories that resonate with viewers and allow a brand to stand out is intense, leading to innovation and heightened out-of-the-box creativity that benefits businesses and consumers alike.