Faster internet speeds and easier streaming capabilities have opened the door for better digital video experiences. As consumers demonstrate an unending appetite for video content, brands are pushing their marketing departments to ramp up production and develop campaigns that deliver results.
As the production side of video becomes more cost-effective for SMBs to consider, a greater challenge facing these campaigns is ensuring that the video content messaging aligns with the voice and marketing goals of the company. When it comes to following video best practices, brands must make sure this content satisfies the desires of their target audience.
No industry understands this better than Hollywood. If you're looking for ways to optimize your video messaging for your target customer base, you can glean inspiration from the movie production studios.
Creating Content for the Platform and Viewing Experience
Thanks to precise targeting capabilities for digital video advertising, marketers can create different versions of video to serve different content types. Over-the-top streaming, for example, might benefit from ad spots that are more targeted to a specific audience than traditional cable ads, since the audience isn't as broad and you can hone in on certain demographic filters.
Also consider how screen size and orientation affects your experience. Complex video imagery can be tougher to view and process on a smartphone than it is on a large TV. While vertical videos can have a higher ad recall rate than horizontal ads, as Marketing Week pointed out, these vertical ads should be served specifically to mobile devices, while desktop users should see square or horizontal videos.
Adapting TV Commercials for Social and Pre-Roll Plays
While it's possible to use content from TV commercials to fuel social and pre-roll video plays, brands typically want to adapt these commercials so that they perform better on these platforms. Social ads, for example, rarely drive strong engagement when they run the full 30 seconds of a standard TV ad spot. Even 15 seconds can be a stretch. As Marketing Dive reported, brands have found success with six-second ads on platforms like Facebook and YouTube, creating brand impressions and content experiences that make a lasting impression on those audiences.
These ads could potentially be created by editing down TV ad spots to fit these more compact, digital-friendly channels. One of the most important video best practices to remember is that online consumers are much less patient than a typical TV audience.
Storyboarding to Craft an Engaging Customer Story
Creating visual outlines for ads is useful for many reasons. Not only does it give your creative team time to brainstorm and refine your video content, but it also helps you streamline production, lowering costs. Storyboarding is also an easy way to convey your intended messaging to executives and other decision-makers before the content goes into production, allowing your brand to polish your video's voice before it gets made.
Businesses of any size should be looking at video as a cost-effective approach to telling brand stories and engaging your audience. Just make sure you consider both the audience and the platform when creating videos and crafting the company's message.
