Quite often a client will come to me with a massive bunch of ideas, of what they want to put into their marketing video. They want to talk about this, and about that, and speak to this segment of their market whilst still talking to this other niche they’ve had on the side for a few years. Essentially wanting to pack a huge amount of information for the viewer to consume.
Let’s take an analogy and see how it sits with this strategy from a video marketing point of view:
Why is it better to be Game of Thrones rather than Iron Man?
Analogy – TV Shows vs Movies
Firstly let’s ask ourselves which of the two is easier to consume? For mine, TV shows are way easier to consume. Movies require a good two hours of investment from me to understand the message and the story. Whereas, each TV episode has its own message and story but in a 25-45 minute parcel – even though a series goes a lot longer than a movie, I’m able to consume it in much more manageable stints. You can even say that TV series’ are more addicting – who doesn’t know a Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Dr Who nut? It’s the ongoing story that gets people really into something – you can even see the film industry trying to replicate this model with the plethora of movie franchises – but to be honest, I’ve never heard anyone rave week after week about how good the latest Iron Man movie was, but Game of Thrones on the other hand…
We’ve really only just touched on that analogy – and there’s already some points from it that we can using in video marketing.
Bigger is not better – words many will be relieved to hear – you don’t need to cram every little thing about your business into a single video – it turns into an epic! Think about video marketing like TV shows, they slowly drip feed you information over a period of time, only letting out certain storylines and information in each episode.
Video marketing is about creating content that people want to keep coming back for – unfortunately it’s not as easy in the business world to do this compared to Hollywood – but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it just makes it even more important that you know your client and what they want. Don’t become the next “Ben Elton: Live from Planet Earth” flop; sacked after only 3 episodes.
People talk about things that they love or have found helpful – even in a work environment people (i.e. potential clients) will talk about great resources that they’ve found or used – so creating content that is ‘shareable’ is a huge key nowadays.
So, don’t go in all guns blazing with multiple stories, for multiple clients – you just end up being too general. Look at focusing your messaging (story) around one aspect of your business and creating and information channel that has people coming back for more. A great mentor of mine has quite often thrown the mantra of “one problem = one solution” down my throat. It’s very pertinent in the case of video marketing – think about the one problem you’re trying to solve for that one particular type of customer – then start streamlining your ideas for your next video.