Online Video: A Quick-fire Guide to Getting it Right

Online Video
A Quick-fire Guide
to Getting it Right
www.skeletonproductions.com

So you want to
get better at
online video.

We’re going to show you the
5 most important steps
to success with video online.

But first of all...

Why do you need online video again?

There’s so much of it!
Everybody’s making & watching video.

Doesn’t that make it harder
to stand out from the crowd?

Well, yes.

But there are 5 really good
reasons why you should be
using online video.

1. Online Video is Unique & Emotive

There’s no medium of
communication quite like video.

Think about the last time a video made
you feel delight, or despair, or
excitement.

Think about the last time a video made
you feel delight, or despair, or
excitement.
All of us have been affected by the power
of video.

This power is invaluable when
trying to connect emotionally with
your audience.

Here’s how we used emotive video
to promote the University of
Nottingham Sports department:

2. Audiences Prefer Online Video

Video is so popular that it’s spread
everywhere online. From social media
to news networks to corporate sites.

In fact, 60% of visitors
to a site will watch
video if it’s available
before reading any text.

If you’re not using video you can bet
your target audience wish you were.

3. Online Video Increases Conversion

Video content can give your audience
exactly what they need to hear at
exactly the right stage of the funnel.

That means increased conversions.

There’s a
reason why
video is used
so much on
landing pages.

In one study, video content on a
landing page:
✓ increased the conversion rate
by up to 80%

In one study, video content on a
landing page:
✓ increased the conversion rate
by up to 80%
✓ increased the purchasing
intent of visitors by 70%

4. Online Video Improves Discoverability

Did you know you’re
50x more likely to be
on page 1 of Google
with a search result
containing video?

And those video search
results can have up to a
41% higher click-through rate.

So video helps you get
found by your audience too.

5. Online Video Boosts Brand Awareness

Remember this Old Spice campaign?

It got 20 million views in 3 days.

As a result Old Spice gained:
✓ 2,700% more Twitter followers

✓ 800% more Facebook fans

✓ 800% more Facebook fans
✓ an increase in 300% of traffic to their
website

That’s a lot of
brand awareness.

So what’s the result of all this
effective video marketing?

✓ 82% of marketers say video marketing
has a positive impact on their business

✓ 82% of marketers say video marketing
has a positive impact on their business
✓ 52% say video video has the best ROI of
all types of content

Yes, you can achieve
incredible things with video.

But here’s the key to getting it right…

A comprehensive plan.

5 Steps to Online Video Success:
1. Goals & Objectives
2. Audience
3. Content
4. Marketing
5. Measuring Success

Let’s look at each step more closely.

It all starts with the end point.

It all starts with the end point.
Without this you’ll never know where
you’re heading with your video
content, or when you’ve reached it.

What business problem(s) are
you trying to solve with video?

What does video success look like for you?

What do you need your audience to
think, feel & do
to reach that point? www.skeletonproductions.com

These questions will help you solidify
your objectives for online video.

Remember to always make them SMART!

For example, your objective might be:
✓ To increase a landing page
conversion rate by 20% in one
months’ time.

Use our video objectives template to
help you set out SMART objectives.

You may need multiple pieces of video
content to achieve a large goal.

You may need multiple pieces of video
content to achieve a large goal.
But each video should have its own
specific objective.

Think about what action you want your
audience to take after each video to
achieve your goals.www.skeletonproductions.com

Understanding your audience
is probably the most important part
of making a successful video.

You need to go beyond basic persona
profiling like
gender,

profiling like
gender,
location,

profiling like
gender,
location,
job title,

profiling like
gender,
location,
job title,
industry…

Flesh out your personas into real people.
What makes your target audience tick?

Until you know this, you’ll find it very
difficult to engage them.

Conduct some real in-depth market
research.
✓ Ask questions.
✓ Send surveys.
✓ Get feedback.

What are your audience’s goals?
What challenges stand in their way?

What do they value
more than anything
else?
What are they afraid of?

For example, your target audience might
be retired women looking to stay active.

For example, your target audience might
be retired women looking to stay active.
They want to spend quality time with
family, but worry about getting older.
They need help to achieve this goal.

Use these insights as the basis for great
video content tailored to your audience.

We use a process called
Insight, Idea, Execution
to work out effective videos.

Here’s how we used it to create a brand
video for Simply Supplements…

Insight: The audience of 60+ women
want supplements to help them keep
active and spend time with their family.
But there’s lots of conflicting advice in
the marketplace. They don’t know who
to trust.

Idea: Rather than stressing the benefits
of the product, we told a story from the
customer’s perspective to build trust.
Focusing on what really matters to
them: their health and their family.

Execution: We created a video
showcasing the customer’s journey.
The benefit of the product and brand is
included, but the focus is the customer’s
happier and more active life with her
family.

Next, think about the type
of video content you want
to produce.
Consider your objectives
and audience. www.skeletonproductions.com

To help, there are 3 types of
content research you should
conduct:

1. Content Audit

Of your existing content, what has
worked before?
Don’t just consider video.
What has your audience enjoyed,
engaged with and shared?

2. Competitor Analysis

What are other people doing in
your market? What’s working for
them?
What do your target audience
seem to be consuming and
demanding more of?

3. Gap Analysis

Are there any gaps in what your
audience want and what they are
being supplied?
Where can video content add
extra value?

Use the information from this research
to find formats & topics for video that
are most likely to be successful.

We also use a powerful framework
developed by YouTube to identify
the right video content for each
stage of the funnel.

It involves 3 types of online video that
match the 3 stages of the buying funnel.
Hero
Hub
Hygiene

Here’s how Volvo Trucks use it to deliver
relevant & engaging video to their
audience at each stage of the funnel…

1. HERO video content
✓ Aims to entertain and inspire
✓ Awareness stage of the funnel
✓ Generally impressive one-off pieces
✓ Focus on brand rather than product

2. HUB video content
✓ Aims to show value and expertise
✓ Consideration stage of the funnel
✓ Generally frequent & repeatable videos
encouraging audience to engage

3. HYGIENE video content
✓ Aims to answer audience questions
✓ Decision stage of the funnel
✓ Generally multiple pieces of evergreen
content answering common concerns

By giving the right information at each
stage, Volvo Trucks have a whole series
of video content to encourage leads
down the funnel.

But always remember…

Your audience is human!

Your audience is human!
Even B2B audiences.
Especially B2B audiences.

Your video content needs to be 1 of 3:
✓ Interesting
✓ Useful
✓ Entertaining
To keep your audience engaged.

But great content is only half the battle.

You also need to find out where your
audience hang out online.
And reach them there.

This information will come from the
audience research you did earlier.

This information will come from the
audience research you did earlier.
But there are other ways to improve
the odds of your target audience
discovering your video content…

1. Use Metadata Properly

Search engines can’t
watch your video
content.
Metadata helps them
to understand and
rank it accordingly. www.skeletonproductions.com

Video metadata includes:
✓ Titles
✓ Description text
✓ Closed captions / subtitles

Make sure this data
accurately reflects your
video content.
It should (naturally)
include the keywords you
want to be found for.

2. Improve Viewer Engagement

Did you know that viewer
engagement is actually the
#1 ranking factor
for video on social sites like
YouTube and Facebook?

Avg. viewer engagement =
the % of a video that is
watched on average.
Think of it like bounce
rate for video. www.skeletonproductions.com
length of video
%ofviewers
Simply Supplements | 63% average engagement

The higher your engagement, the better.

The higher your engagement, the better.
It means your video content is relevant
and valuable, and viewers want to keep
watching rather than click away.

This will help your videos:
✓ Rank more highly
✓ Have a better chance of being found
by your audience

3. Set Effective Thumbnail Images

Thumbnails heavily influence your
play rate.

Thumbnails heavily influence your
play rate.
(Play rate is the % of visitors that click
play to start watching a video.)

Along with the position of a video and
the text surrounding it, thumbnails
are all your audience have to judge
whether they want to watch or not.

Good thumbnails:
✓ Capture viewers’ interest

Good thumbnails:
✓ Bright & contrasting

Good thumbnails:
✓ Include faces & emotion

Good thumbnails:
✓ Accurately represent the
content of the video

Good thumbnails:
✓ Accurately represent the
content of the video
✓ Consistent with your brand

4. Position Your Online Video Correctly

Play rate is also affected by where
video content is located on a page.

Make sure to
put your
online video
somewhere
prominent
but relevant.

It should be in a place where
visitors aren’t surprised to
see it. It should match their
stage in the funnel.

Wistia did a study on the impact of a
video’s position on its play rate.
They placed the same video in 7
different zones of a landing page, in
descending order…

5. Invest in Video Advertising

Most successful online video campaigns
are a mix of paid and unpaid promotion.

Video advertising helps to extend your
natural reach and gets the ball rolling on
the initial spread of your online video.

Just be sure to tailor your video content
to each channel and ad format.

For example, in YouTube pre-roll
ads you must grab your audience’s
attention within the first 5 seconds,
after which time they can skip.

And on Facebook it’s best to include
subtitles with your video content.
Most users do not play sound when
watching videos on Facebook.

6. Encourage Action with CTAs

Remember your objective(s) for your
online video?

Remember your objective(s) for your
online video?
Remember deciding what you need
your audience to think, feel & do to
achieve that objective?

You also need the right call-to-
action to encourage your audience
to take the desired action.

Do you want your audience to:
✓ Visit another web page?
✓ Fill in a form?
✓ Subscribe?
✓ Like, share, comment?

Whatever that action is,
ask for it clearly and make
it easy for your audience
to do right then & there.

Everything we’ve put in place so far will
lead to effective online video content.

Everything we’ve put in place so far will
lead to effective online video content.
But you also need to track and prove
that effectiveness.

You should always measure the ROI of
your video content, so you can justify
your spend and future investment.

To do this you’ll need to track
the relevant video metrics that
tie back to your objectives.

This means going beyond just
vanity metrics like view count…

Key video metrics:
✓ Play rate % of visitors that click play

Key video metrics:
✓ Engagement rate avg. % of video watched

Key video metrics:
✓ Social sharing number of shares

Key video metrics:
✓ Click-through rate % of viewers that click
your CTA

Key video metrics:
✓ Click-through rate % of viewers that click
your CTA
✓ Conversion rate % of viewers that convert

You should always be testing &
improving your online video
content to get better results.
With each new video, what
could you make better?

Continuous improvement will allow
you to turn lots of little changes
into big advancements.

Could you change your video thumbnail
to improve your play rate?

Could you re-edit the footage to
improve your engagement rate?

Could you re-edit the footage to
improve your engagement rate?
Could you alter your CTA text to
improve click-through rate?

Online video is an incredible opportunity
for your marketing strategy.

Online video is an incredible opportunity
for your marketing strategy.
But you need to do it right with a well
thought out plan. www.skeletonproductions.com

Use our video production brief template
to put all this planning in one place.

Remember these 5 steps, and keep
testing & learning.

testing & learning. I have no doubt
you can achieve outstanding things
with online video.

testing & learning. I have no doubt
you can achieve outstanding things
with online video.
Good luck!

Video strategy, production and marketing
Click here for more video marketing tips at
www.skeletonproductions.com/insights

Online Video: A Quick-fire Guide to Getting it Right

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