If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a video is worth 1.8 million words. Vloggi founder, Justin Wastnage, shares why videos should be part of your marketing mix.
If creating video content has been on your mind but you’ve been waiting for the right time to step outside your comfort zone and stare down the barrel of the camera, we have some news for you – the time is now!
You may have heard the term ‘Vlog’ used once, twice or maybe even a couple of hundred times during your marketing WIPs, and wondered how it can benefit your marketing strategy. We spoke to Justin Wastnage, the man that not only coined the term Vlog but created a platform to help businesses create and share their visual story. With knowledge as a journalist and producer, Justin has shared with us how to create highly customised videos on a small budget and how talking to customers can change your product roadmap.
Why Choose Video
Our ability to remain attentive has decreased so much that a goldfish officially surpasses us with an attention span of 9 seconds. That’s right, you have the attention span shorter than a goldfish. This means we have 8 seconds to impress our audience and get our point across with a hook that will make them stay. Luckily for us, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million.
Take a look at the way information is now consumed, due to the development of technology, it’s very visual and video-led. Content can now be accessed anytime and anywhere. One of the things that makes videos so powerful is that they have about an 80% retention rate in people’s minds for up to 72 hours – that’s more than triple the retention rate any written content can get you. Another reason to get in front of the camera is that your business will then have a visible leader for your audience to connect with. A visible leader makes a business more relatable as the company message is being conveyed by a human face.
However, the secret for businesses to understand is that people don’t actually like adverts but they do like content. The difference between making an advert and creating valuable and useful content lies in the authenticity of the video. An example of this would be something such as using your own customers to tell an authentic story about your product or brand, opposed to pure marketing videos that don’t provide wholesome feels or a relatable story.
What Is Vloggi And How Can It Help?
Vloggi is a collaborative video platform that allows users to create group videos with customers, colleagues or those in the community. In a nutshell, anybody can start a production and they can then invite contributors to provide videos in 10-second chunks. These 10-second chunks can then be combined to make longer video stories. This is how you can get your brand community involved in your marketing strategy.
How To Make Your First Video Rock
You don’t have to know absolutely everything about something to just try. The most important thing is to find your passion. It may begin with an idea based around a hobby or niche but your passion will drive traffic to your content and ultimately your product.
We’ve got a whole range of podcasts, creative inspo and how-to guides, including more information on creating your first, engaging video for online marketing. To make sure you’ve got a stream of content to keep you inspired, check them out here.
Let’s break down your creative video-making process so it doesn’t seem so daunting.
Script It Out
Scripting can help you better understand the message you’re trying to get across to your audience. We all know the feeling of being tongue-tied, even if it made perfect sense in our brain. Writing it down allows you to have a template to go off so you’re not stuck looking like a deer in headlights.
We recommend breaking your script up into 1-2 sentence chunks so that it’s easy to memorise and possible to recite in one take. It’s also important to talk to your audience like you’re having a real conversation, you want to be human. It’s not really exciting if your audience has to pause your video to google the meaning of a word you decided to use because it was fancy.
Using a teleprompter is a good way to stay on track when you have a script and there are many apps you can use. One of our favourites is VEED which also enables you to add subtitles to your video; making your content more accessible to your audience.
Video Equipment
In the past, quality video production could set you back more than $10,000. Luckily, most of us now walk around with a 4k camera right in our pocket. The latest smartphones will more than do the job when you’re starting out with an online video for your small business. Our top tip, if you have two phones available, is to use the voice memo app to record crisper sound. The trick is to get the smartphone as close to your subjects mouth as possible without the camera being in the frame. Then in post-production you can line your audio recording up with your visual footage.
Don’t Be A Goldfish!
It won’t matter how amazing the guts of your project is if no one makes it past the introduction. Remember what we said about the goldfish? This is why the first 10 seconds of your video is the most important and needs to feature your face on the screen. You need to establish a genuine rapport with your audience by providing a story they can connect with and hooking them in so they engage with your brand.
Post Production Apps
There are a thousand video editing apps, you can edit in. Tools like iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro or Camtasia.
Make sure you find some awesome royalty-free music tracks to take your video to the next level and create your desired tone. Try Free Music Archive or the YouTube Audio Library.
If you get stuck in the editing phase (which can become time-intensive), you can always use one of the many cost-effective and highly-skilled video editors on Upwork and Freelancer. This is also a great way to get animations and lower thirds created.
If you’ve made it this far, well done. You’ve defied the stats and proven your attention span is well above average. Now that you’ve got all the tips and tricks you need to make your first video, what are you waiting for? Go create some content!
