Imagine this: you just paid a company to come shoot a promo video for a new line of products in your company. You watch it, re-watch, then re-watch it again and are convinced this is the best promo video you’ve ever seen. You put it out on the internet, scream about it on your social media and website. But at the end of the month, the video has a measly 400 views, and 90% are the staff and their families.

Nightmare scenario. But one that is easily avoidable. At Menace Media, we thought it would be helpful to give out 5 tips to consider when promoting a video campaign. This is a light gloss over some basic steps you should look into when marketing video. Starting with a very important step:

Target audience research

It’s sometimes understated the importance of understanding your audience. Yes, of course you’re targeting business owners of companies you want to do service with, and of course you can take a guess at their age groups and genders. But that isn’t truly understanding your audience.

You should look through your social media, see what your audience is interested in, and form interactions that way. Find topics that trend amongst your followers, and find different avenues in collecting audience data. The data is key to zoning in your promotion, aiming for more specifically targeted people. The more data will help in the next tip.

Tags

If you ever see a box saying ”tags”, you better get thinking. Tags are such an easy way to improve your videos reach and therefore gain more impressions. With the data you’ve collected, you’re able to use tags to appeal to a broader, organic market, as these will put your videos into their recommended section.

Either hashtags or video tags are great for putting your content in front of new eyes, and a new, potentially engaging audience. You can use search terms to do with your topic, like the start of a question. “How do I set up my stage lighting” for example if you sell production services, and you have content to do with setting up stage equipment at home during the pandemic. That’s a super specific example but you get the point. Just think outside the box and try to think in the mind of your customer.

Social media

By this point, it’s almost obvious the influence that social media has over today’s market. Everyone is trying their hardest to grasp this seemingly unpredictable landscape, and come out on top amongst competitors. With niche businesses it can be hard to create engaging content, as it isn’t relatable to the viewer. There’s no connection, and therefore, no reason to pay interest.

Combined with the knowledge of your target audience and your new found awareness of tags, you can search around for similar styles of content you’re seeing from people in that sector. See what works well, what’s to avoid, and ways you can bring something new to the table. The audience will naturally gravitate towards what they find the most appealing. So start running some tests and trying out the new tactics. The most important thing is keep track of previous campaigns, and see what gains more engagement.

Subtitles

This one is a really small thing you can do to improve your video engagement. A lot of people go on social media in public, in transport or work etc. When in crowded places, they aren’t watching your video as they dont want to be that one person who always has their phone on loud. If your video is really engaging in the first 5 seconds, they might put it to their ear with the volume down. This is better, but then they’re not really watching your video. With Subtitles, you take away that inconvenience.

We personally recommend making the subtitles with motion graphics, as they themselves can be made to be more engaging for the viewer. It also shows the extra care your brand has put into the video, catering for all types of scenarios. You don’t want people to click or swipe off your advert, so give them every opportunity to watch it, without giving them too much to think about.

Google ads campaign

Last but not least, the dreaded Google ads campaigns. I say dreaded not because it’s difficult to operate, but it’s difficult to get everything started and wrap your head around. But once you get a firm grasp of it, you can literally transform your business over a period of months. Luckily, when you set up an account with Google ads, you’re assigned an account manager that you can keep in contact with in order to help set up campaigns based on data they collect. 

If you do your own research about the things I’ve mentioned previously (target audience, tags etc), you’ll be able to go in well prepared for your campaign. You will be able to place your brand’s video in front of the right people. Working with your agent, you will be able to use data they’ve collected to alter your social media campaigns to sync up. That way, you’re targeting people on YouTube, search results and social media.

The only downside is that Google ads is an ever growing landscape, and with such a saturated market, it can be hard to make a smaller business stand out on a budget. There are ways to be clever when you’re on a low budget, but investing roughly £25-50 a day should see visible improvement in analytics. It is a risk, but with well collected data and a targeted audience, you should return on investment over several months.