Pretty Good (But Not Best!) Practices for Video

by James Loizou

Providing best practices for video marketing at conference

Tags: News , Trends

As noted by keynote speaker Srini Rao at ASAE’s Great Ideas conference, “Best Practices” is the worst phrase ever. It's a term that promises results without taking risks. And when you achieve something safely, you're missing an opportunity to achieve something truly innovative.

During the same conference, it was my pleasure to lead a workshop on video marketing with an esteemed panel. Pooling together our collective experiences, we didn’t offer “best practices” so much as ideas that worked for some people and may work for your organization. Or may not. And that’s OK, too.

Here are a few freebies from the three-hour bootcamp, which may trigger a eureka experiment. Or have you totally nod your head and say, “Hmm.”

In-House Nerds
In addition to copywriting, design and analytics, every modern-day marketing team needs people equipped with video chops or, at the very least, video literacy — to properly understand the medium's strengths and manage external production partners. Like us!

Speak Your Budget

Don’t be afraid to communicate your budget to outsiders. Good partners will tell you what is and isn’t possible within specific parameters. And even if they can’t make your exact request, they may offer alternative ideas that you never considered before.

The Perfect Length

There is no perfect length. Period. But generally speaking, a video for a broader target audience should have a shorter length. A video for a narrower target audience can enjoy a lengthier runtime.

Drop-off Point

Today’s most popular video platforms offer some great tracking tools. Take a look at your audience drop-off point — where viewers say, “I’ve seen enough.” If it’s only several seconds into the video, you may be confusing viewers with a misleading title or thumbnail image. Watching for the drop can be a great way to get to know your audience’s viewing habbits.

Vanity Metrics

Don’t be distracted by “view count” as the ultimate metric for a video’s success. If a video is properly integrated and compounded into an overall marketing strategy, it will be difficult attributing success (or failure) to it. And that’s a good thing.

Offering a Nerd’s perspective to the interactive session, I was joined by other panelists, including Sabrina Kidwai and Nelson Cuellar of ASAE, as well as Association Studios’ Jim Wacksman.

Reach out to us today to talk about the not best video practices for your organization.