When configuring your own web design, videos are clearly a key form of media that can grasp the attention of your audience and engage them in a more sure-fire, perhaps more personal way than regular web content. But before you jump straight into a video marketing strategy, it’s important to consider a few key things.
While video platforms like TikTok have, in many ways, been behind the video marketing resurgence, when it comes to videos on your website, this isn’t a case of throwing together a seven-second video and hoping it lands. When traversing your web design, users are looking for something a little more insightful, entertaining, and certainly more cohesive than any TikTok video! So how exactly can you ensure you get it right?
Define Your Audience First
Video marketing is a great way to expand your audience, but before you can do that, you need to define the type of audience that you want to reel in. Whether it’s through data analysis, social media listening, industry trends, or feedback forms, you need to know your existing customers completely to nail down your message and define your video goals.
Don’t Even Think About Autoplay
Ugh. The dreaded autoplay. This is something that so many websites continue to do, without knowing how many users don’t care for it. Once again, it’s important to note that your website isn’t a social media platform.
While autoplay videos might be successful for Facebook or Instagram, users are looking for a different experience on your website, and because they’re already on there, they’re likely to open the video anyway. Autoplay can easily become an irritant and ultimately increase your bounce rate, so use it at your peril.
Give Viewers Optional Sound
Speaking of irritants, you should also include optional sound in any of the videos you put on your website. While music and narration can make a video more engaging, you have to remember that your users might not be in the appropriate place to listen – for instance, they could be on their mobile device on a bus, or perhaps a library! With closed captions and text, they can follow along without sound.
Give Viewers a CTA
The purpose of a video is not only to engage and inform users, it’s to turn a passive click into a transactional one. For this reason, you have to make sure that viewers know what to do after the video is finished, giving them a clear CTA – call-to-action – to purchase a product or learn more.
This can be a little tricky – no matter how professional you are, it’s easy to come across as desperate or pushy – but with a simple, subtle CTA, you can ensure that users are put in the right decision to make their call.
Understand Your Own Message
Speaking of a CTA, you need to know what your video is trying to do. There are several ways you can angle your video marketing campaign – with videos that can be anything from promotional, to educational, funny, exciting, heartfelt, and more. To ensure that your strategy is a success, you need to know what your video wants to accomplish and push for coherency before diving into production.
Don’t Make it Too Long or too Brief
Just because you’re posting your videos on your website rather than TikTok, that doesn’t mean they can be as long as you want. While there’s no clear rule about what length of video is best, nearly 40% of people click off a video after 30 seconds, and website videos over five minutes are rarely clicked on at all. That being said, your videos shouldn’t be too short, either!
Remember, if the user has clicked play, they might be likely to keep the video running while exploring the rest of the page, reading any additional content before coming back to the video to finish. So if it’s a little on the long side, but nothing definitive can be edited out, this is something you should bear in mind.
Always Demand Quality
Lastly, always demand quality. Your videos are going to exist on your website, so they need to match the site’s professionalism without any downgrade. This includes providing clean images, clear sound, and combined aesthetics to ensure the transition from written content to video remains smooth and seamless.
