If you’re looking for opportunities to engage and educate your audience right now, consider video. With 78% of people watching online videos every week it’s really a no brainer.
Think about the last time you were influenced or persuaded by a message. What was it that changed your mind, opened your heart and compelled you to take action? I can guarantee that it wasn’t just the facts and data alone.
The most effective way to move people to act is by telling them a story.
Want to find out how? Please read: Telling: The secret sauce to partner marketing
But trying to stand out in this over-crowded information age can be downright exhausting. There are endless ads, emails and Tik Tok dances we need to compete against on a daily basis. It’s not necessarily surprising that human attention spans are shrinking.
That’s why it’s so pivotal when taking your finely crafted story to a market you consider your audience, their time and most importantly how they prefer to consume content.
And the answer might be video.
According to HubSpot, 78% of people are watching online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day. Based on the average daily distractions it’s no surprise our prospects don’t want to work too hard or read too much to make a purchasing decision. In most cases, they’d much rather watch a video that tells them what they need to know quickly and simply. And the proof is in the stats, 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than reading text.
And for marketers, that’s actually not a bad thing because viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
But remember people won’t listen if you are simply talking about yourself. You need a story that invites people to become part of something, moves them and inspires them to act. This is where video case studies can make all the difference. Putting one of your successful clients at the centre of the story and letting them describe how a particular product or service has changed their lives and/or business essentially puts the viewer in their shoes so that they can determine if they too can benefit.
So how do you evoke an emotive response out of viewers? Take a look at our recent video case study for Spark which showcases their Microsoft Teams Remote Working Story and how it helped Age Concern Otago continue to provide first-class support throughout COVID-19 lockdown.
So let’s share the 4 essential ingredients of creating a killer video case study.
1. Right Customer Selection
So who’s the target and what perspective are we telling the story from? For the B2B space, it could be the consideration between selecting a small business or a large corporate client.
By establishing who your ideal buyer is first, you can more easily choose the best customer to feature in your video.
Next step is to invite your selected client to participate in filming. For some this might sound daunting and possibly time consuming so offer up an incentive. This could be as simple as a link back to their website on any of your video posts or social mentions so they can also benefit from the added exposure.
2. Remember Less is More
It’s important to practise some restraint when considering what you want to achieve with your video – and by this we mean trying not to include too many messages. Research shows 60% of viewers will stop watching a video after 2 minutes, so remember short and sweet is the key for success.
Yes, we get that you probably have a wide range of products and/or services to talk about but the trick is to deciding which one to feature. Or worst case you can make a video case study for each one!
3. A killer storyline
This is where a lot of people go wrong. To create a great video case study you need to invest time into the development of the story board and script.
Before: Introduce the customer/problem.
During: Describe what it was like to use the product/service.
After: Share results/data and how much the customer values the product/service.
Sounds simple right? However it’s a skill to create a memorable story which delivers a compelling reason to take action in under 2 minutes so you may want to consider using a brand specialist.
4. That’s a take!
You will no doubt see many of your favourite extroverted sales folks jumping on their socials to shoot their own stories, which is fine. In fact, a lot of brands do amazing work with mere smartphones. But for a polished case study video, unless you have an in-house production team, you should go with the pros.