Month: November 2020

Video marketing can be beneficial for any business, but it can be hard to get started if you’re new to the game and don’t really know much about marketing in general. 

Thankfully, we are here to help you learn everything you need in order to get your company out there, start reaching viewers, and get some more money into your pocket. 

Here’s three tips to help you start reaping the benefits of this increasingly popular method of advertising.

Tip #1: Think About Your Brand and Goals

Before you get started with video marketing, you need to think about your brand and your overall goals that you want to achieve with your ads. 

When thinking about your brand, you need to consider your image, values, and overall mission when creating and placing video content. 

For example, what types of content and placements would resonate well with your target audience? Better yet, what is your target audience? 

You will need to do a lot of contemplation and introspection during this planning phase before you move forward and start to actually create your content. 

When it comes to different ad objectives, there are several different ones that you may want to explore based on your overall business goals. Here are just a few different ad objectives that you may want to focus on:

• Remarketing: Remarketing is a great ad objective for beginners. You are targeting people who already know your company and have interacted with it in some way in the past. This is a great way to keep your brand in that person’s mind while also increasing ad recall and customer engagement. 
• Brand awareness: If you’re really looking to jump into the deep end in video marketing, then you might want to try ads tailored to increase brand awareness. Brand awareness helps familiarize people with your brand, what you offer, and what you’re all about. This is an important step in marketing as you need to build up your brand before people are willing to buy from you. 
• In-market targeting: In-market targeting is a great way to reach people who are already ready and looking to buy products or services that you offer. These types of ads target people who have been searching for these items across the Internet. By presenting them with your content, you’re more likely to get conversions rather than just reaching out to random people who aren’t necessarily looking to buy any of your products. 
• Custom affinities: Using custom affinities to lure away customers who may have viewed products from competitors is a sneaky way to make a sale. In this type of content, you really need to emphasize the strengths and benefits of buying your product over other products that the viewer has previously considered. When done right, this can be a great way to get more conversions. 

Tip #2: Explore Different Platform Options

There are so many different platform options out there for video marketing, that it’s hard to know where to begin and which platforms are the best. 

Here’s the lowdown on a few different options that you can consider for your content:

• YouTube: If you’re looking to reach tons of people with your ads on a platform solely made for videos, then YouTube is the best option. With more than 2 billion users and 5 billion videos viewed every day, your potential reach with Youtube advertising is unlimited. It also gives you the option to advertise across borders in different languages since it’s so international. 
• Facebook: Facebook video ads have become really popular in recent years and it’s easy to see why. Videos really stand out on Facebook since it also contains picture and text posts. At the same time, most videos on Facebook are viewed without sound, which is important to keep in mind as you create your ad. 
• Instagram: Instagram specializes in visual content — making it ideal for video marketing. However, audio is also a challenge on this platform so make sure that your content quickly grabs the viewer’s attention and makes them want to turn the sound on, or even better, visit your profile or site.
• Twitter: We also have Twitter, which is grossly underrated when it comes to marketing effectiveness. Even though it has fewer users overall than other platforms, its users are often extremely engaged with the platform and can make great targets for relevant ads. 
• LinkedIn: If you’re looking to reach a more professional demographic with relevant content, LinkedIn might be the answer you’ve been looking for, though advertising here is limited in what you’re able to advertise for in a professional tone. 
• TikTok: On the other and, if you’re looking to reach a younger demographic — TikTok is the perfect place to do this. However, word to the wise: the TikTok app may no longer be downloadable in the U.S. for much longer. 

Tip #3: Consult the Experts

The last tip to help you get started in video marketing is to consult the experts. 

While you can definitely do some work on your own to get your feet wet in the world of video marketing, it’s still extremely beneficial for you to work with experts who can really help you create an effective strategy and get the most bang for your buck when it comes to your marketing budget. 

These professionals know the world of video marketing inside and out and can help you create content and targeting mechanisms that get the best content to the right individuals. 

Furthermore, companies like the Channel Factory can also help you with things like brand suitability and brand safety, that can not only help promote your ads alongside suitable content, but also protect your brand by avoiding placing your ads alongside negative content that could damage your brand image and overall reputation. 

Video Marketing Best Practices

Now that you know how to get started using video marketing to promote your company, it’s a good idea to go over some best practices that you can use to make sure that you do this effectively. 

It’s important to remember that video marketing can be extremely effective if you do it properly, so that’s where these helpful guidelines come into play…

• Use data.   When using video marketing, one of your best resources is data, so make sure you actually utilize it to help you tailor and adjust your ads and overall strategy. Most video advertising platforms will offer you all sorts of data points and analytics on how your ad is performing and who is viewing that. 

If your ad doesn’t seem to be very effective, you can notice while it’s still running and make any necessary changes in order to boost the effectiveness. 

Also, you can make changes in your targeting strategy based on who is viewing your content. If it doesn’t necessarily line up with your ideal target audience, you can adjust your targeting specifications to reach the people that you want to reach. 

• Use a call to action.   Each video should include a clear call to action that describes what you want the viewer to do as a result of the ad. Based on the ad objective, these can differ between checking out your website, to checking out your amazing customer reviews, or even actually making a purchase. With clear messaging like this, viewers are able to associate an action with your ad rather than just another pointless video. 

• Make it mobile-friendly.   Over 70% of total watch time on YouTube comes from mobile devices. And that’s just YouTube. That’s why it’s super important to create content that works well on mobile devices without lagging or affecting the quality of the picture. Make sure that the beginning of your ad is just as effective without sound as it is with it — because most people initially have the sound off when scrolling through content online.

Now you have everything you need to get started with video marketing. If it all seems a bit overwhelming, remember that you can always use experts like the Channel Factory to help break it down for you.

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Sources:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/06/01/three-reasons-video-marketing-is-important-on-social-media-in-2020/#6eb433896e55
2. https://www.business2community.com/branding/what-is-brand-awareness-01578509
3. https://medium.com/better-marketing/why-tiktok-will-take-over-in-2020-12f84b8cc109

Brand suitability is one of the many marketing concepts that many people aren’t super familiar with. This is really quite unfortunate since it can be extremely beneficial for brands all over the map. 

Thankfully, we are here to help. Here’s a quick guide on brand suitability that will teach you everything you need to know about this underrated concept and show you how to establish it for your brand.

What is Brand Suitability?

Brand suitability is the alignment of an individual brand’s advertising, with content that makes sense for their unique image, local markets, targeted customer base, and future business objectives. 

Now I know what you’re thinking: isn’t this the same thing as brand safety? Not quite. Even though brand suitability is definitely related to brand safety, the two concepts are different. 

The overall goal of brand safety is to avoid content that is considered dangerous, illegal, unacceptable, or undesirable for the brand. 

Brand suitability, on the other hand, attempts to put together a list of different types of content that go well with the brand’s desired image, mission, values, etc. Some different areas of content that brands may want to consider as a part of their brand suitability strategy include adult language, political commentary, sexually-suggestive content, or comedy. 

For example, a kid’s toy obviously would not want to appear next to content that includes adult language or is sexually suggestive. On the other hand, an online gambling company might be fine appearing alongside that type of content because it doesn’t necessarily go against their values, and may even fare better advertising to that particular audience. 

Why is Brand Suitability Important?

If you’re still not convinced that brand suitability is important for all businesses, let’s break it down even further so you can really get a solid understanding of this concept and what it can do for your company: 

• Advertisement recall: The more relevant your content is to the surrounding content, the more likely that people will relate to it and remember your product and your company as a result. In fact, a 2017 Google study showed that contextual alignment can drive up to a 50% higher ad recall.
• Brand protection: Brand suitability is tied with brand safety that protects your company’s image from irreparable harm. It’s extremely difficult to rebuild your reputation and it’s not something you can just buy, so you need to protect it. If your content appears next to negative content, people will think that your company agrees with it and supports it even if you don’t. The numbers back this up — 33% of people flagged polarizing social issues as a severe content risk.
• Consumer engagement: People are obviously less likely to engage with content that they see as questionable. So, if your brand appears next to this type of content, they will extend that association to your brand as well and avoid spending money on your brand in the future. Obviously, the entire point of advertising is to increase customer engagement — you can ensure that this is the case by focusing on brand suitability. 

5 Tips for Establishing Brand Suitability

Now that you know all the basics of brand suitability, it’s time to get to the good stuff — how you can actually establish it for your business and start reaping the benefits. 

Here are five tips that you can use to effectively establish brand suitability for your company. 

Use Data to Your Advantage 

The first tip for establishing brand suitability is to do your research and use data to your advantage when tailoring your overall strategy. 

Data is a powerful tool that many companies don’t really know how to use properly or efficiently. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Channel Factory can help you make sense of this data and translate it into something that you can actually use. 

For example, you can use data to create your ideal customer and think about how to best target them with your content. You can also use data on previous Youtube campaigns to see what people responded to and what didn’t really resonate. 

Overall, using data is definitely something you want to be doing when trying to establish brand suitability. 

Create Your Strategy

Once you have all the data you need, it’s time to create a strategy that the data supports. 

You should make inclusion lists with types of positive content that you want to appear alongside. This list should include suitable, proven sites, videos, and channels that are safe places for your ads to run. 

You should also make exclusion lists with types of negative content that you want to avoid appearing next to. This list should include inappropriate, illegal, violent, or otherwise offensive content that isn’t suitable for any brand and would harm your brand image. Additionally, you should include potentially questionable or controversial content based on your industry as a whole and your brand values and desired image. 

Use Technology

When it comes to brand suitability, you definitely want to use technology to help you out. It would be nearly impossible to do without it since the Internet is so huge with tons of new content being added every single second of the day. 

That’s why it’s so important to optimize your content and use technology to help you create and filter your lists, place your content, and tweak your content to get the best results. That being said, a human touch is still important here. That’s why companies like the Channel Factory have experts who can help you figure out what you want to get out of advertising and create lists to help you get there. 

Expand Your Horizons

Another tip for establishing brand suitability is to expand your horizons — literally. Go beyond your own borders. There’s a big world out there that’s open and ready to be sold to. The Internet makes this totally possible and even easy thanks to brand suitability. 

Brand suitability in an international context can help you adjust to different languages and cultures as you’re exploring different markets. This is because not all content will translate the same way across borders. You wouldn’t want to unintentionally offend someone just because your content doesn’t translate the same way as it does in the original language. 

That’s why you need experts that are familiar with different markets and can help you figure out what content is suitable for the consumers that make up these new markets. 

Never Stop Working

Finally, the last tip for establishing brand suitability is to never stop working on tailoring and tweaking your content to get the best results. 

This is especially important in the virtual world where there’s an endless stream of new content and things can go viral unpredictably in the blink of an eye. Therefore, you need to constantly keep watch of your inclusion and exclusion lists as the world around us is constantly changing. 

You should also be monitoring the effectiveness of your actual campaigns to see if they’re having the desired effect. 

If it’s not as effective as you’d like, make a change and try out something new. Invest in research into your content before it airs, while it’s airing, and after it airs to see what the overall perception is. This will help you protect your brand image and reputation well into the future no matter how much things change along the way. 

In Closing

As you can see, brand suitability might take a little bit of work to establish but it will be well worth it. 

If you need some extra assistance here, make sure to consult with experts like those at the Channel Factory who can do all the heavy lifting for you and leave you with an effective and cohesive strategy that will work wonders for your overall advertising strategy. 

Get started by downloading Channel Factory’s Ultimate Guide to Brand Sustainability here.

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Sources:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelfertik/2019/12/16/why-customer-engagement-should-be-every-businesss-top-priority-in-2020/#7e22cc286214
2. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314541
3. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ways-measure-advertising-campaign-60944.html