SME’s have a strong dependence on content – because that’s the foundation of successful marketing. Content in any format is designed to engage and start conversations.
But there’s a recent problem that’s come up for all marketers – the 8 second attention span of man.
This essentially means that as a marketer, you have only 8 seconds to catch someone’s interest. So if your SME needs to engage an audience – you only have 8 seconds to make your pitch. After that – the audience has lost its attention.
Video however seems to defy these rules. Last year YouTube’s Robert Kyncl announced that over 90% of the web’s traffic will be video.
That’s not coincidence. That’s because the demand for video content is so high. And Marketers with Small to Medium Enterprises are still finding their sweet spots in this new media format.
For SMEs – video marketing presents a remarkably powerful format of content marketing. Put your propositions in an Audio Visual format – and then send it to the relevant audience. Then measure results and put the learnings back into production for the next set of ‘bullets’. To start, making videos can seem to be difficult, but now with YouTube automation and multiple DIY and easy to use video creation tools, it’s easier than ever to make videos work for your business.
Animated films can be very engaging and still deliver clean messaging for a product. The key aspects about such videos is that they’re animated in 2D and they explain the product using a use-case. Ideally these should be about 100 – 110 seconds in length.
Here are top 3 reasons why such Audio Visual Content trumps over Text:
1. Your audience needs 2 out of 5 senses
This is a big one. Our senses cause all the distractions we know. While reading a nice book, if a mosquito bites you – you’d lose your concentration. The sense of touch at play.
If a lemon seed pops in your mouth – you instantly recognize the bitterness. That’s sense of taste at work. Foul smells push us to start breathing through our mouth !
When you’re dealing with Visual and Audio senses – you’re looking at the top 2 senses we trust. We literally believe what we see – even if our other senses are pointing us in the other direction.
And short term memories in the hippocampus are created by audio – not video.
When your audience is seeing a video, 2 of their senses are focusing on the content. Its obvious that it’ll take a much larger distraction for them to look away.
2. People are busy – video brings credibility
Videos show what text explains. There’s tremendous merit in engaging the audience’s visual senses. That is why hotels fuss so much about how the food ‘looks’.
By show key management team, customers, or even concepts – marketers can leverage a content format that’s traditionally been reserved for hollywood. And because the audience can ‘see’ the information – there is much higher engagement and credibility.
3. We always want to be entertained.
In a stressful environment, entertainment has high value. Animated characters, plots and stories can be very entertaining. They can make you laugh – which is the fastest way to break resistances. Text cannot do that unless the author is a good writer – chances are you’d be paying a steep fee to engage J K Rowling to write your next piece.
Visualizations, Animations, Voices, and Sound are all independent channels to deliver stories.
A puppet show is a classical ‘visual’ story telling exercise. A radio show is all about the voice and the sound effects. Both of them have engaged us as children and adults.
Here are 3 companies and how they are using 2D animated films as their marketing content:
1. Sales Meetings
Before they setup a meeting with the senior executive, EasiShare’s sales teams send out a short video about the product’s particular feature. After they arrive in the conference room, they play another overview video of the product – and the discussions begin.
This is a recent video about one of the product’s key features.
2. Booth Engagement
Knowcross bundled up 8 video stories into a touchscreen app and put a 37 inch touchscreen on their booth. The touchscreen amused many visitors, and Knowcross could track the behaviours of each of them. The data they gathered – 100 minds were kept busy for 8 mins each.
3. Investor Pitches
IndieGogo and Kickstarter are fantastic places to raise money from. So is Angel’s list. But you’re not the only one trying to woo your audience. And since everyone is in a hurry, a crisp animated story can explain the product and its proposed features more easily than anything else.
This article is Written By: Sameer Agarwal, Founder at GoVideoToday.