Human memory is best at remembering what we see. Videos and visual storytelling are thus emerging as the most efficacious digital marketing trends in the modern era. Video marketing and visual storytelling leverage compelling visuals and narratives to engage the target audience. These help convey the messages effectively, evoke emotions, and create memorable brand experiences, driving engagement and conversions. With so many perks, businesses embracing video marketing stand out among their competitors and rise beyond limits.
GoodFirms Roundtable is a series of podcast interview discussions where leading industry experts, CEOs, and people holding prominent positions in IT services and software companies share their valuable experiences and opinions on various topics. The podcast discussion becomes a rich source of information for budding entrepreneurs willing to start their businesses.
GoodFirms recently had a chance to interview Robert Weiss, President Sales and Marketing, MultiVision Digital. In the following podcast discussion, Robert shares his knowledge and views about the importance of videos in digital marketing and how to design a successful video strategy.
Based in the USA, MultiVision Digital is a versatile video production and video marketing company excelling in strategic guidance, cost-effective video production, and extensive video marketing services tailored for companies of all sizes, industries, and businesses with unique marketing needs. The company develops and executes innovative video content marketing strategies, enabling businesses to enhance sales, generate better leads, improve customer engagement, achieve their goals, and earn customer loyalty. With a proficient team of senior-level digital marketers, video producers, directors, and editors diligently focusing on the clients and their business objectives, MultiVision Digital has produced varied videos for businesses across the globe, including corporate overview videos, thought leadership videos, animated explainer videos, case study videos, branding videos, product videos, videos for SEO, and more.
The Podcast Discussion Highlights the Following:
- How to determine the best approach for creating a video marketing strategy for any specific business or industry?
- The common misconceptions about video marketing and visual storytelling and how to address them with the clients?
- What role does effective video content and emotion play in creating those memories?
- Does including emotion in videos always work?
- Critical steps to follow that can help incorporate user generated video content or influencer video campaigns into the branding strategy.
The Podcast Also Covers These Crucial Points:
- A few examples of successful video marketing campaigns that MultiVision Digital created for various businesses and were quite excited to be a part of.
- How different generations of people can affect the perception of a brand?
- How different companies can tailor their video marketing strategies to effectively target each of these age groups.
- How has GoodFirms platform helped MultiVision Digital in their growth journey?
About the Podcast and MultiVision Digital
Our special guest for this podcast is Robert Weiss who owns an award winning video production agency called MultiVision Digital. The company has produced over 1400 videos for businesses of various sizes and with varied business objectives.
Initiating the podcast, Robert Weiss explains that video is nothing more than content. It is a powerful way to tell stories and get information. So, when you are planning to create a video, you must think about the core objectives, and this will help you decide your video strategy.
How Do You Actually Determine the Best Approach for Creating a Video Marketing Strategy for Any Specific Business or Industry?
Robert Weiss elaborates that though there are a lot of variables that go into creating a video marketing strategy, the first thing to do is to stop thinking about video and instead define your strategy. One must focus on the purpose, for instance, the approach for creating video content for a product launch is very different from the approach needed for creating recruiting content or driving awareness via advertising.
Moreover, the variables to be considered also include the distribution channels that the company has set up for video. Further, since many companies do not have existing distribution channels and need to create them, the next crucial element to think about is the budget available for this, whether it is small, medium, or large. This helps decide how many videos are to be done.
Besides, we need to decide what the level of complexity of those videos should be. For example, people love drones, so we need to think if we can do a great video for a company without including a drone or if we must include a drone. However, if we do include a drone, it means more investment because that involves an extra person. Thus, though we can still achieve the business objective of that video without a drone, if somebody wants a drone, it will cost more.
Another example is that stock pictures are not a good choice for a corporate overview video about your organization, but these would be great for SEO or for recruiting. However, these pictures cost very little as you can just go to Shutterstock and get stock pictures or stock videos and create a video without having to go to different locations and invest in cameras, equipment, drones, and doing all the editing.
As mentioned above, there are probably another five to six variables to be considered in designing the best video marketing strategy, starting with the business strategy, budget available, and how we execute to create content that happens to be video, to achieve those objectives.
I Believe That You’ve Worked With So Many Different Levels of Businesses and Different Level of Minds Handling Businesses. So, What Are Some Misconceptions About the Video Marketing or the Visual Storytelling Area and How Do You Actually Address Them With Your Clients?
There are many misconceptions about video marketing, but the first one is about the video marketing strategy. Most people believe that creating one video can serve all the purpose. However, that is not true. The way businesses and marketers create content for all of the things that they do, for sales support, for recruiting, for SEO, for thought leadership, the same methodology applies for video content. However, creating a video surely requires more effort and is much more time consuming than creating a blog post.
Another misconception that companies have is that they will not look good on camera and that they will never get better. They thus shy away from being on camera. Robert believes that in a business to business sale, it is all about the people and about informing and educating them in a personal way; thus, it does not matter if you are short, fat, bald, have a beard, curly hair, or straight hair.
Video marketing and visual storytelling are remarkably useful. However, the outcomes of these also depend on how you communicate the concept to people or the camera. This is where a good director or a company like MultiVision Digital comes into picture, as the company has an expertise and broad experience in handling this. MultiVision Digital not only manages the strategic part of the video, but also works with people to make sure that they are comfortable on camera, can speak well, and look and sound good.
Furthermore, people think that they need to be perfect in videos, as they believe that video actors are perfect. Robert believes that this is again a common misconception, because nobody is perfect in real life, and if you are perfect then that defeats the purpose. In summary, it is not about being perfect, but delivering the message right is most important.
There Is Emotional Impact and Emotional Storyline, so Much of It in Videos Right Now. What Role Does Emotion Play in Creating Those Memories, Effective Video Content, Which Actually People Like to Watch.
Branding and storytelling are the right ways to put emotion in recruiting videos and testimonial videos, like personal stories. Moreover, the use of music and editing skills play an important role in this. However, it is not always good to include emotion in a business to business sale. Thus, there can be plenty of marketing videos that have emotion and plenty of those videos that do not, as people just want information.
People want answers to their questions and thought leadership content to help them make decisions, and that does not need to be emotionally driven. Thus, one needs to leverage emotion in videos sparingly, only where these are absolutely necessary to convey the information appropriately.
Do You Also Believe That People Are Actually Quite Tired of Every Video Having a Message, Any Kind of Emotional Storyline or Any Emotional Message? What Are Your Thoughts on That?
There is a time and place for emotion within the entire sales and marketing process. Some products and services are very quick and some are very long, and you need to analyze the right time to apply that; for instance, if I am a business to business customer at the very beginning stages of the sale cycle trying to get information about something, a long video filled with emotion would not fit, as it is irrelevant to my needs as a buyer at that time.
Robert highlights another example. As a buyer, if I have to choose between 10 companies and then want to reduce to 3 companies to consider buying from, I am now deeper into the sales process. This is the time when emotion can help as I need to further connect, unlike at the beginning stages when I had 10, and I just wanted information.
I’m Sure You Must Have Like Countless Successful Video Marketing Campaigns That You’ve Worked With For Various Businesses. So, Can You Give Us an Example of Such a Campaign That You Were a Part of and You Were Quite Excited to Be a Part of and Something That MultiVision Digital Has Produced?
Robert elaborates one of the success stories that makes him feel good. One of MultiVision Digital’s clients, a business owner, needed to start his chocolate making business, where you go in and you make your own chocolate.
MultiVision Digital created an investment video for him and ended up getting him an impressive USD 480,000 as an investment within 4 months of giving him the video. The company also did 6 FAQ videos for another manufacturing business. Comparing these two for including emotion in video, the small business chocolate-making video had a lot of emotion as kids and families were involved, all making chocolates. The video portrayed the joy of making chocolates, how fun that was, and connecting.
Alternatively, the FAQ videos were about how things worked and why they work, as it was a business to business sale. These videos involved a significant investment; but, they are using that content over and over again to explain what they do and provide information to buyers who just need information.
We’ve All Been Using Social Media a Lot and Everybody Is Becoming Content Creators, Using Products, Putting Out Videos About It. So, It Has Also Led to the Rise of User Generated Content. What Are Some Steps to Incorporate User Generated Video Content or Influencer Video Campaign Into the Branding Strategy.
Robert reveals that they encourage the clients to create their own content with just a videographer; for example, one of the company’s clients has a videographer who creates internal videos for them, including internal videos of their executives talking to their internal audience. Such videos, according to Robert, just need to be good in quality to become valuable content. So, while the clients still leverage MultiVision Digital’s services, they also use their internal person as this is easy and more cost effective for them. In summary, Robert believes that companies must do their own videos too.
However, to be able to understand how to create the right videos, it is essential to start with a professional services company that does video, like MultiVision Digital, as they will teach you the process, will help you understand how to perform on camera, and understand how to prepare for the shoot. Moreover, one must not expect to create a good video in the first two to three times. It may take even up to five attempts to understand the process well and create a good video.
Furthermore, businesses need to understand that every business has different needs and their videos also need to be different from others. They must thus learn to do it differently. Robert believes that eventually, once companies learn the process of creating videos, they will actually start enjoying the process.
Can You Give Some Valuable Insights on How Different Generations of People Can Affect the Perception of a Brand and How Can Different Companies Tailor Their Video Marketing Strategies To Effectively Target Each of These Age Groups?
The overall approach is the same, which is starting with your strategy. Then, you need to decide where the distribution is; for example, for an influencer strategy, for kids you should be on Snapchat, but probably as an influencer for older people, you must be Facebook.
Similarly, if you are trying to drive SEO for a law firm and you are trying to drive awareness on how you solve problems, you can create content for YouTube and your website. In summary, you must decide your strategy based on your target audience and create video content that matches that particular channel.
Lastly, We Would Like to Know How Goodfirms Helped You in Your Growth Journey and How Our Platform Has Helped You in This Journey?
Robert emphasizes that GoodFirms is doing a good job of helping them build awareness for their company. Further, it provides valuable backlinks, which are really important to search. One video is not a video marketing strategy and one needs to do many other things to drive the company, like brand awareness and more, and GoodFirms has been a really good partner in that journey and hopefully many more to come.
You can listen to this podcast here.
What’s Next
Videos and visual storytelling play a pivotal role in digital marketing for businesses. They offer a dynamic and engaging way to communicate brand messages, making content more appealing and memorable. In a visually driven digital landscape, videos help captivate audiences, conveying complex information in a digestible form. The emotional impact of visual storytelling enables building stronger bonds with consumers, influencing purchasing decisions.
Moreover, popular platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok emphasize video content, enhancing visibility. Incorporating visual elements in marketing strategies not only boosts brand awareness, but also improves SEO, increasing traffic and conversions while keeping businesses competitive in the digital realm.
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