Category: Video Marketing

How to Create a Customer Profile for Corporate Videos

February 5, 2013

Video marketing is an important tool for brand awareness, lead generation and sales.

But without a properly developed customer profile for your video-marketing campaign you risk investing in video production that just doesn’t make an impact with your target buyer.

At FlyCreative, we always carry out an in-depth customer analysis to make sure we’re including the best narrative and images to reach them. Even if you don’t hire us, answering the following questions will help you start to build create a useful customer profile for your digital-marketing.

What are their current obstacles and challenges?

You have a product or service that solves a problem for your customer and this is a rich resource of ideas for a successful video campaign.

Too many unsuccessful video campaigns focus on the product or the service, but the problem it solves is much more relevant to your customer. This can be a powerful story for a video campaign.

For a company like the Carphone Warehouse, the company understood that their customer’s problem wasn’t that they didn’t have a phone and needed one, but that they weren’t aware of all the choices available, and how to get the most out of their phones. That’s why they built in tutorials for a video-marketing campaign.

What questions do they have about solving the problem?

Another great source of video campaign ideas is the questions your customer has about solving their problem.

A consumer looking for luxury clothing online may have questions such as how to source the best possible clothes, how to choose the best luxury clothes on a budget, how to find luxury clothing for a particular event or occasion.

A successful video-marketing campaign rests on producing content that your customer actively wants to consume, AND promotes your business.

By answering their questions through video, you help move them from the prospecting phase into a potential lead and sale.

What questions do they have about doing business with your company?

An often overlooked part of a video campaign is not information about your company, but answering the questions your customer might have about doing business with you.

Many corporate videos are poorly received because the video content doesn’t answer these questions.

Left unanswered these are potential objections your prospect might have when it comes to doing business with you.

Some questions may include: what is the service like? How long is it before I see results from your company? What do you do that other companies don’t do?

Have a think about how you can tackle these issues in your own video-marketing campaign, and if you need any help, you know where we are. 🙂

Washington Post to Move into Online Videos

January 29, 2013

Traditional media outlets and publishing houses are finding answers to declining print circulation and advertising revenue by investing in video production.

Recently, another organisation using online video to increase user engagement is The Washington Post. The Post announced at the beginning of the year that investment in video-production would result in a dedicated online political video channel.

“Substantial” resources will be assigned to this venture to create more than 30 hours of programming each month.

In recent years online publications have struggled to raise revenue through advertising since content-marketing has been more successful. However, an increase in video usage provides an opportunity for publishers to increase their online audience.

If this is successful, The Post can then re-evaluate its advertising model to see whether sponsored messages attached to these videos are enough to boost advertising revenues.

For more information on creating an online video-marketing campaign for your business, call 020-3286-4570 or use our contact form to tell us about your project.

3 Essential Ingredients for Video-Tutorials that Increase Sales

January 29, 2013

Smart companies now market their services “under the radar” by publishing high quality content that their prospects can use to make a decision.

And if 2012 was the year of main-stream companies blogging, creating infographics and content-downloads, 2013 is the year of the video.

Large companies are not using video-marketing to increase sales and customer engagement. Just before Christmas, the Carphone Warehouse announced plans to create more online video tutorials to provide advice to customers researching phones.

Should you be doing something similar for your business though? Would video-tutorials be the best format for your corporate videos?

Here are some questions to help you decide:

Can you help customers in the pre-purchase phase?

Carphone Warehouse know a lot of pre-purchase research done online. As much as 70% of their store purchases begin with research online.

As a result the company is actively targeting customers ahead of their purchase.

Companies often make the mistake of targeting their marketing at a much later stage, when customers know what they want and just need to pick a retailer for the purchase.

This is a missed opportunity to increase the reach of your marketing.

What is the pre-purchase phase in your business? Do customers spend time researching the solution in general before narrowing it down to a particular vendor?

In the B2B industry of software, many technology companies provide online video demonstrations because they know businesses spend time researching solutions before approaching vendors for proposals.

Creating video tutorials for this stage in the sales cycle puts your company front and centre in your prospect’s mind when picking suppliers for the short list.

Will your videos provide independent value?

Independent value means your videos have to be useful even if your customer never buys from you.

It’s what separates companies that have built large and engaged audiences, and companies that simply cannot get people to watch or share their videos.

In the Carphone Warehouse example, a video that simply sells the benefits of buying a particular model through the company will easily be detected as an advert.

Its credibility and trust in the content decreases.

Video-tutorials that focus on a range of phones suitable for international students, or the features you need if you’re interested in using the internet abroad are much more useful.

At the end of the video, you can provide a call to action to browse products on your site, but the promotion is secondary to the independent value.

Ignore the independent value rule and your prospects will ignore your marketing.

Can you disguise your advertising (for best results)?

Savvy consumers can smell advertising a mile off.

The recent uproar after media outlet The Atlantic made a huge mistake with native advertising shows what can happen if you under-estimate your audience’s awareness of what is and is not-advertising.

Some of the most famously successful advertising campaigns were based on long tutorials with no prominent offer.

The below advert looked like a regular informative article. It was used in the New York times and famously attracted 10,000 responses. The offer was buried deep in the copy.

Why did it work so well?

Well it embodies all of the above 3 points:

  • It targeted customers in the “pre-purchase” phase

  • It had independent value

  • It didn’t look like an advert

For more information on creating tutorial videos as part of your video-marketing campaign, contact us on 020-3286-4570 or email: hello (at)  flycreative.co.uk

Why Video-Marketing Increases Travel Sales for Companies like Orbitz

January 24, 2013

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If you’re a hotel, leisure facility or a tourist board, your marketing has to make a compelling argument to persuade customers to choose you. And with the presence of multiple travel forums such as Trip Advisor, customers want more than just advertising.

Travel customers want an honest picture of their future holiday.

Reviews, referrals and photos are very persuasive.

But smart travel companies are using video-marketing campaigns to show travellers and tourist whet they can expect when they arrive on their holiday or business trip. With video-marketing it is much easier for your customer to imagine themselves spending time at your resort or facility.

Travel Bookings Increased 45% and 74%

Travel company Orbitz are investing in a series of videos which show off their destinations including Ireland, the Cayman Islands and most recently upstate New York.

And the investment is worth it.

Their numbers show that 45% of leisure travellers and 74% of affluent travellers book travel after viewing online videos.

Orbitz is just one company that is following the increasing trend to add video marketing into their digital content marketing campaigns.

So why does video marketing work so well for travel companies and tourism boards?

Video Marketing Brings Subtle Beauty to Life

Cinematic-quality videos (like the ones we make at fly creative 🙂 ) capture so many more subtle selling points that are harder to explain to potential customers verbally or in a brochure or leaflet.

A great sales representative might be able to describe the peace and tranquility of a visit to upstate New York, but a sweeping panoramic shot of a lake, or the dramatic qualities of a local street festival actively transports your customers there.

A Faster Emotional Connection

Within seconds a video can have a physical and emotional reaction on your viewer. That ability to capture and keep attention is why corporate companies like Orbitz (and others) are investing in video-marketing campaigns.

The corporate videos planned by Orbitz are designed so that customers are encouraged to have an emotional reaction.

These videos are not about simply providing the facts of the resort or location, they are shot to encourage travellers to feel something. For example:

  • Calm and tranquil
  • Excited by potential adventures
  • Excited about escaping the grind
  • Hope and optimistic about the upcoming trip

In brochures, copywriting and image placement are used to evoke these kinds of reactions.

But you’re counting on people to read all of your text.

With a corporate travel video you can have your audience emotionally hooked within the first second.

Repetition Reinforces and Anchors Customer Desire

Visuals are powerful motivators. People will often keep photos of a car they want to own, a holiday destination they’d like to visit, or clothes they’d like to buy.

This visual stimulation reinforces our desire for that object. It keeps us focused on what we want and reminds us of how we imagine we will feel when we own it or when we travel to that place.

Video multiplies that effect.

The best corporate videos or branded video-content, are designed so that your customer WANTS to watch the video again and again.

That’s one of the reasons video-marketing campaigns for the travel industry are so successful. Each time they watch your corporate video they are  become more emotionally attached, their desire for the experience increases and you’re more likely to experience an increase in enquiries and booking as Orbitz has found.

At FlyCreative, we can design, produce and deliver this style of corporate video for you. If you want to chat more about how video can help your digital-marketing campaigns, please get in touch!

Side by Side (the movie)

October 5, 2012

This looks great, It’s something every director, DOP and young film maker has been wondering for ages.. “What do talented film makers think of the digital change?”

“SIDE BY SIDE, a new documentary produced by Keanu Reeves, takes an in-depth look at this revolution. Through interviews with directors, cinematographers, film students, producers, technologists, editors, and exhibitors, SIDE BY SIDE examines all aspects of filmmaking — from capture to edit, visual effects to color correction, distribution to archive. At this moment when digital and photochemical filmmaking coexist, SIDE BY SIDE explores what has been gained, what is lost, and what the future might bring.“

Featuring:
James Cameron
David Fincher
David Lynch
Robert Rodriguez
Martin Scorsese
Steven Soderbergh

We have spoken to Duke of Yorks picture house (in Brighton) to see if they will play it, but are still waiting for a reply.

This was posted on the ‘Side by Side’ https://www.facebook.com/sidebysidethemovie facebook page:

“SIDE BY SIDE premieres in London at BFI Southbank on December 6th at 20:30. Public booking begins November 13th. Please don’t call their box office until then.”

for more information on the ‘side by side’ movie check out their site here http://sidebysidethemovie.com/

Collate Presents – Mull it Over

January 25, 2012

After chatting to Collate Presents about some previous new projects they were working on we took an interest in the ‘Mull it Over’ artist installation to be hosted in Art Republic in Brighton.

It was a great night and we met a lot of interesting people and some awesome artists.

LIKE IF YOU LIKE

BathTub Rubs

December 19, 2011

As we’ve said before we are still producing a 9 hour long video for a company who produce ‘Zen Coaching’ courses so again we have been playing with some creative ideas in our off time.

This is simply an idea Jon had while in the bath, we will use it as part of an upcoming video we are working on for a pitch to MTV in the near future.. more details on that to follow in the early stages of next year.

HOW WE DUN IT:
We basically set up the studio at Jon’s flat in Brighton and handheld a shot of the bubbles but made sure there was a couple of tracking points of high contrast (the plug hole) this will be useful in Mocha for after effects to use as a tracking point. we will be producing some new training videos on tracking and using mocha in the near future.. so look out for them.

Bellerbys Oxford

June 7, 2011

Bellerbys College is the gold standard for international students seeking entry to any one of 50 top UK universities and the largest provider of international students to UK universities.

fly creative was asked to produce a video showing the new Oxford study center including interviews with the students and some of the teachers.

We have produced more videos for Study Group and hope to maintain a long relationship with them, so watch out for more exciting projects.

This video was shot on 2 X Canon 7D’s with Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lenses.

Jardin Flambeau

May 8, 2011

We were invited to film the Jardin Flambeau instillation in Brighton’s St Ann’s Well Garden as part of the Brighton Festival.

We filmed with a crew of 3 shooting on 2 X Canon 7D’s, one with Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM and 2nd camera EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM.

It was such an amazing sight, we have got some amazing feedback and have already had over 3,000 views on Vimeo and Youtube.

“As the sun goes down over one of Brighton’s best loved local landmarks, French outdoor alchemists Compagnie Carabosse fan the flames of our imaginations with an elemental Fire Garden.

St Ann’s Well Gardens may have derived its fame and fortune from its waters – its ancient spring once the centrepiece of an 18th-century health spa – but it is fire that now transforms this most elegant of Brighton’s open spaces.”

Young Adult Faction

April 8, 2011

Young Adult Faction new music video for ‘Some Sort of Catch’ was filmed in West Wittering beach and various locations in and around Brighton.

It was shot on 2 X Canon 7D’s
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

This single is taken from the debut EP ‘New First Impressions’ which will be released on 8th April 2011

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