I’ve just looked at one of them 30 minutes long and explained nothing. A perfect example of how not to to do it right.
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Do You Use Video For Your Business?
- Thread starter Darren Dunn
- Start date
I signed up to PROMO - marketing video maker - for an original price of $49 a month as a way of putting something a bit more attractive on Facebook etc.,
It's essentially Getty Images moving footage with editors, background music and overlays.
Of 1000 videos in our sector i've only managed to do about seven 30 second promo films as a lot of the footage is crap, and i've told them so. The end result of which is i'm now paying just $4 a month.
It's essentially Getty Images moving footage with editors, background music and overlays.
Of 1000 videos in our sector i've only managed to do about seven 30 second promo films as a lot of the footage is crap, and i've told them so. The end result of which is i'm now paying just $4 a month.
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T
The Byre
We pay more attention to things we've never seen before and we prick our ears up when we hear sounds we are unfamiliar with. Looking at the same stuff and hearing the same music we've heard before has remarkably little effect.
When I sit down facing a blank screen each morning, one laughably simple thought always pops into my head - and it's not about brilliant headlines, beguiling copy or clever offers. It ain't click-bait or 'professional' images either.
I am in our post-production room surrounded by six synthesizers and not one preset on any one of them will get anyone to look at my footage or read my copy.
As that copy-guru Drayton Bird says "Nobody wants to read this rubbish!"
Nobody has ever thought, "I can't wait to read all the spam in my inbox today."
Not one has thought "Tonight I’ll stay in and watch TV ads!"
They don’t want your rubbish.
They are like me. They have a million and one things to do. Even if they say "I'll read it later." you've failed. "Later is never!" (Dayton Bird again.)
You need one persuasive idea. One 'Wow!' headline and a reason WHY they should act now!
When I sit down facing a blank screen each morning, one laughably simple thought always pops into my head - and it's not about brilliant headlines, beguiling copy or clever offers. It ain't click-bait or 'professional' images either.
I am in our post-production room surrounded by six synthesizers and not one preset on any one of them will get anyone to look at my footage or read my copy.
As that copy-guru Drayton Bird says "Nobody wants to read this rubbish!"
Nobody has ever thought, "I can't wait to read all the spam in my inbox today."
Not one has thought "Tonight I’ll stay in and watch TV ads!"
They don’t want your rubbish.
They are like me. They have a million and one things to do. Even if they say "I'll read it later." you've failed. "Later is never!" (Dayton Bird again.)
You need one persuasive idea. One 'Wow!' headline and a reason WHY they should act now!
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J
JohnStinson
As many as 40% of consumers state that video increases the chance that they'll purchase a product on their mobile device. Website visitors are 64% more likely to purchase on an online retail site after watching a video. Companies that use video are growing revenue 49% faster than those that don't.
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eBay and Amazon don't seem to have got the memo.
If I want new socks I don't want to watch a video. If I need 50m of 3 core I don't need a video. If I order a box of cat food I don't need a video.
If video is so important, why aren't they on your site?
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Can you get out of the way because you're so far behind, there's a dinosaur trying to get past you.
Companies that use video sell a ton more products. A big example is Nike selling $39 billion USD of products and why don't you see what they say themselves about the difference video makes to their sales. There are tons of interviews and they talk about the impact video has on their sales. Perhaps the world's biggest example was Pepsi before they did a little vid on something called 'the Pepsi challenge.' Their sales increased exponentially and there's an interview on YouTube where the CEO at the time talks about how that one advert was a gamechanger for their business.
I work in mainly B2B and video works incredibly well. One example is trust. Because who do you trust more, the salesperson trying to sell to you or their customers who have bought the solution? A customer video testimonial generates 20% - 25% more leads than a written, customer testimonial and one of my customers wrote about this level of growth on my Linkedin profile so you can see it for yourself.
In fact, I have a customer testimonial on my website where a Chief Marketing Officer talks about salespeople loving a video. The reason they love it is because it closes more sales and unsurprisingly, they buy as many of these as they can logistically create because they like selling more.
Every, single piece of data by every, major corporation using video shows that video moves the needle. And not by a little bit, but by a massive amount.
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Don't disagree. But it's not needed for everything. I'm not arguing against video, I'm saying it's not right for everything in the same way SM can work really well for some things but not all things.
An example. Today I brought a set of spark plugs for my TR6. I knew the spec so just needed to find the most suitable supplier. All done without a video.
Nothing wrong with using a video to boost sales. But not all product and services need a video.
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Far too sweeping and I get the feeling you're biased, not sure why. Not many round these parts shifting $39 billion of product either.
Video would actually be very detrimental to my marketing efforts, very.
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T
The Byre
This!
Marketing videos are everything for computer animation or editing packages, car reviews and house walk-throughs. They are deadly for anything static, like books or spark-plugs.
The problem is as always that people make the most ghastly DIY'ed videos using a phone or a DSLR and expect magical results, forgetting that they are up against professionally made product, scripted by experienced writers of advertising copy, crafted by marketing experts, filmed by people who have sat down and studied how to light and frame an image and presented by professionals.
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Fascintating stats on here. You'd really wonder what the angle of the research was!
I keep a fairly keen eye on what my industry does in terms of markering. For the most part we are pretty old-fashioned (including me!)
Several have gone the video route. I'm only aware of one that really makes it works. In prduction terms it's pretty crude, just him doing a weekly update on industry news. He presents well & gets good traction.
Most of the others fall into the generic marketing trap - along the lines of the old school 'what I did on my holiday' essays. 'We also do...'
Some use cartoons, some are dry and serious. All are nonsense, are launched over SM in a blaze of glory and relegatd to deep within the website after a couple of months.
I keep a fairly keen eye on what my industry does in terms of markering. For the most part we are pretty old-fashioned (including me!)
Several have gone the video route. I'm only aware of one that really makes it works. In prduction terms it's pretty crude, just him doing a weekly update on industry news. He presents well & gets good traction.
Most of the others fall into the generic marketing trap - along the lines of the old school 'what I did on my holiday' essays. 'We also do...'
Some use cartoons, some are dry and serious. All are nonsense, are launched over SM in a blaze of glory and relegatd to deep within the website after a couple of months.
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Bias? What about the independent data from companies using vid? Not data from video companies but actual, hard data from companies using video to sell their products. Vast amounts of data is publicly available and you can see the results yourself. And yes, that data is generally published by large, successful businesses for the obvious reasons.
And sure, it doesn't work in all cases, the biggest issue being marketing challenges. I have plenty of conversations with SME business owners where I end up saying 'don't do it,' generally, when it doesn't fit their marketing. E.g. I had a call from a business owner who didn't want his customers to know he was supplying their competitors so customer testimonials or showing his product being used would be counterproductive. He also was extremely well known in a very technical, niche market, had a successful blog going etc... Video just didn't fit.
However, plenty of firms generate a ton more business using video and there is a ton of independent data from companies that use video which demonstrates this.
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Cartoons have the second, lowest response rate score. They scored just above slideshows. When I say 'score,' there was a survey by MIT, Harvard and Berkeley of 127,000 people who watched 6.9 million vids. 30% of those vids had a 'call to action' and the researchers checked if the viewer took the call to action. Animation scored second lowest in terms of response rates, just above slideshows so a typical SME might as well just do a slide show in terms of getting a viewer to pick up a phone and call them.
The most effective was an informal chat with someone sitting down (sitting bizarrely gets 35% more viewers taking a call to action than standing up in a vid) so your competitor's instinctively in the right place.
And the reason your competitor's videos work is well documented. They are getting to prospects who use Google to find a solution to their business problem. When these prospects see advice on a solution that works, they're drawn to it. And do you prefer a wall of text or to watch an easy-to-digest vid? And what's easier to produce? A load of text or just holding your phone up and making quick vid? So your competitor's hooking prospects with the business pain they have a solution for and get business because of it.
I'll chuck up a vid on how to do the thing your competitor's doing, probably in a better way (based on data) and just like your competitor, you can do it for free.
Frankly, I don't care about making pretty pictures. I'm much more interested in the way video generates more business and that's my focus.
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Back in my newspaper days we salesfolk designed the ads and wrote the copy. The mantra then was that a product should be shown is use, so changing the static photo of a Lawnmower to one being pushed across a lawn worked much better.
I'm guessing that sitting down shows that the individual is accepted, inspiring greater confidence, albeit subliminally?
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I don't think anyone is denying this.
Unfortunately, many marketing wonks push video as they best way to promote anything. Which is clearly nonsense. Mind you, these same wonks will also push SM as the best way to promote anything. The only thing this proves is most of those in marketing don't have a clue.
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No research exists on the 'why' of this. However, if I were to guess, I'd say it's because the person looks less 'salesy' sitting down, relaxed, than standing up which I think looks a little preachy. This is backed up by hard data showing 'relaxed' environments get better results than formal environments.
Bizarrely, the second most important element in getting someone to 'take an action' after watching a vid was WPM (words per minute) which was a total surprise to me! So if someone speaks at 250 WPM, engagement levels were 30% better than if they speak at 170. i.e. Viewers were 30% more likely to take the requested action if someone speaks faster! This has changed because back in the day, 170 was the BBC standard so if you look at interviews (e.g. Parkinson, Wogan etc...) or newsreaders back in the day, they. all. spoke. much. more. slowly.
In fact, academic studies in different countries show that 'listeners' equate slower WPM to older people. i.e. The older we are, the slower we speak and speaking faster is a sign someone is younger: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4505082/ - I personally think it's more about the era we were brought up in rather than cognitive changes with age.
Anyhow, the data is absolutely clear. 250 wpm is today's standard and if the speaker can't get up to that rate, we add graphics, cuts etc... to 'overload' the viewer so the interviewee sounds as if they're speaking at 250. This in turn allows us to get higher response rates from the vid so more prospects contact us off the back of it.
But that's a digression. It's all about maximising the impact of marketing: Getting someone to see a vid and pick up a phone, send us an email etc...
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A sales course I went on ended with a videoed role play, for review by the other participants, who all thought my slow considered pitch made me sound like a Vicar. At least until the 'have I got a xxxxxx deal for you son' close.
I wonder if the Church of England are encouraging their ministers to talk faster? Opening for a new business there perhaps?
I wonder if the Church of England are encouraging their ministers to talk faster? Opening for a new business there perhaps?
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Does it also depends on the target? I'm older and I can't stand fast talking. I prefer fewer words spoken clearly. If someone is banging on about the benefits of X so quickly I can't process the information then I'm less likely to convert.
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The data which I posted a link to shows speed of speech is associated with being younger.
But we're talking 250 wpm. What is the average reading rate? I believe it's around 250wpm. So what we're doing is getting speaking rates up to average reading rates. It's not talking quickly, rather, it's redressing the balance between reading and listening speeds.
What happened is that speaking speeds on video were significantly slowed down (see the comment around 170wpm being the BBC standard etc...) Today, we're just naturally returning to this in terms of video.
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The two aren't related. Most people skim read and can easy read up to 300wpm and gain understanding. Listening takes a lot more effort. Whilst I don't disagree that 250wpm might convert well, each age group, gender and social class may need adjustments to this speed.
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Based on all the data, analysis tests, you're wrong about listening and wpm. It is just as easy for a listener to process information at 250wpm as 125wpm. It's an area that's been tested to death and for example:
John B. Carroll, LEARNING FROM VERBAL DISCOURSE IN EDUCATIONAL MEDIA: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE, ETS Research Bulletin Series, 10.1002/j.2333-8504.1971.tb00814.x, 1971, 2, (i-288), (2014).
JOAN RUBIN, A Review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research, The Modern Language Journal, 10.1111/j.1540-4781.1994.tb02034.x, 78, 2, (199-221), (2011).
Emerson Foulke, Methods of Controlling the Word Rate of Recorded Speech, Journal of Communication, 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1970.tb00887.x, 20, 3, (305-314), (2006).
Think there are more here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1968.tb00070.x
In my area (video), we base everything on data. i.e. We know, based on data, what needs to go into a video to increase sales. We have some sophisticated customers who accurately predict how much more sales they will generate through video campaigns. Video, for me, is not about making pretty pictures. It's about creating a marketing tool to generate more sales and that's why my customers use it and need an approach based on facts and figures: To maximise their sales success.
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Once again, I agree with everything you say. But I’m getting old and I prefer slower speech. We had a discussion before lockdown with a group of about 50 retired people and everyone preferred slower talkers. Admittedly this was about presentations but I suspect it would be the same on video.
Wpm and other conversion elements will be age related. Watch adverts on the TV. Those aimed at older people are always more paced.
Wpm and other conversion elements will be age related. Watch adverts on the TV. Those aimed at older people are always more paced.
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T
The Byre
After reading this thread, I looked at all the video channels that I subscribe to (mostly in economics and action-fribbled stuff like that) and they are all featuring people that hit one with oodles of USEFUL information at 90mph. They speak quickly!
People who speak slowly or say um and err and well repeatedly bore me and I click-off.
If I am talking to someone in person and they are driveling on about F-all, I ask them to get the point and to do so as quickly as possible.
It's not an age thing. 70 in a few days' time, so I am no Spring chicken. But I want my information dense-and-fast. The men in my family all die at the age of 82, so I don't have time to wait while someone is trying to work out what word comes next!
People who speak slowly or say um and err and well repeatedly bore me and I click-off.
If I am talking to someone in person and they are driveling on about F-all, I ask them to get the point and to do so as quickly as possible.
It's not an age thing. 70 in a few days' time, so I am no Spring chicken. But I want my information dense-and-fast. The men in my family all die at the age of 82, so I don't have time to wait while someone is trying to work out what word comes next!
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Sloooow....
https://www.fnxmedia.com/lead-generation
Surely if 250wpm is a good speed, shouldn't the videos on your site be examples of this
Fast can be good. But in the right circumstances so can slow. It all depends on what you are selling and to whom.
https://www.fnxmedia.com/lead-generation
Surely if 250wpm is a good speed, shouldn't the videos on your site be examples of this
Fast can be good. But in the right circumstances so can slow. It all depends on what you are selling and to whom.
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D
Deleted member 59730
I've been watching quite a few online software demos recently. Many of them are far too fast and seem to think that waving the curser around in all directions somehow helps. There is a world of difference between cognitive speed and getting the message remembered.
(and as this veered into a great dane thread a while back I still give advice about covering shoots with insurance after an experience decades ago.
I was the assistant to a photographer on a shoot where we needed a really big white shaggy rug. And I mean big. The only one we could find big enough belonged to Ken Adam designer of some of the Bond films. We hired it from him. Also in the picture was a great dane. Again the biggest we could find had just starred in a film of The Hound of the Baskervilles. All she needed to do was sit on a sofa. And then she menstruated / bled over the rug. The cost of cleaning the rug wiped out the photographers fee. Accidents and All risks are different things when insurance companies are involved)
(and as this veered into a great dane thread a while back I still give advice about covering shoots with insurance after an experience decades ago.
I was the assistant to a photographer on a shoot where we needed a really big white shaggy rug. And I mean big. The only one we could find big enough belonged to Ken Adam designer of some of the Bond films. We hired it from him. Also in the picture was a great dane. Again the biggest we could find had just starred in a film of The Hound of the Baskervilles. All she needed to do was sit on a sofa. And then she menstruated / bled over the rug. The cost of cleaning the rug wiped out the photographers fee. Accidents and All risks are different things when insurance companies are involved)
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Sloooow....
https://www.fnxmedia.com/lead-generation
Surely if 250wpm is a good speed, shouldn't the videos on your site be examples of this
Fast can be good. But in the right circumstances so can slow. It all depends on what you are selling and to whom.
Must admit I prefer slow speech. And presentations can be good at whatever speed - someone who is talking quick and lots of data / words on screen at the same time are a pain but manageable. Not everyone copes with both though.
Some good presentations use pauses. Say a few words, let them sink in, then emphasize something on screen in a few words then pause.
Not everything has to be high word count.
And not everyone can absorb high speed input from two senses. Though that is something many people can learn to do.
Was reading something a while back that suggested brain processing was 500 - 600 wpm. Hence we find it easy to start thinking of our reply while the other person is still talking, we have unused capacity. Or how you can think about what you are reading while you are reading it.
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D
Deleted member 59730
But they go out to watch TV ads!
I heard that showings of UK made commercials are popular at creative group screenings in the USA. I was told that in Minneapolis they are a "hot ticket item".
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Bit of a thread hijack here, but some of the best advertising campaigns are made for Radio.
These from the Radio Advertising Hall of Fame CD have one thing in common. Most are quite long.
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/bde8a091-d8a0-4e21-802f-68e49171e8a2
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/980fb90a-e238-4c42-b9ca-67aeebb28b7a
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/cd228320-a7ad-478b-b626-e7af3bb7713e
These from the Radio Advertising Hall of Fame CD have one thing in common. Most are quite long.
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/bde8a091-d8a0-4e21-802f-68e49171e8a2
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/980fb90a-e238-4c42-b9ca-67aeebb28b7a
https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/cd228320-a7ad-478b-b626-e7af3bb7713e
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Sloooow....
https://www.fnxmedia.com/lead-generation
Surely if 250wpm is a good speed, shouldn't the videos on your site be examples of this
Fast can be good. But in the right circumstances so can slow. It all depends on what you are selling and to whom.
That's why we cut in visuals and underlay music if someone talks under 250wpm. The idea is the viewer gets the 'feel' that of taking in information at a higher rate which gets higher engagement rates and better responses. i.e. More people picking up a phone and calling a business.
You can argue your opinion but the facts are the facts. The facts are that every survey including the world's biggest survey of 127,000 people looking at 6.9 million videos, word rates running at 250wpm get better results. i.e. More people picking up a phone and calling a business after they watch a vid which is what my business is all about.
I'm not about making pretty pictures although I ensure the pics are as pretty as possible. Rather, I'm all about understanding what videos generate more business and how to make those vids as effective as possible so my customers maximise their success.
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D
Deleted member 59730
I'm a photographer.
Alan Parker was working at an ad agency called PKL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papert_Koenig_Lois. Peter Mayle of Provence fame ran the London office. It was one of the most creative ad agencies in London.
I was working out of a studio with several other photographers when we made a move to bigger premises in Victoria. Our moving in party was memorable. One of the photographers was going out with a dancer at the Royal Ballet while another's girlfriend was one of Pan's People a popular TV dance group. They bought their friends and the dancing became a bit wild.
I noticed Alan being a bit morose in a corner and he told me he had just been fired that day from PKL. He was almost crying in his beer. He said that he didn't think he would get another chance to be so creative again.
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