Financial Services Marketing & Content Strategy1

Promotional Video for Customer-centric Marketingby Phil Donaldson

Video marketing goes by several different names including “promo video,” “promotional video,” “corporate video,” “product video” and even “explainer video.” But regardless of the name, videos used for marketing and sales purposes have rapidly grown in popularity. According to a recent study by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 70% of content marketers are now using video as part of their marketing arsenal.

How to Use Video in Your Content Strategy

Promotional videos can be used to share thought leadership, educate, entertain, demonstrate busi-ness value, promote ideas and market your services. They can be used in your trade show booth to generate interest, on your website as an adjunct to your other web content, in your email marketing campaigns, in social media marketing. Sales reps love to use them with prospects as a way to help get in the door. If they’re done well, prospects will share them with colleagues internally, helping expand the reach of your message inside the target account.

”“ 70% of content marketers are now using

video as part of their marketing arsenal.

– CMI/MarketingProfs

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The Benefits of Good Promotional Video

Video has quickly become a popular tool for telling compelling brand stories and engaging busy customers. In a world with busy schedules and varied learning styles, video is particularly effective at communicating, especially when you’re targeting the C-suite. According to a Forbes article, video has “evolved from a novelty into a mainstream method for [senior] executives to receive business information. Younger executives in particular appear more inclined not only to view video, but also to create it and share it.”

Video consumption on the Internet is growing rapidly. According to a study Cisco published in 2012, “Globally, Internet video traffic will be 55% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016, up from 51% in 2011.” The Cisco report also states that “it would take 6 million years to watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks in one month.”

Competition for Audience Attention is High

All that traffic means the level of competition for an audience is high. Audience attention is a precious commodity, and you can’t afford to squander it with poorly executed promotional videos. Great graphic design and production are only part of the equation. Your video has to instantly capture and then hold your audience’s attention. It needs to both entertain and provide valuable insights to the viewer in order to keep them watching and get them to share.

But the benefits are compelling. According to a Forbes study:

■ 75% of senior executives watch work-related videos at least weekly

■ More than 50% of senior executives share videos with colleagues at least weekly

■ 59% of senior executives prefer video, if available on a page with related text

■ Audiences retain 50% more information from watching video

Promotional Videos Help Improve Search Rankings

Online video is also highly valuable for SEO (search engine optimization). Google has dramatically increased the search ranking value of rich media embedded in a website. It even shows embedded thumbnails of videos in search results, and images can dramatically improve click through rates. Since 2008, You-Tube has been the world’s second-largest search engine, and sharing your videos on this channel along with transcripts to support search makes it much more likely to be discovered.

Promotional Videos Dramatically Increase Email Click-Through Rates

A study by GetResponse evaluated 1 billion video emails and compared them to non-video emails. They found that “the emails containing video received, on average, 5.6 percent higher open rates, and 96.38 percent higher CTRs than non-video mails.”

”“Video appears to have evolved from a

novelty into a mainstream method for executives to receive business information.

– Forbes

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Video and MultiMedia Increase Press Release Views and Social Sharing

Promotional videos also dramatically improve press release performance. PR Newswire evaluated 10,000 press releases over a 4-week period and found that press releases including photos, video and other media get 77% more views than text-only releases. They also found that multi-media releases are shared 3.53 times more often than text releases and that multimedia releases hold audience interest longer. Text press releases generate clicks for an average of 9.4 days, but releases with video generate reads for an average of 20 days.

What Qualities Do The Best Promotional Videos Share?

While it’s relatively easy to make a video, it’s not easy to make one that will resonate with prospects and help drive revenue. Good videos share a number of important qualities that make them effective.

■ Voice of the Customer – Effective video marketing uses the voice of the customer to make the content very relevant target audiences. This doesn’t mean a customer must actually be portrayed in the video or that you need to name the customer, but the stories being told by the video should use the same language, jargon, business issues and approaches to resolution that your customers use. This ensures that the video will resonate with your ideal prospects.

■ Compelling business issues – Videos that help drive revenue address real business issues that are important to your target audience. This may make the video uninteresting to people outside your target market, but that’s fine. The goal is influencing your sales.

■ Entertaining story – If the viewers enjoy your video and find its story relevant, they’re more likely to share it with col-leagues. A powerful script is critical to an effective video.

■ Expert graphic design – The same way that quality clothing helps you to “dress for success,” great graphic design and high quality animation can help to make or break a video.

■ Quality audio production – The quality of the audio soundtrack heavily influences the audience’s perception of the overall video. Poor quality voice-over, background noise, and/or amateur mixing distract the audience from the video’s core message.

The Importance of Being Customer-centric

Your company has a unique story to tell about how you bring value to your customers. So your videos need to be about more than product features, facts and figures. You need to demonstrate to your customers that you understand their business prob-lem and can help them find the solution. They need to know that you “get them,” you understand their business problems, and you can help. Video is a powerful way to demonstrate your knowledge and win trust. Adopting the voice of your customer and telling customer stories help build trust.

Technology buyers constantly complain that it’s hard to find trusted content to help them make important technology decisions. A well-crafted video series focused on telling stories and educating customers through each stage in their buying process is a great way to create a connection with your brand, facilitate the customer buying process, and improve sales effectiveness. It will also go a LONG way toward differentiating your company from competitors.

Customer-centric stories demonstrate to prospects that you “get” them.

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The Power of Storytelling

Many financial technology companies crank out video after video that extol the virtues of their product and why they’re such hot stuff. Buyers are tired of these overly promotional advertorials. They simply don’t have the time, and they’re not going to trust the content. We find that many financial technology marketers ignore the customer’s perspective. They’re so busy talking about themselves that they create the conditions for the audience to dismiss their video as irrelevant.

We’ve seen huge marketing budgets wasted on promotional videos that are essentially videos of talking heads spewing boastful claims. The B2B buyer is sick of commercials and expects more from your content. To rise above the noise, your company video needs to make an emotional connection with your target audience. That’s where good storytelling comes in. Your script needs to tell an interesting story that engages the emotions of your audience as well as their logic.

More Emotion, Less Promotion

In a 2012 survey sponsored by IDG Enterprise on customer engagement found that sales pitches dramatically reduced per–ceived trustworthiness of content. In a study by eMarketer, 81% of B2B technology marketers said “compelling and engaging storytelling” is the most important element of successful content. We humans are hard-wired to be drawn to stories. It’s in our DNA. Stories are a part of our everyday lives. We respond to stories, because we see something of ourselves in them. Your customers have business problems that they are highly motivated to find solutions for. What if they could see something of themselves in the stories your company videos told?

Make no mistake; video for business is still a promotional video. But in today’s customer-centric content marketing climate, video producers need to be less advertorial to create a human connection with buyers. After all, we’re dealing with human beings, not statistics. Video provides an invaluable opportunity to connect with customers.

How to Write a Video Script

Writing a good video script is not easy. As the saying goes, “if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.” When writing a script for video, you have to get the voice right. Writing for spoken word is different than writing for readers. The tone is more conver-sational. The script also needs to use the voice of your customer and make the customer the hero of the story. It needs to tell a story and not be abstract. It’s also important to focus on industry topics while taking a journalistic or educational approach. A good rule of thumb is the classic three-part format:

■ Beginning: State the problem, establish the characters and create the conflict ■ Middle: Explain the impact of the problem on your customer and suggest a solution ■ End: Clarify the benefits of the solution and present a call to action

Quality Audio Affects Viewer Perception of Overall Quality

The audio track plays a very important role. It’s critical to have a clean audio track with clear voice-over using an experienced voice actor who is easy to understand, even by non-native speakers. Background noise, echos, inappropriate music scores or distorted audio can seriously damage the perception of an otherwise high quality video. And that also impacts the audience’s perception of your brand in general.

Sales pitches dramatically reduce perceived trustworthiness.

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Promotional Videos Must be Mobile Friendly

A Cisco study projects that “traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2014.” The same study pre-dicts that “mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 78% between 2011 and 2016,” and that “mobile video will comprise over 70% of mobile data traffic by 2016.” So it’s critical to ensure that your videos can be viewed by all mobile devices. Remember, iOS devices don’t support Flash.

Promotional Video as Part of the Continuum of Content

Many companies expect one piece of content to do all their lead generation work. But the Forbes/Google study of senior executives found that most executives like a mix of text and video. They might watch a video at the beginning, but then they want to obtain additional information through infographics, articles and other text-based content. According to the Forbes study, 65% of executive level decision makers visit company websites after viewing a video. So every video MUST include a clear call to action, leading the prospect to the next piece of content in your program.

Video can also make an overall campaign more effective. For example, 76% of senior marketing executives say that integrating video into email campaigns increases click through rates.

Your promotional videos should be part of a con-tinuum of related content that helps to complete the picture. We recommend creating a content program around a theme, and using the video to drive an audience into that program. The video includes a call to action guiding the viewer to the next piece of content – or to multiple content alternatives. For example, you might have an infographic aimed at someone in the aware-ness stage of the buying cycle, and a white paper or buyer guide for someone who might be at a later stage. As you guide your customers through a continuum of connected marketing content, you help them step through each phase in their buying process. You also nurture a relationship of trust that helps your company achieve the coveted status of a Trusted Advisor.

In Summary

So, what is promotional video? What makes it successful? The successful video presents your customers with compelling con-tent that informs their buying process and helps to convince them that you understand their needs. An effective video works within your marketing strategy to help B2B buyers take an informed step on their path to a purchase.

We Can Help

At PropelGrowth, we deliver customer-centric content that supports a solution selling process. We can help your company to capture audience attention with high-quality animated video production, as well as advice on how to craft compelling stories that engage customers. Click to view our pricing.

PropelGrowth is a Financial Services marketing firm. We help financial technology providers create a content marketing strategy

and then deliver the content and coaching to help generate a steady stream of qualified sales opportunities. Contact us at

sales@propelgrowth.com or call us at +1 201.751.9494.

”“ 65% of executive decision makers visit

company websites after watching a video.

– Forbes/Google

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