If you’ve clicked on this post, it’s probably fair to assume that you recognise the value of content marketing, and what it can achieve for your business. Videos are a powerful weapon in content marketing. Producing fantastic videos alone however, is rarely enough to ensure that your campaign is going to achieve its ultimate aims. Practically all of the most successful video marketing campaigns of recent times have benefited from seeding, and that’s what we are talking about today.
Whether it’s Evian’s “Live Young”, Dove’s “Evolution”, T-Mobile’s “T-Mobile Dance” or Bodyform’s “Bodyform Responds”; practically all of the most successful recent video marketing campaigns were seeded to ensure that the content was put in front of the right people, at the right time, to generate maximum awareness and create as much conversation as possible amongst the target audience. The ultimate success of these campaigns is rarely down to luck.
There are a number of techniques that can be utilised to help to amplify a campaign. Digital PR, such as blogger outreach, bought, owned or earned media, or any combination of approaches will typically be used to help drive views for a successful video marketing campaign.
Blogger Outreach
This approach essentially relies on identifying blogs and platforms that have an affinity with a particular brand, approaching these media owners and asking them if they’d like to feature a particular video. This works particularly well where campaigns are tailored towards a niche audience. Our film, ‘Who’s Lenny’ was featured on nearly all of the world’s largest street art websites and blogs driving thousands of additional views, we achieved all of these placements by simply asking website owners if they’d like to feature our video. Their audience loved the film, so the blogger loved the film.
Bought Media
Some people will be surprised to learn that some of the biggest media properties in the world will accept video placements that are deemed suitable for their audience, for a small ‘pay per view’ fee. This method essentially works as a media buy in any traditional sense, so the advertiser has total control over the message, and is essentially renting space from the media owner to promote their message to that website’s audience. The media owner will typically be able to provide accurate estimations of how many views they can expect to generate for a particular piece of content, and offers a valuable revenue stream for media owners. Our Dance Star Mickey Mouse Vs Flawless video secured a number of these notable placements:
Earned Media (PR)
Earned media is more important than it’s ever been in today’s communications landscape and is the most effective influencer of consumer trust. Put simply, earned media is what other people are saying about you, and the techniques used to gain this sort of coverage don’t vary hugely from the PR techniques of old. Putting earned media coverage in front of consumers can help to validate customers choices and reinforce messaging from other bought and owned communications channels. Campaigns that achieve the greatest success tend to be topical, and the best types of coverage are often achieved as a result of longstanding relationships with media owners.
Owned Media
Owned media is made up of the channels that a brand has direct control over. Websites, microsites, blogs and branded Twitter and Facebook accounts all fall into this category. It’s often viewed as the most cost-effective and versatile route, but owned media alone is unlikely to generate huge successes in itself unless a brand has built up a large audience of fans who can be relied upon to share content.
Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang argue in their report; The Converged Media Imperative: How brands must combine Paid, Owned & Earned Media – that the boundaries between the different categories are gradually merging over time. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly offering the option of sponsored listings and paid reach in order to guarantee to reach to all of a brands fans or prospective fans. You can find out more about how we used owned, earned and paid media for financial services brand, Barclaycard.
Whatever your understanding of video marketing we can help your campaign get in front of the right audience. Whether it’s a broad appeal consumer campaign or a tightly focused B2B promotion that needs to be seeded we can help to advise either you or totally manage your campaign. We can help with everything from VSEO distribution techniques, MRSS feeds, XML sitemaps for optimizing hosted video content for search as well as optimising content for YouTube and other video sharing sites.