The Utah DMC, or Digital Marketing Collective, invited members, students, and digital marketing professionals in Utah and the surrounding area to their monthly event this month to learn more about video marketing. The event, titled “Video Marketing in a Multi-Platform Era” brought Stephen Walter and Travis Chambers to the stage to share their insights, stories, and knowledge of working with video marketing to all those in attendance.
Stephen Walter is best known for his work at JK Studios, a company focused on creating humorous and creative ads. Though quick to admit his background was not in marketing, Stephen wanted to share an “outsider's” perspective of the video marketing strategies and ideas he’s learned in his time at the studio.
Travis Chambers is of Chamber Media, a Utah-based company most known for creating social video ads, such as a massively viral ad for Turkish Airlines featuring Leo Messi & Kobe Bryant. Travis, having been in the video marketing industry for awhile, came to share ideas on Video ad funnels, the “anchor video” formula, and video attribution.
First Session: Making Something Worth Watching - Stephen Walter
As media continues to bloom and expand - from social posts to tweets to movies to books, video marketers (and digital marketers as a whole) have an ever increasing challenge to create something that audiences find is worth watching. How can an ad grab someone’s attention compared to all the competition? Stephen drove his point home by highlighting the success of Disney - the most successful video company in the world. Even they still occasionally put out videos that aren’t worth watching. Complicating this process is the fact that on the internet, videos are everywhere - even audio apps like Spotify have begun to incorporate video into their app.
Stephen says that to create something worth watching you must take all factors into account to draw in audiences - beginning with aspect ratio. Focusing on the correct aspect ratio for the screen your ad will run on is essential for drawing in interest and looking professional to audiences right off the bat. Additionally, you must always keep your platform in mind. What you post on YouTube won’t always be appropriate for Instagram, and vice versa.
Stephen suggested that all of your content should begin with video - but all the other pieces of media: the tweets, the gifs, the social posts, should flow from that starting, effective video. Focus on the video as the core of your campaign, and design it correctly. Essentially, Taking the time to create something worth watching will help you in all other aspects of your marketing campaign.
Second Session: The Ad Funnel & Anchor Videos - Travis Chambers
Travis stressed the importance of the funnel - a common idea found in marketing - as it relates to video marketing. The “top of funnel” videos are long form videos that cover education, entertainment, the product, the company, etc. By structuring an ad campaign that has videos that address each stage of the funnel, you can capture the attention of more customers in different stages of research about your products - thus better meeting their needs and leading to increased profits and a better return on investment.
A/B testing is critical to effectively positioning videos in each stage of the funnel, using different introductions, emphasis, and video lengths can lead to great improvements in video performance. While success can always be achieved, focusing on crafting a great video, and testing out different videos - can lead to far more success in the long run with your video strategy.
Utah’s Digital Marketing Collective offers monthly seminars open to all those interested in learning more about real marketing strategies used by professionals. Each event is catered and brings in speakers from a variety of backgrounds to share real insights and tips you can utilize in your own marketing strategies. Join us at our monthly events, every third Wednesday of the month!