When Establishing Video Social Proof, Time Is Money (Unless It’s Wasted)

Much like the weather and people’s opinion on Game of Thrones, customer needs and interests are in a constant state of change. By the time you’ve mapped out your marketing plan of attack, the landscape may have already transitioned well beyond your initial assessment, rendering your work moot and your team demoralized by weak returns.

Conversely, effective digital marketing relies on continuous research, deliberation, and no shortage of hours spent in front of screens to capture the attention of the world at large. At times, running a campaign can feel like grasping at fog, reaching out into the internet only to see customers slip between your fingers whenever the wind blows.

But shifting winds aren’t always a bad sign.

Time is money (often literally for digital marketing experts), so let's cut to the chase.

Below, we continue our series on the principles of Video Social Proof by exploring the importance of the framework’s fourth principle: Timely.

By pivoting to agile, cost-effective marketing methods, you can take advantage of your customer’s ever-shifting gaze and offer value at the most impactful point in time.

Making the Time for Engaging Marketing

Thanks to our always-online existence, there are no shortage of ways to find out what’s on a customer’s mind at a given moment. You can comb through:

• Comments left on your brand’s social media page or user reviews 
• Conversations between customers in a web forum
• Survey responses and poll results

This onslaught of quick comments and feedback coming from all these sources can feel overwhelming when deciding where and when to take action, and how to do so in an engaging way that keeps your content strategy on course.

So what can you do to deliver a constant stream of fresh, timely content to audiences and effectively strike while the iron’s hot?

The modality most poised to take quick advantage of this information is the same that 60 percent of businesses rely on to get the word out: video.

Moving at the Speed of Video

If your brand isn’t incorporating video into its content strategy yet, you’ve got more than a few reasons to give it a shot. With the right platform and a well-rounded understanding of your KPIs, video can easily boost engagement and draw more eyes than a renaissance portrait artist.

However, even knowing the power of video, without cutting-edge tools, executing can be a laborious endeavor.

A typical video advertisement, for example, can run anywhere from $12,000 to $50,000, and that’s just for a single aspect of a campaign. Factor in coordination time, travel, and the film equipment itself, and you’ll have spent a small fortune on an ad that may already be out of vogue.

Of course, that’s to say nothing of the time investment required to develop a staged video deliverable. Professional video production companies can easily take up to half a day to create a single minute of footage, and that’s only after all the necessary market research, auditions, and location scouting takes place.

Then, by the time you’ve made all the finishing touches, the goalposts have already moved downrange.

So, let’s change the way that we think about video marketing.

Agility in Video Marketing

Instead of a long, drawn-out video production process, consider the ways that you can offload your own development efforts by strategically amplifying customer praise.

Think back on our second principle of Video Social Proof: when you make a message personal, you lend your campaign an invaluable sense of authenticity and trust. What’s more endearing than offering a glass of water right after somebody complains of thirst?

Similarly, when a large swath of your customer base expresses the need or you’ve identified a target audience with a specific problem you can solve, being able to respond quickly and concisely can make the difference between attention gained and attention lost.

Let’s look back at those three examples of instant feedback sources we talked about above. For each of those items, there are ways that you can quickly turn them into personal, context-focused marketing assets through responsive and relatable video solutions:

For complimentary comments and positive user reviews, ask your customers to submit a video testimonial. Authentic reactions and unforced praise are the most efficient and effective ways to grow your Video Social Proof, and it doesn’t take an outsourced production studio to do it, either. Turning typed words into spoken ones with such a quick turnaround can lend a customer’s comments a measure of legitimacy after only a few clicks, so why not give users the tools to be your biggest cheerleaders?

For forum conversations between users, encourage and foster that brand experience by cultivating a video community, where users can instantly submit video messages and respond to calls to action. The call to action model has nurtured stunning levels of engagement on TikTok, so don’t be too quick to dismiss this model. Build a thriving, engaged video community from the ground up with compelling video content, such as product walkthroughs and unboxings, created by peers to make your product more tangibly appealing to prospective customers. This creates a self-sustaining ecosystem of engagement and interest that doesn’t break the bank or waste anybody’s time.

For surveys and polls, why not pivot to a video survey solution? This is a quick and seamless way to collect real, authentic stories from your clients or customers. You will get a much more complete story because there is a lower barrier to entry when talking as opposed to writing something out. Once they’ve submitted their video responses, ask them if they’d mind if you put their kind words up on your social site and BOOM: you’ve got a ready-made testimonial and all the time in the world to publish it.

And just like that, you’ve transformed customer acknowledgements into marketing assets with time to spare.

Video Means More Clicks on the Clock

Reacting to consumer trends in a timely and practical manner shows customers that you’re innately attuned to their thought processes. Quickly publishing new campaigns allows you to control the conversation and direct attention towards the value your brand can so conveniently provide.

With the average web user's attention span shortening and 14 percent of marketers creating new video content every day, it's easy to see why most campaigns sputter instead of soar. But with user-created video solutions offering quick turnaround and enhanced engagement, it's even easier to keep and hold the attention of your targeted users, and do so cost-effectively.

Timeliness isn’t just a matter of cost, though. If your brand is dependent on a brisk pace and continual discourse, video solutions can provide you a steady stream of engaging interactions with lightning-fast turnaround.

• Have your customers been having the same few troubleshooting issues? Send out a video walkthrough to guide users through any impending inconvenience.
• Unsure what to emphasize in your next ad campaign? Put together a quick video survey and have customers talk through their favorite aspects of your product de jour.
• Looking to gather a few more testimonials for your latest marketing push? Incentivize users to submit their own videos or comb through your forum’s video messages.
• Support team overextended with a myriad of comment-only tickets? Have users send in video messages to help your staff more easily visualize their problems and respond in an (almost) face-to-face manner.

In industries where the time between interactions can make or break a brand’s reputation, video solutions offer an almost instantaneous response to your customers’ needs.

Time’s A-Wastin’

In marketing, just as in comedy and Guitar Hero, timing is everything. Utilizing agile and cost-effective campaigns to quickly respond to your customers’ whims all but guarantees your brand a place at the forefront of their screens.

Still think you don’t have the time? Your potential customers might be thinking the same thing.

Request a custom price quote, or schedule some time one of our video experts to get started on a video ad campaign that conforms to your brand's unique needs.