How many times have you seen an online video that has motivated you to buy something? Chances are, you can count those experiences with two hands.
While the internet doesn’t have a shortage of interesting, quirky or memorable videos, these qualities, in and of themselves, don’t necessarily mean that you would buy a product that these videos talk about.
Often times, the videos that you personally enjoy really don’t have any sort of commercial agenda. They are not pushing anything. They are not promoting anything. They don’t want you to do any kind of action that puts dollars in the bank account of the people behind these videos. They are just for fun.
And this is the reason why a lot of people are confused about video marketing. A lot of video marketers out there are under the impression that as long as their video gets shared and a lot of people talk about their video or find their video cute, memorable and interesting, that somehow, some way, this would lead to dollars appearing in their bank account.
I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but that kind of thinking is magical thinking. You might as well start imagining rainbow-colored unicorns raining down from the sky, each grabbing a pot of gold with their horse teeth.
You have to think clearly when doing video marketing. There are really no two ways about it. Because it’s too easy for you to crank out one video after another and have very little to show for it.
In fact, if you run a company, it’s very easy for you to devote thousands upon thousands of dollars on video marketing, only to see your brand continue to struggle. This is due to the fact that people really have their wires crossed when it comes to videos’ effectiveness.
Here’s a short list of people’s misconceptions regarding “effective videos.” Effective videos are: cute, memorable, quirky, funny, interesting, weird, awesome, fascinating, earth-shattering, insightful.
What’s missing? It should be obvious. Highly effective videos bring home the bacon.
Even if the video looks amateurish, even if it looks like it was shot and edited by somebody who is eight years old, at the end of the day, effective videos bring home the bacon. Dollars and cents rule the day.
Sadly, a lot of the online marketing convesations regarding video marketing lose sight of this fact. They focus on how many likes it had on Facebook. They get all excited about how many times the video was retweeted or whether a celebrity mentioned the video.
It did not occur to them that a video that is shared throughout all four corners of the globe, but doesn’t generate one cent of revenue is a money loser. That’s the bottom line. It really has to go back to conversions.
The secret to video marketing is conversion. The video has to lead to conversion directly, or must be part of an online supplemental content that eventually makes conversion possible.
On top of this, great marketing videos also establish solid brands. When somebody’s watching a great marketing video, they know where that video came from. They know that when they go to that source, there’s a lot more where that video came from.
They also have the expectation that when that source produces video after video, they can expect a certain level of quality. They can expect a certain range of benefits. That’s how powerful brand-based videos are.
But as insightful as this discussion may be, and as important as conversions and branding are, if you really want to get down to the nuts and bolts of highly effective marketing videos, you have to get to the secret ingredient.
This secret ingredient separates brand videos that don’t really go anywhere and brand-building videos that develop solid brands. This secret ingredient also explains the difference between marketing videos that explain a lot of information and are great resources but make very little money, and videos that are able to generate a profit.
What is the Secret Ingredient? PRESENCE
Highly effective marketing videos pack a lot of presence. You can tell that this brand stands for something. You can tell that the product being endorsed, explained, outlined and discussed by the spokesperson truly speaks to your needs. This is only possible when the video has presence.
Now, one of the most common misconceptions regarding presence is that only human beings can have presence. In other words, the video has to have a person looking at the camera and connecting with you eyeball to eyeball for presence to ooze out of the video.
Absolutely wrong. Seriously. Even an animated video using talking animals can have presence.
Presence is that human state of mind where you feel that the content that you are engaging with is speaking to you on so many different levels. That is presence.
And unfortunately, a lot of marketing videos, and these are videos that are specifically written, produced, edited and crafted to generate dollars simply overlook presence. They think that as long as they have the “formula,” conversions will happen. Completely wrong.
They think that as long as they mention certain concepts, the money will appear. Absolutely false. You have to create videos with presence. Otherwise, you are wasting your time.
What complicates matters is that presence is defined in many different niches.
If your niche involves kid’s athletic gear, presence is going to have its own specific form. If your niche involves academic admissions, then presence for your videos is going to be nuanced a little bit differently.
That’s what is tricky about this. But it’s kind of like looking for the needle in a haystack. But believe me, it’s a golden needle. It is worth the search.
This is the secret ingredient that will turn your marketing videos into gold-digging machines. It’s definitely worth figuring out the secret ingredient of presence in your particular niche.
Joshua Shoemaker
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