Best Practices for an Effective Video Advertising Campaign

One of the most effective tools people use to advertise their products and services is via a video advertising campaign. Let’s face it. People these days have a very short attention span and getting your message across quickly and effectively is a must. Video ads are the way to go.

Putting together a video advertising campaign is no longer as difficult as it used to be in the past, not with all the tools you now have at your disposal. You can easily put together a video ad in the comfort of your own home without worrying about it costing you an arm and a leg to produce. You can even get away with shooting your video using your phone cam and editing it with free software on your laptop.

Challenges of Putting Together a Great Video Ad

As easy as putting together a video advertising campaign is, putting one together and putting a successful one together are two different things. Sure, you can slap together a few images, add in some music and post your ads on any of the online platforms people frequent. Bam! You have an online ad. But will it do the work it’s supposed to do?

There are many challenges to creating a great video ad that works. These include the following:

• How to get your message across – how do you relay to your audience how great your product or service is in a few seconds? This is one of the biggest challenges video ad-makers face.
• The cost of creating and running the ad – this is another challenge some people fail to see at the beginning of their plan to launch video ad campaigns. Even when you decide to create your own videos, there are still costs that include air time and the like.
• Keeping track of KPIs – if you don’t want your efforts to go to waste, you need to know whether or not your ads are working. You need to check if these are reaching your target audiences, how many times they are showing and other relevant details to check if your efforts have been successful.
• Where to advertise – some people only choose one channel for their ads, but is that enough for your advertising goals? You need to determine if you should feature on more platforms with your ads in order to make the revenues you are aiming for.

All of these challenges can be overcome through tips and tricks that successful video marketers use regularly. These tips and tricks help with the above-mentioned challenges and can help you create great ads that can be seen on all the right platforms.

How to Create Effective Video Advertising Campaigns

To put together great video ad campaigns, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Here are some tips that you can incorporate into your video advertising campaign creation projects:

• Don’t focus on the sale, focus on the message – when you create video ads for your product or service, try to incorporate an effective message that will resonate with your target market. Don’t think too much about getting sales (even though that is the primary target of most ad campaigns). Instead, focus on telling people a story that they will remember and giving your brand a boost when it comes to brand recognition.

For example, if you are selling refrigerators, instead of focusing on the features of your product, why not create a story that centers on an item that was placed in the refrigerator. You can let the story evolve to a point where it gives customers the satisfaction of having fresh food on the table because of the refrigerator. This makes your video ad relatable and shows the benefits of your product without going the hard-sell route.

• Don’t take yourself too seriously. Humor is a great way to capture an audience – one thing that drives people to remember an item, a person, or some moment in time is how it made them feel. If people feel good about your ad because it made them laugh, that’s half the battle won. When you get too serious about something, people tend to get bored. Try injecting some humor into your ads and you’ll find they become more memorable and noteworthy.
• Add great music that will help people tune in to your ad – music is a great way to add some depth and personality to your ad. Remember that music you hear when the shark closes in on a diver in the movies? How about the epic theme when the heroes are about to win the battle? Music helps set the mood for your ad and also helps people feel something about what they are seeing. The greatest challenge you have when it comes to adding music is finding tunes that sound great and won’t cost you a lot of money. Using music that you have to pay for can set you back a bit, particularly if the royalties that are being asked from you is based on a per ad basis. Try looking for great royalty-free music from sites that allow you to use the tunes found there without any financial obligations whatsoever.
• Find a way to capture your audience in ten seconds or less – while your ad can run for 15 to 30 seconds, the first 10 seconds will make or break it. Yes, if you want your audience to invest their time in your ad, you’ll have to make it compelling and hard to let go of in the first five to ten seconds. As tall an order as this is, you need to find a way to hook them in to the very end. You need to make them feel they simply have to get to the end of your message. This is done by hooking them in at the start of your ad.

These are just a few tips you can use to help make your video advertising campaigns more effective. Using the right advertising channels and audience targeting strategies should be considered. Even doing ad testing using two ads at the same time will help you broadcast the best possible video advertising campaign.

Remember

The key is to listen to your audience, capture their attention, and give them what they want, all in the span of a few seconds. Sounds challenging? Yes, but it’s doable. As long as you follow these tips and learn more about effective video advertising, you can overcome whatever challenges arise with this advertising medium.