COURTESY / BLACK FLY MEDIA
Diana Nelson is a principal and director of communication at Black Fly Media in South Portland.
Updated: October 31, 2022
How to maximize your video strategy during economic uncertainty
By Diana Nelson, Black Fly Media
As the world teeters on the edge of a possible recession, many small businesses in Maine are facing the same tough question — where will budget cuts hurt the least in 2023?
In times of economic uncertainty, the marketing budget is often the one that’s cut, leaving marketers with a new problem to solve: how to maintain the same level of visibility with less resources. And while there are different ways to solve this, one of the easiest strategies is to revive, refresh and reinvent your content strategy and develop a plan that’s video heavy. In what comes next, we’ll explain why to consider it, and how to achieve it.
The average American watches 80 minutes per day of online videos and the demand for even more new content is increasing in 2023, according to YouTube. The steady rise of social media has led to this demand, with 84% of American businesses now using video in their marketing efforts.
The advent of social media has led to countless behavioral changes — how we consume news and information, how we communicate with our customers, and how we research the products we buy and sell — it’s no surprise that corporate video strategies have evolved accordingly.
Today, most videos are fun, short and direct, with a focus on authentic storytelling over Hollywood production value. The best content strategies include audience-specific messaging contained in multiple short-format videos, created specifically to achieve a business goal. With so much competition, your video must say the right thing, to the right audience in a quick, personal, compelling and engaging way.
And while it has become clear that video will continue to hold a starring role in most marketing budgets, how can you do more with less this year? Here are five ways to maximize your digital content strategy in 2023:
- Revisit the cutting room floor. Chances are, if you’ve already got a suite of video content there is a lot of unused footage that is worthy of a second look. Revisit that raw video and reuse it in fresh new ways.
- Get granular on goals. Set your business goals and develop short, audience-specific pieces of video content (using assets you already have) that directly pay off those goals.
- Reuse and recycle. Just because you used a :30 in your ad buy from 2018 doesn’t mean it’s life cycle is complete. If it resonated with audiences then, it will again. Give it a light refresh and repurpose it on social media, in your eNewsletter or in a digital campaign. Mix it in with some newly created content and you’ve just expanded your video library.
- No audio, no problem. Some 92% of consumers watch video with no sound. So take that digital spot you’ve already got, resize it for social formats and add subtitles.
- DIY it. There is a rise in popularity for user-generated video within digital strategies, and new research shows that the shift is gaining traction. A quarter of viewers engage with a brand when they see both professionally produced content and user-generated videos. This increased level of connectedness and authenticity from the user-generated content will engender trust in the brand and win the day.
Above all, it is most important to create videos that are directly tied to achieving your business goals and objectives. Creating really cool and engaging content will always be fun, but it should also always be strategic — that’s particularly important when you’re faced with less resources.
So set those goals and while you’re at it, set some key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor results before you launch your new 2023 digital strategy. You might just find that these adjustments have led you down a creative route that not only is cost effective, but one that also produces boosted results thanks to the specialized approach.
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