8 ways video and animation can help your business
Hello and thanks for reading the first Nettl Plymouth Blog. I am Darren, one of the designers here at Nettl and when I’m not helping Aaron with a branding job or setting up some files for print, I sometimes put my creativity into animated videos for Nettl – you can view one here and one we did here for our customer Wonder Nights. So, putting some of what I know down on paper, here are 8 ways video and animations can help your business;
- Constantly is growing
- Builds trust and brand familiarity
- Increases traffic to site and massively improves
- SEO
- Proven to return an investment
- Breathes Life into your social media profile
- It’s flexible and works across devices
- Easy to evaluate
- Affordable and wide-reaching
1. “Look at the size of that thing.”
Pilot talking about the Death Star, Star Wars.
It’s widely accepted that the first TV advert in the UK was in the 1950’s for a brand of toothpaste. In recent years though, video has taken on an ever increasing importance in modern day marketing. TV adverts can still command a huge outlay; in 2014 UK TV advertising reached a record £4.91 billion. Now, through the internet, video content is growing exponentially. It’s reported that by 2019 over 80% of internet traffic will be video, making it the fastest growing media content today. The old adage, ‘if you can’t beat em’, join em’ could not be more apt. If you aren’t taking advantage of this medium then you probably are missing out on it’s huge potential, which is only going to get bigger!
2. “All it takes is faith and trust.”
Peter Pan.
Just having a video can immediately reap benefits, but putting time into creating something engaging, creative, fun or entertaining is where you really make the gains. Engaging videos will personalise your business making you more approachable and can sometimes add a voice to otherwise faceless brands. It takes, on average, 5 to 7 impressions before people remember your brand so it is important to use all the tools available to expose your audience to your brand. Images are processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text, so video has the opportunity to say what you want about your business far quicker than traditional forms of marketing.
3. “There’s so many of us.”
X-Men: Days of future past.
(S)earch (E)ngine (O)ptimization is integral for business owners trying to reach the optimum number of potential customers online. Business websites are all fighting to get that top spot in Google searches. Brightcove says video can drive a 157% increase in organic traffic. And as Google now owns Youtube, you can see how this might impact your listing. Youtube is now the second largest search engine on the web, so by creating video not only can you increase the chances of being found by Google, but you can take advantage of the huge customer base on Youtube and upload your videos there too with little additional work.
4. “Show me the money.”
Jerry Maguire.
If you’re gaping to spend your hard earned cash and time on something, you need to know it’s going to be worth it. Whilst I can’t promise you your video will make you millions, it has been shown that it can increase both sales and engagement. On average, a user will stay more than 6 minutes on a website that contains video compared to 57 seconds for a text only site. Leaving you plenty more time to get your pitch across to customers. 83% of businesses surveyed that use video felt that it provided a good return on investment (ROI). It’s also been found that product videos are hugely beneficial in turning initial interest into purchases, giving you a chance to show off your knowledge and expertise about the product you are selling whatever that may be.
5. “It’s alive, IT’S ALIVE.”
Dr Frankenstien, Frankenstien.
Most businesses now take advantage of social media, whether that is marketing offers or replying to customers in order to build rapport, social media is high on the list of priorities for new and old businesses. Here at Nettl we know only too well how to make the most of social media campaigns. With 0ver 500 million people watching Facebook videos every single day, the scope for brand visibility is massive. With auto-play available on timelines for both Facebook and Twitter it is now easier to stand out. Images alone are found to be 40 times more likely to be shared by users, videos – if done correctly – offer the opportunity to be seen not only by your immediate target audience with targeted adverts but also those people in your audience that share the video with their friends and followers. The thing to remember with social media is that it is an emotive platform, people will only want to share, like and engage with your content if they are suitably entertained or impressed by your video. This is why it pays dividends to speak to your design team about adding some creativity.
6. “Regularly flexible.”
Lucius Fox, Batman Begins.
There are a plethora of options when creating video, your design team can help with a lot of this, if you are creating a video for YouTube the specifications for creating content are relatively simple. Because YouTube is supported by most platforms and can be played though social media sites your video is ultimately flexible across a multitude of channels which increases the likelihood that customers see it. It means that you only really need to create one video to share across all platforms and devices. For example with YouTube it is already mobile friendly and with mobile consumption of YouTube growing by 100% per year, you really want to make sure you have this function enabled.
7. “Do not try and bend the spoon that’s impossible. Instead. Only try to realise the truth”
Spoon boy, the Matrix.
Website metrics and Google analytics is big business. It’s incredibly important to know where your customers come from, how they’ve found your website in order to take advantage of trends and maximise your websites potential. Video is no different, if you can tell exactly where you get the most views of your video (website, facebook) you will know where to market this most next time. Furthermore, if you know the average time people spend watching your video you can make sure you cater the length of subsequent videos to suit. Facebook, Google and YouTube (among others) allow you to analyse the data of your video. Consequently you can tweak future marketing to ensure you make the most of your videos and get the best ROI.
8. “A gift not afforded to all.”
Blackbeard, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
There are huge variables in creating video. Naturally you aren’t going to be spending thousands on CGI or expensive actors the same way a TV advertising company would but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a professionally looking video. There are some little tricks we use at Nettl to ensure this is the case. For instance, using high-resolution images for static shots is a must, adding in a slow swipe is a cheap but impressive way of adding in movement. Creating bespoke icons with the same weight and consistency will bring branding into the animation and can add some flair. There are a lot of techniques we can use to make sure the video/animation has a slick look for very little cost and many of these assets can be copied for subsequent videos saving time really brining the cost down.
For as long as your content is still relevant you will be able to market your video, share it, publish it, play it… there are so many possibilities. You might want to use your video at an exhibition; brilliant when you want to have a rolling sales pitch but have to concentrate on other things, let the video do the work for you. Are customers confused about your products? Create a product explanation video which covers any queries. Want to recruit? An animation on the benefits of your business can be shared across social media including LinkedIn.
What can Nettl do for you?
We specialise in branding, printing, graphic design and website design at Nettl of Plymouth as wells having expertise in video/animation. Whatever it is, come speak to us at Nettl and we will help you storyboard and script, create the style and produce your video animation.
