People are spending more time than ever consuming content, averaging 6 hours a day with media and entertainment. For marketers, that’s a huge opportunity. But with so much competing content, grabbing and keeping attention isn’t easy.
Research shows that the overabundance of information has had a negative impact on our attention. In 2004, the average attention span on any screen was 2.5 minutes on average. Jump to the last few years, and it’s dropped to a mere 47 seconds.
So what is a marketer to do?
The good news is that video is still performing well when it comes to getting — and keeping — people’s attention. Of the 6 hours people spend consuming content, 4.3 are dedicated to watching video, from streaming and TV to social media clips and user-generated content. Here are a few more compelling stats:
- Consumers are 2x more likely to share a video with their friends than any other type of content.
- 84% of marketers find that video increases “dwell time” on their website, a key metric for SEO.
That said, traditional video production can be expensive and can take a long time to produce. Here, we share 6 strategies you can apply today to scale your video marketing efforts without breaking your bank and engage your audience in new, meaningful ways.
1. Repurpose Existing Video Content
Who says that your existing repository of videos should only be used once? If you’ve been producing branded videos for a while, the chances are you have hundreds of scenes that could be repurposed for other content as well.
Get creative. Reusing existing content is a great way to get a bigger bang for your buck while still generating fresh content for your viewers. Add to this personalization, and you’ve made your old videos instantly more relevant.
Zurich did exactly that with its retention campaign. Instead of a generic renewal reminder, they filmed several scenes which they later mixed and matched depending on the individual plans and personal information of their clients, to create a personalized message. (It’s worth noting that the mixing and matching was done with logic — and technology — to generate videos en masse rather than individually for each plan variation.)
Take a look at the video below to see how it worked.
The campaign was a major success, with 70% of customers watching the entire video and 40% of those who watched interacting with it. The multi-year campaign even helped increase renewal TNPS by 15 points.
2. Personalize Your Videos
While short-form video is powerful, there is an exception — Personalized Video.
When a video speaks directly to the viewer, engagement stays high even on longer content. In fact, Personalized Videos that run 70-90 seconds achieve an average completion rate of 85% and are watched 1.3 times per viewer.
That’s because personalization adds a human touch to your video marketing efforts. The customer doesn’t see just any video — they see their video, something you created with their unique situation in mind.
And it works. For example, Ubisoft used personalization to recap 5 years of gameplay for nearly 5 million gamers, and gamers loved it. The campaign saw a 5x uplift in social sharing, a 3x uptick in video downloads and a 2.7x increase in CTA click-through rate.
You might be thinking that’s great, but how do I do this at scale?
Luckily, nobody needs to generate 5 million videos manually. Technology saves the day. You can personalize videos at scale, both audio and visual content, by dynamically pulling data from your CRM (or wherever you keep customer data) so it updates the video in real time.
Use a Personalized Video platform to effortlessly link customer data to video scenes based on designated parameters. It’s easy. Brands ranging from universities to retailers do it all the time.
3. Use AI To Speed Up Production
Sometimes scaling video marketing just comes down to making more videos, faster and without blowing your budget. That’s where AI can really help.
Take this video created by our groundbreaking AI, Lucas, for Longboat Mobility. From start to finish, including revisions, it took only 4 days to complete.
Things get even faster when you don’t have to deal with rounds of reviews. For instance, our in-house lead-gen expert spent less than 10 minutes creating a series of video ads using Lucas.
What makes Lucas different? Unlike other AI tools, Lucas uses retrieval-augmented generation, so he pulls only from your approved content, not generic external sources. That means no hallucinations — the videos stay accurate and on-brand.
On top of that, Lucas is powered by our Next Generation Video Platform, so the videos you create can be interactive, personalized and edited in real time.
The result? You can produce more content while keeping it personal and engaging. It’s a practical way to scale your video marketing without compromising on quality.
4. Opt for Short-Form Videos
It’s no secret that short-form video has taken over our feeds. From TikToks and Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts, quick, engaging clips are now a go-to format for brands looking to connect with their audience.
One great way to scale your video marketing content is to lean into this trend. Short-form videos are less costly to produce and can even perform better than longer content. Most short-form videos fall between 30 seconds and 2-3 minutes long, but it varies depending on purpose and where it’s published.
Studies show that people can sit through about 15 seconds of video marketing content before skipping, with the ideal length for a YouTube ad being 15-30 seconds. If your goal is brand awareness or engagement on social via promos, product teasers or brand clips, aim for less than 1 minute. For educational content like how-tos or product explainers, 1-5 minutes is ideal.
Remember, you don’t need expensive shots to make your videos impactful. Entertainment and authenticity go a long way in keeping your audience engaged.
Take this short video from Dollar Shave Club, which uses simple shots and plenty of comedy to promote their services.
It took just one day to shoot, no fancy props or guest actors. And it went viral, resulting in 12,000 subscriptions and crashing their website with the unprecedented traffic from YouTube.
How short can your short-form video be? Even a few seconds can be long enough if you tell a story. When Fiat wanted to promote the new Fiat 500X, they created a video ad that was a mere 9 seconds long, but as you’ll see below, that was enough time to set the scene and connect with viewers.
There were thousands of versions of the ad, varying based on user data. While the viewer didn’t get quantity (a long video), they did enjoy quality — an ad tailored to their interests. The campaign was effective compared to benchmarks:
- 14% increase in performance
- 56% higher CTR
As you think about creating video content, think of ways to make shorter content dynamic and engaging.
5. Leverage User-Generated Content
In a world where we’re bombarded with ads created by brands, online reviews and user-generated content stand out as a more trustworthy source of information. As such, they can go a long way in influencing consumer behavior.
Consider these stats:
- 72% of consumers see customer testimonials as more credible than a brand talking about its own products.
- Visitors on product pages who interact with UGC are 100.6% more likely to convert.
- 64% of consumers are more likely to post about a brand that re-shares content by its audience.
The takeaway? UGC builds trust and encourages engagement, turning customers into loyal advocates. Here are a few strategies marketers can use to leverage UGC.
Ask Customers for Content
You can play on the growing popularity of social media to invite users to share pictures and videos with your products and then repurpose them for your wider content strategy.
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Parachute, a bedding and bath brand, used this approach to promote its products with some amazing results. Their UGC ads generated a 35% increase in click-through rate and a 60% lower cost per click.
Video can be a bigger ask, though, so you might be looking at using photos in a montage. A prize for winners who contribute the best content can help sweeten the deal.
Partner With Influencers
Alternatively, you can join hands with influencers to commission UGC content. For instance, many of Chipotle’s most popular TikToks featured influencers like Keith Lee and Josh Sadowski, often earning millions of views.
Creating UGC videos at scale can be costly, though, so you might want to think about how to make the most out of each video. For instance, you can commission several shorter influencer videos and mix and match them as you see fit for any future campaigns.
Send Users a Video They Can Customize
As you can see, the challenge with UGC is a balance between cost and user convenience.
- Customers creating content: Low brand cost, high user cost (time)
- Influencers creating content: Higher brand cost, no user cost
One way around this paradox is to create the video yourself and let users customize it. It’s convenient to the user since they don’t need to create a video from scratch, and it’s more affordable per video since you’re creating one video that can have millions of iterations (as users update the video) rather than paying for hundreds of individual videos by influencers.
Try it yourself below in this video created to thank essential workers during the pandemic. Click the lightning bolt to customize the video with text and audio of your choice.
This video uses drop-down customization options, but you could easily let customers add their own text or even upload photos or video files.
6. Focus on Gamification and Interaction
Similar to personalization, gamified and interactive videos allow users to have a unique experience each time they interact with your content. Not only is gamification and interactivity a great way to scale your video marketing, but the entertainment factor can further drive retention and customer engagement.
Interactivity, in this context, can come in many forms depending on what you’re trying to achieve.
Promote Your Brand With a UGC Contest
GoPro does a great job with this. They regularly invite customers to share their GoPro videos as part of a contest.
Each challenge also comes with its own hashtag, driving further visibility and engagement for the campaign. The one above, submitted by Mateo Niclas, racked up nearly half a million views in just 3 days.
Engage Viewers With Embedded Quizzes
You can use video branching, quizzes and other forms of interaction to let consumers get more involved in the narrative. Resuscitation Council UK does this with their Lifesaver educational content, using a branching video to put viewers in the context of a real emergency so they can see if they would know what to do next.
A great example comes from EE, which created an Interactive Video to introduce existing customers to its new offerings.
The video takes viewers into a home and presents a series of scenarios with clickable options, each leading to different scenes. Depending on what viewers select, they see content that highlights the value of EE’s products in a way that’s relevant to them.
The beauty of this format for scaling video marketing is that you don’t need to produce dozens of separate videos for different audiences or use cases. Instead, you create a single Interactive Video that lets viewers control the narrative.
Not only does this make the content feel personal, but the fun, interactive element keeps viewers paying attention, increasing engagement and the likelihood they’ll take action.
Drive Sales Through Clickable Links and Product Tags
Interactivity can be especially helpful when it comes to driving sales. We see this with Instagram’s shoppable posts. Not only do they make for a more seamless shopping experience, but they also generate far better results than traditional ads. One retailer reported a 32% lift in CTR and a 90% increase in traffic.
This technology is available in videos, too. Check out our Video Inspiration Gallery and check the Interactive Video option under Product to see videos with interactivity.
Take Your Video Marketing Further
Video marketing has never been more important for business success. Whether you’re launching a new product, reaching a new market or promoting existing services, video is one of the best ways to engage your audience and make a lasting impression.
Being able to scale your operations and personalize your videos can help you stand out from your competition and meet your customers wherever they are on their journey. Our Next Generation Video Platform is designed to make this easier, letting you create dynamic, data-driven videos at scale, a few million at a time.
Want to see how it all works? Reach out today for a free demo and discover how our platform can take your video marketing to the next level.
