INSIGHT
SPEND TIME ON PREPARATION As with any other form of content, it’ s important for your video concept to start with a brief. This will help you to outline the content, structure and tone for your video delivery. It’ s also a good idea to do a bit of good old-fashioned competitor research. Look at the aspirational brands you admire and see what’ s working for them. Remember to be authentic, though, as copycat behaviour is easily spotted and can have negative results.
“ You really can’ t ignore the power of visual over text when considering your site content and design updates”
Take a look at the tone and messaging you feel would support your site and your brand. Is it informational, ie do you want to share tips, or conversational; or is it requiring multiple commentators to create a chat show format. Do you want it to be entertaining, for example a rehash of old fail clips from football games; or perhaps viral, a clip of what you’ d do to get yourself a seat at the World Cup final itself. The ideas for video are endless, but they need to have a purpose. For example, do you want your video to be promotional( conversion lead) or just generate reach( branding and traffic to your site) for new leads. Will you run a series of videos or just a one-off piece? Consider what you want the video content to do, who it will appeal to and the action that you want them to take after viewing it. Write this down and when it comes to making decisions in the creative process you can easily refer back to it. Consider the time you have to get your point across – your message needs to be short, sharp and effective. According to Comscore, the optimal video time is 4.4 minutes but briefer snippets still win for user engagement for new brands. So if you don’ t have a large brand presence, start by releasing a series of shorter vines to get customers engaged and wanting more. Lead them in with a snippet, followed by a story and then move on to longer recurring formats in later months.
You may want to use animations, real footage or live presenters to make your content stand out. No matter which route you take with this, though, you should have a clear brief in mind. If you’ re doing it in-house you’ ll need to ensure that your designers know exactly what you want developed; if you outsource it, the brief serves as the document to outline exactly what you want delivered.
If possible, test your proposed ideas and content concepts on people that you know. Figure out if it will resonate with your target audience first before commissioning anything professionally. You’ d be amazed at the tools and free software available on your iPhone such as Flyr, which can create quick, interesting visuals. Promo is another good tool that can be used to create great short videos that don’ t require any prior production expertise.
PRODUCTION AND EDITING: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER Once the brief is done and you’ ve written up your script, it’ s time to turn your ideas into a reality! Depending on the depth and scope of your video, this will mean a variety of different things. If you’ re using presenters and graphics, then make sure that they all work cohesively. Audio quality is very important for video production; if the sound is poor then this can actually negatively affect your brand.
If you’ re using pre-recorded footage or animations, then your production process will probably look a bit different. If you want to keep your investment in video to a minimum until you see actual results, then check out free tools like Splice. These tools will help you to quickly put together clips.
On social media, it’ s becoming more and more important to subtitle your videos. Many users typically watch clips without sound and only unmute the footage if they find it of interest. However, they’ ll be less interested in doing so if they’ re unsure what your video is about.
Always start with a great thumbnail graphic as this is key to getting customers engaged. Similarly, make sure you have a call to action at the end of the video, and remember to represent your brand, logo and website easily. This way, people can follow on from watching the video to engage with your site.
SHARING AND GROWING YOUR VIDEO CONTENT Now that you have your video content ready to distribute, it’ s time to share what you’ ve been working on with your followers. It can be hard to rely solely on paid media to do this in igaming, so you’ ll need to get a bit inventive. One idea is to get involved in online communities that have similar interests, such as football-focused groups or tipster accounts. This kind of community can catapult your video to success much faster and for a lower cost than paid media channels. Carve out a niche and respond to these users to boost the visibility of your videos. Giveaways will tend to get a lot of initial traction, but you also have to balance this with actually gaining new users.
Assessing the initial engagement that your videos get, as well as where these users go after watching the clip, is key. Going forward, this data will start to inform the rest of your video content and themes. With the World Cup on our calendars until July 15, there’ s plenty of room to grow and succeed.
On social media and in organic search, engagement is king. You’ ll find that once your videos begin to catch on, this engagement snowballs and brings you better results. This kind of traction can be bought, but the outlay represents a huge outgoing for a small affiliate company. Instead of trying to outpace your larger competitors at their own game, then, change the game and do something better in an area they may be neglecting. The old saying“ work smarter, not harder” really does work in this instance.
“ Consider the time you have to get your point across— your message needs to be short, sharp and effective”
Video content doesn’ t have to be scary, and it can certainly do a lot for your brand, so invest a bit of time in it and see what it might bring. If you don’ t want to dive headlong in with a large production, then look for ways to produce your own short videos to test the waters first. After all, the numbers show that video really does have an impact on brand awareness and content reach. You can’ t afford to ignore it.
48 iGB Affiliate Issue 69 JUN / JUL 2018