Gone are the days when companies relied on written content and images alone for their marketing efforts. Now, due to its many benefits, using video content is the real deal.
After all, a well-crafted and optimized video can reach out to viewers and tackle their pain points, promote a product or service, and build brand trust all at once. Great, isn’t it?
However, the big problem is that it doesn’t matter how well-thought your video marketing strategy is if it doesn’t connect with your target audience. Any experienced video production team will tell you as much. If you understand little of who will be watching the piece… I hate to break it to you, but your video won’t work as well as it could!
Identifying and understanding your audience is, then, the best first step you can take when building effective and engaging video content.
But, how do I get to know my target audience? You may ask.
Well, in this piece, you will find four researching tools that will help you achieve this goal. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?
Familiarize Yourself with User Patterns Through Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that provides in-depth information about website traffic. Its power lies in the different types of data you can collect while using it:
- User’s demographics data (gender, age, interests, location).
- Information about the websites they are coming from.
- How long they stayed and which pages on the website they are visiting (blog, contact, services, etc.).
- The type of product or service they are buying.
- What type of device they are using to browse.
All this information is covered in five sections that, in turn, provide deeper breakdowns that suggest possible uses for the data. These are acquisition, audience, behavior, conversions, and real-time reports. And even though each has its utility, we recommend focusing on the audience report first since it’s the one that will help you better understand your overall user pool.
Another helpful feature this tool offers is that it also allows you to track interactions with your content.
For instance, you can get information about the views of an on-site video and how many people watched it until the end. This will give you an idea of how engaging your video content is.
Studying and implementing your audience’s patterns allow you to plan more attractive video marketing strategy. So, make sure to use this information and tailor your video content accordingly to it.
Understand Your Audience Preferences with Social Media Listening Tools
If you’re a business person, you should know how crucial social media presence is for companies. Not only do social platforms help you connect with your customers and increase brand awareness, but they also help you share your video content.
Yes, social media and video content go hand in hand!
Being present on social media also implies that customers, prospects, and even competitors will be talking about your brand. How great would it be to know what are they saying, right? Well, you can do precisely that with the right listening tools!
In a nutshell, social media listening tools track conversations, mentions, and keywords related to your company on social media platforms. The great thing about them is that they also consider the mood behind that information. Put simply: they can tell you HOW people feel about your brand.
A great example of a social media listening tool is Hootsuite Insights, a function within Hootsuite. This feature allows you to visualize people’s perceptions of your brand across a number of social channels, such as Facebook Wall’s posts, Instagram user comments, and tweets.
Top tip: Analyze the data and patterns collected and build your video content around it. For example, if people are saying that they don’t understand one of your offerings, seize the opportunity and make an explainer video. This way, you will give them exactly what they need.
Identify Your Audience Needs with General and Client’s Questionnaires
Another effective way in which you can conduct audience research is by making questionnaires, which allow you to ask close and open-ended questions. They differ in that the first type gives specific yet limited insights, while the latter enables users to answer freely and in detail, but often in a broader sense.
Now, as for the types of questionnaires, you have general and client’s ones.
As the name suggests, general questionnaires do not aim at a particular group of people. In fact, most of them have probably never heard about your brand. For this reason, it’s better to make close-ended questions since people won’t engage that much if they aren’t familiar with your offerings.
As an example, you can use a rating scale, multiple-choice, or “yes” or “no” questions to identify patterns or preferences among an audience.
On the other hand, client’s questionnaires target current and former clients, so open-ended questions work perfectly here! This way, they can provide more in-depth answers and give you a better understanding of their sentiment towards your brand. Try not to overwhelm them, though – you can add some close-ended questions into the mix.
In order to create valuable video content, you need to see things from your audience’s perspective. Questionnaires are an excellent way of giving your audience a voice, allowing them to provide comments, ideas, and even criticism that you can then incorporate into your pieces.
Gather Your Audience’s Contact Data with Sweepstakes
These days, sweepstakes are one of the most common outreach strategies online. You see, they are a great way to increase brand loyalty, web traffic, and leads without much effort. Besides, you can gather the contact information, like emails, of potential customers and make it easier to serve them your videos later down the road.
Yes, simple as it sounds, if there’s a worthy prize and the chance to win, people won’t mind providing their contact information. This way, you can obtain their full name, email address, phone number, etc. They’re also a golden opportunity to offer contestants the option of subscribing to your newsletter and add them to your email marketing campaigns.
As a rule of thumb, if you want to attract qualified leads, the prize should be closely related to your offerings. Moreover, as easy as they may seem, make sure to plan your sweepstakes ahead and include the rules clearly. Some awesome platforms that will help you to do that are ShorStack, Gleam, and Heyo.
Summing Up…
Having a deeper understanding of your audience allows you to create powerful and compelling video content. Moreover, it enables you to provide them with the information they’re looking for and explain things accurately.
You can combine all of these tools in order to obtain a deeper perspective. Or you can just use the one that suits your purposes best. In any case, take the time to research your audience and produce amazing video content. We promise you won’t regret it. Good luck!
