When we talk about video we often will hear the term Broadcast bandied about, how we should be aiming for “broadcast quality”, or that YouTube can make us all broadcasters…
But is broadcast actually relevant for a business which is trying to use video in its marketing mix?
When we talk about Broadcast video, we are talking about two things…
1) Video which appeals to and is distributed to as wide an audience as possible. Literally we are “casting” the video out to a broad audience.
2) Certain technical standards which meet the specifications needed to allow it to be transmitted over the old analogue systems and into people’s homes.
Let’s look at number two first. We need good quality. We need to ensure that our brand values are upheld. But we are distributing via digital channels which simply do not require the technical specs of old, and shooting to the traditional broadcast standards means a whole load of extra costs which we probably can’t afford. So, we need to be choosing good producers, and getting high quality, but we don’t need to adhere to broadcast standards.
Now, about the first point… You’re running a business. You know that, unless you’re Coca Cola, not everyone is your customer. So you don’t want to produce video that tries to appeal to the broadest market. You want to appeal specifically to your potential customers, and this is probably a much narrower audience.
Given how much more targeted we can be with our marketing, the buyer profile becomes even narrower.
So, to get the best value out of our video, we need to be thinking about ‘Narrowcasting’.
And when we start taking about narrowcasting, instead of broadcasting, we can immediately think about many more ways to use video to good effect in our business and really capitalise on the ability of video to build trust, inform and in the end add customers.
Narrowcasting our video means we can look specifically at what that individual customer needs to see from us to get them to engage with us.
And this means we can make our video much simpler, and keeping things simple is the first step to managing costs.
So, narrowcast videos have the potential to be far better value, as they are more targeted, and have lower costs, which means of course that you can use more video across your business.
So, instead of thinking broadcast. Think narrowcast. Think about specific product demonstrations. Think about your customer and showing exactly what you can do for THEM. Think about how you can use video in depth across your marketing with clear simple messages for specific audiences.
Don’t think about being all things to all people, think about reaching out to your target customer and engaging directly.
Moving your thinking from broadcast to narrowcast helps to move you from thinking about FORM GAPS in your marketing – “We don’t have any video on our website!!” to thinking about CONTENT GAPS in your marketing – “We need to show our customers how easy it is to use our new ThirbleGrimple!!” and this helps you to produce targeted relevant video which has value.
If your thinking about a new video for your business, contact us!
