How to engage with your audience with video content

Half of the challenge of marketing with video content online is getting your target audience to watch your videos. Once they have clicked “play”, you need to make sure your video content will engage them, so they don’t just as quickly skip to the next video on their list. The secret with this is to speak to your audience in their own language. This makes your content accessible to the audience and allows them to think about it and respond to it – in other words, to engage with it! But what does it mean to speak to your audience in their own language?

A great example which is a classic example for all students of marketing is the casual tone taken by Naked Smoothies. Their target audience was young people, in an environment where formality was becoming old fashioned. Their friendly, approachable, jokey marketing strategy revolutionised the industry for a reason: namely, that it worked.

For instance, if you are targeting towards a relatively young and hip crowd, involving pop culture references can be a great way to get them to pay attention – after all, watching pop culture videos online is how that demographic likes to spend their time these days anyway! On the other hand, if you are going for a slightly more mature audience, perhaps college students, references to current or political events may be more appropriate. And for an older, more business oriented audience, you will want to stick to a relatively formal business tone.

It is also important not to patronise your audience, nor to assume they know more than they do. Over explaining things can come across as distant and artificial, whereas assuming too much about their prior knowledge of what your videos explain runs the risk of making your content impossible to follow, and turning audiences off. Testing your video content with focus groups and small group surveys can provide vital information about the chosen tone of your videos. A delicate balance must be struck – which may be easier said than done! But it is worth putting the time into audience research to make sure your videos get your message across, no more and no less.