Putting the right message in the right place

In the past, we worked with someone that wanted some help creating a video distribution strategy for a new product. We thought we could definitely help...

Then we got to see the video.

While it was extremely well-produced, its focus was on selling the viewer on a product. Actually, it was a hard sale for the product.

The video wasn’t the problem though. Content like that can be necessary and effective to close gaps in information for a potential buyer and lead them to a purchase. The problem was what the client initially wanted, a distribution game plan.

This video was so focused on the last stage of the sales cycle that its only natural home was on the product’s purchase page. Putting it “in the wild” on video portals (like YouTube) felt very forced and the message was flat, if not abrasive to the viewer.

What was needed was a video that spoke to the pains that the product solved, thus creating a dialog with a potential buyer. From there, the viewer of the video could opt into the next step: visiting a site with a more focused message on how product X could solve the problem.

Somewhere on that site is where this video belonged. When we did distribute it outside of their site, the view counts were low and the conversion to a a sale was non-existent.

The two take-aways here:

1) Think about who you want to talk to and what part of the sales cycle they are at. Then tailor your video (if not multiple videos) to them.

2) Think about where that message lives and how your potential customers will react to it.

It’s easy to come up with a great pitch, and getting superb production value at an affordable cost is readily available, but those two things won’t add up to a sale unless you’re putting the right message in the right place.