Video Marketing with Jon Mowat
This week, we listened to the Digital Marketing Podcast hosted by Ciaran Rogers, featuring Jon Mowat. Jon Mowat is the founder of Hurricane, an award-winning video marketing agency. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it through video (Ahmad, 2019), making video marketing significantly more effective than other marketing methods, but why? In this episode, Jon explains some of the psychology behind this concept, as well as how to apply it to your marketing strategy.
Human beings have a chemical in their brain called dopamine. This chemical is a "messenger substance" that conveys signals between neurons and is particularly known as being the "happy hormone" responsible for our experiencing happiness. (Science Daily, 2016) Our phones are a significant source of dopamine rewards. Each notification, google search or human connection we make triggers this rush. This is why so many of us are strongly tied to our phones, "most adults check their phone every seven and a half minutes." Additionally, humans have neurons called ganglion cells which process visual information and are designed to pick up movement. This was originally used to protect our species from predators and is why our eyes dart to our phones when it lights up with a notification. When watching a video, these cells aren't only triggered but continuously stimulated, meaning we are significantly more engaged than we would be looking at a static image. Finally, as humans, we are profoundly tied to our emotions, and for thousands of years, the human species has survived through storytelling. When we hear a story that speaks our emotions we enter a peak moment of susceptibility, making us less likely to think objectively and more open to driving behaviour change.
But understanding the effects video has on us isn't all we need to create an effective video marketing strategy. Jon Mowat describes video marketing as delivering brand growth through targeting specific audiences, across multiple platforms, with multiple pieces of content. To break this down, Jon categorized video marketing content into four categories, each aligning with a stage in the buyer journey.
The first category aligning with the awareness stage is hero content. "Hero content encases nothing but brand sentiment and is intended solely to make your viewer feel something." A fitting example of this is the Red Bull commercials, these well-known cartoons don't highlight features of the product or answer consumer questions but rather provide viewers with short and entertaining branded skits. This type of content leaves space for viewers to connect emotionally with a brand, a buyer with an emotional connection is not only more likely to buy your product but is "four times more likely to defend that purchase to someone else."
The second form of content aligns closely with the interest stage of the buyer journey. Jon describes Hub content as content that your consumers return regularly to consume. Red Bull again has an appropriate example of this, a segment of their website is dedicated to keeping up with high-energy sports. Visitors can use the Red Bull website to frequently watch tv shows, movies, live events and keep up to date with their favourite athletes, layering their brand with an added value to hold the interest of their viewers.
The last two categories of content are help and go. Help content is a familiar concept where we use branded video content to answer any questions our viewers may have while establishing your brand as a thought-leader on the subject. Help content is searchable and aligns well with the consideration phase, building on a pre-established trust and interest in your brand. Finally, Go content is the most direct form of content. It can be a short video speaking directly about the product, including a call to action, and performs best when your consumer is already considering your brand and only requires a slight nudge to make their eventual purchase.
After determining the phase of the customer buyer journey and the video type that best suits your business' needs, we need to identify which platform will work in unison with our content. Jon classifies all platforms into two types, fluid and fixed. Fluid platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are constantly moving. Within these platforms, users will be consistently swiping through content with their thumb, making it tough to capture their attention for long this is where short-tail content such as Go videos will be the most effective. Whereas fixed platforms, such as Youtube, are areas where users are inclined to spend extended amounts of time. Fixed platforms allow users the time they need to form an emotional connection with your content and is why long-tail content such as Hero and Hub videos work well here.
In summary, Jon Mowat gave us a deeper insight into the power of video marketing and how to harness and apply it strategically. Each of these factors works together closely to ensure your video marketing efforts reach the right audience, at the right time, and in the right way to give your brand the best chance for lasting results. If you are interested in giving this interview a listen, you can find Part One and Part Two here.
Written By Shayla Young