Marketing clichés are a dime a dozen. Take the phrase ‘secret sauce’. Right now, it is the marketing flavor of the day, so to speak. Marketers cannot help themselves. They have to talk about brands within the framework of each one’s secret sauce. We are going to run with it ourselves because it helps make an especially important point about sales and marketing videos.
Highly successful brands follow defined formulas to get where they are and continue moving forward. Said formulas differ from one brand to the next, though there are some similarities. One such similarity is the secret sauce concept. The secret sauce is that one thing that causes a brand to remain in the forefront of customers’ minds.
It is our contention that sales and marketing videos should be an ingredient in your brand’s secret sauce, regardless of what the full recipe looks like. For purposes of illustration, let us concentrate on engaging your customers with conversations. For a lot of modern brands reaching out to millennials and Gen Z, the conversation is the secret sauce.
Conversing Without Talking
We normally recognize conversations as verbal discussions between parties. Two people sit down at the coffee shop and talk. They exchange ideas and solve the world’s problems by the time the last sip of Joe touches the lips. But in a marketing sense, conversing doesn’t have to mean talking. In fact, it rarely does.
Conversations between brands and customers occur over multiple channels. They tend to be ongoing as well. Brands engage with customers on social media. They engage through email marketing, blog posts, and guest posts. All these different means are ingredients in the conversational secret sauce. That leads us to sales and marketing videos.
Clear, Concise, and Visual
The strength of video as a marketing platform rests in three things: clear messages, concise explanations, and visual associations. The entire video platform is visual by nature. It works as a sales and marketing tool because it plays into the fact that human beings are highly visible creatures. But visuals alone will not start a conversation.
Social media has led us to believe that the primary goal for video content is to ensure that it goes viral. That works for getting likes, but it doesn’t necessarily do anything for sales and marketing. If you want your brand to mean something to people, your sales and marketing videos have to mean something. That is where clear messages and concise explanations prove invaluable.
A clear message becomes the impetus for conversation. Concise explanations enhance a clear message by making it applicable to viewers. Combine those two things and your sales and marketing videos will start conversations. A conversation will begin in the comments. As the video is shared on social media, others join the conversation as well.
Videos Without a Point
If your company’s sales and marketing videos are not part of your brand’s secret sauce, why do you produce them? What is the point? You may have very valid reasons for producing videos above and beyond the goal of creating brand loyalty. And if so, that’s great. Keep doing what you’re doing. Just know this: videos without a point needlessly consume marketing resources.
Sales and marketing videos can be an ingredient in your brand’s secret sauce – whatever that might be. In fact, we think they should be. As long as you are using the cybersphere to reach your customers, you might just as well meet them where they are. These days, this means social media and video platforms. That’s where your secret sauce will do the most good.
