Good video content can be a great way to give a brand or website a kick but they’re a difficult medium to get right. Luckily, we’ve listed what we think makes a truly great mobile video advert.
First and foremost, examine your reasons for making the video content. Do you want a video advert because your competitors are all releasing them or because you feel it’s right for your brand? Do you want to produce video tutorials because it’s the best format to show what needs to be done or because you ‘need’ a video? The only way of producing a good video is if your reasons for doing so are good. Producing videos for the sake of producing video is a fruitless task.
Here are our four guidelines:
1. Target a specific audience.
If you don’t have buyer personas yet, create them. Look at your brand’s audience and the consumers you want to attract. Narrowing down your audience to something specific might seem counter-intuitive but it’ll help you focus the video’s content and message. Be honest with yourself at this point. Who is most likely to search for this video or watch it? Who do you want to see it? Thanks to the targeting provided by most mobile ad networks, focusing your audience could mean delivering it exclusively to them. A good mobile video advert can be delivered directly to its audience, including an age range. Want to attract male Android users located in Germany? Create a video for them.
2. Stick to a single message.
If your video is intended for mobile, then consider only having one simple message or outcome for it. Usually, the screen will be small and compact, and won’t be large enough to convey multiple messages to the user. Mobile video ads only have a short window to grab the users attention, so make sure it’s simple and concise enough to keep them interested.
3. Keep it short.
Internet and mobile users are becoming less patient with video content. According to Visible Measures, 20 per cent of video viewers will click away from a video in ten seconds or fewer. As the length of the video continues, more and more viewers will drop out. After a minute, only a little over half of the original viewers of your video will still be watching. It’s in your best interests to keep your videos as short as possible to retain as many viewers as possible.
For video advertisements, especially those on mobile, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found that 15 seconds is the optimum video length. Fifteen to thirty seconds is more than enough time for a cleverly crafted video advert to convey a simple, effective message.
- 20% of viewers will skip or turn off after 10 seconds
- 15 – 30 seconds is optimum
- Extend to 60 – 90 if the content is good
4. Provide a call to action.
A good call to action will be able to drive the user from the mobile advert, to your preferred landing page. The call to action could take the user to your social media pages, take them to a checkout page for products or paid services or even just place them onto your homepage. Make sure that the CTA button is clear, colourful and attracts the attention of the user. If you want to drive users to more than one place, consider using a dynamic end card, like AdSpruce’s iEndCard which allows you to place multiple CTAs inside a single ad space. That can be used to drive multiple social media profiles, cross sell products and enhance additional brand messaging.
We think if you apply these four principles to your next mobile video advert, then you should be producing a great mobile video advert. For more blogs, updates and more, follow our Facebook page, twitter @Adspruce and Google+ pages. To find out more about how AdSpruce can help you, visit the website here.
