With the help of musicals.

It’s not all about me, me, me. In order for your message to be effective, you need to connect with your audience by understanding THEIR interests, needs and wants. Right now, it’s all about you because you are my audience. Even as I write this I’m considering your thirst for great informative content but I’m also aware of your time limitations, so enough preamble.

Here are my top 10 tips for appealing to your audience through your corporate video (should you wish, you can test your musical knowledge – answers at the bottom of the page).

1. Getting to know you, getting to know all about yooooou.

Deborah Kerr’s character was onto something. How well do your know your audience? The more detailed your market analysis, the easier it is to appeal to them through your video. If you don’t have a good understanding of your customers, market research will help you understand more about the needs, tastes and spending habits of different groups of existing and potential customers.

What is their age, gender, education, religion, language, culture?

Values, attitudes and beliefs? What are their major headaches?

Are they customers: B2C? Are they other businesses: B2B?

Where do they sit in the business world? Start ups? Small or middle sized companies? Massive global corporations with huge departments?

Speak to them in a language they understand about things that interest them. But don’t forget they are people! The best corporate videos are the ones that appeal to our emotions. Communicate as if you were chatting in a room, rather than shouting through your loudspeaker.

2. But my audience is too broad.

So what happens if your audience isn’t as specific as Austrian goat herders? What if you want to target the whole wide web, or even more broadly the general public?

It’s rare that general messages are well received. How can you possibly appeal to all ages across all segments? Break it down and take a tip from the major TV Channels. When promoting a TV show that appeals to a wide audience, they segment the audience into smaller more specific groups and make two or more different promo videos to appeal to the different audiences, each with a different tone – but the same message (ie the show starts on Saturday at 8pm). This way they can connect directly with each target audience to ensure they have fully engaged them.

3. Put your personal preferences aside.

When making your corporate video, your choices shouldn’t be geared by what suits you – or your personal choices of what looks or feels good.

It’s like buying a birthday present for someone; you don’t buy a scarf because YOU love the design or feel the cold. You need to keep the recipient in mind as you’re wandering around the department store. What are their likes? Interests? Problems? Keep this in mind when you choose the tone and style of your video, even down to the little details eg the music choices and choice of language. Don’t pick a man-kini for bull-wrestling Uncle Alfred who lives in Alaska. Likewise, don’t pick a progressive house track or use an animated mouse character called Princess Fifi, if your audience are middle-aged Investment Bankers like George Banks.

4. Use humour, compassion and empathy.

Humans love to relate, if you can spark a smile or even shed a tear, you’ll create a strong emotional bond. Emotions are our biggest driver. If you can use humour, compassion or empathy in your corporate video, you’ll engage deeply with your audience. Emotional marketing is the buzzword amongst marketeers in 2015. Research shows that after viewing a video, one of the first remarks people make when asked about the message of the video is how they felt about it. “It was funny”, or “it was sad”. Think about the last movie you watched, we’re betting you’ll recall it by how it engaged with your emotions.

5. Dress it up in a good story.

Using compelling visual content to tell your story sparks emotion in your audience. That emotion inspires trust and loyalty. Storytelling is the magic ingredient in all our videos (shhhh). To learn how to find your story, read this.

6. Once you’ve got them, don’t lose them!

Now you’ve got the attention of your audience, don’t take them for granted. Nurture them, respect them and keep the conversation open and the mutual adoration going strong.

7. Include a call to action, but lose the hard sell.

Don’t push your business or products on people, it’s a huge turn off to most. People want to work with genuine, trustworthy people. The days of flogging cheap and fast out the back of Del Boy’s van are over and your aim is to nurture a lifelong loyalty from your customers, which will prove to be far more valuable than a quick sale. If you cultivate a beautiful business relationship with your clients not only will they love you for it but also, even better they’ll tell their friends and colleagues about you. Give them information, entertainment and treat your audience with respect.

8. Papa don’t preach!

Allow feedback and comments after your video and respond positively to them, no matter what.

Ask your audience to share their own experiences, by doing this you’ll deepen the customer loyalty and learn a great deal more about your audience, so much so you could expand your services or products to fit their needs rather than expecting them to fit around you.

9. Your audience’s hang outs.

Now you know how to engage with your audience, next is where. Making high quality video content if fabulous, but as part of your video strategy think about where you will place your video. It’s no use having a video if your audience won’t see it.

Of course an actual location like Fat Sam’s is merely metaphorical, but if you know your audience well, you will also know their haunts and hangouts. What is your video strategy, have you considered earned, owned and paid media or all three?

10. Behold the wonders you’ll achieve!

Consider your audience in everything you do for your business, for every piece of content you publish. We make getting to know your audience a big part of our video briefing process, because without that your corporate video message would fall on deaf ears.

For more assistance in making sure your video connects with your audience, call us, or download our brief template and guide, which will help you to discover further variables to consider when making a corporate video.

ANSWERS:

Did you guess them all right? The musicals from 1-10 are: The King and I, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Les Miserables, My Fair Lady, Grease, Sweet Charity, Calamity Jane, Bugsy Malone and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. How many did you get?