Adults have attention spans ranging from 8-12 seconds according to digital information world (LINK). Saying what you need to say quickly is very important.

The question is what media do you go with? Printed word?  Okay, that can be fast if the reader is fast. How about spoken word? Great for auditory learners, but still not that fast. You can also use images, which are lighting fast, but limited. Sounds and music can be very fast but not concise. Also, you don’t always know which kind of learner you are communicating with. So pick well.

With video, you don’t have to pick. You can do all 4 of the listed above inside 3 seconds with video. No matter who your audience is, they are going to be getting what you are laying down.

Speeding up information delivery

There’s also a communication doubling effect, you can break down complex ideas much faster because you don’t have to say it all, or wait for someone to read. You can do 4 at once if you need to. For instance, an image can convey in 1/3 of a second what it would take a voiceover 1-2 seconds to say. Sounds effects are similar. They convey an idea  in a fraction of a second that can take several seconds of reading printed words or saying them.

Someone can communicate with a 1 minute video what it would take much longer (5-10 minutes?) to read, another reason why people are choosing video these days.

A few short years ago, people watched tv shows when they were aired; say Wednesday night at 7. Sound ridiculous? It seems so normal if you were there at the time.

Today we can watch our shows on our schedule. Heck, most of the time we don’t even have to watch commercials! People are conditioned to taking in information on their time, on their terms.

To reach more people today, let them watch your video whenever they are ready. Give them options; watch later, finish later, watch again. Facebook and YouTube have some basic functionality around saving videos for later; YouTube has a “watch later” and Facebook has “saved videos” although most people cant find it once its saved. There are also video hosting platforms that allow you to control even more about how your video is played, give the viewers more options for playback, and even do gated content. The options are great, but to get people to view your video on these platforms, you’ve got to drive them to a web page, leaving the social media site they were on.

Making your video mobile-friendly makes it even more accessible. In fact it’s necessary today and any video not mobile optimized will be penalized. A couple of basic things to keep in mind when optimizing for mobile:

·       Use bigger titles. If you edit this video on a 24 inch monitor the Titles (words printed on screen) are going to seem plenty big enough. Now shrink that down to 2×3 inches, and imagine a middle aged person wants to watch it. It will be too small. Titles need to be really big, and printing out an entire paragraph on the screen is out of the question.

·       Zoom-in your shots. If the spokesperson or interviewee is making gestures, or expressions on their face that are telling part of the story, you need to again imagine their facial expression is ½ inch tall and there’s glare. All shots must be zoomed in. There’s no reason to shoot someone from the feet up or even the knees up. Waist or belly up to 6 inches above the head is typically a good way to go.

Sales Perspective

Another factor in video accessibility that is often overlooked is video’s ability to multiply yourself a bit. This is a great advantage from a sales perspective. If you are featuring your voice or actually being in the video itself as a monologue, narrator, interviewer, or interviewee, you are giving the audience a little feel for what you are like. They get a sense of what kind of person you are and will start to like or dislike you depending on what you say and how you present.

People that are the face of an organization, or are in business development roles, stand to make giant leaps in rapport with prospects when they finally do get to talk. Omnipresence. Having never met the person in the video, the prospect feels they know the presenter a bit, and many find the building rapport and trust-ability happens a lot faster in scenarios where the prospect first saw videos featuring the seller.

People used to pay good money (and still do) for good ad placement. Billboards gleaming right before the highway exit. Ads placed toward the front of the newspaper.

Well, targeting online has gotten better than ever. And if you want to get your message to the right people, there’s not much ambiguity to it.

YouTube

Some may scoff that only people 30 and under subscribe to “YouTubers” and may be dismissive of the platform as a business tool, but the fact is everyone uses YouTube, though they may not browse it for fun.

When your targets go to use YouTube, you can literally make them watch your ad before they get to watch the video they clicked on. That’s called a pre-roll ad.

Is there a YouTube channel or creator that all your targets follow? You can target their entire channel with ads for your goods and services, including pre-roll videos as mentioned above.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has grown a mustache and chest hair in the last 2 years. With an unparalleled database of North American Professionals, this platform is auto-playing in the palm of your target’s hand. And if it’s compelling, relevant or helpful, it will get a full view.  Even people that don’t use LinkedIn weekly still go on to update where they work when they switch jobs. The database of professionals is accurate and updated with no other platform even close.

LinkedIn is eager to show those people ads, targeting to audiences filtering by industry, employee count, job title, seniority level, years of experience and more. As prospects scroll down their newsfeed, videos auto-play (they are just running and don’t have to be clicked) delivering messaging, even for 3 seconds before people even realize it.

Facebook

Facebook has buttons and call to actions that make video-to-web page conversion easier. However, they don’t have many business filters. What they do have is lookalike algorithms. If there is a small audience of people that like a certain company page, Facebook can show ads to others that are just like the current page followers, who will also be very likely to follow; thus it’s a lookalike audience.

In conclusion, the superpowers of video make it the next great tool to do everything from training to sales tools to lead generation. Nothing else can communicate so fast, on demand, and with such accuracy. As the plumbing of video-to web page improves, it will only get  more lethal.

With 10 years of experience in lead generation, and 5 years of experience in video, TRO is uniquely positioned to use video for lead generation. If your organization is looking for ways to get more out of video, we would be glad to talk.

At TRO, we use our years of sales and marketing experience to generate qualified leads within a few weeks, not a few months.  Not only do we generate leads quickly, but we also provide consulting throughout the lead generation process. This way, you or your dedicated sales team can have the best opportunity to grow and succeed toward your business goals.

TRO customers understand the importance of measurable business goals, personal connections and solving a need prospects have. We work hard every day to practice this in our own company and we help our clients to achieve the same level of success.