KAMPALA – In 2015, 2 years after finishing University, I directed a documentary film for the Save the Mothers Foundation about the need of good sanitation for every expectant mother. Our case study was a Hospital in Eastern Uganda. The video would later be played at the UN World Toilet Day special sitting in New York on 19 November 2015 and the rest is history. Immediately, a simple six-minute video made people who lived in “5-bedroom 6 bathroom” houses remember that there was a young mother somewhere in the World who had no access to clean sanitation at all. My Father (RIP) had since 1996 when I was 6 years old intimated to me the power of a Video. On numerous occasions when the ADF Rebels attacked Kasese town in the mid-nineties, he carried his huge Panasonic Video camera, inserted the 180-minute VHS (Tape), and crawled up the rooftop of his studio to record the bullets flying across the town till the wee hours of the morning. Twenty-Four years later, I agree with him! Those Videos may be the only proof to our children growing up in this peaceful and beautiful Country that there was a time our Army men and Police spent sleepless nights fighting off people that found joy in killing civilians. That’s the Power of Video!
Today, as marketing techniques continue to evolve, trends continue to favor video. The impression created by a visual experience of your product, service or brand is one unmatched thing to a consumer. Video marketing is great because consumers find it entertaining, easy to relate with and digest, engaging. Brands can use video to strike rapport and illicit strong emotions that make consumers feel attached over time.
Statistics show that there has been a drastic increase in Video Marketing in recent years. Brand related videos on YouTube have increased by 99% and 258% on Facebook. A Video tweet is six times more likely to be retweeted than a photo tweet. As of December 2019, Social media active users had passed 3.8billion users Worldwide with over 100million hours of video watched on Facebook every day and 500million hours watched daily on YouTube with users spending an average of two hours and twenty-four minutes per day on social networks and messaging.
In the era of mobile access to the internet, people have unlimited access to your content more than ever before. Video can complement traditional media accurately and it would be good for users to engage both. A good video is one that speaks to your audience. You need to ensure that you identify original concepts, focused on the consumers and keep the message consistent in every video and create slides of a flowing story to keep your following hooked. I have seen so many
Recently I advised a colleague who called in to consult about how to change his campaign strategy in his constituency to invest in doing videos in local dialect among other things, of people who benefit directly from some of the infrastructures he had personally financed in his community. I thought it right for him to have his own voters, as his ambassadors. Later, he insisted that 60% of the video be about him and his ambitions. He also told me that videos are for town dwellers and not the voters at the ground in the villages. I asked to be excused! Just like I said, it’s not about you; it’s about the consumer, in this case the voter. I have failed to understand the concept of relying on our elderly parents to be voters in villages and us the youth as town dwellers. Big Mistake! Marketing has something called influencers and now we are our parent’s influencers! If you already have numbers in the villages, how about you speak the language of the town dwellers and get them to your side? What if the Church had decided to take only the converts it had in its first 1000 Years AD or stopped baptizing? Would we have any more Christians left by now? Since the 20th Century according to Wistia, Consumers at times are loyal because of how they connect with your brand, but today, because we’re more connected than ever before, we rely so much on recommendations from colleagues. Therefore, building a trustworthy reputable brand that consumers can identify with will not only grow your sales but also influence how people speak about your business to others. Every single person counts! Find a way of tailoring for each segment of the market videos that speak to them.
Video gives your consumers reviews from your existing clientele. I don’t want to watch a video of school teachers telling me how well they are trained and good at teaching; id rather watch a video of their students eloquently speaking about their school and how lovely and caring teacher Graham is and the amazing facilities and outside class activities they have and I’ll be visiting the school in a matter of days.
I know that it’s quite expensive filming good quality videos especially if you want to share them consistently with your following so I recommend that you partner with a video production company that will agree to a retainer payment basis thus cutting down your cost. This way you are guaranteed good quality, timely and professional production all the time.
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The writer, Edgar Arinaitwe is managing partner Qoncept Africa Ltd
