Video marketing is one of the most effective ways for companies to engage with consumers, and, combined with a multi-channel marketing strategy, it can provide a stunning ROI.
Traditionally, video marketing primarily consisted of advertisements produced by a direct response agency. Still, recent trends show influencer marketing can produce a significantly higher ROI, especially for small brands on a limited budget.
As a marketing professional, you might wonder, “Which approach is right for my campaign?”
Here are a few quick tips to help you understand each approach and its comparative strengths and challenges.
Understanding Produced Ads
“Produced ads” refer to traditional commercial advertisements that are professionally scripted, filmed, and edited. These ads are typically broadcast on television or addressable TV, streamed online, sent by email as a VSL, or displayed across various digital platforms.
Produced ads are meticulously crafted to convey a specific direct response message or brand image, often with high production values and a clear call to action.
Strengths vs. Influencer Marketing
- Full Control: Brands have complete control over the message, tone, and visuals of the ad, ensuring that the final product aligns perfectly with the brand’s vision.
- Higher Production Value: A produced ad is generally highly polished and visually appealing, which can enhance the perceived quality of the brand.
- Consistency: Produced ads provide a consistent and repeatable message that can be used across various platforms over time, reinforcing brand identity.
- Broad Reach: Traditional video ads, especially on television or major online platforms, can reach a large and diverse audience, making them effective for widespread brand awareness campaigns.
Challenges vs. Influencer Marketing
- Higher Cost: The production of traditional ads can be expensive, especially when factoring in costs for professional talent, equipment, and post-production.
- Lower Engagement: Consumers often respond better to more “natural” iPhone-created spontaneous videos, especially in an era of ad blockers and on-demand streaming.
- Limited Targeting: While produced ads can reach a targeted audience, they often lack the precise relational targeting that influencer marketing offers, leading to potential higher ROI.
Understanding Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing involves partnering with individuals who have a significant loyal and trusting following on social media platforms and podcasts, such as YouTube, Snapchat, Rumble, Instagram, or TikTok, to promote a product or service.
With an Influencer campaign, the primary marketing approach is to:
- Help the influencer to understand the campaign’s goals;
- Provide the influencer with a few talking points or key points to highlight; then
- Allow them to create content that feels authentic and relatable to their followers.
Strengths vs. Produced Ads
There are four things you should know about Influencer Marketing VS. Produced Ads.
- Authenticity and Trust: Influencers are perceived as real people with genuine opinions. When they endorse a product, it feels like a recommendation from a friend, which can be highly persuasive.
- Targeted Reach: Influencers often have a niche audience that aligns closely with a brand’s target market. This allows precise targeting, increasing the likelihood of reaching potential customers.
- Cost-Effective: Compared to high-budget produced ads, influencer marketing can be more affordable, especially when partnering with micro-influencers who may have smaller but highly engaged audiences.
- Higher ROI: In recent years, the ROI of influencer campaigns has often outperformed traditional media efforts due to the generally lower cost and higher engagement because of the relationship typical of influencer campaigns.
Challenges vs. Produced Ads
And there are three megatrends.
- Less Control: Brands have limited control over how their product is presented. The influencer’s content will be on-brand for the influencer, not necessarily the brand paying for the spot.
- Inconsistent Quality: The quality of content can vary widely depending on the influencer’s resources and skills, especially in the early stages of an influencer campaign when brands are seeking out “good fits.”
- Short Shelf Life: Due to the sheer volume of content being created, influencer content can create a quick spike of engagement that falls off unless it is paired with additional campaign assets.
Which Approach Is Right for Your Brand?
The choice between influencer marketing and produced ads largely depends on your product or service goal, target audience, and budget.
I personally recommend both.
If you’re looking for a lower-cost test budget and to build trust with a specific niche audience that prefers a more authentic, relatable approach, influencer marketing might be the way to go.
On the other hand, if you have the budget and want a broad, consistent message with high production values to reinforce your brand identity and a drifted target audience, produced ads could be more effective.
Using influencers to create buzz and drive initial engagement, followed by a polished ad campaign, can leverage the strengths of each method to maximize your marketing impact.
When all of your marketing and advertising materials are seamlessly integrated as part of a larger campaign strategy, you will ultimately drive higher response rates across every channel.
Indeed, you can create a powerful multichannel approval with these two tactics.
This is why the answer to the question at the beginning of this article isn’t one or the other; it’s actually both.
To help you understand more about this marketing approach, I authored The New Multichannel Integrated Marketing – 29 Trends for Creating a Multichannel, Integrated Campaign to Boost Your Profits Now to provide you with a step-by-step roadmap to success.
This 258-page book offers actionable, concise guidance to help you grow your business.
You can get your copy through the following options:
– Kindle – HERE
– Audio – HERE
– Signed Copy – HERE
– Amazon – HERE
If you need help utilizing the proven success of a multichannel marketing campaign for your business, please contact Michael Oppenheimer at 615-933-4647 or via email at [email protected].
We produce ads and influencer marketing for our clients.
