5 Questions with Paul Jongeward

Paul Jongeward is Vice President of Strategy at Morsekode and founder of Think Maker, a strategic consultancy based in Minneapolis. Paul has been working with clients for over twenty years at the convergence of brand, content, and digital strategy. Since 2008, he has played a leading role in building a video content studio and content marketing strategy framework to help organizations leverage this powerful medium more effectively.

Paul will be speaking at MN AMA's event, Getting More Sophisticated in the Era of Video Marketing, on April 26.

We asked Paul five questions about the influence of video marketing.

1. You have been involved with video creation for several years. How did you become interested in video as a format for marketing strategy?
   
   I’ve always been interested in creating differentiated, immersive digital experiences. So video has been a desired content format for a long, long time. Technology finally caught up to our appetite about 8-10 years ago, and shortly thereafter our team at Morsekode created an in-house video studio. Since that time we’ve created a huge volume of video for our clients. Over time, one-off video projects became less and less interesting because the chances of really leveraging those individual assets for big business results is often limited by tactical thinking. The opportunities I’ve had to work on larger video marketing platforms have really opened my eyes to the potential.
    
2. What are some of the biggest hurdles to starting a video marketing campaign?
   
   According to a recent survey of marketers conducted by Demand Metric the top three obstacles for video marketing are lack of budget, lack of internal resources, and an inability to create compelling content. Most marketers can probably relate to these very real challenges. To overcome them we need to think strategically about video and really start to leverage it for measurable business value. Another recent study found that 72% of marketers are using no, or very basic measures of video effectiveness. Until we reverse that trend we’ll continue to struggle in persuading leadership to prioritize video more heavily.
    
3. There are some similarities between television ads and online videos since they are both visual. What can online video content offer that television ads can not?
   
   The goals of television advertising are essentially awareness and brand perception. This has changed somewhat, but it’s still a medium that’s not nearly as accountable as other digital channels. Leading brands are using online video to generate and score leads, not just create an impression. This is a much different approach, requiring a different set of tools to measure performance. Another difference is that television ads are almost exclusively promotional, and they act as an interruption to the content people are actually interested in consuming. Video marketing done well actually becomes the desired content, and people seek it out because it delivers real value in and of itself. Creating content that draws people in is a very different process than creating TV ads.
    
4. In your opinion, is there one type of video that every company should have on its website? Maybe something for employee recruitment or a product demonstration?
   
   It depends on the objective. I will say that video can be extremely effective in many different situations. I’ve seen it used well for recruitment, product explanation, entertainment, changing a belief, delivering valuable news, promoting new categories, teaching complicated material, communicating a company’s culture, and more. Whatever the goal, it should be clearly defined, and the video content should be designed in a way that can deliver measurable results.
    
5. As marketers, we are constantly being asked to prove ROI. Do you think views and shares are good measures for video, or is there a metric more closely tied to a company's bottom line?
   
   Views can be very misleading. For example, a piece of video content may have generated a ton of views, but 90% of viewers are watching less than 10 seconds. So is that a success? I read about a non-profit organization who published a video that got 1.5 million views on YouTube. But only 7 people responded, and it generated zero donations (its primary goal). So I think we need to be more sophisticated than just looking at views. We need to look at how many users are watching until the end, which types of video they watched, and how many took another profitable action. I’ve also seen companies test video in paid media landing pages, email campaigns and digital advertising placements, all of which tend to perform better when video is included. Testing with and without video can provide clear rationale for investing more heavily in video content.  

Image courtesy of Morsekode.