When it comes to running an enticing media campaign—whether organic, paid, or personal—animated video will prove its worth end-over-end in 2019. We have already seen a massive shift from written to visual content on every social media feed. Humans are inherently visual learners. Simple animation captures attention more than a stylish static piece. But don’t start to throw out any of those high-performing blogs quite yet! The best approach is to cut through the noise and draw traffic through dynamically rich media.
The solution is clear, but the path forward is still causing designers and marketers alike more than a little frustration. Promoting each piece of content with a unique animation is a huge project, not to mention the necessity of fast-paced delivery. So how do you keep a balance between speed and relevance?
A Balanced Approach
While the standard method was to assign your designer the task of creating unique animations for various promotional content, events, or announcements, there is now an easier way to do it. In our ongoing campaign for our client, the payments giant Paya, our designer and content-marketer teamed up to produce a family of animation templates that would satisfy Paya’s large media needs. By designing a system of video templates (built in Adobe products After Effects and Premiere) for content production use, the templates could be accessed directly by any campaign manager without involving the video team.
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Whether the client needed to promote thought leadership, make an announcement about an upcoming trade show, talk about their latest acquisition, or have their PR team react to something relevant in the industry, Paya was there with an animated post on-time, on-message, and on-brand!
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One Style. Infinite Possibilities.
Building an adaptable animation template that can express various topics and be exported to various sizes and be ready to deliver to multiple platforms requires creative ingenuity that goes beyond the typical one-and-done animations. Motion designers are tasked with creating a template style that is more than just a quick-burning Instagram post but instead satiates a myriad of topics, content, and announcements that the campaign manager will need to post on many social feeds.
Through a thoughtful design approach, we created a fool-proof template system that even newcomers to the Adobe toolset felt empowered to create with. Every template featured static brand elements to choose from, allowing users to alternate background colors, exchange font weights, swap logo color combinations, and pull text overlay effects to match any of the pre-loaded animation sequences. The templates were for more than just editing text between an intro and outro scene; they empowered the campaign managers with an editable, on-brand aesthetic that could convey any message.
While the organic posts looked as expensive as a paid ad (and could theoretically be used that way if needed), the brand could talk to its audiences in a visually polished and dynamic way without exhausting the budget or personnel. When it comes to launching an organic social media campaign, nothing could be smoother.
Animating a Multi-lingual Message
Whether it’s for a new brand-launch, a pivot in the target industry or audience, or just an upgrade for your editorial calendar, building a scalable video technique will be worth it in 2019. Animation simplifies complex topics, and working with a video template can deliver exciting topics on a regular schedule.
Imagine posting up-to-the-minute quotations from a popular conference, results of an ongoing political election, or even public announcements during an emergency event—one can access, customize, and export a unique animation without mobilizing the whole creative team on a Saturday afternoon. Use the messaging you already have, but make it come alive.
The sports world has already edged in this direction, but can you imagine a situation where releasing stats and highlights immediately after the game doesn’t demand a massive commitment from your whole marketing and creative squad? Think quick, engaging, and exciting posts in a personalized way.
An Account-Based Marketer’s Dream
This works beautifully for hyper-targeted campaigns. With a few clicks, you can talk to specific companies and audiences, subbing in relevant messaging between a unique intro/outro. You can target your next competitor or customer at the drop of a hat or develop a fleet of content ready-to-go for the entire campaign.
Taking a closer look at 2019 media strategies, video is being used more often for lead generation and conversion. Customers don’t spend as much time talking to sales reps as they do browsing their thought leadership ecosystems. Having a rich media layer in place for this bottom-of-the-funnel viewer is where you can stand out from the competition.
We will begin to see a lot of experimentation as brands find which video tactics resonate well, and which fizzle. Every competitor wants a personalized campaign, but only some are ready to invest the time and money. This approach allows you to do it all. Remember when seeing your name above a generic email made you feel special? This is the 2019 version, and enhancing your messaging map and fueling your personalization strategy with an animated zeal is not as hard as it sounds.