The Best Selling Drug on the Market: Online Video
There is a new drug on the market that is the biggest moneymaker yet to date. Crushing the numbers of Viagra in 99, this drug is proven to increase sales, influence buyer decisions, and create brand loyalty. With more clicks than a Kardashian and more smiling faces than Cialis, this new drug is quickly increasing web traffic, building brand loyalty, and establishing itself as a game changer and thought leader in the world of Pharmaceuticals. What is this magic drug you ask of? None other than online video!
Today’s customer uses online video for just about everything. From learning the latest hairstyle to buying a car, online video is one of the biggest influencers on buyer decisions. When a customer lands on a page, they don’t want to read about your product. In 2016, customers want to be entertained via online video. According to Cisco,, “consumer internet video traffic will be 80 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2019, up from 64 percent in 2014.”
Marketers are taking note, with “64 percent of respondents indicated video content will dominate their strategies moving forward” (Brafton). Online video can include how-to videos, tutorials, infotainment, advice videos, and product demonstrations.
- Better SEO: While purchasing ad space online is a proven way to complete your ROI, joining social media and video together makes for the greatest organic reach. Google, the largest search engine in the world is the owner of YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world. Using video can easily boost a pharmaceutical companies search ratings, promising you more organic (unpaid) eyeballs for your videos. Make sure to include a clear call to action and/or link that drives the viewer to take action in the sense of clicking through to your site.
2. Teach with Entertainment: Consumers are educated individuals and they’re jaded to the typical slice of life advertisements they see on television. When it comes to influencing buying decisions and capturing a lifelong customer, Pharmaceutical companies need to provide unique, useful information in an entertaining way. GlaxoSmithKline’s YouTube channel is filled with engaging informational videos on a wide variety of subjects. GSK takes a typically boring subject like research and transforms it into an entertaining video with their “Finding New Ways to Fight Antibiotic Resistance.” By telling their own personal story and utilizing quick cuts and graphics, GSK completely renovated the way to communicate an issue. These educational videos create brand awareness with an up and coming young demographic.
3. Influence Buyer Decisions: If you want to acquire customers and influence buyer decisions, you have to go where the eyeballs are; in 2016, that is online. People don’t want to read long editorials or blogs. They want their information with the click of the button and they want it conveyed in an entertaining, captivating fashion. They’re also getting information in different ways than ever before. People are going to YouTube and Facebook for their news, scrolling through Instagram for entertainment, and getting almost all of their information through their mobile devices. The Pharmaceutical industry has an opening in the market and an opportunity to influence buyer decisions by using persuasive and compelling videos across mobile-friendly platforms. Videos should be optimized for mobile phones, tablets, and iPads, and live across all social platforms as well as a company's website to elevate customer acquisition.
While optimizing for all these platforms can be laborious and time consuming, it’s stretches the use of any one video. At Concepts Video, we specialize in optimizing videos across all platforms with our editing team. Instead of only getting a few thousand videos on one platform, with our “Social Media Edit Package,” we optimize your video for each platform to ensure proper viewing and expand the video’s reach beyond the normal commercial’s reach.
4. Non-Audio Video: We’re not talking about black and white videos made before “talkies.” We’re talking about creating video content that can be viewed without sound on a Facebook or Instagram feed. Many viral videos are made with eye-catching scenes and simple, yet educational subtitles. These videos are great for viewers to watch while on their commute to work or in an area where audio cannot be used. This format pairs perfectly with Facebook’s new automatic video feed. Once a user watches one video, another is queued and starts automatically after the first. This automatic player is great for video ads as users tend to watch video ads as much as viral videos. These sound-free videos are shared easily and can generate millions of organic views.
5. Make it Professional: With the rise of video content, your videos need to stand out from the rest. You need to hire a professional production company that can properly light, hire talent, and edit your story so that it clearly conveys your message without being distracted by poor production quality. When an individual reads a brochure, he or she only retains 10 percent of the information 72 hours later, according to Business 2 Community. In video's case, the retention rate is 68 percent. Everyone retains information more easily through visuals. Johnson & Johnson’s YouTube channel is filled with entertaining, informative, and professional videos. Their “Distinctly Dad” film has almost 1,000,000 views on YouTube and places the Johnson & Johnson in households without yelling and selling.
6. Turns a Story into Conversion: How can a Pharmaceutical company connect with their customers without alienating them online? By including a story! How can your company become relatable? When GlaxoSmithKline created their YouTube channel, GSKvision, they loaded their channel with patient stories and short films offering nutritional and wellness advice. By sharing real life user testimonials, they are able to share the benefit of the product and the story behind it, and thus, earn the valuable trust of their consumers. This alternative method of gaining consumers can pay limitless dividends as entertaining and emotional stories will be shared and watched organically.
7. Stop Selling, Start Educating: Having a clear call to action at the end of a video will drive traffic and sales to your website, but it must be done in a non “yell and sell” fashion. Consumers are weary of buy now buttons and can see right through an overzealous sell. By displaying concise, targeted, entertaining video that is short in length, Pharmaceutical companies can drive traffic to other parts of their website, acquire email addresses, and build lifelong customers. The world of online video means that Pharmaceutical companies need to take an informational and educational approach and stay away from the sales pitch.
8. Video Annotations: When creating a video, it’s important for Pharmaceutical companies to overlay clickable text on a YouTube video to give the viewer easy access to a website or other pertinent information to keep the viewer fully engaged. Renovate products, special offers, frequently asked questions, and interactive links to keep articles fresh. Even better, include an email capture to capture precious email addresses and interact with customers. One of the most searched topics on YouTube is “How-to” videos. Many companies like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Eli Lilly have developed themselves as influencers by generating free informational videos for their users. These videos build trust with users and generate more brand awareness.
9. Build Customer Service Through Content: Let’s face it, between all of the news stories and television advertisements, it is hard for consumers to fully trust Pharmaceutical companies. There is one way to change that – through video. There is a new way to build customer service and that is through content. When made in an entertaining way, video allows businesses to have a conversation with their user. There is a new way to build customer service and that is through content. Provide your customers with pertinent, helpful information and you will have a place in their hearts and their wallets. Make it easy for users to find answers to new products with simple “How-to” videos. Users are more likely to watch a “how-to” video from the manufacturing company than another user. Eliminating any confusion and headaches will make a happy and loyal customer.
10. Shareable: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Sharing is the new word of mouth marketing. By creating an engaging, entertaining, and informational video for viewers, they can easily share this video with their friends. Instead of spending precious ad dollars on television, creating a viral video can organically reach millions. When Concepts produced a video for the product Woof Washer, we placed the video on Facebook. Because of its jaw-dropping demos, the Internet went crazy over. It was shared so quickly that in a week’s period, the video was viewed over 66 million times. Pharmaceutical companies have an opportunity to create videos that users will share with their friends, boosting their organic reach and unpaid acquired customers.
All photos from https://pixabay.com/
Sources
Brafton. “Survey Says: Marketers Increase Social & Video Content Budget.” 16 April 2013. http://www.brafton.com/news/survey-says-marketers-increase-social-video-content-budgets/
“Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2014-2019 White Paper.”
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.html
Long, Courtland. “Why Video is a Compelling Pharmaceutical Marketing Tool.” Oct 8, 2013. http://news.medterasolutions.com/integrated-marketing/why-video-is-a-compelling-pharmaceutical-marketing-tool
Trimble, Chris. “Why online video is the future of content marketing.” The Guardian. 30 July 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/jan/14/video-content-marketing-media-online
“Video in the C-Suite: Executives Embrace the Non-Text Web.” Forbes. http://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/Video_in_the_CSuite.pdf
