video inspiration Monday: who is your target audience?

I’ve got a few more videos today to help inspire you to take part in the Crafting an MBA video challenge, but before I share them I want to talk about something very important:

Have you thought about the target audience for your videos?

Making videos can be an effective way of marketing your business, but only if those videos are aimed at your right people – your ideal customer.  If your videos aren’t aimed at your customer, you’ll have a hard time turning those views into sales.

One of the questions I’ve gotten about the challenge is whether or not “how-to” videos are acceptable.  While the challenge rules are pretty open in terms of the types of videos that qualify, I think it’s important to keep in mind that “how-to” videos are more likely to bring in other makers, rather than your ideal customer.  (Obviously, the exception to this rule is if you sell supplies.)

But this doesn’t mean you can’t share your process.  In this video, Katie from Katie Blair Designs shows a behind the scenes of her process – it’s not a “how-to”, and she’s kept it short enough so that potential customers are likely to watch:

When it comes to talking about process, you have to balance providing an intersesting story for your audience with too much technical jargon.  One way to do this is to create a short, documentary-style video that blends your story with your process.  Levi’s (yes, the denim company) is creating a new series of videos called Made Here that should inspire anyone to go out and create more video:

Of course, this kind of video works best if you’ve got a friend to work the camera for you.  But you can still create plenty of great video with the camera on the tripod, like the two examples below.

The impulse to make how-to videos is a worthy one, because they are some of the most watched videos on YouTube.  Just remember to keep any how-tos focused on information your customers, not your competitors, would want to know.  ModCloth has a great series of videos where they show you how to pack for different kinds of trips using their products:

When you’re brainstorming ideas for your videos, always ask yourself who the target audience is and how you can focus more on them. I wanted to create a video where I talk about why steel is such a great material for jewelry. But instead of focusing on why I love to MAKE jewelry out of steel (which would probably only appeal to other metalsmiths) I talked about why I love WEARING jewelry made from steel, and why my potential customers will love it too:

So as your creating your videos, be sure to ask yourself “who is the target audience for my products and are they also the target audience for this video?”

And once you’ve made those videos, don’t forget to upload them to YouTube with the tag “craftMBA” for a chance to win a Sony Bloggie HD video camera. (And for those of you wondering, on Thursday I’ll be sharing a great video tutorial on how to edit your videos!)