10 seconds. That’s all the time you get. Those first 10 seconds of a video are the most important.
Have you managed to hook your audience’s attention and keep them wanting to watch until the very end?
People’s attention spans are becoming shorter and there is a wealth of information available to them. Why should they keep watching your video? What is it going to tell them, show them, or make them feel, so that they won’t go elsewhere?
Understand Your Audience
The key is to really understand your audience. Have a good think about this and make sure you know exactly who they are. This will help you determine the content they will want to see.
A few ideas to get you started:
• Are they young adventure-seekers or are they middle-aged food fanatics?
• Do they enjoy visiting historic sites or do they enjoy reading by the beach?
You see, these are quite different markets and will therefore, be attracted to different types of video. You want to get it right for your target market. Make it relevant.
Plan Your Video Content
If you really understand your audience and what they engage with, then you are already half way there. It’s just about coming up with content on a regular basis that will satisfy this want.
So drawing from the examples above, perhaps they are adventure-seekers, who enjoy more extreme activities. They would be interested to see people paragliding over the Alps, high above the ground. Or perhaps people wind-surfing on the Med.
Or perhaps they are a real foodie, you will want to appeal to that and show them the food that they could experience and taste. A video showing how a pizza is made the traditional way, from gathering ingredients to tossing it in the air.
There’s actually a new trend in food tourism videos, that’s more about the story behind the food, rather than showcasing the food itself. People want to see where the ingredients have come from, where it was foraged, how it has been prepared etc. It’s a great opportunity to get across your destination’s beauty in another way. Here are some food tourism video examples by Skift.
Content Ideas for a Tourism Video
• Showcasing Your Destination
This is one of the easiest ideas for content and probably one you have already used. It works great as an advert for your destination, with shots of the scenery, the places to see and things to do. It’s all about creating an immersive experience that will make people feel like they are there – and that they absolutely have to visit now!
• Case Studies
Time to get a little more creative. Can you create a sort of case study, perhaps a video of one of your visitor’s experiences? A video diary with everything they did on holiday. This creates a more personal and unique approach to the campaign, which will really engage the viewer.
• Interviews & Bloggers
Following on from the idea of case studies, can you get a travel blogger to do a video interview or review of your destination? This will help you to reach a much further audience and create more unique and varying types of content. Royal Caribbean executed this idea perfectly, getting a video, from the bloggers perspective, to appeal to a younger market.
• Testimonial Videos
Do your visitors leave you great reviews? Make good use of this and have video testimonials of people recommending you and your destinations. People trust their peers over out-and-out marketing ploys.
• Interactive Content
Be creative with your videos, can you make it interactive with in-video links, quizzes or surveys? Getting your viewer to interact will also help you to see how effective your video is and how well they have engaged with your content.
• Behind the Scenes
Travellers want to see beyond just the usual. Can you give them something unique? Perhaps a ‘behind the scenes’ chat with a local about what to do in the destination. Or is there an expert chocolate-maker that you visit on your tours? Why not create a video of them making the chocolate and telling you a bit about the process that he goes through to make the ‘World’s Best Chocolate’.
Let’s not stop there. For more inspiration, look at our next instalment on using video with Part 3: 4 Great Examples of Using Video in Tourism Marketing. We will show you some great examples of Tourism Videos and how some brands are really getting it right.
Missed the first part of the series or not convinced that video is the way forward for Tourism Marketing? Read ‘Part 1: Why You Should Use Video in Tourism Marketing‘.
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