Marketing is always evolving. As soon as a marketing method emerges, marketers look for ways to improve it. Dynamic video content is the result of that unending search for higher engagement, better results, and more robust performance.
What is Dynamic Video?
Dynamic video is a type of personalized video that changes in real time based on who is watching. Certain key elements of the video shift to create a personalized experience for the viewer.
Dynamic is one of those adjectives that’s so overused as to be almost meaningless. Batman and Robin are the Dynamic Duo. Event venues have made waves with dynamic pricing and football players are described as dynamic playmakers.
Although the word implies change and energy, the business world often uses it as a synonym for powerful. We’ve all heard the phrases “dynamic marketing solution” or “a dynamic strategy.” In the case of dynamic video, the term is a literal description of how these videos work.
Think of dynamic video content as a choose-your-own-adventure story. Except data makes the choices instead of the viewer. This brings up an important point.
It’s easy to confuse dynamic video content with interactive videos. An interactive video encourages the user to click or otherwise physically engage with the video to change the outcome.
The changes in a dynamic video or personalized video are pre-programmed. The user doesn’t have to do anything. They just watch the video and see content that is specifically relevant to them.
Dynamic Video Examples
Facebook often creates dynamic videos for their users. These animated videos showcase pictures of you and a friend to celebrate a “Friendiversary.” Of course, Facebook isn’t creating a truly unique video for each of its 2.38 billion active users. The time and expense required makes such an approach impossible.
Instead, Facebook created a handful of dynamic videos—animations with bits of code in them to pull images from a database. The animation remains the same for each video, but the pictures change to showcase images from your wall. Which is why these types of videos are sometimes called personalized videos.
Need another example? Way back in 2015, Nike used dynamic video to create customized videos for more than 100,000 Nike+ Users.
In the video above, Nike used totals from all Nike+ users. But in the customized videos, individual user data was displayed. Users were encouraged to share their videos on social media. And they did, because the video wasn’t about Nike, it was about the user.
Here’s another powerful example of dynamic video content in action. In 2018, Eckerd College created a personalized admission video to welcome students to their program.
Throughout the 2 minute and twenty-three second video, the student’s name appears on the screen several times, helping the student immediately feel like part of the community.
More recently, you may have seen a friend share their Spotify wrapped video. This dynamic video pulls data about the users listening habits and formats it into a colorful video for each of Spotify’s 456 million active users.
Why Personalize Videos?
The theory is that dynamic video content can boost engagement. Which would you rather watch, a generic video about a product, or one that calls you by name and answers your specific question?
Right.
Dynamic video changes video from a broadcast into a conversation. At least, that’s the goal. When a consumer watches a dynamic video, they feel like you’ve created the content specifically for them.
Just like personalized email subject lines increase open rates, dynamic video can increase click through rates. It makes users feel valued and strengthens their relationship with your brand.
The irony is this feeling of personal human connection is created by data. Facebook uses dynamic video effectively because they have a huge volume of user data to pull from. Technology enables them to create videos at scale.
You may not have Facebook’s formidable resources, but you can still create compelling dynamic video content to delight and inform your viewers.
How To Use Dynamic Video
As dynamic video has grown in popularity, services have popped up to help you make dynamic videos.
- Pirsonal is a video editing tool that helps you create a personalized video template.
- Jivox focuses on helping brands create personalized ads.
- Affectivity offers a platform that uses data and platform integration to create personal videos and dynamic video advertisements.
If you or someone on your team knows enough code, you may even be able to create one for yourself. If you don’t know database administration and Javascript coding, a single blog post can’t teach you everything you need. So let’s focus instead on how to use dynamic video as part of your marketing strategy.
The simplest dynamic videos might just add the user’s name to key scenes in the video. In the 21st Century ad above, the first few frames call the viewer by name and include what appears to be a profile picture. But if you have more information about your customers you can do more.
A lot more. For example:
- You might have two different voice over tracks. One plays for users in California while a slightly altered track plays for users in Nevada…
- Or you might include a map image that adjusts to match the city that the customer is watching from…
- Or, you could present a different CTA at the end of the video based on browser search history.
Healthcare organizations can use dynamic video to teach patients about their condition or treatments. HR can use it to personalize training for different roles. And, of course, corporations can use it to create custom advertisements on social media.
Integrate dynamic video into your marketing campaign by sending video emails, embedding them on custom landing pages, or creating ads for social media.
Dynamic Video Ads on YouTube and Social Media
One powerful way to use dynamic video is in video advertising on YouTube and Social media. Don’t confuse dynamic ads with dynamic lineups. (We told you the word gets thrown around a lot in marketing.)
Dynamic lineups use AI to identify the ads most likely to be of interest to users who are watching your video on YouTube. By contrast, dynamic ads are video templates with content that changes based on user demographics, search history, and other factors.
You’ll need a third-party service to create dynamic video ads for YouTube. On Facebook and Instagram, support for dynamic video ads is built in.
These ads can show different items from your catalog based on the interest of viewers. They can also switch out on-screen text, graphics, and even Google maps images to meet the needs of a specific viewer.
How to Succeed with Dynamic and Personalized Video
Remember that regardless of how much cutting edge technology you pour into your video, the message should still be the heart of it. Personalized video marketing won’t save you if you don’t have an engaging video with a clear message.
The technology is just there to help you capture viewer attention. To keep them engaged, you need to deliver a useful, interesting, or entertaining message. Start with the message and build out from there.
For help creating a compelling explainer video or other video content, contact IdeaRocket. Our video creation experts work at the cutting edge of technology to create videos that entertain, engage, and convert your audience.
