What it takes to succeed in video content ft. Lisa Cheung, Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy at Foundry

I've had a chance to connect with Lisa Cheung, seasoned Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy at Foundry to understand how she thinks about video and content for her company. 

As part of our expert community series at tribetactics, we're always on the lookout to balance our own research with the insights we learn from experts in our community.

Foundry creates pioneering software for creative industries across Digital Design, Media and Entertainment used in many of the movies you've probably seen, including Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse, Blade Runner 2049, and The Avengers to name a few - among lots of other Hollywood and Netflix blockbuster films and series. 

We wanted to learn from her what her recommendations are when it comes to top-funnel brand video content for software companies in 2020. Specifically, what role it serves in engaging new and existing audiences alike.

Learning #1: Your audience are smarter than you think

Lisa:

"For software companies attempting to engage new and existing audiences further up the funnel, the key is to balance technical with brand.

Companies like ours at Foundry - we have extremely technical products used in some of the worlds biggest movies and TV shows and our customers are discerning, highly skilled and creative. They are artists at heart, creating extremely high quality and beautiful ‘pictures' and so the content we create must engage them visually but must also be relevant and useful."

Learning #2: Fine-tune to your existing community, but don't alienate new comers

One of the things that stood out to me is the delicate balance they observe between creating different content types targeting various personas rather than watering down or averaging out the content so that it suits everyone.

Lisa:

"It sounds obvious but a lot of companies get it wrong. Dumb your stuff down too much, focusing on just the aesthetics and you can seem inexperienced, arrogant, unqualified - ‘very marketing’ as many will say. Go too technical and you risk losing or confusing new prospects who don’t know you or aren’t as familiar with your products.

We try to ensure as much of the content we create is done so using our own products or at least showing vs just telling people what our products can do."

Learning #3: Use video to make the journey easier

Taking one's own medicine in their approach is something that is often overlooked by brands, but is something that Foundry realised is instrumental in helping to build trust and authenticity in every interaction through video content.

Lisa:

"I think this is really important for software companies where your very proposition is less tangible and the proof really is in the results of what the technology can do whether that is speed, innovating new ways of working, enabling collaboration, empowering creativity etc."

"For existing audiences, further up in the funnel, especially at the considerations stage, video content like case studies, tutorials, how-tos and webinars are important so they can see the ROI for their investment and get a feel for how they could actually implement the software into their businesses or workflows for freelancers."

Learning #4: Episodic, long-form video content is here to stay

Lisa:

"I think a trend in video which seems to only be growing and we see this ourselves in the media and entertainment industry we operate in, is episodic content. And if this is good episodic content, then with this trend, comes longer form content too.

I never thought I would say it, having preached the need for short form, time-poor consumer content for years in marketing but I have seen our longer form content perform extremely well!"

Learning #5: Relevancy and Consistency is a recipe for short and long-term success

Relevance and consistency will not succeed unless they co-exist.

Lisa:

"Again, it’s all down to relevancy and making sure you get the right kind of stuff out to the right people. If someone follows you, subscribes to your channel - they’re invested - they want to see more and probably expect it. So another thing is consistency - if you can provide people with regular content on topics and themes they are interested in then you are more guaranteed positive engagement."

Looking to get inspiration to start a video series? Check out some of our favourite examples here.