Audiovisual information can open doors for your life science company. It can visualize what you are doing; it can illustrate your solution; it can grab the attention of key persons in your field, or of those interested in your service. And, above all, audiovisual information can create solid bonds with people worldwide. Your life science company can be more visual in many ways and make your product more alive.
When mentioning video content, I am not just talking about expensive professional productions or increasing the number of views on Youtube. Video also directly benefits your non-scientific audience. The less knowledgeable a person is in your field, the more that person may need to watch a video explaining your product. This allows you to attract more professionals from other backgrounds, and contribute to your international expansion.
Why do humans tend to watch videos, rather than consume any other content format? The answer: we are naturally made for it. We really are visual beings. Our mental laziness means we gravitate towards information that is easy to process. The human brain is fundamentally designed to decode visual data. When it comes to analyzing, remembering, and sharing information, video cannot be beaten by text.
The key lies at the back of our heads: the primary visual is found in the occipital lobe, in both cerebral hemispheres. It is capable of making fast connections to already-stored information, helping to fix concepts, including, of course, those of your potential clients and investors.
Videos have created a huge internet buzz
You will discover countless statistics supporting the idea that video is the best choice to increase your sales. By 2022, for instance, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic. There are thousands of websites showing that good video content can be very powerful. However, the competition for attention is ferocious.
What is your main priority right now?
First of all, try to adapt the format of your marketing content to your business’ current conditions and needs. Could the use of videos boost your presentations, speeches, face-to-face sales, and promotional activities?
For example, Brazilian biotech startup Biosolvit used video content to demonstrate the efficacy of its oil absorbent solution that helped clean the northeastern beaches of the country after a massive oil spill. The video is simple, fast, and was produced with a small budget. Even though the video is in Brazilian Portuguese, international viewers can also understand the video as the visualization makes this possible.
You can use a much more complex approach too, with a full audiovisual perspective as Novartis uses. Novartis´platform includes video content of scientists sharing their opinions, business developers talking about financial results, or patients discussing their conditions. By using different formats smartly, they have created dozens of videos.
But remember, there are also YouTubers with larger audiences than some of the biggest television channels worldwide. In the long term, with the right content, your startup could also win the audiovisual branding battle against one of the top biotechs. It’s not always a matter of money. In case you were wondering, the most-watched Youtube video for the search term ‘science experiment’ does not belong to a sophisticated, fancy pharma company. It was made by a kid and his parents.
A variety of elements can be part of your video content
Coming back to video marketing, several ingredients could be used as an additional resource: screenshots of your daily work, team meetings, investigations, testimonials, or latest updates. It is worth noting that a vlog documenting your scientific journey could be very effective to show authenticity and to grow your community.
There is no doubt that video content presenting staff members is highly recommended. They help build trust and humanize your life science company, giving potential customers the opportunity to visit your office and meet your team virtually. If you want to go a step further, showing your lab facilities in a 360º degree video content could be an engaging experience for your viewers too.
If you don’t have the resources, even a video sequence of static images and informative text could do the trick. Maybe, paying thousands of euros to a marketing video agency doesn´t make much sense for you at this moment. But if the opposite is the case, you should consider it. Investing in a high-quality 3D animation or the services of an expert video producer, especially when you want to explain complex information, will help you to attract the most relevant stakeholders, and enable them to comprehend why your life science company is worth their money and time. And all of that in less than five minutes.
You can also go for a mixed solution. You could make use of professional services to create the introduction or a common part for all your videos and then attach different content. You could also create different versions of your videos, with several levels of complexity depending on the audience you want to address.
If you don’t yet have a clear concept about your video strategy, good practices of video marketing or STEM videos can be a useful source. One of the most common versions asks a relevant, surprising question, or suggests a challenge in the title, and uses the video to explain the answer or solution.
Regardless of the type of video content you will choose, always prioritize entertainment and education over sales.
Editing and SEO
You already have the basic recording equipment inside your pocket. Our smartphone camera is a great start. Moreover, you have a lot of free online video editing tools, such as Shotcut, Openshot, Inshot (easy to use), or Blender (good for 3D animation) at your disposal, as well as other useful resources to add audio or create custom thumbnails.
Like the bestseller covers in a bookstore, an eye-catching thumbnail could be a critical element in your sales strategy. Try to represent your content accurately, consider the size and resolution, and avoid just taking a frame from the video, or repeating the title.
Once your video is edited, you need to take other steps into account, including the date, recording location, copyright information, media format, and most importantly, the title, video description, and tags. After all, it is the metadata, the textual information existing behind the video content, that will gain clicks.
Another recommendation to boost your video’s SEO is to transcribe each video verbatim. Include the video text in the HTML of each page on which the video is hosted, and in the video´s description box too. This action will provide more tracks for search engines to crawl, and figure out what your content involves. Since videos include little text, you must be strategic. You can also include a Video Sitemap, an XML-file containing your video´s metadata. Search engines like that too.
Science dissemination needs video content
In more general terms, interesting video content combined with good storytelling is one of the fundamental tools of science dissemination around the world. I think it would be great for humanity if science communication via video keeps growing and gaining in popularity. Scientists still have to adjust to using video cameras and explaining all the marvelous things they know and discover in more visual ways to other professionals and popular audiences, including, hopefully, politicians. The world of inaccessible scientific papers is a clear example.
So to those of you at the forefront of scientific advancements, pave the way of science dissemination with videos. Let us engage emotionally with your biotech product, and be your VIP guests as we discover the unique innovations being built in your lab.
At Labiotech, we work hard to create compelling digital biotech content for our readers. If you want to know more about how we are sustaining the digital transformation and how we reach the right audience, book a call with our team or download our 2020 media kit for more information! We are always happy to share out wisdom.