Uploading all your video content straight to YouTube away can be a tempting strategy. It is, after all, simple to do and in theory puts your content in a position to begin attracting views immediately. Unfortunately, the reality of our content saturated online world requires a far more strategic and considered approach to video activation.
By employing a ‘Tease, Launch, Sustain’ approach to video activation, your content is able to better leverage multiple channels by lengthening the launch windows to reach the maximum number of people and create genuine buzz.
The Roots Of The Tease, Launch, Sustain Technique
You might have heard the ‘Tease, Launch, Sustain’ method used in relation to the launch of physical products. Products are teased to audiences prior to the official launch date before being given a wide release with the support of additional marketing to maximise visibility and memorability.
It is a strategy that also translates well into the digital sphere and its adoption can transform a spike in engagement into a steady and sustainable growth in reach and buzz that enhances your video presence, pushing it far further. This technique requires a small amount of additional planning, as it is recommended that your tease deadlines are set for between one and two weeks before your final launch date, allowing you to maximise the potential of this powerful strategy.
Effective Tease, Launch And Sustain Outputs
Creating several different edits using footage from your final video is the key to ‘Tease, Launch, Sustain’ success.
Your primary output should always be your full-length video or ‘Launch film’. Your Tease content should have a 15-20 second runtime and allude to the content of your full Launch video. As for the Sustain section of this strategy, the best results often come from cutting your Launch video into four separate outputs, each with a 6 second runtime.
Step One: Tease
Your 15-20 second Tease trailer should prepare audiences for the main film prior to its release. It should perfectly mirror both the content and tone of your final video and be organically released between 5 and 7 days before your launch deadline. It is unlikely that every facet of your audience will like or relate to this piece of content, so although it will likely take a hit analytics wise, this does mean that these viewers will not click on your full-length video when it is released and won’t transfer short watch times and/or poor retention stats to your Launch content.
Importantly, Tease content creates a level of excitement amongst audiences who will keep checking back for the full release of your main film.
Step Two: Launch
Your focus during this part of your activation strategy must be completely centred around the release of your full-length video. From building a dedicated microsite to announcing its launch through a targeted email campaign, every decision here must feel authentic to both your brand and to the specific piece of content being released.
You will likely garner the best results here by pushing it out organically to your owned audiences. Create social media posts that will appeal to your followers, send emails to past and current customers, showcase it to your website visitors and place it precisely where people with an existing brand affinity will see it.
During the first 7 days after publication on YouTube, your video will benefit from positive indexing and high search rankings. During this time YouTube will build, analyse and track engagement levels before using these to determine your video's ranking position. With likes, dislikes, and average completion rates all contributing to this key ranking decision, it is crucial to use these first 7 days to source the maximum amount of positive data from your owned audiences before pushing your content out elsewhere.
Step Three: Sustain
After maximising views and engagement from your owned audiences, you must strive to expand the reach of your content by sharing it with interest audiences, competitor audiences, similar-to audiences, and active buyer audiences. The best way to do this effectively is by leveraging the power of promoted posts.
After circulating your content to a larger but relatively generic audience, utilising focused stills to target more precise audiences can deliver strong results. It is crucial, however, to avoid clickbait techniques, which will engage audiences who won’t be interested in the actual content of your video and will negatively impact key metrics.
Additionally, the 6 second edits mentioned earlier can be used as part of a paid YouTube pre-roll advertising campaign which will provide the opportunity to focus on audiences who have already watched your Launch video and allow you to emphasise specific sections that will ideally encourage them to convert.
Utilising this three-part approach will help you to maximise the impact of your video content and deliver far better results for your video content.