The Importance of Background Music for Video Marketing Success
Video has become the most effective tool in almost every company’s digital marketing strategy today. The numbers show that two-thirds of marketers in the US are investing in producing and promoting videos on social media.
Marketing experts use videos in Product Explainers, Company Showreels, Business Presentations, Video blogs, Product Tutorials, Online Ads, Interviews and host shows, Product videos, and more.
Before we get into the importance of choosing the right background music for video, let me show you some numbers that could demonstrate the use of video as one of the most important trends of digital marketing experts today.
Research by Cisco revealed that by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — that is 15 times higher than it was in 2017. No wonder why YouTube has become the second most popular website around the world after Google, with over 1.9 billion people using YouTube. That’s about one-third of the internet!
Videos make it easy and more competing for viewers to consume content by giving visual and emotional freedom to companies in representing their products with the right tone. According to a HubSpot survey, nearly 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.
It is a simple fact that we all prefer to process visual content instead of reading long texts, but adding great visuals to a video is just half the way to get your desired attention. Music is so essential to the overall impact of a video.
A highly engaging video is most likely to include background music, as well. The question is, how do we find the right soundtrack for our video? What music style would best serve you to increase engagement and brand awareness? How to pick the right music license for your needs and to be 100% sure that you won’t get any music copyrights claims?
| Contents
What is Production Music?
How to choose the right music for your video
How to establish your Brand Voice with music
Background music for B2B videos
How to optimize your videos for YouTube
Background music for explainer videos
Conclusion
What Is Production Music?
Production music is a term used to describe music compositions which are especially created and produced for the purpose of being used as background music in advertising and audiovisual productions.
Production music, also known as stock music, library music, promotional music, and royalty-free music, is the most common solution for brands and individual content creators today when it comes to legally using music soundtracks in promotional videos, business presentations, podcasts, TV/Radio ads, and so on.
The main reason that production music has become so popular during the digital revolution lies in the fact that music libraries offer straightforward licensing costs that allow customers a simple, quick and cost-effective way of securing original, high-quality music for commercial use in a variety of media platforms.
This type of music is estimated at around 80% of what we all hear on a daily basis. You can find it on YouTube videos, podcasts, games and apps, TV and radio commercials, movie trailers, on-hold music, documentaries, and the list goes on and on…
Foximusic offers quality production music in all kinds of styles and moods. Our simple and cost-effective music licenses offer pre-clearance for almost any type of usage with an easy and safe purchasing process.
How to choose the right music for your video
Choosing the right music can make or break your video, knowing your video’s goal is a key feature in understanding how music can enhance your message. Is your video entertaining or informative? Is it product based or brand orientated? What is the general vibe and energy you are trying to convey? What about your target audience?
For informative videos, choosing a loud soundtrack would probably not fit well, so you better go with soft corporate or ambient style music, the type of music that in most cases would make a good job when synced as background music in low volume compared to the voiceover. In that case, the soundtrack won’t steal the viewer’s attention, but still could make a big impact on the emotional trigger that your message requires.
Does your video’s main theme deal with entertainment and fun vibes? You’re best going with more uplifting and upbeat music, In the style of Fashion, Lifestyle, Hip Hop, Indie Rock, Funk, Groovy, and so on…
Music is a very powerful tool that can help set the mood. How do you want your viewers to feel during the different parts of your videos? Excited? Full of suspense? Chilled? Confident? Positive and Hopeful? Sad and Wondering? Happy and Thrilled? Epic and Victorious?
Music is fun, I’ve never heard of anyone who doesn’t get emotional from listening to good music. So sit back, relax and listen to a few tracks in each relevant category and enjoy! The perfect track is always waiting for you to reveal it. Let your imagination take charge and enjoy your time searching for that perfect track for your work. If you are too busy during the day, just get back to your search during the evening, when you have more relaxed, free time. A piece of good advice for enjoying that creative process of finding the song for your production would be to use a good pair of headphones or proper speakers with a clear volume setup, let your body feel the vibrations of the bass and other music frequencies to get a full musical experience – music is fun!
How to Establish Your Brand Voice with Music
There is a direct connection between branding and music. Branding is all about storytelling, and music is a perfect tool for enhancing storytelling to its full potential. Well developed brands and established corporations that can easily define their brand would most likely end up finding tracks that better help tell their stories in a short amount of time.
Can you think of music as part of your brand? Can you dress up your brand with only one or two music styles? If the answer is yes, then you are in a great position to find the right music soundtracks for your videos in no time.
Creating a strong, unique, consistent brand voice allows you to build the identity that your customers think of when they hear your brand name. Here are a few important questions to consider when establishing your brand voice around your business:
- Can you name five main values of your brand?
- What’s your mission as an organized company?
- Can you name two main benefits of your company?
- Who is your target audience?
- How do you wish your brand would make consumers feel?
- What is the general tone of your communications?
- Is there anything in particular that could define you from your competitors?
One of the best tools to establish a unique brand voice is with video. Video enables you to create an authentic experience of your brand. It allows you to expose the personality of your brand through faces, ideas, music, and stories. According to the WyzOwl report from 2019, more than 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool on social media. That number is increasing everyday! It all comes down to the return on investment (ROI). 88% of video marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media (Animoto).
Background Music for B2B Videos
Not only do videos keep users more engaged, but they also play a rather important role in their decision-making process. According to WyzOwl report, 79% of people say a brand’s video has convinced them to buy a piece of software or download an app.
If you ever took part in a basic branding course or even hold a degree in digital marketing or branding, the first class would probably be focused on one word – Storytelling. Your main goal in creating a brand identity is not to trigger your target audience to act, but to tell a good story! something that will inspire and engage viewers at the same time, and eventually would help your audience to differ you from others and become your loyal customers for the long run.
Storytelling is all about being creative enough so as to give your fans something different, something fresh and unique that people can relate to on a personal level. Video production is the best tool for maximizing your efforts in telling your brand’s story by demonstrating the benefits of your product or service.
When it comes to using production music to support your story, do not settle for a piece of cheesy corporate style music. Try to find your tone and emotional vibe in a well-produced piece of music that can identify your brand from your competitors.
Here are two tips that can help you in creating your next video that would support your brand’s voice and help in attracting quality leads for the long run:
Video Duration
Always keep it short and to-the-point. The duration of the video should be around 60 seconds. In most cases, user engagement would drop after 60 seconds while viewing any kind of video, particularly if viewers are not familiar with your brand. Your challenge is to make a maximum impact in a minimum amount of time.
Use Landing Pages for Your Videos
According to an Forbes study report, Videos help keep users on your website longer and also keep them more engaged. The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video.
How to Optimize Your Videos for YouTube
Video SEO
When embedding your videos on your YouTube channel and other social video platforms, it’s highly important to focus on optimizing that content for search engines. Although you may know video SEO basics like using relevant keywords and optimizing the title tag. You’ll also want to follow these expert SEO tips to get your video rank high on YouTube, Google, and other content discovery platforms.
YouTube explains how its search engine algorithm works in two sentences:
“Videos are ranked based on a variety of factors including how well the title, description, and video content match the viewer’s query. Beyond that, we look at which videos have driven the most engagement for a query, and make sure it’s easy for viewers to find those.”
Informative and “Shareable” Video Description
Your video description should include valuable information that can help viewers find your videos in search results. Put the most relevant keywords toward the beginning of your description. Use Google Trends and Google Ads’ Keyword Planner to find popular keywords that are most relevant to your content.
Eye-Catching and Effective Image Thumbnails
A video thumbnail is the first thing your potential audience sees on search results, so it’s always crucial to spend time optimizing it and make it more relevant and eye-catching and to make it stand out. Google and other search engines can’t tell if an image is more beautiful and eye-catching or relevant to its content, but actually they do rank your video or an image higher based on how it looks! The more attractive and engaging a video or an image is, the more it can attract more viewers to interact and click on it, watch it, share it, so it will actually be ranked higher on search engines.
Create YouTube Playlists
A YouTube channel playlist is a group of videos that users can subscribe to. Whenever you add a new video to that certain playlist, the subscriber will be notified. In addition, Playlists are indexed in the YouTube search results and it could rank higher than a single video.
Include YouTube End Screens and Cards
Create a simple call-to-action (CTA) feature in your videos by using these two simple tools. Go to Creator Studio and check the left side to find the Video Manager.
YouTube Cards are more interactive and you can use images and links. Use up to three cards per video. Viewers are more likely to start ignoring them if you are using these pop-ups more than three times per video. Make the most of cards by putting them at relevant times during your video. Always avoid posting completely random links during your video, it will confuse your viewers so it’s not very helpful.
End screens only appear in the last 20 seconds of your videos, but still, it’s crucial to let those viewers who watched your video have a direct call-to-action message. You can encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel and send them directly to your products page.
Background Music for Explainer Videos
Explainer videos are in most cases short animated clips that introduce a problem and the following solution in the form of a product or a service. The main goal in explainer videos is to take complex ideas and transform them into easy to understand stories. The big majority of online customers today are watching an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
Best Background Music for Explainer Videos
As I’ve mentioned before, an Explainer Video can be divided into two parts, the problem introduction, and the solution explanation. The two parts demand two different emotional triggers.
For the first part, where we introduce the problem, we would like to have a slow to mid beat, soft emotional music style with minimal arrangements. A good music track can be found in the Soft Ambient category, or in the Emotional / Inspirational category.
For the second part, where we present the solution is a crucial part of our video. You would like to present the solution in an entirely different mood. This is your chance to let your viewers get excited about your product or service that comes to solve their problem. You can start your soundtrack search in the Inspiring Corporate category, or Indie Rock Music category if you need a more powerful beat. You can also find some great Upbeat music tracks, Funk / Groove songs, Happy and Optimistic tunes, or even Inspirational Tech music. Basically everything that is positive and uplifting. It really depends on your content and brand identity.
Conclusion
It is no news that videos are the most effective business marketing tools. I’ve machined just a few kinds of research, stats and facts that have already proved this point time and again. A video is a great tool in building your brand’s identity and by producing a video as a branding product, you should always keep in mind how you want your brand to make your consumers feel.
Video is an audio-visual format and in most cases, the average business video creators underestimate the importance of taking the time to find some well-produced music tracks to be synced as a background music soundtrack for the video.
Foximusic offers a professionally produced music tracks catalog that is waiting for you to explore and to help you get the most of your video production. You can visit our FAQ for extra information about our music licensing terms and pricing, payment options, and more.
