If we’re talking about business promotion and growth, the effectiveness of the video format is unparalleled.
However, we often overlook the specific step-by-step process of turning a routine and boring video into a catalyst that will inspire and influence a broad audience.
You might already have a few videos under your belt already, but if you want to improve them, you have to ask yourself:
- Are these videos increasing conversions?
- Did it help your viewers become more engaged with your business?
- Is it raising your brand awareness?
If you’ve answered no to even one of these, it means there’s still room for improvement. By extension, it also means that your videos and other related marketing campaigns aren’t living up to the potential of the video platform, so you have to regroup and think of a new strategy. For your next attempt, all you need is a clear and concise plan of action that guarantees the relevance and engagement of your content–a video that will motivate your viewers into action.
Just look at the videos of any successful marketing campaign, you’ll start to notice that they all have something in common, and it essentially starts with their
video structure. Read on if you want a share of the pie–the secret process winning brand uses.
We’ve broken down this method into three simple steps that any top branding and advertising agency swear by. And if you've done everything correctly, it will help you make attention-grabbing videos that are sure to drive massive sales. Let’s go by each of the “phases” thoroughly:
Phase 1: Research
The first step is to know your product/service and your target market. Do they go hand in hand? If your service or product doesn’t offer up a solution to your audience, then creating videos about said service and product is futile.
You can avoid the potential waste of resources by doing some initial research. This phase will help you validate the purpose of your video while making sure that it can sell. How do you this? – Know what you’re selling. Using a product yourself, letting others try it out and offer feedback is one way you can tackle this. Figure out if there is a present demand for your product.
You can learn who your target audience is by asking yourself questions such as:
- What’s your product’s preferred age group? Will teens be more likely to use it or adults?
- Is your business online, or do you have a physical establishment? If you're part of the latter, then you'd want a customer that lives near your place of operations. After becoming a more prominent brand, you can start asking yourself if you wish to expand nationally or globally.
- What’s the income range that you’re marketing to? Are your products high-end, budget, or somewhere in between?
- Are your products purely being marketed to consumers or other businesses, as well?
By the end of this phase, these action steps should be accomplished:
- Identify the key issues you need to solve
- Determine your product awareness. Is it something consumers already desire, or do they have to be informed beforehand?
- Know the aspects of your product that customers will value
- Find your audience’s “tipping point.” Know what you need to you in order to get them to your side.
- Learn about your product’s weak points and how they can be resolved.
By fleshing these details out, you’ll find it easier to look for ways that can showcase the necessity of your product and why consumers should buy it over a competing brand. These key points will act as the pillars your video story is founded on.
Phase 2: Conceptualization
Here are the four steps you can use as a guide for developing an excellent video concept:
1. Select What The Most Suitable Video Type
The way your video is presented will have a considerable influence on its effect on your audience. Here are the main types you can choose from:
Web Videos:
You can implement your videos on your brand's website. Put them in the pages where you get the most traffic like the "About" or "Home" page. This way, you're increasing the engagement value while showcasing what your business offers. Make these videos short but sweet. No one wants to slog through a 15-minute long video, no matter how big the brand is.
Product Demonstrations:
These videos will help your customers see your product’s key features and what sets it apart from other brands. This is great for deceptively simple products or services that actually have complex underlying structures to them.
Testimonials:
You should ask actual customers (not a paid celebrity or spokesperson)why they love or prefer your brand.
Announcements:
You can debut your latest releases and create some buzz before sending the product out.
Instructional Videos:
This is a very popular video type because it directly shows people how your product or service can solve their problems while building a relationship with your customers.
App Demo:
Another subset of Instructional Videos, an app demo, will be featured indifferent app stores and show why it’s great to potentially increase customer excitement and future downloads.
Head/CEO Interview: Highlight the head of your team to give your audience a better idea of your brand’s culture, passion, purpose, approach, and style.
Company Profile:
Much like the above, this will explain the inner workings of your brand, with all the what's hows and whys.
Investor Presentation:
This presentation will show potential investors the reasons why they should join your team.
Crowd Funding:
These campaigns will not only get you the cash you need, but it will also build a relationship with your customers. A video will explain the purpose of your campaign while offering assurances that you’ll have a quality product by the end of a set date.
Lifestyle Videos:
Most brands have built successful empires not by selling their product/service, but by selling the lifestyle attributed to it. You can show your audience what lifestyle is attributed to your product and evoke a desire for them.
2. Prove That Your Product Or Service Is Beats Your Competition
One way you can go about this is to go directly to your customers. Look at their reviews and speak with customers who’ve already tried out your product to help you identify its differentiating qualities.
- If your product is on Amazon or any other online seller, find what customers have to say about it, be it good or bad.
- Use in-house testing and compare it with the performance of a competitor’s product.
- Run surveys with your past customers asking why they bought the product initially and why they continue to buy it.
- Don’t cage yourself by only speaking with an internal team, because you will learn that going directly to your customer and learning what they want will give you a better insight (and result.)
3. Concept Quality
Make sure that your concept will surprise the viewer and hold their interest while getting your point across. You can compile a list of videos that have done this to you, so you have somewhere to go on. Bonus points if these videos are similar to what your selling, but these should only serve as inspiration, not as something to copy.
- Create great concepts by studying your competitors and observing how they present their product. Now, what can you do to make your product stand out?
- Afterward, look at industries different from yours and seethe video concepts they’ve utilized. Maybe you can be the first in your industry to implementing these concepts.
- Always double-check if your concept fits well with the product. Not every good concept is suited for the current project, so don’t force concepts (no matter how good they are)if they’re not the right fit.
- It’s important to take note that marketers will often try to one-up each other by copying competing brands. Soon after, different brands within the same industry will be showing the same thing, so avoid boxing yourself in.
4. Is Video Production Feasible?
No matter how well you did in the previous steps, you can produce a great video if you don’t have the resources for it. Budgets don’t fully dictate a video’s success; it’s knowing how to properly allocate what you do have that will heavily influence your video quality. When your whole production team has a well-developed understanding of the funds and project scope, the process will go a lot more smoothly.
- The
budget can often be overlooked during the brainstorming phase, which is fine because it shouldn’t play a big part during that step. However, you should make sure that your plans are realistic before locking them in.
- List the resources that you have available (this includes props, actors, locations, animators, etc.) You can find plenty of great online tools that will help you raise your video’s production value while keeping to your budget like:
- Locations: Airbnb or Peer space
- Voiceover Work: Voice123, VoiceBunny
- Actors:
Casting Networks, Backstage, Actors Access
- If you find that you’re going a little over the budget, try switching film locations or remove any extra characters. You can also simplify and streamline your concept to make it more concise (and budget-friendly.)
Remember that while helicopter shots, action sequences, and explosions are cool, they can be very costly. Make your concept realistic without letting your team’s creative juices run dry.
Phase 3: Making A Well-Structured Video
After doing every kind of background work, developing a jaw-dropping video concept, and working out the kinks, now it the time for you to mix in a great story to go along with that concept. It should grab your audience’s attention while keeping their curiosity at an all-time high while watching the entire video.
Here’s our 6-step formula that almost every agency relies on to make a winning script structure:
1. Make “The Hook”
This hook will be your video’s main selling point or idea. It’s the primary source of your audience’s attention at the very beginning. Test out multiple hooks within your team and your audience’s feedback afterward, because “interesting” can have varying meanings for different people. So it’s good to try out many options instead of sticking to one.
Creating a unique twist will help capture the attention of your audience. One example of this is breaking the fourth wall, so to speak. In one popular ad, the brand created a video where its speaker literally screams at the audience and tells them to stop their scrolling. Now that’s a twist. Some brands will also try to gain their viewer’s attention by using eye-catching visuals that aren’t typical of your everyday life. Products that are larger than their actual size are a good example of this.
Here are a few more tips that might help you make your video’s hook:
- Use visual effects like bouncing and shaking images, or unique transitions to keep your audience entertained.
- Make animations for an overall better visual experience.
- Implement a great opening title.
- Offer a promo or discount, essentially an incentive for your customers to keep on watching.
- Initially blur out an image so viewers will be curious to see what will happen next.
2. Create A Hypothetical Problem
To put it simply, give the answer to the question, “How will the product solve your viewer’s current issues?” For this step, you shouldn’t just present the problem bluntly. You should make the audience relate to the problem (this is where the benefit of a video format comes in).Viewers shouldn’t just watch characters for their struggle; they have to form a connection with what the character is dealing with on a deeper level where they feel what the character is feeling.
By making this real connection through your video’s storyline, your audience will actively think about the ways they can solve their problem and potentially think about the solution you presented.
3. Solve The Problem
In your video, what you’re selling should be the story’s hero or savior, and this is the real part where it’s introduced. Show what happens when your product/service is used by the struggling character.
How exactly does your offer solve the problem? Create selling points for your product and emphasize them. These compelling features are what will differentiate your brand from your competitors. If you do this properly, this portion of the video could be your audience’s tipping point–an impactful message or memorable takeaway that will sway people to buy what your selling.
4. Make A Call For Action
This is your only chance to ask your viewers what you want, the place you should compel your audience to interact with you in the future. Try out different soft-and hard-sell options to see which ones fit best. For example, you can prompt them to make a purchase, ask them to view your website, or write out contact forms. Regardless of what you choose, you should communicate whatever it is you want your audience to do very clearly.
5. Remove Any Doubts
This step could also turn the tide for your audiences who still have doubts about what you’re offering. Touch on the most common concerns of your product and counteract them. If your product is new and innovative, there’s a higher chance that you need more explaining to do if you want the audience on your side. By giving a proper layout on the foundations of how your product woks, your brand will look more credible.
If you need a bit more help on what concerns you need to tackle, you can look through similar product reviews and see the root of a customer’s doubts and how they were alleviated. Essentially, find out what put them off at first and what features impressed or pleasantly surprised them when trying out the product.
6. Repeat Step 4
This second call for action is made to motivate any of your audience who still have lingering doubts and give them a chance to inquire further or make the purchase. This is where you make your last stand by boldly asking your viewers to take a step forward.
Final Word
Making an excellent video isn’t just about imagination or creativity. There are actually a lot more complexities underneath it that intertwines with creativity, the goals of your brand, and your video’s structure.
By using the outline above, you’ll have a clearer roadmap to go on that will help you make dynamic video ads that equate to better sales.
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