What kind of story
do you want to tell?
You need more people to go to your website.
You want more clicks, sales or leads…
Videos can help. Okay, you know this already, you’ve seen the trends from Instagram and TikTok. You know you should post more on Facebook and regularly upload videos to YouTube (helps with SEO and discovery). Perhaps you’ve even experienced a viral video and experienced motorway of traffic go from the your social media site to your business website, or worse, you’re watching it happen for your competitors and you need to get in the game, fast. The big question is, what kind of video do you need?
The short answer is the one that’s going to drive the result that you need.
So what do your customer need to hear to take an action?
Here are some video formats great for web and social media pages:
1) THE STORY VIDEO
Let your creativity run free, explore your unique point of difference, let your brand values shine through, show the pain points of your customer and then put your product or service as the solution, explore how you are the answers to the issues they didn’t even know they were experiencing or explain the challenges your team has faced and how your product or service is changes lives.
2) INSTALLATION VIDEO
This video is your go-to middleman between the classic how-to videos (that demonstrate how to set up or use your product or service) mixed with the key points of difference about your product of service with a little bit of your unique brand personality sprinkled in too. This could be technical and sent out to new customers as part of their integration or retention messaging or this video could just highlight the selling key points for customers who haven’t yet clicked ‘BUY NOW’. The video will show the win-win aspect of your product or service but keeping it fast-paced as an advertisement and NOT like reading the instructions out loud, in your most monotonous voice.
3) THE PERFORMANCE VIDEO
This is how you can build authenticity around your product showing that the people who have already bought your product or service are loving life and can’t.live.without.it. You’ve seen these videos, they are growing in popularity for e-commerce brands from teeth whitening, yoga mats and those weird gadgets you didn’t know you needed until now. They’re like shopping channels meets testimonial videos. Your customers do your sales for you. This is the best kind of video for driving conversions and they build trust and send a flood of traffic to your site ready to buy.
4) THE TESTIMONIAL VIDEO
Get your most charismatic customers and service users on camera. Here is the basic premise of the script, first they explain how they were the most sceptical person to have ever discovered your product or service, and they thought “Nah!” but now they’ve reluctantly parted with their cold hard cash, and seen for themselves “insert benefits here”, they’ve learned the error of their ways. They also go on to explain how they regularly spend all their free time telling their friends, family (and strangers on the street) about how amazing your product or service is. (Which is nice.) There is absolutely no wrong way to do this style of video. You can go corporate style, like a posh banking advert with some slow-motion emotive b-roll showing what they’re talking about as they talk about it. Or you can go Nike style, with fast-paced clips overlaid with a powerful voice over and some cutting edge editing. These videos can be whatever you want them to be but the testimonial is at the heart of the story.
5) THE CASE STUDY
Take your prospective customers on a journey, from where they are now, to where you can get them in the future simply with the amazing powers of your product or service. This builds trust, authenticity and lends an example to someone who can’t yet imagine how your product or service can change their life for the better. It can help advocates of your product or service share this with their key stakeholders or friends and family. The best case studies subtly confirm that you care about your customer and their problems, story and experience. These work best with b-roll (supplementary footage) to keep the viewer engaged and show a diverse range of examples.
6) THE ASPIRATIONAL VIDEO
If you want to tap into the hopes, dreams and fears of your customers and client base, how better than by aligning your brand with their very real everyday values, experiences and self-perception. Tap into who they are and who they want to be and then show yourselves at the heart of this culture, vision or aspiration. This is done amazingly well by our hero brands Nike, Apple and this works for a reason. These videos serve to grow brand awareness and are less about clicks and more about resonance and relevance.
7) THE EXPLAINER VIDEO
Simply showing who you are and why you’re different and explaining everything in between. Y’know - let’s not overcomplicate things. Keep it simply. Let’s just explain who you are, what you do and why you do it. Let’s explain that really well and beautifully. That’s real. Authentic and people will like that. Ideal for social media and website content where you don’t have too long to waffle on… so have one goal of educating and creating awareness for who you are and what you do. Boom.
8) THE TOUR VIDEO
Take your customers for a walk through your location like a personalised tour. If you’re a location based business offering a service, experience or vibe that your competitors just can’t replicate why not show it off… if your product is online, so them where the magic happens in your warehouse, sourcing your materials or where you draw inspiration from. A simple tour goes a long way to tell the story of who you are and what you’re doing.
9) THE EXPERIENCE VIDEO
Do you want people to get a taste of what you’re about? Like a virtual try it before you buy it. Growing in popularity with influencers at the core of this trend, videos that show the experience of a product are service are very powerful semi-testimonial videos. You’ll know you’ve nailed this type of story-telling when your social media feed has comments like, “TAKE MY MONEY!”. (We’ve seen it happen!) That’s what we call a great video result.
What makes these videos meaningful and authentic?
If you want to create more of an experience than someone simply watching your video, you need to tap into their emotions; fear, worries, joy, laughter and everything in between.
Make sure you’re videos are optimal video quality.
Give a 360-degree view of the product or service.
Explore voice-overs along with subtitles to make your video accessible with and without audio and to say what you can’t show.
#Covid
If you’re organising a digital event, online experience or webinar and would like our help with the set-up and editing - we have a contact-free package so you get the same great video results - without the face to face contact.
When asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, two-thirds of people (66%) said they’d prefer to watch a short video
— Wyzowl, The State of Video Marketing 2020
How do videos help you rank higher with Google?
Google loves videos. Remember the Dollar Shave Club video that went viral? The human story behind the digital offering.
Video is more likely to be shared and clicked. People are twice as likely to share a video with their friends than ANY other type of content. Our brains have evolved through time, we ar designed to create, live and remember stories.
Video turn observers into buyers. According to Wyzowl, 84% of people say convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.