Capturing your audience’s attention and igniting them to action is no easy feat, particularly in an environment wherein consumers are bombarded with content in all shapes or forms in unprecedented measures. Still, a video that is well made can bring tremendous value – to both brands and consumers.
What’s a well-crafted video? First, it begins with an excellent story. A challenge or a promise that’s enticingly laid out will help viewers relate, and an effective resolution will make them desire. Next, give your audience substantial reasons to trust you: prove authority and demonstrate credibility. Trigger your viewers’ curiosity to keep them glued to the screen, but not before introducing what they should expect to be covered in the video. Lastly, address your audience’s pain points and clarify how you respond to them.
1. Become a storyteller
People are ingrained to love good stories, and branded videos are no exception: your viewers will engage with you in spirit and in action if your video carries a good story. How do you do that? First, introduce the premise: a goal that your viewers share. Examples of common goals are better health, time for pleasurable endeavors or feeling more attractive. Then add a complication – a barrier that keeps the audience from reaching this shared goal—for example, excessive love of sweets or no time to get a proper manicure. Then introduce your value-giving solution: the product or service you can offer to ease your audience’s pain and help them achieve their goal.
Good storytelling touches people’s hearts with captivating imagery, the right sound, and good copy. Pace and length are also vital to keeping the audience engaged and driving them to action. Lastly, make the story your own by sticking to your brand feel, with your logo, tone of voice and messaging.
2. Give your audience a reason to trust you
Consumers engage with businesses they trust, and they need to feel confident before committing to spending time and money with you. Fortunately, video is effective for building confidence. First, you can show your product and service in an audio-visual format and bring it to life. Sometimes merely showcasing your goods is not enough, though, so you can get an expert to review your product or a satisfied customer to give a testimonial. With the right pace and good typography, you can also introduce added benefits that may go unnoticed in textual formats. You can also embellish the work with mentions of awards, recognitions, stats and data to illustrate the quality and prowess of your service. Finally, a valuable tip to establish credibility and drive trust – give your audience something useful for free: a lesser-known trick for saving money, a tip to extend the shelflife of a product or advice for saving time. Anything that applies to your line of business and can be relevant and useful to your audience will implicitly make them feel that you care about them. And people trust businesses that are about them.
3. Make your audience curious
In a world where consumers are bombarded with an onslaught of digital content, you have to spark curiosity to keep your audience engaged. To make your audience curious, try to include an element of surprise. Introduce a little-known fact, state a pain point that resonates with your audience but is rarely voiced in these terms, offer a lesser-known tip or advice or make a surprising yet apt metaphor. You may also find that using visuals to complement the text rather than to illustrate may make a stronger statement that sparks interest. Use language that evokes emotion with concise statements that will tug at your audience’s heartstrings. Finally, wrap your message with compelling design: typographic elements, gripping animation, stellar visual composition and good photography can go a long way.
4. Tell them what to expect
When making a video, start with a preplanned structure, breaking down your clip into elements, with a leading premise that will be resolved with your video’s message. The intro for your video should be the equivalent of a table of contents, laying the foundation for a powerful piece of content that moves audiences. For example: how to save money in your shopping or how to ensure your bestie is happy this holiday season with just the right gift. Tell your audience upfront what pain or need you’re planning to resolve in your video so your audience feels inspired to continue viewing. Be it an unboxing video, a sale promotion or an animated invite to your pop-up store, tell your viewers what’s in store in the video to keep them engaged and interested and to imbue your online presence with credibility and authority.
5. Cover pain points
Now that your viewers know what the video is about, address head-on your customers’ pain points that you aspire to resolve or answer to. Intimate knowledge of your customers’ pain points – and the ability to wisely respond to them – helps digital leaders effectively spread their message through online video. If your viewers are struggling with costs, tell them how you’re helping them save money. If time is your audience’s most coveted asset, express your awareness of this need and show them how you’re helping them get what they need faster. If it’s a need to feel better, look better, have better relationships with loved ones, know more, be happier – communicate a sense of understanding as well as an effective response to this need or desire. Your audience will get the explicit message: this is a relevant solution for my problem, so I’d like to watch. Your viewers will also receive the implicit message, which is no less important: this is a brand that sees me and cares about me.
