So now you have realized the importance of video in marketing your brand in our previous post. You have finally decided that you need to make a video to increase your visibility and to improve your sales. The next step now is to create an effective video to achieve the results that you need. Like what we noted in our previous post, a video can make or break your brand. A poorly done video will have a negative impact instead of helping you gain your consumer’s trust. Here are five questions you need to ask yourself when creating an effective video:
What is my brand’s story? Is my video telling this story effectively?
“He who has a why can endure any how.” — Frederick Nietzsche
Before anything else, you should identify your “why”. Your “why” is your guiding light. It expresses your brand’s contribution and purpose. Why should customers buy your product or service? If you haven’t identified your why, I would recommend you reading Simon Sinek’s book Find Your Why.
Consumers buy into brands that tells a genuine story. Don’t make your video too pushy. Consumers can tell if you are trying to make a hard sell. If you are making your first video, make it about your “why” or story and let it appeal to the emotions.
What is the purpose of my video? What is my call to action?
When you have found your “why”, it will be easier for you to identify the purpose of your video. For example, the Dove brand’s vision is to be a source of confidence. They want to help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them raise their self-esteem and realize their full potential. This is one of their videos which embodies this vision
Who is your target audience?
This is also a question we ask our clients when they ask us to produce a video for them. Your video shouldn’t have a broad audience. Your product can sell to a wide diversity of clients but for a video to be effective, it should target a certain demographics. For example, this Nike’s ad targeted the younger female generation. The video’s goal was to inspire the teenage girls to dream further. The video didn’t say how comfortable the shoes are nor how many colors it came in. It appealed to the emotions.
How can I make the first 8 seconds count?
You have probably heard this before, that the average attention span of a human is 8 seconds. So if the first 8 seconds of your video doesn’t appeal to your viewer, then it is a fail. Your viewer has already pressed that “skip ad” or has already turned away from the screen.
This video ad from Audi has awesome cinematography. It caught my attention and made me want to watch it until the end. And it did not disappoint. The humorous twist at the end made it a memorable ad.
Is my video content optimized?
Criteo has given some useful advice on how you can optimize your videos on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. And here a few more tips that can help:
- Design for mobile first. Do you want to make your video look cinematic by making the aspect ratio 16:9 or 2.39:1 with a letterbox? If you want it optimized for mobile, you will definitely do not want to do that. Go vertical or go square if you will be natively posting your video on Facebook
- Add captions. 85% of viewers watch videos on mute. You still want to deliver your message so make sure you add captions to your videos.
- If you’re posting on Youtube, compose your title using the right keywords so video will appear on searches.
- Choose your thumbnail carefully. Make it relevant and interesting. I would not click on a video if the thumbnail doesn’t represent the video I am looking for correctly.
After you have considered these questions carefully, we hope you have a clearer picture of what your video should look like or what message or call to action it should deliver. If you need assistance in creating a video ad for your brand, we will be glad to help. We can help from identifying your why, the call to action up to video production to deliver your message to your customer. Just drop us an email or give us a call!
