The Secret Video Structure Every Successful Agency (Even Ours!) Uses To Make High Converting Videos ??
Are you ready to see our video production secrets? ??? Here they are.
Originally published on the DCV Dailies blog.
Regularly creating high converting, positive ROI videos is actually comprised of nothing more than following a consistent process to process recipe, adding in your own spices of creativity.
You might 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?
- Can we track our assets performance?
If you’ve answered no to even one of these, it means there’s still room for improvement. It also means that your videos and other related marketing campaigns are not living up to the potential of their platforms!
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.
Look at the videos of any high performing marketing campaign. You’ll start to notice that they all have something in common; Successful marketing videos start with strong structures.
Always keep this customer journey in mind while creating and brainstorming your content and concepts. Everything is rooted back to here.
We’ve broken down this method into a few simple steps that top branding and advertising agencies swear by (trust us, we know these people as friends).
If you've done everything correctly, these tips will help you make attention-grabbing videos that are sure to increase your current sales/conversion efforts.
Let’s examine these “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.
?? PRO TIP: How do you this? Know what you’re selling! Duh!
Use the product yourself, let others try it out and offer feedback. Figure out if there is a steady demand for your product and what pain solving point is driving the greatest response.
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?
If you need help, download our Customer Profile worksheet here.
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 ??
After creating your video’s general theme, you can implement the insights that have stemmed from your research phase to ensure that your product and concept fit together.
Because the story of your video is the driving point that will set it apart from the rest, you should take concept development seriously.
?? PRO TIP: Don’t hesitate to entertain bold ideas. In a heavily congested market, it can be a bit harder to stand out, so take steps to try something new and exciting.
Here are the four steps you can use as a guide for developing an excellent video concept:
1. Select 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. These can also be state of the industry reports, a forward look at a certain trend or technology, or an upcoming conference/event.
We've helped the National Restaurant Association creatively announce the year's food trends by taking spreadsheets of data and turning it into what their audience knows best... food!
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.
Instructional Animations:
Animations can help increase customer engagement, whether it’s whiteboard-type or augmented live action. Regardless of what you choose, you have to make sure that it fits your overall brand’s theme.
Crowd Funding:
These campaigns will not only get you the cash you need, but it will also build a relationship with your customers. These videos will explain the purpose of your campaign while offering assurances that you’ll have a quality product by the end of a set date.
These don't have to be funny or "viral" to work incredibly well. In the video we did for M3D, we stuck to the benefits and innovation of their first to market, micro 3d printer. It worked pretty well... They raised $1 million dollars in a few hours and $3.4 million dollars total for the Kickstarter.
App Demo:
Another subset of Instructional Videos, an app demo, will be featured in different 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. (This links to a great article about using your CEO for maximum impact in video)
Company Profile:
Much like the above, this will explain the inner workings of your brand, with all the whats hows and whys.
Investor Presentation:
This presentation will show potential investors the reasons why they should join your team.
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.
? EXTRA CREDIT
You can create a video pre-visualization that includes voice over, music, images or even 3d renders if you want to go above and beyond. We do this for most productions so the day of production runs incredible smooth. It also helps identify any potential snags or story issues. This adds 2-3x the time, but can really be a life saver.
2. Prove That Your Product Or Service Beats Your Competition
One easy way you can go about this is to go directly to your customers. Just ask them. We regularly ask customers of our clients, why do they buy the product and what would they want to see improved. Boom! They’ve written your copy.
?? PRO TIP: For the less customer-facing brands, look at the reviews of those 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. (These are not always accurate, but take negative feedback as the best tool for improvement and inspiration.)
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 and delight the viewer, holding 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. We highly recommend making a mood board of past videos, and “borrowing” concepts you like the best to spin ideas from.
Even better if these videos are similar to what your selling, but these should only serve as inspiration, not as something to directly 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 see the 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.
?? PRO TIP: 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.
On the same token, don’t reinvent the wheel. It’s a very very large market out there, and sometimes a brand just gets it perfect with their pitch. If they are doing it well, pay homage and get competing for eyeballs.
4. Is The Video Production Feasible?
No matter how well you did in the previous steps, you can produce a great video even if you don’t have large 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.
?? Disclaimer: That being said, an agency like ours can bring considerable experience and quality to the effort. If time, risk, or probability of success is a large factor, it makes sense to bring in the pros.
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 tight to your budget:
Locations:
Voiceover Work:
Actors:
- Backstage
- Casting Frontier
- Local Casting Networks
Equipment: (If you need to buy):
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 drone shots, action sequences, and CGI explosions are cool, they can be costly or time-consuming. Make your concept realistic without letting your team’s creative juices run dry.
Phase 3: Creating Structure ??
After doing every kind of background work, developing a solid video concept, and working out the kinks, It’s now 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 easy to follow formula that almost every high paid agency creative writer relies on to make a winning script structure:
1. Craft “The Hook”
This hook will be your video’s main selling point or idea. Get it in early.
It’s the primary source of your audience’s attention at the very beginning.
Test out multiple hooks within your team and get audience/client feedback afterward, because “interesting” can have varying meanings for different people. It’s just good practice 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. When the talent addresses the viewer directly, it's almost always more engaging. Stock footage company ArtList does a great job of this in their ads. (It's hard to stop watching)
Some brands will also try to gain their viewer’s attention by using eye-catching visuals that aren’t typical to 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.
?? PRO TIP: 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.
This video was created for the US Coast Guard. It visually answers a few key questions the viewer was thinking about.
- Would I like the Coast Guard?
- What can I do when I exit service?
- Can I see myself in this picture 4 years from now?
- Can I trust the USCG?
The video series spoke for itself, generating over 18 Million views and a significant rise in recruitment inquiries.
Our teams used all of the above framework to get to this final product!
Final Word ??
Making an excellent video isn’t just about imagination or creativity (surprise…).
There are actually a lot of 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 off of that will help you make dynamic video ads that equate to better sales.
If this sounds like a ton of work (it is!) and you want some help, we’re here for you.
Send us an email and let’s chat.
