Six Keys To Effective Video

WHY VIDEO WORKS 

If you create videos for a living or hire people that do, you understand how powerful a medium it can be. But the journey from "we need a video" to posting that video typically takes too long, costs too much, and is often filled with decisions motivated by aesthetics rather than effectiveness. Why is that?

Because what makes audiences pay attention to a video, and what people think makes audiences pay attention to a video, are two very different things.     

THAT VIDEO WORKS IS NOT WHY VIDEO WORKS  

Creating effective videos is not about production value or hiring talented people. If it were, there would be many more good videos in the world. It’s also not about the concept, script, or type of video created, the camera, lens or editing software used, the day, time or channel it's published on, or even budget. Effective videos are made by understanding how humans think, act, and behave - and applying those lessons to the craft of creating videos.

I’ve spent thousands of hours producing and editing hundreds of videos over the last 25 years, and I can assure you that your audience will be more engaged if you get the following six keys right.  

THE SIX ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE VIDEO

What all effective videos have in common is successfully executing the following six elements:  

1. Story
2. Emotion
3. Body Language
4. Voice
5. Motion
6. Music

Let’s break these down, including the Why and the How:

1. STORY  

WHY: As human beings, we daydream, get distracted, interrupted, and bored. We would certainly get a lot more done if those obstacles didn’t exist, but they do. Which is precisely why stories work so well. Stories focus the brain in a way that facts, features, and benefits do not. That’s why businesses and nonprofits of all sizes are increasingly turning to stories to help them get their messages across.  

HOW: Even companies that understand the importance of story, often get this wrong. Believe it or not, audiences are not interested in how great your company is or how awesome your products are. They want to see stories about how your company and its products will make them great. Show that you understand their problem and you can help them find a solution.  

Many marketers today position their product, service, or solution as the answer to their audience’s problems; but that is self-centered and arrogant. People are not looking to be rescued from their problems; they are looking for help in solving those problems. Donald Miller, New York Times best-selling the author of "Building a Storybrand", tells us that “People are not looking for a hero; they’re looking for a guide.” A guide that helps them solve their problems.  

Tell a story about how great your company or product is, and you're wasting time, money, and opportunity. Tell a story about how you helped a customer solve their problem and you will have their attention.

2. EMOTION 

WHY: It’s conventional wisdom that using emotion in advertising works, but the reason why it works is biological. That’s because emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation all occur in the same area of the brain, the amygdala. People like to believe their decisions are rational and based on facts, features, and benefits, and often they are, but when it comes to persuasion, appealing to emotions is about twice as effective as appealing to logic. 

According to the UK based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the “campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well (31% vs. 16%) [as those] with only rational content, and those that were purely emotional did a little better (31% vs 26%) [than] those that mixed emotional and rational content.”

HOW: Emotion is the most difficult of the six keys to accomplish because it involves (re)manufacturing a feeling that was originally real. To construct a feeling, the audience must genuinely care about the person, event, or achievement that the video is about. While Hollywood does this all the time with professional screenwriters and actors, business videos typically live in a world of features and benefits, which are not known for tugging at heartstrings.    

That means if you’re going to use emotion in your video, and you don’t have access to writers and actors who can pull it off, you are going to have to capture and convey the feelings of those who are already emotionally connected to the subject. By interviewing and weaving their stories together, audiences begin to empathize and care about the people and story unfolding in your video, and that creates the emotional connection you want. 

3. BODY LANGUAGE  

WHY: We understand body language intuitively, which is why it is so powerful. Our facial expressions, posture, and even the use of our hands as we talk often convey more information than all the facts and figures we spend so much time focused on. Think of your body language as the visual Bold, Italic, and Underline of the words you are saying. These movements signal that you know what you're talking about, that you are passionate about it, and that your audience should pay attention. Or not.

HOW: Casting, especially in videos featuring non-actors, can make all the difference in creating effective videos. To the extent possible, make sure the people who appear in your video are knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. Their experience cannot - and should not - be faked. During your video edit, don’t be afraid to let the ‘talking head’ stay on screen. If their body language is strong, you may not need many or any other visuals to make a successful video. The best TED Talks are great examples of the power of harnessing story, body language, and voice to deliver a message.

4. VOICE 

WHY: People today are hungry for what is real, and voice is a natural way of conveying the authenticity that pulls people in. Combined with body language, the inflection, tone, enthusiasm, speed, and volume of your voice can communicate more than the actual words you use. A famous UCLA study showed that words make up only 7% of the impact of a presentation. The rest is made up of 55% gestures and 38% tone. So, while the words you choose are important, the way you deliver those words can actually be more important.  

HOW: As with body language, if your video includes interviews with knowledgeable and passionate people about the subject of your video, their conviction when discussing content will convey as much if not more than the words they are using.  

5. MOTION  

WHY: Our eyes are drawn to movement for survival. Understanding this is extremely useful when crafting videos. This stems from our caveman days when the primitive parts of our brains required that we notice threats in the wild and act on them quickly, or die. 

HOW: Because movement grabs attention, its use can effectively keep a viewer’s eyes from wandering. There are three ways to do this while editing video:  

1. Use visually dynamic video and/or photographs to illustrate the content. 
2. Edit between multiple speakers combining the best and clearest sound bites that clearly convey your message. 
3. Employ motion graphics, animation, and if appropriate, special effects to dynamically show and bring clarity to your message.  

6. MUSIC 

WHY: Music by itself is incredibly powerful. Its inherent ability to attract attention, convey emotion, and assist in storytelling make it essential to creating successful videos. Using the right music can turn a good video into a great one. But be warned, even if you nail every other aspect of your production, if you use music that is not spot on, your video will never rise to greatness.  

HOW: Choosing the right music can be daunting. In my experience, there are thousands of bad choices, a few that are or can be good, and only one that is perfect. Finding the ideal cue within your time and budget constraints could not be more critical. The only advice I can give you with your music search is to keep looking until you're sure you’ve found it. It might take a while, but no one will know or care how long it took as long as you eventually find it. Many of the top online music libraries offer help finding the right music to fit your video. If you’re having trouble, these services can be a helpful resource.

SUMMARY 

Story and emotion are the substance of a video. They are what make people act when they hear your call to action and what is remembered long after the video ends. Body language and voice are the building blocks of telling the story. They convey the honesty and authenticity that should be inherent in your work. Finally, it is motion and music that contribute style to video. They are what engages our eyes and ears and help keep our attention from wandering. By understanding these six elements and how to successfully weave them together, engaging and effective videos can be created.  

TRIBE SOURCED VIDEO

In my 20 years of crafting corporate, broadcast, and non-profit videos, I have found that using a Crowd or Tribe Sourced Video strategy is the most effective way to engage, educate, motivate, entertain, and/or explain nearly any subject a video may be addressing. The reason is that people are tired of listening to sales pitches. When they hear a narrator or spokesperson, they understand that what they’re listening to has been carefully scripted to lead to a call to action. Knowing this makes audiences instinctually skeptical that what they’re hearing isn’t real and they tune it out. But when people hear authentically spoken words from knowledgeable people about a subject they are passionate about, they lean in, listen, believe, and in many cases, act upon what they are hearing.

The bottom line is that audiences are bombarded with highly produced noise every day, and it’s not working. 

CALL TO ACTION   

To video professionals and those who hire them, here is my advice: throw away the script. The reason is simple: scripts are not real. Great writers, given all the time and resources they need, are still filtering the message through their own experiences or interpretations of others’ experiences. Even if you have a writing team, no matter how smart and talented they are, they cannot and do not bring more knowledge and expertise to a subject than a group of people who are involved with that subject every day. Please don't misunderstand me, I have incredible respect for writers, just not when it comes to writing for video.

By creating unscripted, Tribe Sourced Videos that weave interviews with passionate and knowledgeable people, your content will be highly relevant, it will provide greater value, your audience will pay more attention, and whatever KPI you are targeting, it will increase. After using this method for more than 20 years, I can assure you this approach is effective for 90-95% of all business video needs.  

The world is incredibly noisy. Rising above that noise requires delivering content in a way that is engaging, relevant, and valuable - otherwise, you’re simply creating more noise. And who exactly is going to watch that?

#TribeSourcedVideo

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