5 ways to improve your marketing video

Videos tell a story. They turn the humdrum and mundane into the titillating and quirky, drawing in your audience through the promise of something more exciting than a block of text and more engaging than a fleeting meme. If you can master the dark art of story, you can turn all manner of everyday statistics, performance indicators and product developments into an awesome adventure. Immerse your audience in the magic of the story behind your business, get them involved and leave them hungry for more using one of the most powerful marketing techniques available.

Let Them Tell Your Story For You
It sounds like cheating, but you can tear down the barriers between your business and your customers by having them tell your story for you. Forget preaching mission statements, performance statistics and industry innovations. Nothing makes a better impression than having your customers rave about how cool you are.

Invite Participation
Invite your customers to submit their own videos to your media streams. Make it a competition and have you fans represent your product for you. Amusing and awkward home videos can actually be a vital piece of market research and provide you with valuable media for a future marketing video.

Form and Content
Make the style of your video consistent with the platform. Be friendly or even silly on Facebook, professional on your website, and up close and personal on something like Kickstarter; a good marketing video will unify content with the platform, targeting the mood and attitude of the viewers.

Have a Clear Goal
It’s tempting to create a video that does everything, but more effective to have a single, clear goal. Are you primarily interested in generating sales or raising brand awareness? Publishers ‘The Vlogbrothers’ have amassed a 1.35 million following for their videos, but barely any of them relate to publishing. They won’t help sell many books, but they have sent established a robust fan base.

Create an Irresistible Call to Action
Incite and inspire; the media is not the message. Convert the sense of value your viewers derive from watching your video into a clear action – tell your story, but leave them wanting to know more. Make sure they have to do something, like visit your website; never tell the whole story.

Remember, the more involved they feel the more they trust your brand, the more they’ll engage with your product or service.