Entertainment & education are the two main buckets that video production services will always fall into, but video is created for countless reasons. In the business world, you may create a video to educate your clients, employees, or network of businesses you work with. You also might create a video to entertain and draw eyes to your business from those same groups. So, if the majority of all video falls into one of those two categories, what sets boring, “low performing” video apart from the killer, engaging video that solves problems and generates a high ROI?

Typically, a video will fail if it’s not focused or not focused on the correct path. Creating video for the sake of creating video wastes the production time, disappoints/boars the audience, and gives anecdotal data that “Video Doesn’t Work!”. Correlation is not causation. When you focus on video production services that are solving a problem, you have the leverage to maximize your return. Let’s look at some items to look at before you start video production. These tips come from our personal experience and workflow, as a video production company in Orlando. 

It’s Not About You!

The video you create for your business is NOT about your business (typically). If you want to make an impact on a cold audience or even reengage those who have worked with you in the past, you need to speak the same language as them: Pain. Solving pain and removing frustration is a great way to sell and end up with a satisfied customer who will sing high praise for you. In the video, the language you use and the visuals you present should be what your audience needs to see and hear. 

For example, selling a garden hose by speaking about the low environmental impact it leaves on the earth is great (sustainably sourced materials!) but coupling that with the “patented anti-kink design” screams to those who frequent water stops mid lawn care. This can also be achieved by attacking the oppositions or questions you know your typical customer will have. A gym that is selling memberships will get questions all the time about how much it costs and will get the pushback of “I don’t have the time for the gym”. When you get ahead of that and speak on the investment in personal health and the fact that you are actually open 24/7, there is less opportunity for your audience to place these roadblocks up and convince themselves automatically that you aren’t the right fit.

The more specifically you can point a finger at your audience, the more likely you are to grab their attention. Creating a framework for your audience to identify themselves in the words you place in your video will create an automatic interest in your business without you having to say, “This is for you!”.

Hooooooooook

A whale has never seen a smore….

And while I am not going to speak any more on that first line, you are now reading this interested in what else is going to be a wild thing to read.  While your hooks should be on topic, the idea is the same. What can you include in your videos to make sure that your audience is interested and engaged (specifically engaged, because watching a video and absorbing the information are two completely different things)? 

What’s in it for your audience? Why should they listen to your video? What value will they leave with from listening to you speak? These questions should be indirectly answered as quickly as possible to achieve high watch retention. The more engaging and valuable, the more information you can feed your audience. 

Hooks shouldn’t just be in the front of your videos either, they should be throughout the entirety of it, spaced out to give you time and keep your audience absorbing what you’re saying. A hook is not always about something crazy, but it is always something that dangles the want for more. Think of a statement that pertains to the typical persona you serve. What info would help them in their day-to-day life? Start from their perspective and think about what they would want to hear.

Work backward

How do you solve a problem? Well, typically you first must realize that there is a problem that needs to be solved. Once you know what is happening that shouldn’t be (or isn’t that should be) you can look at what needs to change to resolve your issue. 

Taking this same framework with video for your business is critical to finding success.

Let’s say you want to stop answering the same question over and over (Why are your prices so high!?). If the problem you are looking to address is that your customers think your price is too high, then the primary problem is more than likely communication. Somewhere in your engagement with your audience, value is not being communicated properly. You don’t question why Nike shoes are more expensive than a pair of Walmart sneakers because you know the value driver is the quality of the shoe. This is the same for your business.

Now that you know your primary problem, you can look at solutions to fix it. One solution may be incorporating your value differentiation in your cold marketing videos. Bundling all the value that you provide to your customers (that you may have thought was common knowledge) and showing it front and center will make the education of your value apparent and will reduce the question of “What are you expensive?” to a minimal amount. Of course, you will still get questions on the price, but that will typically indicate that the value you have shown the questioner is not the value that they are looking for, either signaling an improper fit or a secondary value prop is needed to convert them. 

When creating any video advertising, make sure that you are thinking about what you want to happen when you have the video in place and working for you, then create the video with the steps you know would need to happen to get there. You can’t hit a target you can’t see, making it a critical step to identify your problems.

Making a killer video that provides you with tangible results isn’t the world’s hardest task when you approach it with the mindset of Value. What value should the video give your business, what value should it give your audience, and what direct value do they receive immediately from watching your video?

If you can answer those questions and incorporate the answers into your video, you will see results.

If you need help figuring out where to start, we would love to learn about your goals! Schedule time to speak with SquidCrate on strategic video production below!