Video Marketing: Your Guide to Creating High Quality Video Ads

The good news is, once you know what you want people to do after they watch your ad, it’s usually fairly easy to decide what type of ad you need to run. Here are a few different types of video ads to consider:

1) Product Demonstration Videos

The best way to convince someone that you product will solve a problem in their life is to show them how it works. This is why infomercials are so effective, because they are visually heavy on showing how the product is used.

Product demos do really well for physical products and software because of their nature. The promotional video for a Gaff Gun shown above does really well at showing how your life is easier by using it.

2) Consumer Testimonial or Review Videos

Your job in this kind of video is to let your consumers do the talking for you. All you have to do is introduce the topic briefly, let them do that talking and then give a call to action at the end, and you’re golden.

These kinds of videos perform very well because it directly shows the people that are having the experiences with your product or service. There’s very few other ways to show that kind of “real and authentic” experience of the consumer.

For example, check out this video review posted by LifeLock:

In filming testimonial videos, you’ll need to outline the story that you want them to tell in bullet point format and then ask them questions that prompt them to answer with that outlined narrative. If you don’t often you’ll film for hours without any direction hoping that the consumer will give you one liner that you can use.

The other thing that you need to keep in mind when you are getting testimonials is that most people haven’t been on camera before. Non-actors get nervous on camera and a nervous spokesman doesn’t invoke confidence in a viewer. Put the time in to learn how to interview non-actors.

3) Educational or Instructional Videos

Find a problem that your target market is experiencing and educate them about your particular solution. Do this in a synopsis, or highlight reel sort of way. It should add value to the viewers experience without giving away everything that’s in your piece of content. Take our blog summary videos for example, or this highlight video for a course on headshot photography.

The best way to know that you will leave your audience wanting more is to go by the mini skirt rule: your video should be short enough to capture their attention, but long enough that it covers the subject.

Whether it’s an expert interview, an explainer video, a how-to-video or some other instructional content, educational videos can be a great way to provide value without coming off as overly sales-focused. This can be a great way to build positive relationships with your potential customers using video marketing.

4) Behind-the-Scenes Videos

BTS (behind-the-scenes) videos are extremely effective if you have a premium product or a large fan base for your already existing content. It gets the basic consumer to appreciate what you do so much more.

BTS videos do so well because of the visual storytelling that replaces the lame phrase “it’s high quality.” Everyone is skeptical when they hear that phrase. However, it’s hard for people not to make that opinion on their own if they see the detailed process that it takes to make your product.

When you are putting together the BTS promotional video, it’s important to try and piece together a story. It should revolve around why your product was made the way it was and show the details of why that made it better.

Depending on who you’re marketing to and what your business goals are, one or more of the types of videos we’ve discussed here may be worth trying. The trick is figuring out what your potential customers will be most interested and how you can use that to get people to do what you want them to do.

2) Identify Your Target Audience

To create an effective video marketing campaign, you need to understand who you are targeting with your video. Unlike some types of online advertising, video ads are often targeted to fairly large groups of people, but it’s still important to know who your ad is specifically intended for.

Unfortunately, many advertisers say, “I want an ad that will appeal to everyone in my target market.” That may be true, but your ad needs to be selective. Targeting everyone is lazy and a waste of money.

It’s far better to make five ads that are specific to different demographics—even if they are all advertising the same product. You’ll get way more conversions that way. So keep things simple, like this ad.

Everyone can eat Cheerios, so why does this ad target dads if everyone can eat them? Because, in most households, dads are the ones bringing home the bacon (literally). Even if someone else does the shopping, the dad has his input on the shopping list.

Also, a good reason to target dads is that a dad’s ears will perk up when they hear the words “father” being repeated on a screen. They may not perk up as much when they see an ad for kids toys.

Specific targeting is like waving a giant flag in front of your market’s face and screaming “watch this!” The more specific your messaging and target market, the higher your conversion rates will be, which is what we’re all after anyway.

2) Script Out Your Video Marketing Ad

Now that you know what the goal of your video is and who you’re targeting, it’s time to put together the script for your video ad. Your script will be the heart and soul of your video ad, so it pays to take your time and really think through your script.

Let’s take a look at what goes into a great video ad script.

Great Scripts Tell a Story

Good ads tell a story. This is true for any ad, but it’s especially important for video marketing, because the story is what drives viewers to watch more. They want to see how the whole adventure unfolds.

Take this video, for instance.

While watching this ad for Dirt Devil, you genuinely feel tense. There is a demon in this house and it’s not going to go away. This horror story wouldn’t have done nearly as well if they called in a plumber to come get their daughter off the ceiling. There would be no tension to break.

As you begin writing your script, try to come up with interesting characters and a setting that people can get invested in. Do something with the world in your that makes it memorable. Combine worlds that shouldn’t be combined, do the unexpected, or, heck, just tell us a love story.

Even if you are doing an infomercial type commercial where you have a spokesperson that talks to the camera, you can still tell a story. Find a good metaphor for your company’s product and then design a commercial that runs with that metaphor or go the exact opposite of that metaphor.

Take the Squatty Potty commercial, for example. Talking about poop is a faux pax. Squatty Potty flipped this on its head, however, by using unicorn poop to illustrate the benefits of using the Squatty Potty.

In both of these situations, the video ad tells a story. It creates characters that you want to know more about and then unfolds them bit by bit in a hilarious sit-com sort of way.

Great Scripts Address a Central Truth

Many advertisers get so focused on making a “funny” add that they create an ad without a central truth that their target audience can identify with. This is part of the reason why many Skittles commercials are so weird. They completely throw out any or all universal truths.

This commercial is just wrong. Most people are not interested in eating Skittles when they are picked off the face of a pubescent boy. If your imagery is incompatible with the ideals of your target market, they will not have an increased desire to buy your product.

A compelling universal truth can be the difference between a viral video and just an okay performing one.

For instance, if you have an ad that implies that you are buying your child an iPad to shut them up, that won’t sell as many iPads than one that suggests that you should buy an iPad for your child because they deserve the best. The first invokes resentment towards children and the second provokes love.

Nailing your universal truth is important because the internet is brutal. The internet will let you know immediately if the truth that you are trying to use to say that you understand your target market’s feelings is off. And they won’t be nice about it. Take the time to make sure that you understand your target market before you try to identify their sweet spot.

Great Scripts Make People Feel Something

Video marketing is so effective because it’s a multimedia experience. You have moving images, sounds, words and music—all of which are great for evoking emotion from your target audience. Whether you make them laugh, cry or something in between, a good video ad will make people feel something.

If you can evoke emotion in your audience, you will capture their attention and increase the likelihood that they will both remember your business and actually do what you want them to do.

Take this ad, for instance:

This sad lamp ad from IKEA does a great job of telling the story of a lamp that is outdated and is being replaced. You feel bad for the lamp sitting out in the rain, abandoned like a lost puppy looking for a new owner.

What you don’t realize that this entire IKEA ad is designed to help change your feelings of sentiment towards your own furniture. It gets you to experience your own feelings of attachment and then overrides those feelings with humorous logic. Now, you can update your own furniture without feeling bad about it.

Humor is an easy option to use in your video marketing, but you can also use sadness, fear, and discomfort to make your ads memorable and shareable. You can use whatever emotion you want, but make sure the emotion is right for your brand.

Generally speaking, a good guideline to go with when you are writing an ad is to think about what life would be like with or without your product and then explore that world. The emotions should become clear as you explore. If you aren’t sure that you’ll be able to make an ad with a concrete emotion, hire a professional.

Great Scripts Get People to Do Something

Ever watch a video ad and think, “Cool, but now what?”  You could spend $100,000 creating a viral ad that gets millions of views, but if your audience doesn’t know what to do at the end of your ad, you just paid for an expensive way to confuse all those viewers. Be clear and concise, and make sure your call to action is at the end of the ad, so that the viewer will remember what to do.

You want your audience to know specifically what they should do and how they can do it right after watching your ad.

It’s as simple as saying “get yours now at such-and-such website.” At the very least, you should let the audience know what the brand is that is sharing the commercial. That way, even if your audience isn’t currently in the market for your product or offer, when they are they will remember your business first.

This commercial does great at delivering a story, provoking an emotion, and entertaining the audience. It doesn’t really need to say “buy a Volkswagon” because just the brand reminder is enough by itself. Their call to action is long term. It needs to last 5-10 years till the next time the viewer is buying a car.

Great Scripts Start with a Hook

When it comes to video marketing, you don’t have long to grab your audience’s attention. YouTube gives you a forced 5 seconds to work with and on social media, you usually have even less time to “hook” your audience.

As a result, a good script needs to start with something that will catch people’s attention and let it lead them into thinking about your product or service. An amazing example of this is BlendTech’s “Will It Blend?” ad campaign.

Wanton destruction of property is something people just love watching. It’s fascinating to watch common objects that you wouldn’t ever expect to see blended get torn apart in a blender. It ups the ante even more when the objects become too expensive for you to ever consider personally blending, like an iPhone.

Is it any wonder that the “Will it blend?” campaign is one of the most successful online viral video ad campaigns of all time?

Having a good hook is almost half the battle. If people aren’t caught from the beginning, they won’t be able to see the rest of your content, even if it is really good.

How exactly you choose to put together your script will depend on your audience and your goals, but a good script will include several of the elements we’ve discussed in this section. Your script will make or break your video, so make sure you take the time to come up with a good one.

3) Create a Storyboard and a Shot List

Unfortunately, as important as your script is, you can’t film from a script. To turn your vision into an actual video ad, you need to figure out how you want you script to be filmed. For that, you’ll need to put together two things: a storyboard and a shot list.

Storyboard

Your script is important, but it’s just words. You’re going to be making a motion picture, so it’s a good idea to think your way through what you want your script to look like on camera. In film, this sort of script visualization is called a “storyboard“.

Storyboarding is an important step because it allows you to double-check your shot list and make sure you’ve accounted for every shot you want in your ad.

Well-drawn storyboards can be really useful to your camera operator because they indicate motion that will happen in that specific shot like so:

If you don’t have any artistic ability and/or don’t have access to anyone with artistic ability, shot lists like this are fine, too:

Having your shot list on post-it notes will let you put your storyboard together according to the script, and then move scenes around. This can help you decide if you need to add or remove shots or tweak elements of your script. Either way, a storyboard will help you fully visualize what you are making before you actually go to shoot it.

Shot List

At this point, you might be thinking, “Okay, I’ve got a script and a storyboard that I’m happy with, I’m good to start filming, right?”

Well…not quite. When it comes to making video ads, the more time you spend preparing, the smoother your shoot will go and the easier it will be to edit your footage afterwards.

So, before you can start filming that brilliant video ad you’ve envisioned, you need to put together a shot list. Of course, if you’re new to filming, you might be wondering, “What exactly is a shot list?”

When you’re filming, it is everything.

Basically, a shot list is a list of everything you need to get your shooting done, from the order you’ll be filming to any notes you might have.

It will probably look something like this:

Here are the basic things you need to have on your shot list.

1. Scene and shot number—shows the order of the video.
2. Location—lets you know where you will do your shooting.
3. Shot description—tells what will be happening on camera.
4. Framing—helps you know what sort of lens you’ll need on the camera.
5. Action—accounts for any action required that isn’t shown in the shot description.
6. Dialogue—gives cues for where in the script the shot starts and ends
7. Actors—tells you which actors you will need there for the shot.
8. Props—gives you a list of any items you might need for the shot.
9. Notes—gives you space to add in anything important that you want to be part of the shot (whether you want this to be particularly dramatic, quirky, dark, whatever).

You can leave some of these things off to save space—say, you only have one actor—and you can add some in if they’re important (eg, you need special lighting for certain shots but not others). Still, most of that can be added into notes. It really depends on how you like it.

Now, why is a shot list important? Well, without it, post-production (editing and the like) will be horrible.

The scene number and shot number help your editor know the sequence your shots should be in so that what you have recorded matches the script in the end. This is critical because almost no videos are recorded with their shots in the same order they were in the script.

4) Create a Filming Schedule

Guess what? You still aren’t ready to shoot… Now that you have a shot list, you can start making your film schedule.

Unless your script is incredibly simple (ie, it’s just you talking to a camera on a tripod), you’re going to have a lot of things and people to coordinate. For that, you’ll need a solid filming schedule. Here are a few things to consider as you put together your schedule.