Making An Effective Promotional Video

Following on from our ‘How To Make An Effective Video’ blog, in this video we look at what goes into making an effective Promotional Video.

Can’t watch the video right now? Continue reading for all the details…

What is a promotional video?

To make an effective promotional video, you need to understand what a promotional video is. It’s your elevator pitch. It’s a quick insight into your business, products, services. It should be designed to make your audience think “I need to find out more about this” or “I want to buy this.”

My suggestion is to keep your video as short as possible – somewhere around two minutes is ideal, if that. The important thing is to be concise. (Note: we have another video specifically on video length.)

But how do you keep it concise?

If your business is anything like mine, there’s so much to talk about, yet you have to be clear about what your key messages are. I would suggest that you have no more than three key messages. If you can, try and stick to just one.

For example, a key message could be that you provide the best service, that you’re the cheapest, you have the fastest turnaround, or perhaps something that’s very specific to your industry.

Try to pick one key message and stick with it. Don’t be afraid to give up others – you could always create separate promotional videos specifically for each one in the future.

Structuring your video

Your video should tell a story. The beginning should be an introduction to your business, the middle should be a short description of your products, services and any other selling points, and the end should be a call to action telling your viewers what to do next if they’re interested.

It’s important to have a clear call to action to drive your viewers on the right path that helps you achieve your own objectives for the video. You’ll need identify these at the start of the project and tailor your video around where you want your viewers to go after they’ve finished watching – typically this might be arranging a sales call or making an enquiry through your website.

A call to action could be written into the script – for example, most YouTubers will say out loud that you should subscribe to their channel – or you could use on-screen text to show your company website, phone number or email address. It’s important not to go overboard with this though. A link to your website, phone number, and every social media account under the sun is more likely to confuse your audience and leave them taking no action at all.

It would be better, instead, to create multiple versions of your video with different calls to action based on where your viewer is going to watch it. There’s no point encouraging viewers to visit your website if they’re already watching the video on your website.

Once your video is finished it’s important to share it in relevant places online and off. Rather than simply embed it into your website and calling it a day, why not share your video on social media or take it with you on your smartphone or tablet to play at sales meetings and networking events?

Conclusion

You may be wondering when I’ll start talking about which camera you should be using, or which LUTs will make your LOG footage pop the most.

The technical aspects of producing a promotional video are perfectly valid things to be concerned about when making content to promote your business but, in my view, they don’t matter anywhere near as much as making sure that the video content you’re producing is structured and effective.

There’s no point making a beautiful film that nobody wants to watch.