1. Keep it short. Good introductory marketing videos are short and to the point. When you’re dealing with prospects that are in the initial stages of learning about you and your business, they want to make quick investments of time to see if it’s worth MORE of their time to learn more. Good marketing videos are between 30 seconds – 3 minutes in length. You can make subsequent videos longer after they know that they like you and want to learn more, but keep your intro short.
2. Make it Interesting. Use music, use concise titles on the screen, and easy to follow content. Pique their interest and keep their attention.
3. Have a clear call to action. The biggest mistake we see in video is that people take all this time to put a video together making their business look good (and they do), but they don’t tell people what to do next.
Here are some suggestions:
GOOD: Send people to your website.
BETTER: Send people to an opt-in page where they provide you with their email address to get MORE great content from you.
GOOD: Have them call into your place of business.
BETTER: Have them call in with a special code to get a specific discount.
GOOD: Have them check out another video of yours to learn more.
BETTER: Have them sign up for a series of videos (again, with their email) that provide value and help establish you as the premier company or as an expert in your industry.
4. Tiffany Walke Peterson taught me a universal principle that certainly applies here: Perfect is great, done is better. Get out there and get started with something. Don’t wait until you have better equipment. Don’t wait until you’ve lost 10 pounds. Don’t wait until you have your new product/logo/website. Use what you have and get started. Your loyal following will love to watch you grow through this process and they’ll also start getting information from you NOW instead of “someday”. Do you want an increased interest in your business now or “someday”?
One last bonus tip. If you don’t know how to get started, start here: get out your calendar. Schedule one hour of time to put thoughts on paper about the content, scripting, and general ideas about the tone and purpose of your video. Schedule another hour 2 or 3 days later to shoot your video (so you can let your ideas stew). Again, schedule 1 hour. Remember that we can create things in the time that we allow ourselves and in the space that we allow ourselves to create. If you’re waiting around for a great idea, it might come, but if you set yourself up to create by scheduling it in and making it happen, you’re really setting yourself up for success.
Good luck and happy filming!
This post was written by Michelle McCullough, Business Development Director for Startup Princess