Helping prospective clients connect to your business emotionally through TV commercials and web videos.
By Guest Blogger: Chris Hudson, Emmy Nominated Documentary filmmaker and Telly Award Winning Producer/ Editor of Chris Hudson Productions
Every business has a story to tell. The question is how are you telling your story?
Print? Online? Television?
Marketing your business is absolutely necessary in order to get gain new clients and drive traffic through your doors and to your website. But what is the only way to truly emotionally connect with a prospective client who is at home watching TV or surfing the web? Through the use of a well produced video.
Video combines the different elements of moving pictures, music, graphics, voice over and sound effects into one stand alone piece that people can hear, see, and many times feel. It’s hard to hear a print ad and see a radio commercial. A video can tell a story that you connect with, causing you to laugh, smile, cry, or even get angry.
So how do you tell your story? Especially when it comes to advertising on television or online.
In order to tell your business’s story, you’ll need to follow a few important guidelines.
1. Timing of a video is crucial.
In television, most commercials are either EXACTLY 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds. Anything longer than 60 seconds is considered a long form video and can be one and half to three minutes long.
For online videos, the timing isn’t as stringent because online videos for YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, websites, etc. aren’t constrained to cable/broadcast standards. You get to decide how long your video can be for these previous mentioned outlets.
However, remember this. A well told story keeps the attention of the viewer. A story that is boring and takes too long to tell loses the viewer’s attention. So for online videos and some television long forms, a standard 3 to 5 minutes is plenty of time to tell a good story about your business.
2. What do I talk about in my 30 second commercial or long form web video?
My rule of thumb for a 30 second commercial is to introduce your company briefly in the first eight seconds, then talk briefly about the five most important things your business does, and then end the commercial with a call to action. Repeat your business’s name at least three times within the commercial, because repetition is key!
In a long form video this same rule applies; however, now you have more time to explore your five key topics and have a softer call to action at the end of the video.
3. Be creative.
Use the first two guidelines to help you create a skeleton script for your video and then use your creativity to tell your story that will capture viewers’ attentions. Think back on some commercials you’ve seen recently that tells you what they are about but in a funny or creative way.
4. Separate your business from the other businesses out there who use poorly produced local commercials and videos to sell their product.
When someone sees a bad commercial, most of the time their initial reaction is “I would never shop there,” or “I would never do business there.” They judge the complete business based on what they saw on television or online. Instead try to produce your commercial/video to look professional and a higher quality than your competitors. If a commercial stands out, looks nice, and is well done, people are more likely to trust you and your business.
5. Once you complete your commercial/video, post it everywhere you can.
Run a commercial schedule with a cable company, on broadcast. Post it on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, in email campaigns and on your website.
6. Last but not least, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Like I said before, repetition is key. I once worked with a car dealer in Charlotte who wanted their commercial to look like another car dealers. When I edited their commercial and showed it to them, they didn’t like it. They wanted it to completely look better than the competition they were talking about. That’s when I realized they weren’t wanting a commercial that looked like their competitors. They wanted a commercial that would get the same response their competitor’s commercial received. What they didn’t know is that their competitor had been running the same looking commercial for over 20 years. That car dealership understood what it meant to advertise.
So what ever your business’s story is, keep telling it. Over and over again! Once people see your story numerous times, whether on television, the web, in print, or on a billboard, your business will be the first one they think about when they need something.
Keep Marketing!
To watch a video clip produced by Chris Hudson Productions, click here.
Across the Horizons 