Philosophy of selling videos

Hello!

In this post I want to share the vision of the videos that “sell”.
')
We in Alconost are engaged in the production of promotional videos for software and Internet services. Over the course of several years of work, we gradually accumulated experience, which eventually took shape in what we call the “video selling philosophy”

If you are interested in knowing how a good video should be, which increases conversion, the volume of downloads, registrations and sales - welcome under cat.

A small digression: saying “selling video”, I mean a video that motivates the viewer to do a certain action after watching: download the trial version of the product, register in the system, buy the product, follow the link, etc. The task of this video is to sell the idea, product, service to the viewer.

Not every advertising video can be called selling. Some videos were originally conceived as not selling, but informational, image, and educational. Some are not selling because of an ill-conceived plot or implementation curve.

So, our philosophy of selling videos is based on the following global principles:

1. Do not tire

The duration of a good selling video is 30-120 seconds. Anything more - tires the viewer.

2. Get interested from the first seconds

We have only one attempt to interest the viewer. This must be done in the first ten seconds of the video.

When making trailers with a duration of about two minutes, we follow the rule: the first ten seconds “sell” the next minute of the video, which in turn already “sells” the product.

3. Keep it simple, friend.

If there are advertising stamps in the video, they will most likely be perceived as empty air shaking (even if your product is truly innovative, the best among those on the market and is the best value for money) and even scare the viewer away.

We have developed a rule: speak with the audience as with a friend, use ordinary speech without pathos hackneyed clichés. Tell the viewer about the product as you would tell an old friend about how cool the car you recently bought turned out to be. In this case, no one would even think of a “better price-quality ratio” or “leadership in the field of advanced technologies” and other advertising nonsense.

4. Tell a story

A fascinating story with a logical plot is always good. The viewer identifies himself with the character and with it learns about the solution to his problem. Empathy is a good assistant to selling video.

5. Not features, but benefits

In the selling video it is necessary to focus not on the functions of the product, but on the benefits that the viewer will receive from its use. It is much more important for people to know what problems the product solves, than for how many languages ​​it is translated and which protocols it supports. Although, of course, a few seconds of the video can be given for showing the list of features.

6. Be cool

A good and thoughtful video script should be embodied in excellent graphics. Characters should be cute and sympathetic, graphics should be beautiful and correspond to the general style of the product, colors should be harmoniously combined with each other, animation of objects should be smooth.

7. Minor details - a decisive “no”

Most viewers will watch your video in a standard Youtube player window, without expanding it to full screen. Therefore, the video should not contain small (and at the same time important) details, especially in the screencasts of the product. Small and poorly distinguishable parts are poorly perceived by the audience and create the feeling of something complex, incomprehensible. And we do not need this.

8. Pauses and transitions they rule

Key movie scenes should be separated from each other with the help of graphic transitions (flash, screen flip, large moving object, etc.), as well as pauses in the speaker's speech. Pauses help the viewer to sense and comprehend the importance of the text just spoken, and the transitions make the video structured.

9. The last phrase - call to action

Throughout the video, the viewer is prepared to hear the last phrase, which should be the main motivator. In the last sentence, it is advisable to say once again about the main benefit and encourage the viewer to do the main action. Example: “Raise the conversion of your product page, order a video in Alconost right now!”;) All this should be accompanied by the display of the website address, contacts. This picture needs to be held on the screen a little longer, so that the viewer has time to record (remember) important information.



In addition to the above-described global principles for creating selling videos, there are some more general and obvious rules that we use in the production of any video:

• the text of the announcer and the video should be balanced in time;
• the voice of the text must be recorded professionally, the announcer must be a native speaker;
• cool music and sound is half the success of the video.

This is how we see the process of creating selling videos. If you have comments, constructive criticism or interesting suggestions - we will be happy to talk!

PS In one of the following publications I will tell you how we write scripts for selling trailer commercials. Subscribe to the blog to not miss anything.


about the author

Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.

We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

Read more: https://alconost.com