For a video to have a huge impact on viewers, it needs to immerse the viewer, draw them in, and make them, even for a few moments, forget the world around them. This is no easy task, and if you frequently watch videos or movies, you know how rare it is for the filmmaker to accomplish this.
To inspire viewers and have a significant influence on their lives, and create quality videos that can help market your home business, there are some components that must be included and done really well.
Here are 5 tips to creating truly impactful videos to draw in customers:
1. Tell a Story
The key to reaching your audience is to tell a story. This means that your video must have a beginning, middle, and an end. There must be a story arc, even in a short video. For the most part, this needs to be simple and something the reader can resonate with right away.
Even a simple commercial tells a short story. The milk is spilled, but the paper towel cleans it up. The car puts the smile on the man’s face after a long day at work. These are simple stories, but even longer videos can have more of an impact.
Think of the Pixar short “Lava You” shown in theaters at the beginning of Inside Out. This short love story, portrayed in song, had audiences crying before the movie even started. The impact came from the short, but simple romance.
2. Make Your Message Empathetic
Speaking of message, the message of the Lava mini-film, the happy ending, is what reaches the viewer the most. When you are making a video for your business that you want to be impactful, you must have a clear message, and that message must be one the viewer can empathize with.
That’s why it is vital to know your audience. You need to know what they will react to, what moves them. A video about helping starving orphans that is done well, will have a much larger effect on a room full of parents, than a room full of professionals with no children. That is not to say it will not have an impact on them at all, but it will have a greater impression on the parents because they can empathize better.
A message is a vital part of impact and related directly to the story you are going to tell. The question then becomes what outcome you want your promotional video to have. Do you want it to move those parents to donate money, or to volunteer time? The impact you want the empathy to create will help shape your message.
3. Shoot in High Resolution
While the story and the message are important, a poorly shot video will rarely be thought-provoking unless the poor shooting is a part of the story. This means that not only must you have the skills to set up a shot, but you also need to shoot in the highest resolution possible.
Today, people are used to 4K video and even virtual reality to immerse them fully in a visual story. Shooting in 4K is no longer optional, but more like an industry standard. You can always compress video for certain applications, but you can’t take a poor video and step it up to another level.
Even personal drone cameras shoot in 4K and high-resolution formats now, as do most DSLR and even mirrorless DSLR cameras. Some cell phone cameras can even shoot 4K video, so there really is no excuse for not shooting the highest resolution possible.
If you capture shots with different cameras, make sure that when you edit, you reconcile the style of those shots, so that your video looks seamless. You don’t want anything in the editing or filming to pull the viewer out of the story and away from your business.
4. Turn Up the Volume
Besides video, quality audio is of the utmost importance. Having a good microphone and good audio editing software is a must, but so is having a good ear for sound editing. When recording sound, a good pair of headphones like the Focal Elear open-back style can let you hear clearly what the microphone is picking up. This allows you more of an understanding when you edit later.
To get the best audio, you will probably have to use a portable recorder to capture the audio rather than just your camera, although you should have more than one audio recording anyway, so that you can blend them and use the best one in any given situation. One device may pick up one voice or angle better than another one, and having more than one track to work with means you can mix the best of both.
Audio is the same as video: well mixed audio will enhance the story you are telling, and poorly mixed audio can pull the viewers’ focus away. Good audio is critical to creating effective videos.
5. Wrap It Up
An impassioned video is an entire package. It starts, of course, with the story and the message you are trying to get across. Those things must be supported by good video and audio and excellent editing, or the story and message will lose its effect.
When creating impactful videos, you have to wrap up this entire package. Do it well, and you will have a video that will change the minds and hearts of those who see it, and will successfully lead to new prospects and sales. The digital marketing arena is pivoting to video content and home business owners will need to modify their advertising plans to keep pace with the trends.
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