Form follows function in the web design world, and inevitably the single most important function of any business-related website is to communicate. Videos are an excellent tool for communication, because they work on entirely different channels within the brain than text does. Image recognition plus speech processing is a much better way to make a message last than simple text — leaving many clients with the question: how do you make a killer video without breaking the bank?
What A Video Has To Be
The ‘right’ video for a business website should essentially repackage the information of the landing page in a different format. It should have a solid hook, a product demo, some form of value statement, some social proof, and a call to action, just like your landing page itself. Of course, not every video has to follow that formula exactly to be successful — witness Dollar Shave Club, whose viral landing-page video has no social proof and only the vaguest of product demonstrations, but is almost impossible to forget because of its raw zaniness.
Some clients may be worried that a video that encapsulates the entire webpage’s purpose may leave clients feeling like they know enough and don’t need to keep reading — but that’s almost never the case. The people that last through the entire video are going to either be ready to buy, or they’re going to want more justification to buy and so they’ll keep reading in order to convince themselves that they really do want to spend money on your product. If they weren’t going to, they wouldn’t have sat through the entire video in the first place.
What A Video SHOULD Be
To really put together a video that hooks the watcher, you need a few elements. You need a solid hook, a narrative element, a powerful call to action, and most of all you need stunning production value. A company that does a great job with this is Final Five Productions.
The most important thing to remember about a strong hook is that it doesn’t have to be flashy or complicated. In fact, in most cases, less is more — you want to leave the watcher fascinated or intrigued, not stunned. The narrative element should take over from there, teasing a story out of your hook. It doesn’t matter if the story is about you, a customer, or even features your product as if it were a character in its own right, but it should tell enough of a story that your audience becomes interested in the result. Obviously, the call to action comes at the end and motivates your watcher to buy, click, or perform whatever other action you want them to.
Last but the opposite of least, there’s the issue of production values. It’s trivially easy for any schlub to throw together a video and put it up on YouTube these days — the thing that separates the schlubs from the winners is almost entirely in the amount of time the winners take pre- and post- filming. A good storyboard, quality editing, and if you’re shooting the footage yourself, a high-quality camera and skilled cameraman are all vital to conveying to your watchers that you’re willing to put in the effort and make a video worth watching.
Combine all those elements with a well-designed landing page, and you’ll be well on your way to a profitable webpage.
Leave a Reply: