Philosophy of selling videos

Hello!

In this post I want to share a vision of videos that “sell”.

At Alconost, we 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 a “selling video philosophy”.

If you are interested in knowing what a good video should be, increasing conversion, downloads, registrations and sales - welcome to .

A small digression: when I say “selling video”, I mean a video that motivates the viewer to take 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 promotional video can be called selling. Some videos were originally conceived as not selling, but informational, image-based, 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. All that is more - bores 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 trailer videos with a duration of about two minutes, we adhere to the rule: the first ten seconds they "sell" the next minute of the video, which in turn already "sells" the product.

3. Be easier friend

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

We have developed a rule: speak with the viewer as with a friend, use ordinary speech without pathetic hackneyed cliches. 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. After all, it would never occur to anyone to talk about “the best value for money” or “leadership in 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 together with him learns about the solution to his problem. Empathy is a good helper for a sales video.

5. Not features, but benefits

In the sales video, it is necessary to focus not on the product features, but on the benefits that the viewer will receive from using it. It’s much more important for people to know what problems a product solves, how many languages ​​it translates to, and what protocols it supports. Although, of course, a few seconds of the video can be given to display a list of features.

6. Be cool

A good and well-thought-out script for the video should be embodied in excellent graphics. The characters should be cute and cause sympathy, the graphics should be beautiful and consistent with the overall style of the product, the colors should be harmoniously combined with each other, the animation of the objects should be smooth.

7. To the smallest details - a decisive “no”

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

8. Pauses and transitions rule

Key scenes of the video should be separated from each other using graphic transitions (flash, screen flip, large moving object, etc.), as well as pauses in the speaker’s speech. Pauses help the viewer feel 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 prepares to hear the last phrase, which should be the main motivator. In the last sentence, it is desirable to once again say 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 a display of the website address, contacts. This picture needs to be held on the screen longer so that the viewer has time to record (remember) important information.



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

• the announcer’s text and the video sequence should be balanced in time;
• voice acting should be recorded professionally, the speaker should 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 how we write scripts for selling trailer trailers. Subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss anything.


About the author

Alconost localizes applications, games and sites in 60 languages. Native-language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, project managers 24/7, any format of string resources.

We also make advertising and training videos - for sites that sell, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliner, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

Read more: https://alconost.com