You’re an advanced digital marketer and add the latest trends to your marketing checklist. What? You don’t have video storytelling in that list?

Video marketing is one of the best ways to convert. Even Forbes is writing about it!

Jump on the bandwagon with this article. You will learn how do the giants of video marketing operate and what smaller companies do to use this strategy to their advantage.

Grab attention

When television was the only way to consume information in video format, people were more patient. They’d stick around for commercials during the break to wait for the show to start. Now you are dealing with a much pickier audience.

YouTube and Vine brought us to the culture of short attention spans. Now you only have about 5 seconds to grab your viewers’ attention. Fail to do that, and they will click on another video.

Get them to click

The best way to intrigue your viewers is what everyone hates but clicks on it anyway. It’s clickbait. Design your thumbnail and the name of the video to attract attention.

But don’t overdo it. If the video does not stand up to the expectation, you’ll get tons of dislikes.

Keep them watching

The next step is to interest your audience enough, so they keep on watching the video. How do you do that? The easiest way is skipping the titles.

Many people think of a fun and engaging title for their YouTube channel. But placing it in the beginning is detrimental.

Place some action first. An interesting part that would appear later on in the video or just the beginning of the video with promises of what will the viewer learn. That’ll do the trick.

Tell a story

People are naturally attracted to stories, especially the good ones. Telling a story in your video is the key to success for most businesses.

This could help you build a brand image or position your product in a certain way. Storytelling, visual or verbal, is what makes a good company excellent.

But you don’t have to write the next Game of Thrones to sell t-shirts at your website. Nor do you have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on it.

Here’s how small businesses do it.

Case study: DocuSign

DocuSign is a company that provides electronic signature services. Instead of telling their customers how good they are, they created an explainer video that tells a story.

It is a simple video that tells the story of a woman who spends too much time signing papers at her bank and ends up using DocuSign instead.

With a story, the audience doesn’t think over the benefits. They associate themselves with the hero and activate emotions instead.

Evoke emotions

Storytelling is a great tool of making your viewers emote. Emotions are one of the best ways to sell something without being salesy. This is why telling a story results in so many conversions.

Make your viewers feel a certain way towards their product, and you’ll receive tons of sales. Here is how another small company manages it.

Case study: RockHer

RockHer is a jewelry company that sells engagement rings chosen with their in-house AI. Go to their website and check out the video on the home page.

This video reaches its goal with visual storytelling alone. Within not more than ten seconds it tells a story of a loving couple ready to get engaged. What can a short video like this do? Quite a lot as a matter of fact.

Adding it to the website resulted in more sales as people associate with the couple and are more decisive when it comes to spending money on diamonds.

Pick the right format

There are a lot of ways to frame your video. Different lengths, different platforms, different aims. Choose the right one, and you will increase your engagement and conversions multiple times.

Choosing the platform

When you think of video marketing, you immediately think of YouTube. However, it’s not always the best choice.

As you have seen above, two small companies were better off with placing their storytelling pieces directly on their websites. This is because it served the purpose of explaining the product or getting the customers in the right mood.

If you plan to produce 5-15 minute videos quite regularly, go for YouTube. Instagram is better for multiple videos of under a minute per day. Facebook Live is the best for live streams.

The choice of the platform depends on what kind of audience do you serve and what kind of videos do you make.

Case study: Blendtec

Blendtec is a company that produces blenders. How could you make an interesting video about blenders? What about a successful YouTube channel with over 800 thousands subscribers?

This company achieved just that. Their fun project with videos of blending random things in the company’s blenders grew into a wild success. It’s fun, it shows that the product is excellent and it sells.

Choosing the length

Do you remember that people have short attention spans? That’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make long videos and still make a profit out of it.

Your industry doesn’t influence the choice of the length and the platform that much to be honest. What matters is what you want to show your audience.

A short, beautiful clip would just evoke positive emotions in people. A longer video that tells you about something in-depth is meant to share knowledge. Here’s how one big company manages long videos.

Case study: Shopify

You all probably know Shopify. It gives small entrepreneurs a platform to sell their goods. Their storytelling marketing strategy? Podcasts.

In their Thank God It’s Monday podcast they tell success stories of self-made people. This speaks directly to their audience, educates them, inspires them and brings the sales up.

User-generated content

You think video marketing is too expensive? What if you don’t even have to film anything yourself?

The thing is people believe other people way more than they believe companies. In addition to this being encoded in your brains, there’s common sense to it. Why would you believe someone who’s trying to sell you something?

Ask your customers to create a video for you, and these videos will become an important part of your marketing strategy. Here’s how an expert does it.

Case study: GoPro

GoPro produces video cameras, so videos are a natural way to market their products. Sure, they employ a lot of professional athletes to record their adventures on camera.

But riding off a cliff or doing parkour in a restricted area is not what a regular person would do. To appeal even more to everyone, GoPro offers people to send them videos and pictures taken with their cameras. The best ones get featured on the site or even win money.

The most important thing about them, however, is that these videos show people everyone can film beautiful thing with GoPro cameras.

Use social media

Your video won’t be effective if no one gets to see it. The best way to get more people to see it is using social media. The more people like and share it, the more people subscribe to your account, the more eyeballs you get.

If your video includes narration or voiceover, tell people to subscribe, like, share or leave a comment. It is simple, everybody is doing it, and it works. If your video doesn’t have a voiceover, make sure it is so cinematic people will want to share it with friends.

Influencers and ambassadors

The power of social media allows you to tap into your audience’s newsfeed in multiple ways. Taking advantage of people who have influence in your industry is a better way to do marketing that paid ads.

Get some influential people to use your product in their videos. You don’t have to pay Beyonce to apply your eyeliner. A blogger with good engagement statistics and 5,000+ subscribers would do.

Case study: Rollerblade

Rollerblade produce just that, rollerblades. They have an active following on Instagram and regularly post great videos and pictures of people using their products.

However, they also have a wide net of ambassadors that wear their rollerblades to perform tricks. These influencers shoot cool videos and arguably add more to the sales than the company’s Instagram itself.

Conclusion

Competing in the world of short attention spans and giants of video industry is not easy. However, you don’t have to be a huge corporation to afford to tell a story with a video.

As you have seen, you don’t even have to record video yourself. Use these tips and case studies to boost your marketing strategy, and you’ll get ahead of the competition.

James Scott

James Scott is a passionate marketer and independent blogger who wants to change the marketing world with his writing. In James’ opinion, any member can change a team. Therefore, a successful and wise manager should be always “on guard” to discover the biggest talents and provide the best working experience for everyone. You can follow him on Twitter @JamesScottEsp or connect on LinkedIn.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Carmelo

    Great article with nice ideas and example links ; )

  2. angelo

    very good idea for my business about our blog page
    but i need a help for nice blog format design .

  3. Great ideas on how to use video storytelling in marketing strategy. It will really helpful for my business. Thanks for sharing!!! Hope to learn more from you in the future.

  4. Hi James Scott, I learned some really useful things. I will definitely try out these tips for using video storytelling in marketing strategy

  5. TechPrevue

    Using video storytelling in your marketing strategy can definitely improve your ROI.

    Thanks regards

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