Before you can effectively deliver your message, your video need to engage their attention. A good video captures, engages and holds their attention till the end.
How do you create engagement?
Make it Matter
Let’s look at sports for inspiration. For a game to be engaging, first the audience must care about the team playing. Similarly for a video, first the audience has to care about the subject.
How? Your video has to tell a story, and if your audience relates to the hero of the story, they will care – much like they care if it’s a game with their home team.
Then Elevate the Stakes
There are needs, and there are NEEDS. There are league games and there are championship games. To make them really care, really NEED it, make it a championship game.
How? Build up the stakes early on in your video. Connect your offering to a deep or critical need. Help the viewer understand why it matters to them. More than financially, connect it to their strategy, mission, or core values. Make it a big win – or a huge loss. A championship or elimination game.
The Journey is more important than the Destination
Think back to your favourite game, that you vividly remember, that still gets you emotionally charged-up. Was it an easy win? I bet it was a game where your team was the underdog, and was in a hopeless situation at one point, before making an amazing comeback to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Probably a game that could have resulted in a series loss or elimination.
You want the home team to win, but easy wins are not half as engaging as close, hard-won games. When the stakes are high. When there is a struggle.
Similarly, a good video story is about the struggle and journey, not just the solution. A Bond movie is fun precisely because he has to struggle to win. The ending is predictable, and yet we are drawn in, rooting for the hero. Can you imagine a Bond movie where the villain is defeated in the first 5 min, and the rest of the movie is about how great he and his gadgets are? Who would watch?
Yet most business videos solve the problem in the first few seconds, and wax eloquent on the features & benefits for the rest.
Instead, take the audience on an emotional journey. A uniformly positive tone creates a flat and uninteresting story. While the ending is on a high, there has to be tension in the middle which creates a desire to solve the problem (with your solution) and increases the emotional impact of the climax.
When we work with clients, we weave in advanced engagement techniques such as Suspense to keep them hooked, Memorable Twists, and an Inspiring Climax. These can make your video very memorable and impactful. You will need professional help for these. However, these powerful approaches are not required very often, and in most cases, the simpler approaches are effective.
So tell a Story
Here’s our research-backed storytelling framework we’ve used multiple times to create effective videos:
Make them care by telling a story about them and their goals and challenges.
Make the stakes consequential.
Engage attention and retain it with emotional highs and lows of a struggle.
End on an emotional high.
Delivering an inspiring message and a call-to-action at the end.
Looking to build a great story video? Something that makes people not just learn about, but feel your product benefits? Leverage StoryProcess to tell great stories, engage & inspire your audience, and transform your business.
Your Product has a story to tell. Tell it well.
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