Most of the world doesn't want to read these days...

They'd rather watch a video. 

In fact, 72% of your potential clients prefer you make videos about what you’re selling — whether it's about your services or a product line.

And it seems that video marketing of this kind is good for business — those who watch product and service videos retain 95% of your offered information. 

With numbers like that, it's obvious you should be making more videos for more connection, engagement, and growth.    

The trick is, you can't just make a video about your company and call it good. You need a proper video marketing strategy that actually connects with and engages your customer.

Here's how:  

Create hyper-targeted videos to foster meaningful connections among your target audience. A well-placed video will remain with customers throughout each buying phase until completion.

How to do so? In this article I'm going to show you how by walking you through my agency's entire process of shooting videos for business. 

We’ll cover:

• What videos to choose
• How to script those videos
• What NOT to wear during the video
• Some basic things you’ll need for the video shoot
• Where to host the finished videos
• How to use the videos in your marketing and sales efforts. 

It’s everything you’ll need to create powerful videos that drive engagement and sales. And what’s more, I’ll provide you with a free video guide that will include all you need to know, along with step-by-step instructions so you can easily make your videos look pro-level fantastic. 

Customers want to fall in love with a beautiful story behind a brand. Many of the best and most successful brands of today have been built on the deep connection they’ve created with their customers.

There are so many products and services out there that it can be a real challenge for customers to discern what separates and differentiates one company from another.

To help, you should make sure to create a video for your primary products and services to explain what they are and why they're different than everything else the viewer could purchase instead.

This video explains the sales process, which will help clarify customer expectations and remove any hesitation to purchase (based in part on the StoryBrand Framework). The StoryBrand Framework involves creating an easy 3-step process that simplifies what it’s like to work with your company and helps customers understand how to engage with you. 

My full-service digital marketing agency, Built By Love, is one of the world's only StoryBrand certified agencies, so if you want to learn more about this particular process please schedule a free strategic consult with my team and we can easily help you clarify your message and process.

People naturally love hearing success stories, which, for our purposes, works as a "souped-up" testimonial video. Creating video testimonials or success stories can go a long way to forging positive connections between your company and your potential customers (and can be much more effective than written reviews). 

A final type of video to consider is a request for testimonials. As mentioned above, these customer success videos are extremely powerful in helping your customers try out your product, but you first have to have customers willing to go on camera and tell their story, first!

So to help solicit customer success videos, you can make a video asking your customers to help you out in creating a Success Story video.

Similar to all the rest of the videos, you’ll find that your customers will be more than willing to help when they see your authenticity and hear the passion/excitement in your voice.

In this video, your goal should be to fully explain one product or service that you offer. Remember, the purpose of this video is to help the customer understand why your product or service will solve an issue they currently face within their life. 

You should make sure to include:

1. One thing that makes the product unique and different.
2. One reason why it is high quality/worth the spend/better than any other option.
3. Two reasons how this product or service is going to make their life better.

Also, be sure to show the product or service (if possible) so the customer can see it.

Since this video explains your sales process, the script should demonstrate how easy it is to work with your company, and thereby remove any hesitation to purchase. 

It should include:

1. A short, 1-2 line intro explaining how you understand the challenges of your audience.
2. Merge into how that understanding inspired you to create an easy, straightforward process.
3. Provide a succinct explanation of what those steps of your process are (ideally, you would keep it to 3 steps).
4. End the video reaffirming how easy it is and encouraging them to take the first step.  

In order to paint a true Success Story, the structure of the flow is this:

1. The problem/issue the customer faced before finding your company.
2. How they found your company and the services/products received.
3. How they used your services/products.
4. How those service/products helped them find success and what their life looked like after (i.e. how much better their life is now that they've found your company). 

The purpose of this video is to communicate the same message you have in your prior videos but from a third-party perspective.

In this video, you'll want to just keep it short-and-sweet by simply asking them to provide you with a testimonial. By providing a personal appeal via video, you’ll have a much higher chance of success than you would with just a text email. 

When your customers do agree to provide a testimonial for you, you can work together with them to help craft the perfect “Success story” video we described above.

(Psst - Have you downloaded your free video guide yet? Be sure you do as it will guide you through everything you need to support your video marketing efforts).

It’s important to remember that what you are wearing will appear within the video, and because of such, there are a couple of distracting items you should be sure you avoid wearing. (These items will also, therefore, inform what you should wear).

Here are a few things to avoid:

• Funky stripes or patterns — these can be distracting to your viewer
• White, black, or red solids: these colors can distort some video effects such as green screens
• Brand names: by wearing clothing with an obvious brand name, your viewers will make associations of your video with that brand name
• Noticeable jewelry: similarly, your customers may make assumptions about you or your company based on your jewelry

While there are some obvious things you'll need for your video shoot, such as a video camera and lighting, there are some less-than-obvious items you should make note of.

In particular, you should make sure to have a shot list for your video. A shot list describes, in detail, every shot you are going to need for your video. A good shot list should include:

• Location
• Shot description
• Framing
• Action/dialogue
• Actors involved
• Props needed

By creating a detailed shot list, you will help ensure that your time during the shoot is constructive and effectively captures everything you need. 

Let’s talk about where you should host your finished videos.

There is one obvious place to put these videos: YouTube. As one of the largest websites in the world, YouTube has millions of hours of content and millions of visitors searching the site for this content. By placing your videos on YouTube, you are maximizing the chance that someone will find your video and see it.

However, another prime choice is Vimeo. While Vimeo is smaller than Youtube, the videos there tend to be of a much higher quality due to tougher editorial standards. As a result, the average Vimeo user is usually more passionate than the average YouTube user.

Ideally, you use both platforms in order to extend your reach and variety of viewers.

Your About video should be placed on the “About” page on your website and should be used as an introduction point with your customers. (For example, you could include a link to it in introductory emails to new subscribers).

These videos should be included on your landing pages and product/shop/services site pages. These are best used when a customer is already comfortable with you as a brand and is trying to decide what product to buy. By placing this video next to your “buy” button on a product page, you are maximizing your chance for conversion.

This is a fantastic video to use at several different touchpoints. It works well in nurture email campaigns where you want to connect with your audience as well as any other point where your customer is getting to know your company and would benefit from some helpful information about how you work.

Naturally, Success Stories work well on your Testimonial website pages, but they should also be embedded on related product pages as they will demonstrate the real-life use of your product and how it has helped someone.

These videos are also great to include in emails or share on social media to remind your customers why they connected with you and your company in the first place.

Ideally, you ask for testimonials after the customer experiences success with your product or service, so you know they're happy with their results and your company.

These videos are best when not made public. Share them using a hidden landing page and a targeted email to your existing customers.

If you are a business owner that is serious about providing top-notch customer experiences then I would like to personally invite you to schedule a free call with my team and I. We'll discuss how we can help add value to your company by creating and implementing intelligently designed marketing strategies, video, graphics, and copywriting into your business.