You know that creating a stellar video can do wonders for your marketing campaign, but a flashy, entertaining video isn’t enough to turn passive viewers into active buyers. The best and most effective videos entertain, inform, and inspire action. But how do you make videos that do all these things? Read on for our tips to help you engage and convert your viewers.

How to Engage

A 2008 Forrester research study found that online video watching is becoming a consumer habit, and active viewers are eager and interested in content that pertains to them. This means it’s up to you to create that content. Making a video that grabs your audience’s attention makes them more likely to watch, and it also helps build interest and trust in your brand by showing that you value your audience’s time.

If you believe in your product or service, your job is to help the audience believe in it, too. To start, you must identify your audience and nail down the message you’re trying to deliver — but that’s the easy part. The real challenge is delivering that message in an interesting and engaging way.

The best videos offer solutions to problems, share helpful information, and tell a story. And a key part of engaging your audience is creating content that shows — not tells — them how your business can help. You can use these engaging elements in all your videos, even for something as mundane as printer ink.

For example, instead of pointing out the technical features or chemical compounds of the ink, you could show a couple printing high-quality wedding invitations with the cartridge. Make your product or service the solution to everyday problems your audience encounters. If something is relatable, a viewer is much more likely to engage with it.

How to Convert

Once you have piqued your audience’s interest, you can help convert them to customers by giving them a call to action at the end of the video. This step turns passive viewers into active viewers by sending them on the right path, encouraging them to further the relationship by taking action. Depending on what your goal is, you should give your viewers a “next step” that helps facilitate that. Some effective calls to action:

• Include a website URL at the end of your video, preferably with the verbiage “click here.” That link could direct to your website or a special landing page set up for video viewers specifically.
• Offer a discount or sample for video viewers only. Not only does this benefit the customer, you can track a definitive ROI on the success of your video. Present the offer as an embedded link at the end.
• Ask for feedback, encourage contact, or request users subscribe to your video channel (on YouTube) or to your newsletter so that you can continue to establish a relationship.
• Give more information, such as a downloadable PDF brochure or special landing page providing more related info, to continue your dialogue with the viewer.
• Encourage sharing by asking viewers to spread the word via their favorite social media sites (make sure any sharing widgets are visible and prominent).
• Incorporate in-video interaction to make your video a dynamic selling tool. Include mouse-over areas that highlight products in the video or embed links to immerse users in experience and facilitate an ongoing relationship.

It may only take a few more clicks to turn an engaged viewer into a converted customer, so make sure you’re considering including these essential elements in each video you create.

Tags: conversions, how to, sales, Video Advice, video marketing

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Managing Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.