Smooth Playback is a webcomic about web video.
We’ve all been there: you play a video that really grasps at the core of your soul, but nothing is infinite so, eventually, it ends. You’re faced with a blank screen or something equally unreassuring and your soul is propelled into an existential void, never to return to reality. Well, we have good news for you: it doesn’t have to end this way.
When designing a webpage or an email blast we’ve all been coached by the marketing gurus to include a call to action to help guide the behavior of our audience. How come we don’t do the same thing with video?
For the most part, people don’t add CTAs to video because it used to be technically difficult to pull off. Do you add an image to the end of the video? How do you make it an active link? Can you even control what happens at the end of the video (like with YouTube, where the end of the video is outside the scope of what you can customize)?
As a result, most people settle for a simple fade to black or company logo. Heck, we’ve been guilty of that practice ourselves, mostly because its the easiest thing to do. But all of us have been missing a big opportunity to help influence our audience’s next action. Where can you direct users with a call to action?
