Video marketing is a popular way to gain the attention of your audience. With so much written content, breaking through and getting noticed is often hard. But with video, you’re putting your message directly in front of your audience at a time when their eyes are focused on the screen. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn the best practices for creating powerful video ads that increase & boost ROI.
However, if you don’t produce a powerful video ad, your viewers will likely tune out or skip over it. Below are some practices you should implement when creating video ads to ensure that all of your videos produce your desired result.
Have the Right Equipment
Before you start planning your video ads, you need to have the right equipment. An ad filmed with your smartphone and immediately uploaded to your ad network will likely not return the results you’re after.
The first thing you’ll need is good camera equipment. This means the camera itself, lighting equipment, and high-quality recording devices. Choose a camera that allows you to record in the highest resolution possible and one with plenty of storage space. Then look for lighting and sound equipment that will allow the subjects of your video to look and sound natural on camera.
The other thing you will need is some video editing software. You can either choose something that is great for any type of video production, like Final Cut Pro, or you can use something that is a dedicated video ad maker, helping you create videos that would actually sell.
Getting all of the above is a large investment for your business. This is why many companies choose to outsource their video production needs to companies that already have all of this equipment. But whether you decide to do the job yourself or bring in an outside team, you’ll want to be sure the best possible equipment is being used.
Start Off Strong
The key to any powerful video advertisement is in the first few seconds. If you don’t immediately gain your audiences’ attention, they won’t stick around to the end of the ad. Those first 5 to 10 seconds are where you should devote most of your time, as you want them to be the most vital part of your ad.
Here are some great examples of powerful video ads. Notice how each has a way of hooking in viewers right from the start. Maybe they ask a question of the viewer, start with a joke, or present a powerful image that viewers want to know more about. Keep reading this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn the best practices for creating powerful video ads that increase & boost ROI.
Creating Video Ads: Tell a Story
Stories are a powerful tool in any marketing medium, but they are instrumental in video marketing. By telling a story within your video ad, you give your audience something they can relate to. Marketing is about connecting with an audience personally, which is hard to do with just facts and figures.
For example, a digital marketing agency wants to bring in more small businesses as customers. Which ad do you think would be more effective:
- Video Advertisement A: The owner of the business talking about how they can increase your business’ sales by 30% and generate a 50% return on investment, or;
- Video Advertisement B: A previous marketing agency client describes their business before working together and how it has improved after hiring them.
By going with Advertisement B, your audience could put themselves in the place of your previous client. They would relate to the business owner struggling to bring in customers and start seeing your digital marketing agency as a potential solution. While it’s great that the agency can improve a business’s sales, this information is likely too abstract for a video ad.
Creating Powerful Video Ads: Focus on the Viewer
A common mistake in video ads is talking about yourself too much. You want to focus primarily on your audience to create a powerful video ad. This doesn’t mean you don’t talk about your business at all; instead, you just need to adjust how you talk about it.
For instance, rather than saying that your digital marketing team produces powerful video ads for businesses of all sizes. You could say that powerful video ads are essential for bringing in new customers. So, your digital marketing team can help the customers out. This second sentence talks about what the audience is interested in – bringing in new customers – while still managing to talk about your own services.
It would help if you placed yourself in your customer’s shoes through every stage of the video production process. Think about their wants and needs, then look to address them throughout the entire video. The more focus you place on them, and the lesson you, the more powerful your ad will be.
Add Text to Your Video: Ads Best Practices
Even though video ads are a visual medium, you shouldn’t forget the text. Adding text to your video is a good idea for several reasons.
For starters, you don’t know who could be viewing your video. It could be someone who has trouble hearing, and the only way they will get your message is if there are captions. Without text in your video, you immediately limit your pool of potential prospects.
Second, sometimes people watch videos with the sound off or on low. If your advertisement’s audio is lower than the device’s volume level. The viewer won’t hear anything you have to say. But if you add captions and text to your video. So, you can still grab their attention and maybe even draw them in enough to raise their volume.
Finally, text can keep a person’s eyes on the screen. We’re all so accustomed to video ads now that many of us look away. While we wait for them to be over. By adding something interesting to the video. For example, with dynamic text, you may be able to hold some of their focus a little longer.
Learn from Your Previous Ads: Boost Video ROI
The final thing you should do is learn from your previous efforts. As you make more video ads you’ll start to see what works and what doesn’t. You can study your previous ads and see which ones held your audience’s attention the longest. Which ones got the most clickthroughs? You can then try to pinpoint what worked about those videos and apply those lessons to future ads.
It’s not always easy to develop a robust video ad on your own the first time around. But if you can apply the elements above, you should give yourself a good start. From there, you must keep trying new things, study what works, and adjust as you advance. It’s a long process, but it can yield tremendous benefits.
