In a previous post, I suggested some ways to generate technology solution videos that feel like the kind of everyday video we’re accustomed to seeing in social media. And as unlike TV commercials as we can make it, because buyers who are researching a solution want to be informed, not sold to. Here are a few more options.
Technology solution videos as FAQs
If people are visiting your website to research a solution, wouldn’t it make sense to have your best people answer the questions they are most likely to ask? — in a user-friendly video format? It wouldn’t bother most viewers if the video looked like a recorded FaceTime call.
Answers to questions that are “Frequently Asked” can be found in tutorials, webinars, online demos, and other traditional video genres Extracting and repackaging them is just a matter of imagination and editorial skill.
Skip intro
— Randy Tinfow,
Interactive Video Technologist
Have you ever attended a live webinar and sat through ten minutes of introductions while staring at the same boring slide? Of course you have. But at least there are real people on the line, and they promised to say something interesting. That’s why your watching. And you can’t skip ahead.
That’s not the case with video. Many, fearing boredom, will skip out. Many others will skip ahead.
And, as Randy Tinfow notes, a near-majority of viewers will skip the intro. Buyers watch your videos to learn new things. Don’t make viewers wait. The Internet despises wait time.
Give the viewer something to do
Unless you’re marketing an easily understood consumer product, the only reason to make a marketing video is to get the buyer to seek additional information. It would be nice if you could motivate the buyer to pick up the phone and call you. But, at the very least, you want to advance engagement by persuading the viewer to consume more content.
An easy way to this is to chapterize your video. A ten minute video should be broken into 2-minute chapters. This is unbelievably easy to do. It can be done on video platforms like YouTube, Wistia and Vidyard. It can be done on more specialized platforms like Hapyak. It can be done by experts like the Randy Tinfow. It doesn’t matter how you do it. Making your video interactive with chapters pays off.
- It engages viewers by getting them to make choices.
- It allows viewers to skip right to the question that’s top-of-mind instead of leaving them wondering if and when their question will be answered.
- It shows viewers how many interesting subjects the video contains, which will encourage longer viewing.
- It generates data that tells you what buyers are most interested in.
- It generates data on the effectiveness of the video.
- It provides a better customer experience.
It just takes imagination
If you think of video in terms of content, not genres, you’ll quickly see many more opportunities to use, and re-use, video content that can be produced with little or no budget. As long as it communicates ideas effectively, buyers searching for ideas will value it. If your video content entertains, engages and educates, it will work. Otherwise it’s just an ad.
