Learning how to tell the story of your company or organization in a short form video is important to find new customers and clients.
It’s more than important; it’s imperative.
But too often we jump into the video production process without considering our end goal and what we really want our video to accomplish, or whom we want it to speak to.
We are all trying to establish ourselves as the go-to source for whatever product, service, or information we offer, so how can we use videos to establish ourselves effectively?
It’s simple.
Sharing the success stories of people you have impacted proves that you are the authority that can help your audience achieve its goals.
Here are some useful tips on how to create a testimonial video for your business or nonprofit.
1. TELL A STORY.
Storytelling has been used since the beginning of time for communication, trust, and trade. To impact your audience in the best way, give them a narrative to follow that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. Make sure you clearly show the challenge your customer or client faced, the change that you helped them make, and the outcome (i.e. the SUCCESS!) that came from that change. People will follow along with the story closely and pay attention to all the details as if it were happening to them.
2. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, IT’S ABOUT WHO YOU HELP.
The old way of advertising and marketing sounded something like this: “Here’s what we do, here’s why we are better than our competitors, and here’s how you can find us.” But things are changing; in the world of “fake news” people are sick of being sold to. They are scared of scams and reluctant to trust salespeople. Stop talking about yourself. Start talking about who you serve, and why! If you do your job well, your customers will talk about what makes your company or organization worthwhile, and you will remain the humble hero.
3. USE EMOTION TO CREATE EMPATHY
Effective storytelling, with the right characters, can help you create powerful and emotional videos. Instead of giving people facts to listen to, give them feelings to latch onto. This produces elevated levels of oxytocin, a neurochemical that actually causes us to empathize with the person in the story, which then causes us to trust them, which makes us want to help them. Studies show that people are more willing to donate to a cause or support a product, when their levels of oxytocin are higher.
It may take a little bit of work in the beginning to find good characters, but the better you become at storytelling, the better you will become at noticing where good stories are hiding.
They are all around you!
You can tell the success stories of your company or organization in a feature length documentary or in a six second bumper ad. The essential parts are the same.
But in 2019, you should consider short form video, video series, and using vertical video.