Who’s viewing your online video? Tailor content to the viewer!
You wouldn’t read “Silence of the Lambs” to your 5-year old child who is trying to sleep, would you? Well we need to apply the same thinking to the creation of an online video script.
You don’t need to go very far to see how important script writing is to video … a short hop over to your DVD collection should just about do it! With your online videos your script is your story and before you write it there are some key questions to ask yourself, so that you get it right.
What’s The Objective?
The objective of a bedtime story is for your child to fall asleep; therefore the content is relaxing and sleep-inducing.
For maximum impact, the story you are telling via your online video script needs to start with the objective and the question – what are you trying to achieve? That will help to dictate the content.
Is your online video aiming to raise your credibility with testimonials, convince someone to buy your product by delivering info on benefits, present the human face of your team by introducing staff, present yourself as an expert by answering FAQs or do you have some other objective?
Who Are We Talking To?
The nature of the content will be very different if you are aiming your video at CEOs to if you are trying to educate someone about a specific t task.
A CEO is very time-poor and wants to know the facts about a product – what it does and how it benefits. They want to know you are reliable and can deliver what you say you can.
If your video is designed to be educational – like a how-to video where a plumber shows how to change a washer or a FAQ video where you need to answer a specific question – then the content is very different; it may need to go into more detail as we mustn’t assume that our viewer knows more than they do – we need to make things clear and step-by-step.
What Action Do We Want The Viewer to Take?
We need to think about the end of the video, after the people we have identified as the viewers have finished watching, what do we want them to do? Do we want them to click through to another page, opt in to a deal, buy something there and then, pass the video on….? Incorporate a call to action to reflect this.
What Should I Wear?
Adjust your look to your audience – what’s the image you want to portray? If you are talking to CEOs then a shirt and tie is more suitable than if you are talking to online marketers; how formal or casual do you need to be? Think about what you would wear if you had a face to face meeting.
How Long Should It Be?
A good rule of thumb is to restrict your video to 3 minutes or less. You can always serialise longer videos. You can cover a lot of information in less than 3 minutes if the script is good and you will not risk people skipping your video because they can see it’s too long or losing them half way through.
These questions are great indicators of the types of things you need to be thinking about in your internet video marketing. All aspects of video structure, content, the online video script, making and marketing are covered in more detail in the Lights, Camera, Profits! Workshop. Just click here to learn more about it.