Andrew | Video Marketing and Startup Blog

Writing an Explainer Video Script that Sells: Wow Your Customers With Words

February 27, 2022 10:06 am | Leave a Comment | Andrew

Video script writing can be easy and fun and these few tips will help get you started in writing a script that engages viewers and prompts them to take action! Before you get started writing there are two important steps you should take:

Identify the goal of your video.
Write a short sentence describing exactly what you want the viewer to do after watching the video; buy a product, sign up for your newsletter, or click a link for more information. Every word needs to keep this goal in mind.

Imagine a target viewer.
Speak to the person in your script. Create an image in your mind of who you intend to watch your video. Who is he or she? What are his or her needs, problems, and values? Where might he or she be viewing your video – at home or at the office? Why might she be viewing your video?

Now that you’ve outlined your goals and described your target viewer, you can begin organizing your script into six sections.

1. Introduce the story
Once-upon-a-time

All videos are about telling a story – even “how-to” videos. Ideally, the story is all about a person with a specific set of problems and how you can help them. Begin a dialogue with your viewer about whatever your imaginary viewer needs or values. You only have between 8 and 10 seconds to capture your viewer’s attention, so you need to connect with your viewer right away. Though watching a video is a one sided process for your viewer, you can create the feeling of personal interaction by speaking directly to him or her as if you were right there making the presentation yourself. Remember your imagined viewer.

Be personal and likable. Ask questions of your viewer to help him or her focus their attention on the problem. If you get your viewer thinking: “Yes, I do have that problem or “Yes, I do need that”, you are on your way. Use personal pronouns wherever possible – you and your. Even if your video is being viewed by a group, each viewer will experience it as an individual.

2. Introduce your offer
Tell your company’s story by explaining why you developed your product or service and why you made this video. Keep this short – your audience might not care who you are until they understand how you can help them with whatever problem or need you just described. Engage your viewer’s emotion rather than their intellect. The purpose of a 2 minute video isn’t to present a lesson in history; it is just to elaborate on a small piece of that history.

3. Describe your product’s features and benefits
Make a short bullet point list of the benefits and features you can offer. What are the features of your product which specifically solve the problem of your target viewer? Four to six bullet points will get the message across without overloading the viewer with information. Try to avoid specific facts and figures in this section – focus on the benefits that your viewer will receive by taking an action. If facts and figures are needed, choose those which reiterate the benefits of your product to your prospect. Explain how these features will help the viewer solve a specific problem he or she is experiencing.

4. Establish credibility and trust by answering objections
trust

Describe particular features of your product which set it apart from the competitors. This is a good place to use a few compelling facts about your product or service as well as to establish trust by demonstrating your understanding of your audience’s needs. Answer 1 or 2 major objections that your target viewer might have. You know by now what objections your prospects usually come up with, even if the only objection might be: “Why should I spend 120 seconds of my time to view your video piece?” Answering objections demonstrates to your viewer that you understand their concerns.

5. Make an initial call to action
Though it may seem obvious to you what the goal of your video is, it may not be so obvious to your viewer. Even if it is, you still need to tell your prospect exactly what he or she needs to do next. So tell them and be specific – don’t be shy about it either.

Some of specific calls to action are: “Click here for more information”, “To be contacted by a representative, please enter your email address below”, etc. Be aware of the exact location on the web page where the video box will appear. Is the link to the side of, within, or below the video box? Web viewers generally don’t like to search a web page for action boxes. The easier to find, the more likely they will use it.

6. Leverage customer testimonials
If you have testimonials or clients who use your service, mention these after your initial call to action. Letting your prospect know who else has benefited from your product or service lends credibility and establishes trust. If you have specific names of clients, be sure that you have their permission to use them as a reference. Thank your viewer for watching and repeat your call to action.

Once you get started, the hardest part of writing a video script is keeping it short – edit, edit, edit. Two minutes goes by very quickly. Stay focused on the goal of the video, focus on key benefits, and present a clear call to action. Have fun with it. Your viewer will enjoy watching your video more if they sense that you had fun making it. Follow these easy steps and your video will be its way toward achieving its intended goal.

Posted in: Marketing, Video

Jay-Z and Startup Marketing: 3 Marketing Tactics You Can Steal From Jay-Z

February 7, 2022 12:57 pm | 2 Comments | Andrew

Jay-Z-Marketing

Grammy award winning artist, agent for some of sports biggest stars, fashion mogul. Jay Z is a lot of things, and you can add brilliant marketer to the list. Over the years Jay Z has made millions through various ventures and done so by employing shrewd marketing tactics. Even today, he still leverages guerrilla marketing throughout his businesses.

Here are 3 marketing tactics you should steal from Jay Z.

Pre-Sell Your Product

For his recently released Magna Carta Holy Grail album Jay Z pre-sold 1 million copies to Samsung at $5 each, well before it was released to the public. He sold a product that did not yet exist, and you can do the same.

For bootstrapped startups the first few months can make or break the venture and initial influxes of cash are tremendously valuable. Before spending time and money to build your product you should first validate the idea. The only true way to validate an idea is to get paid for the product/service. You can’t just ask people if they would buy your product, this isn’t a true validation, you need to ask them to pay you for it. A lot of people will tell you they like your idea or that they’ll buy it when it’s ready but most of them are lying. The cliche “put your money where you mouth is” rings true in this case. If you aren’t able to pre-sell your product, it may not be worth pursuing further.

Surprise and Secrecy Can Be Powerful

Remember when Jay Z “retired.” Well, it didn’t last very long. Since his “retirement” he’s released a number of albums, gone on tour and done a lot of other things he said he would never do again. Many have speculated that the retirement was fabricated to sell more albums and they’re probably right. I mean, come on, who really thought Jay Z was going to retire at the age of 34 while at the height of his popularity? Regardless if it was fake or real, it was a shrewd business move as the first album post retirement went on to sell more than any of this previous albums.

So what’s the takeaway? We’re not suggesting you stage a fake retirement. Instead, think about how you can create hysteria and an air exclusivity around your product. Maybe you’re getting ready to launch your product and you’ve built up an email list. Build anticipation for the product launch by emailing product screenshots to your email list or touting the exclusivity of the launch. You can even offer an exclusive discount for users that sign up within the first few days of going live.

Don’t Be Afraid to Give Away Your Product

giveaway

When Jay Z pre-sold 1 million of his albums to Samsung, they in turn gave it away for free to Galaxy S4 smartphone owners. In exchange for the album, users were asked to provide information such as their email address and social media account profiles. As part of the deal Jay Z received access to this information. As a result, he now had the email addresses and social data of a million die hard fans that he could build further relationships with.

If used correctly social currency can be more valuable than actual currency. There is no doubt that Jay Z has put this to good use. The giveaway resulted in a ton of free press (both print and TV) and thousands of tweets about the new album.

But don’t just give your product away to anyone. When giving your product away it’s important to target inlfuencers and die hard users. These are the people that will champion your product throughout social media and help drive residual business and traffic to your site.

Conclusion

You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Look to others that have had success and emulate some of their tactics. Jay Z is just one example but there are countless other celebrities like Michael Jordan or the Grateful Dead that you can look to for ,marketing inspiration.

What celebrities have inspired your marketing? Let us know in the comments.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Startup

Startup Marketing Tips and Tricks – The Ultimate List

January 8, 2022 2:09 pm | Leave a Comment | Andrew

Many first time entrepreneurs believe that marketing their startup is as easy as setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts and announcing your product to the world. If only it was so easy. Just because there’s a market for your product doesn’t mean people will flock to buy it. You need to differentiate yourself and rise above the noise.

The good news is that you don’t need a huge marketing budget to reach potential customers. In fact, it is typically best to spend as little as possible when starting up to ensure that your product or service really has legs before backing it with larger sums of money.

What follows are some startup marketing tips that have worked for entrepreneurs around the world and can work for you as well.

Tip 1: Create a Great Product

When a product doesn’t sell, many Entrepreneurs blame it on poor marketing. “If we could only get an article on Tech Crunch we would sell 1 million units!” But the best marketer in the world can’t sell a product that no one wants. The most important thing you need to do is validate that there’s actually a market for your product/service before building it. There are a number of ways to do this but the most straightforward way is to simply approach potential customers with your idea and ask if they’d be willing to pay for your product or service. If you’re starting a business without fully validating your idea, you’re taking a big risk and setting yourself up for failure. If you’re interested in learning more about validation, Noah Kagan the Founder of App Sumo goes into great detail about it in this presentation.

Tip 2: Clearly Define your Target Market

Do you really know who your potential customers is? If you haven’t already, create a customer persona by listing their primary characteristics. Make sure you’re very specific. Start by narrowing down your immediate target audience to those who you think will respond to your product. Then list the basic demographics of your customer – age, sex, location, profession etc. Finally, ask yourself specific questions about this person. What does this person look like? (you can even make a rough sketch) What websites does this person visit on a daily basis? Why does this person need your solution in the first place? What pain points is this person experiencing?

After going through this process you should have a good idea of what your customer looks like. Keep in mind that this process takes time to get right, it’s not a 5 minute exercise. Take a day to really map out the customer persona, it’s well worth the time. Only after you fully understand your customer can you effectively market to them.

Tip 3: Leverage Zero Dollar Partnerships

Partnering with established businesses is an inexpensive way to get your product in front prospects that have already shown a willingness to spend money. It also helps lend credibility to your startup. As a startup you have little to no reputation (good or bad) which makes it more difficult to make sales. When a successful company, with a strong customer base, vouches for your product your credibility instantly goes up.

Partnership arrangements can vary widely but the key is finding complementary solutions to yours. At Video Rascal we’ve partnered with Voice Bunny to offer our users access to professional voiceover artists. For us this was a no-brainer. Our customers now have access to voiceovers for their videos and in exchange Voice Bunny makes money when our customers use their service. Partnerships like this one can go a long way in driving sales.

But before approaching potential partners always ask yourself what’s in it for the partner? Why would they partner with me? Once you answer these questions you can more effectively pitch the company on the partnership.

Tip 4: Choose the Proper Social Media Networks

Your target audience will generally prefer certain social media networks over others. You’ll want to start with the social networks that have the greatest percentage of your target audience so that you can maximize your success. For example, don’t randomly open a Twitter account for your business because you and your friends have one. First, search for relevant keywords to see if people are tweeting about topics that are relevant to your business and industry. You can also search for your competitor names. What are people saying about your competitors? Are customers bringing up issues with their service that your product could potentially solve? How do your competitors interact with their followers?

Marketing on social networks can be a time suck and the return on your time spent can often be minimal. This makes it all the more important that you focus on what really matters, generating SALES! Don’t get caught up on how many Likes or Followers you have. No one cares about that and in the scheme of things all that matters is how many sales you’ve driven through the channel.

Tip 5: Provide Great Content

As the saying goes, ‘Content is King’. Good content helps sell your products and your brand, whether through news articles, blog posts or videos. By providing valuable content you’ll be able to create relationships and gain credibility with potential customers. Once you’ve built up credibility and gained the trust of readers you can slowly begin to sell them on your product. This is why it’s essential that you have a blog on your site. A blog will help drive traffic to your site via search engines and social channels. Keep in mind that it takes time to build credibility with search engines so the earlier you setup a blog the better off you’ll be.

Tip 6: Leverage the Power of YouTube

There is little doubt that YouTube has become an internet marketing force. Two reasons for this are that people prefer watching video over reading text and Google has come to love video. In fact, a recent Forrester Research study stated that your site is 53 times more likely to appear on page 1 of Google’s search results if you have video on your website.

Creating video is much easier than you may think. Software like Video Rascal enables you to create animated videos for a reasonable price compared to the several thousand dollars it would have taken only a few years ago. And while in the past you were limited to buying expensive commercial time on local TV outlets. Today, you can post your video on YouTube for the world to see for free.

In Conclusion

There’s never been a better time to launch a startup. The size of your marketing budget has no bearing on whether you succeed or fail. The free and low cost marketing tools available today level the playing field and make it possible for anyone to have success marketing their startup. Hopefully these tips help guide you as you build your startup marketing plan. Remember that there are few overnight successes, and good marketing takes time and perseverance. Good luck and happy marketing!

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Startup | Tagged: entrepreneurship, startup marketing

Why Adding Video Increases Leads on Your Landing Page

December 17, 2021 8:28 am | Leave a Comment | Andrew

You spend hours refining and testing, trying to create the perfect landing page. You change call to action button colors, change font sizes and update headlines but is any of this paying off with a meaningful increase in your conversion rate? Probably not. As you know, consumers give you only seconds to wow them or they’re “out of there,” on to the next page.

Your website must grab those visitors, pull them in, and keep them there long enough to communicate your message. Video is a great way to do this. If you aren’t adding video to your landing pages you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Here’s why….

1. You’re lazy, I’m lazy, we’re all lazy

Let’s face it, when the average person looks at a page of text, that person’s first thought is something along the lines of, “This looks like a lot of work.” A study found that the average web browser reads only 20% to 28% percent of text on a webpage. If you’re spending all your time typing away to fill your page with text, that means 72% to 80% of those words are a waste of your time.

Just as most would rather wait for a movie to come out than read the book it’s based on, your site visitors would much rather kick back and watch a short video than read hundreds of words. In fact, a study from RISMedia found that six out of seven people would rather watch a video than read text. But even that has its limits. Those same lazy people are impatient, leaving you with only a few seconds to let them know your video is worth watching. This means that even your video must be kept short. Clearly articulating the main points at the beginning of the video is vital to keeping the user engaged.

2. Everyone loves a good story

Stories sell because they help humanize products and services. Think about the effective sales people you’ve come in contact with. Whether they’ve sold you something or you work with them, the good ones always have the gift of storytelling. On the web the most effective way to tell a story and humanize your products is to leverage the power of video.

A good video tells a story, not only explaining how a product or service works but WHY it matters. Explainer videos have become popular in recent years because they help to personally connect viewers with a brand. And since explainer videos are designed to communicate a concept within one to two minutes, they are ideal for short attention spans.

3. Sticky gum on your shoe is bad; a sticky website is good

Google can bring customers to your website, but only you can keep them there. We’ve all clicked onto a website, taken a cursory glance around, and backed the heck out of there before we wasted another second of our time. You should have the same respect for your site visitors’ time as you have for your own.

The goal with any landing page is to create a “sticky” website. Research from Comscore shows that videos give consumers a reason to stick around. In fact, ComScore research has found that video keeps site visitors on your landing page two minutes longer than average. Those visitors are also 64 percent more likely to purchase than other website guests. If your video provides information that is relatable and relevant, you’ll up your chances of landing a new customer.

4. The SEO benefits are substantial

In the new era of Google Panda, keywords are no longer ruling search results. Good, quality content has taken over and your videos add to your site’s value when search engines crawl your site. According to Forrester Research, your site is 53 times more likely to appear on page one of search results if you have video on your website. Not only will a video increase your site’s ranking, you’ll have the added benefit of your site showing up in video searches for your topic. Combining your video with small sections of text on your landing page will help increase search engine exposure.

5. Video can differentiate you from competitors

Take a look at your competitors’ websites. What sets them apart? Or, maybe more appropriate, what is it that makes their site look just like any other landing page? Many companies are using the same landing page templates that you are. Imagine that your potential customers are seeing the same thing, and then clicking over to your website. Will yours just blend in with all the others?

Videos can make your page stand out. Luckily for you, many companies have yet to realize the power of video. At least for now, this gives you an edge. But this won’t always be the case. Chances are your competitors aren’t far behind you, meaning you need to act fast to take exploit this opportunity.

But before you start putting ideas together for your great new video, begin researching options for a high-quality, professional video. Some businesses have found animated videos can be less expensive, while still being attention-grabbing. As video has become more popular on websites, more businesses are offering affordable video options for businesses like yours.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Startup, Video | Tagged: entrepreneurship, seo, video

Voicebunny partners with Video Rascal

September 30, 2021 1:00 pm | Leave a Comment | Andrew

Creating fast, professional, and affordable voiceovers for your videos has never been easier!

We’re excited to announce that Video Rascal has partnered with Voicebunny, the absolute leader in the voice over industry.

VoiceBunny currently works with companies such as Pandora, Farfaria, Phone Unite, and Aliens vs Monsters to create voice overs for advertisements, ebooks, video games, and much more!

Check out their crowd of thousands of actors available in over 50 languages. Need translations into different languages? Well, they do that too.

See Video Rascal and Voicebunny in action:

To get started and post a voice over project, go to http://videorascal.voicebunny.com/. Let us know how your experience goes!

Posted in: Product News

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