We invited Ossian Veronese, co-founder and Agency head at the marketing agency Storisell, to host an eMarketeer Academy webinar where he shared his take on storytelling in video marketing and how stories can actually help you sell more.
Video continues to be one of the most popular content formats when it comes to online marketing. Not only because a video is a great medium to amplify your stories and showcase what your company is all about, but it’s also said that when you include a video on a landing page, you can boost your conversion rate by 80%. Ossian shared how you can map out a video marketing strategy and make your videos convincing with storytelling techniques.
We listed some of the key takeaways from the webinar, but if you prefer to watch it yourself, you can watch the recording of it here.
Storytelling in video marketing
The first step is to identify who you are as a company and how you communicate it. The pretty common “trap” is to describe what you do and what products you offer. The problem here is that it’s more difficult for the buyer to understand your relevance and it requires a high level of knowledge from them from the get-go.
Get the buyers to relate to you by instead describing why you are relevant. It appeals to a broader range of buyers and makes an effort to convince them why your products can make an impact. This is also where you can apply some storytelling techniques when you describe why you are the best choice.
In other words, describe why you are and not what you are.
Opportunity storytelling
One of the most commonly used storytelling techniques and that’s simple to implement as a first step is opportunity storytelling.
Step 1. Trendcasting: identify changes in a given market place. It could, for example, be technological, societal, or an economic aspect.
Step 2. Define how those changes impact prices and the buyers’ needs.
Step 3. Explain how those changes have opened up new market windows
The opportunity here lies in step 3. So the point here is to create a frame for the story that makes your product or service relevant.
Video marketing
When you tell your story with a video, you’re given the chance to amplify yourself as it ensures the perfect pitch every time someone hears it and it’s available 24/7.
When you start sketching on your video marketing strategy, start by mapping out the buyer awareness stages, and what type of story would fit into each stage. For example:
Unaware stage: This audience is probably not aware why they would need your product or service, so you need to pitch your idea and inspire the viewer. Here it’s all about piquing the viewer’s interest in your products. An explainer video would suit this stage.
Aware: This is where you educate the audience about the problem and drive a sense of urgency for them to start comparing solutions to solve that problem. Some examples of video type would be explainer videos and/or client testimonials.
Transactional: Short, impulsive reminder videos are suitable, telling the viewers why they should buy. This could be done with product videos and ads.
The state and future of video marketing
We continue to see more and more videos online and social media platforms emerge and adapt to the video landscape. Even though LinkedIn was pretty late by allowing videos in their news feed (2017), they report 3 times more engagement on video compared to photos or text content. Instagram continues to experiment with ways to make videos more interactive with Augmented Reality (AR) and the newly released “reels”-feature (short video clips). “The platforms that win on video, also win user attention,” Ossian says. What’s important to remember, is that no matter the platform, the successful video campaigns often have one thing in common; they all have a well-crafted story and have their own stories to tell.
Curious to hear more of Ossian’s tips? You can watch the on-demand version of the webinar “Storytelling in video marketing” that also includes a Q&A-session.
Now, what’s your story?