Reasons Why Effective Video Storytelling Needs To Be A Part Of Your Brand’s Marketing Strategy
Shane Yeager
Every great piece of content centers around a story.
When you hear the word “storytelling,” our thoughts often go to fairy tales or bedtime stories – but outside its conventional purpose, storytelling actually holds a lot more potential, especially from a marketing perspective.
It's your medium to connect with individuals on a deeper level.
When it comes to building your brand, making these connections are an effective way of gaining an edge on your competition.
Compelling stories have the power to attract your target audience and help them engage with your business to drive more growth.
Storytelling alone has considerable staying power. If you think back to your past, you’ve probably pooled a collection of stories from your family, friends, and your own personal experiences.
The one thing most of these stories have in common is that they’re brimming with emotion.
By giving an emotional attachment to a narrative, it has a better chance of being remembered long-term.
Telling your stories through video can give the same (if not better) impact.
Many praise the video format as one of the most effective methods of disseminating a message to a large group of people in a short span of time. And this message, if developed properly, will be remembered for a long time.
Forrester Research says that a single minute of an online video equates to almost 2 million words – so why write millions of words when you can just film your message to get the same effect?
Here are a couple of advantages that one can get from video storytelling:
Video Storytelling Improves Brand Recall
What’s easier to retain in your mind, a compelling story, or a bland compilation of facts and promises?
By combining a good message with powerful video imagery, your story will be more memorable.
This visual story can help your brand leave a lasting impact on the minds of consumers.
Every marketer knows that excellent ad recall often leads to a rise in brand favorability and brand awareness.
These metrics correlate with the initial funnel stages such as purchase consideration and intent.
To put it simply, the more a potential customer recalls your brand, the higher the chances of them locking in on a purchase.
It’s important that this brand recall has a positive association with the consumer.
After all, what’s the point of getting your audience to remember you if they’re left with a negative impression?
You can accomplish this by using visuals to enhance the narrative that you want to show. These video queues need to be evocative, while directly correlating with what you want the consumer to feel.
Video Storytelling Encourages Brand Loyalty
A story will pull you in and leave lasting impressions. Imagine your favorite TV show that you can’t stop binge-watching or a book that you just can't put down once you start reading it.
Granted, a video ad isn’t as long as a book or a tv series, but it can use the same essential storytelling elements (such as plot, characters, resolution, and conflict) to draw the audience in.
Since brand loyalty is dependent on creating engaging and personal experiences for your customers, you’ll want a story that does just that.
Aside from using beautiful imagery, consider trying animation, text, overlays, and other standard video components to improve your final product.
Afterward, you need to engage users directly in your video distribution. You have the option of using social media, email, or your brand’s website.
Video Storytelling Imparts Valuable Information
Aside from entertainment value, a story is an excellent way of educating your audience.
Instead of giving factual information to your customer in an outright manner, you should express it within the confines of an unforgettable story.
Based on one of Wordstream’s studies, a viewer retains 95% of the main message if it’s told through a video format. This is a significant difference against the measly 10% when a viewer just reads it in text.
The video format gives you the capacity to deliver tons of information without putting off or overwhelming the viewer.
This information is linked with plenty of visual and audio cues to help retain your message in a viewer’s mind.
However, you should only include information that’s relevant to the narrative, and it shouldn’t detract from the overall theme of the video.
The Key Steps To Making An Effective Video
Here is the general process you can use as a guide to developing your video story:
1. Conceptualize your idea and transform it into a story
This doesn’t just involve creating a good story. After all, your main goal is to improve your brand awareness and form connections with the audience.
You can start off with a broad outline that you can narrow down as soon as you and your team are clear on the path you want to take.
Here is the general framework for a good story that keeps the audience hooked from start to finish:
Protagonist/Goal
You can link the goal with a person that can represent the target demographic. This way, an emotional attachment is encouraged right at the beginning.
Conflict
The problem that your customer has, and what your service or product can solve
Plot
How will you introduce the goal, conflict, and your product?
Resolution
The portion where your service or product saves the day
Afterward, you need to turn this outline into a viable script.
2. Adding the visuals
After creating your story’s framework, you can start focusing on the feel of the video by implanting the aesthetic. The visuals play a considerable role in coaxing your audience into what you want them to feel in a brief amount of time.
Human beings tend to take in visual information much faster than any other stimuli, so planning out the visual aspects of your video should be one of your top priorities.
Here are some things visual components that are crucial to creating the theme of your story:
Lighting
Studio lighting, natural lighting, or maybe a hybrid of both will encourage different emotions.
Setting
Choose a location that is relevant and relatable (or provocative) to whatever problem your product can solve.
Colors
Warm or cool tones? It’s also a good idea to implement the colors of your brand if possible.
Props
The items you add into your video should enhance the focus on your product, not detract from it.
Camera angles
Single shot or multiple? Wide shots or close-ups?
Graphics
Use different animations, text overlays, and motion graphics to enhance visual entertainment.
3. Execution
All that careful planning means nothing if you don’t have the resources and manpower to execute your vision properly.
Be sure to stick within your available budget and only allocate funds wherever necessary.
Fortunately, getting help isn’t that hard to find. You can employ the services of different agencies that can give you film crews and editing teams.
As long as you’re sure that the money you’re putting into this video will attract your desired audience and generate sales, then using a video marketing-focused agency is a solid option.
Alternatively, money doesn’t necessarily equate to quality. And you’ll find dozens of video examples that went viral despite having a smaller budget.
Final Thoughts
As the video marketing trend continues to expand and grow, it’s harder to create videos that haven’t been done before.
More often than not, we’re all just repeating the same hashed out ideas with slightly different settings, characters, and premises.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to create a unique story anyone else has seen (but that gives a bit of an advantage if you manage to do that).
As long as your video was built with an audience in mind, a video that will gain the attention of potential customers and earn their trust, then you can still consider it a success.
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