Introduction

A promotional video is used to market a product or service to its intended audience. Delivering key information to the audience in a succinct, informative and attention grabbing way. So that they can make a decision about the product or service. Even the best product or service in the world needs effective marketing, delivered to the right people, and a promotional video is one of the best ways to do this.

To help you craft and plan your promotional videos, here are our top 5 tips to creating dynamic, engaging and effective promotional videos, that hit your business objectives. 

For us to better understand how to do this, we’ll be using a case study from one of our clients, Alter Domus. A Malaysia My Second Home sponsor, helping clients overseas to attain 10 year residency visas in Malaysia. We created the film, “My Second Home,” to promote their service, receiving receiving over 120,000 views and 1,500 Engagements, over the span of 4 months on youtube.

1. A Well Defined Target Audience and Call to Action

To scope the project and create a target, we first need to define and focus on your target audience that you want to reach. Additionally we need to be aware of what call-to-action we want them to take. This may be to check out your online store, to sign up for your newsletter, or to sign up for your service through your landing page. By doing this, we know exactly who we are creating the video and thus we can tailor a message that resonates with them.

In, “My Second Home,” the target audience were affluent, retirees aged 40 - 60, living in America, Europe and the United Kingdom. This affected our casting for our main character, Nigel Graver, a British expat that has since retired in Penang. Additionally, this affected our script as we had to write in elements of living in Penang which appealed to this target audience

2. A Strong and focused message

This should be one to two sentences long and will form the guiding light of our story and flow of the video. By doing this we know that our promotional video is on the right track. That whatever we put into the video is strengthening this message.

In, “My Second Home,” the message we wanted to deliver was, “Consider retiring in Penang because it has the infrastructure of a developed country, yet retains the culture and affordability of a developing country.” With Penang, it has luxurious and affordable housing, internet infrastructure, international schools and in addition, a rich heritage of food, arts and culture. These are elements which would appeal to our target audience. 

3. Highlight just 5 key Benefits

We recommend focusing on five key benefits of the product or service and how your customers are able experience them. By limiting ourselves to just 5, our attention is shifted to the most important aspects of the product/service that will really drive audiences' decision making.

4. Script a strong story, Showing the benefits

Nobody likes being marketed and sold to, and this is why some of the biggest brands in the world spend millions of dollars to create ads with a strong story and narrative. The ads creatively show how their product or service can help their customers. The story needs to naturally weave the products or service into the video. In other words, we want to show the benefits of using your product or service, rather than outright tell the audience what the features of your product are. Reference videos on Vimeo and YouTube are a great inspiration to start scripting out your story.

For example in, “My Second Home,” we used the story of Nigel Graver recounting his past experience of why he decided to move over to Penang and what he loves about the island. We used his voiceover for the basis of the film, and showing this by shooting video footage of him doing the activities mentioned by the voiceover. By having a character narrate his experience as well as filming natural scenarios of him enjoying Penang, we created a genuine story that shows the audience why they should consider retiring in Penang.

5. Good Production Value

The promotional video will be the face of our company, thus it’s important that we put our best face forward. Especially if marketing dollars are being used to promote the video through social media ads or traditional media.

By good production value we mean, good directing where the actors perform naturally on screen. Great camera work which is pleasing to the eye with filmic elements while emphasizing the story. Beautiful lighting where lighting is used to emphasize the tone of the story and characters. Good set design where the environment adds to the story and isn’t distracting and crisp audio that is cleanly recorded and the audience is drawn into the story as the sounds immerse them. These are the elements that create a, “high budget feel,” to any piece of video content.

We would recommend you to hire a trusted video production company to handle the technical areas or hire an experienced in-house video creator to lead the project. This is due to the intensely technical nature of good production value.

6. *Bonus tip* Engaging a Digital Marketing Agency

With the above 5 guidelines, we’re on our way to crafting a strong promotional video. However we do need to enlist the help of a digital marketing agency or freelancer to set up ads for our promotional video. It will be their responsibility to ensure the videos created are shown to the right people. This can be in the form of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok ads and many other social media platforms. 

Our film, “My Second Home,” adhered to above 5 guidelines, we managed to create a video that strongly resonates with our target audience. Evident in the number of views, comments and likes for the film on Youtube. Whilst also delivering the key message of why they should retire in Penang. We had a winning video on our hands and we needed a strong digital marketer to push the video out. Alter Domus had an in-house digital marketing team, which pushed out the video aggressively on YouTube. Leading to 120,000 views and 1,500 social engagements in over just 4 months. 

Conclusion

Promotional videos are one the most engaging mediums we have to connect with our audience, however they need to be crafted in the right way to have their intended effect. We have gone through 5 fundamental ways to ensure that your next promotional video is a hit. And they can be summarized as,

1) A well defined target audience

2) A strong and focused message

3) Limit ourselves to 5 product/service benefits

4) Scripting a natural story that shows the benefits of your product or service

5) Ensuring good production value through hiring a video production team or freelancer. 

By adhering to the 5 above guidelines, you can be sure that your promotional video will be effective and that your campaign will deliver the intended results. If you have any unanswered questions do contact us over at hello@robertvisuals.com and we will be more than happy to answer. Finally If you ever need help with crafting a great promotional video, you can always contact us! 

Warm Regards, 
Robert Chua 
Co-Founder of Robert Visuals 

*Disclaimer: we are a creative agency that specializes in video production. The above guidelines are based on our personal experience working with international brands and clients. The above article was written with the intention of helping our readers craft better promotional videos that actually drive business results.