What Are the Key Elements of a Great Product Video?

1. Determine Your Ideal Customer

When it comes to creating an amazing product video, whether its purpose is to increase sales, educate and inform your clients, or simply to build brand awareness, having a clear picture of who your ideal customer is crucial for the overall execution of your product video. Why? Well, if you are not talking to your ideal customer, you will not get a return on your investment into video production.

Before you even begin planning your video, think about who your audience is and what value they are looking for in their lives. Without this key information, it will be impossible to write any type of script, let alone a storyboard for a video. Although you may understand what problem or need your audience may have (perhaps they are in need of a new toaster, for example), you must first understand the value they are seeking. Is this someone with a family who needs to be able to make a lot of toast all at once during busy mornings? Is this a single person living in a tiny apartment with very limited kitchen counter space? How is your product going to fit into their life?

Another thing to keep in mind when creating a product video is your audience’s character traits. Who is this person? Developing a customer persona is an excellent exercise to do before you even begin planning the storyboard for your video. What does this person do for a living? How old are they? What do they like to do for fun? How does this person speak? Creating a relatable story in your product video will help the audience feel like they are being heard. If you can speak their language, they will most likely give you some of their attention.

2. Find Their Problem and Present a Solution

The second key element to a successful product video is establishing your audience’s problem and creating a story of how your product can fix it. Tying in Key Element #1, establishing your ideal customer, ties into pinpointing a problem and solution scenario. Is your product addressing a specific problem that is specific to what your ideal customer may be experiencing? How can you creatively demonstrate in your video how your product can solve your customer’s problem?

In order to get your audience excited about your product and what it can do for them, you must first understand the questions they are asking and the problems they are facing. For example, let’s say you have a new and improved toaster that can toast bread twice as fast as the leading brand. In order to create an effective and great product video, you would want to know what your audience most commonly uses this toaster for. The answers: making toast for breakfast or making toast for lunch at work. The next question: why do they use the toaster in these specific situations?  This is where problem and solution come into play. Finding a way to creatively showcase this problem/solution scenario in your video will help maintain your audience’s attention – whether it is by a playful script, enticing visuals, or interesting use of text.

Most products address a multitude of different problems. For example, a new and improved toaster that can toast bread twice as fast… and these are the most common uses for this product. What if your audience has recently purchased the toaster and they are trying to figure out how best to use it? What happens if they put the bread in horizontally? Is it going to toast both sides at once or just one side? Out of all of the amazing capabilities that your toaster has, which one will give your ideal customer the biggest value in their life? Base your product video’s storyline off of this key element.

3. Establish Credibility

Your company has succeeded in creating the best new toaster! But who cares?! Just because you say you have the best toaster in the world, it means nothing in a world filled with “best pizzerias” or “best coffees”. How can your product video show that you are not just another toaster creator? To succeed in gaining your ideal customer’s trust in your product video, you must establish credibility to show your authority and knowledge in the field.

So how do you establish your credibility in the product video? Prove that you are experts in your field! Give the audience proof of your credibility in your video by providing them with facts and figures, testimonials, statistics, and other evidence to support your claim. There are many different ways you can do this in a video.

For example, a video showing you introducing yourself and your company’s president talking about how long you have been in the industry or how many total sales your company has made can help you demonstrate your experience. Including real people from your company will help people trust and believe in you, and with this trust, perhaps they will consider trusting your great product as well!

There are tons of different ways to show your credibility in your product video:

– Introducing yourself, your company and your products

– Talking about the total dollar amount of sales that you have made

– Showing your product in action (demonstrating)

– Talking about how many years you have been in the industry or how long you have been providing this type of product

– Allowing customers to speak on your behalf (ask them questions and let them talk about their experience with the product) This is a great way to establish credibility when creating a product video.

There are so many toasters in the world, but which one of your toaster’s features stands out in a world full of toasters? Keeping your ideal customer and their needs in mind, pick out one of your product’s features and focus on it for your product’s video. This will help differentiate your product from other products on the shelf and set you apart as an expert in your field. After watching your video, people should be able to recall your strongest key feature.

For example, let’s say your product has a quiet operation and is ideal for people who work in offices. Assume that this is the main reason why your lead customer purchased your toaster. Now, as you create your storyboard and script for your video, you should think of your product’s differentiating feature as a benefit for your ideal customer. So what if your product is quiet? How does this benefit the office worker? Do not assume that your ideal customer knows what their problem and solution is. Show them! (Or in this case, let them hear the difference between a loud toaster in a quiet office setting in comparison to your toaster’s silence.

Show your product in a familiar setting with familiar people. By showing your product with specific people and a story of how it can solve their problem, your audience will buy in. If you know how to speak to your audience, you know how to create effective product videos that sell.

Duval Visuals can help you achieve this – ask us about our Green Screen Studio and how it can help you create any environment you can imagine!

Call. To. Action.

So you have just proved to the customer how valuable your product is, and why your product is better than the others in the market. Now how are you going to make them purchase your product just by creating a video?

While it may feel simple enough to create a commercial with a “Buy Now” CTA, it really is not all that easy to get your ideal customer to make the conscious decision to purchase your product. So how do you get them to make this decision? There are so many different ways, but it really comes down to the rest of your product video.

Your CTA must not only work on the subconscious level and make your audience feel comfortable with the purchase choice, but you must also give them an opportunity to decide right there and then to purchase. Giving this audience an option that allows them to buy when they are ready will ensure that they buy from you.

One of the best ways to create a successful product video is to have clear instructions on what they should do next. Instead of having a “Buy Now” button, you should have an option that will give your ideal customer something to do after they have finished watching your video. For example, “Click Here” or “Find out more information” at the end of your video, can help persuade your customer to spend more time learning about your product’s offerings after watching your video. This will create a chance for you to build rapport with your audience and potentially make them more inclined to purchase your product.

Not every CTA is appropriate for every product video. Think back to what the original intent of your product video is supposed to be; is this video meant to bring brand awareness? Is this product video meant to increase sales for this new and exciting product of yours? Tie in who your ideal customer is and your product’s value proposition.

Does your ideal customer react positively to time-sensitive CTA’s? Depending on what your product or service offering is, will the customer know where they can buy it? With today’s technology, the options are limitless.

There are so many elements of a good product video, and we only talked about five of them! But if you begin preparing to partner with Duval Visuals for your product video with these 5 key elements of great product videos, you will be off to a more strategized and organized start. Remember that your customer persona as well as their personal needs are crucial pillars for the main components of your product video.

Contact us to get started on creating your ideal product video today!