The psychology behind making a great video

With the average consumer attention span just eight seconds, it’s important your video takes account of the psychology behind making a great video.

What do we mean by this? Well, it’s about capitalising on those first eight seconds and holding that attention; instantly hooking your viewers by appealing to their emotional drivers.  

A well-planned and creative video can instantly grab the attention of the target audience. That’s why companies, big and small, are now relying on these emotions to increase web visitor conversions and social sharing.

Recent research by a leading brand expert at Harvard, reveals 95% of purchases are made with the subconscious mind, tapping into deep-rooted emotions.

Don’t worry, we’re not about to discuss psychology theories, but we are going to touch on why emotion is so important and how you should define your call-to-action.

Focus on the emotion

We love a good study here at SGA, as we’re all about understanding the mind of the consumer! Take the recent research by Gallup. The team found that those businesses that use emotional connections in their marketing outperform their competitors by an average of 85% in overall sales growth. Now, that’s impressive!

Emotions always sell better than facts because they touch the viewer at an instinctive subconscious level. Whether you’re launching a new product or engaging employees, people tend to remember how they felt when watching your video rather than all the facts. So, if you can softly engage their emotions, you’ll be well on your way to effective promotional video marketing.

Whilst scripts are important, you shouldn’t obsess over them. Too much detail and you’ll overload the viewer. Instead, focus on the feeling you want to achieve.  Perfect your video headlines, graphics and interactive elements with clear descriptions and strong opening and closing shots.

The narration should be simple, but emotionally relatable.

Culture social proof

For businesses, the desired action for value proposition videos, customer testimonials, and employee recruitment videos is social proof.

The principle of social proof is not a new one, but it’s something that often gets forgotten about with video. So, what does it mean? Well, it’s when the viewer follows actions of brands they admire or trust by liking, sharing, following or commenting.

On blogs and articles, social sharing and follow buttons are key to encouraging individuals to influence their network. A display of an accurate number of shares, comments and views may cause site visitors to act, enhancing sales and engagement.

The best way to achieve this is to tell a simple touching story with subtle call-to-action.

Defining call-to-action

Your call-to-action should be decided by what you want your viewer to feel and do.

When it comes to video creation, one of the first things we talk about is purpose. It implies what we want the viewer to do.

At the beginning of each video brief, you must ask:

• "What action do I want the audience to take after watching this video?"
• The next logical question then, which often gets missed, is "How do I want my target viewer to feel and what emotions do I want to trigger?”

So, every video you commission should meet two guiding principles. It should:

1. Culture a defined emotion
2. Bind a high-density feeling to an anticipated action

Binding feelings to actions

Videos are useful for producing emotional cues - even more so than photos. A recent study by Databox shows that 52% of marketers leverage video more than photos for emotional engagement.

Whether motivating employees or promoting products and services, video marketers should tell stories that are comprehensive and appeal to a broad range of senses.

There are many emotional opportunities a video producer can explore to evoke action. Some of the most powerful ones include:

• Discovering something new
• Being first to know
• The relief of solving a problem
• Desire to belong
• Desire to have more control
• Craving to have the best
• Family and ethical values
• Influence over marketplaces and people
• Fulfillment of a wish  

As well as structure and content, you can create these emotions by choosing your location wisely, using suitable background music and introducing contrasts (more on this in an upcoming blog). A reputable video production company will, of course, take care of all of this. They’ll know exactly how to adjust the elements of the video to fit your customer’s emotional needs and desires.

If you’re looking for a video production company that truly understands the psychology behind making a great video, we’d be delighted to work with you. Simply contact us on 01787 378422 or send us a message here to get started.