If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a video worth in your marketing strategy?
With 86% of businesses reporting video as a common marketing tool in their repertoire, it is clear that video is an important marketing tactic that is here to stay.
What Makes A Solid Marketing Video?
All in all, videos are a powerful tool for transforming a business’s marketing strategy. They can increase traffic, engagement, and brand awareness, but only when executed properly.
Before worrying about the logistics and production of your video’s visual content, it is crucial to have a well-written script ready to go. This is because they offer you a blueprint to the overarching goal of your video’s story. Marketing scripts offer cues, coinciding lines to accompany your video’s images, and an overall outline of your video’s journey from start to finish.
How To Write A Marketing Script in 6 Steps
If you’re not familiar with scriptwriting, it’s hard to know what writing one truly entails. This guide is here to help you navigate this exciting process. My 6 key components of every marketing script include:
Hook Your Audience
The first few seconds of your video play an essential role in grabbing your viewer’s attention. As our attention spans have reached an all-time low of 8 seconds, the first line or two of your script better be packing a punch.
Purpose-Driven Content Only
Along with hooking your viewer at the beginning of your script, it is important to remember this:
every line matters. You have a finite amount of lines allocated to a script, especially when writing one for shorter videos. So make sure that every line is driving your video’s goal forward.
Make sure that your script has:
- A CTA: Call-to-actions are an absolute must, as they are in charge of telling your audience what to do next. Do you want them to sign up for a newsletter? Enroll in a free trial of your product? Whatever it may be, make it clear in your script.
- A Place In The Sales Funnel: An understanding of where your video lies in the sales funnel will inform the language of your script. A video positioned in front of audiences just getting to know your brand will sound different than ones for consumers about to pull the trigger on a purchase.
Tell A Compelling Story
There’s a reason why humans love books, movies, and tv shows; we connect over universal stories. When created with a goal and purpose in mind, content marketing can be a powerful vehicle for storytelling as well. Storytelling in a marketing script strategically evokes viewers emotions, inspires them, and builds a relationship between the viewer and brand.
To tell a good story, make sure to:
- Outline your script with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
- Find your “why” behind your video’s intent, and make it clear throughout the script.
- Only write lines that are authentic and true to your brand’s identity.
Speak Your Audience’s Language
Your audience’s needs, desires, and interests is the fuel behind any well-written script. A script that doesn’t aim to connect with your target audience won’t bring in the traffic, leads, and engagement that you desire. In fact, the retention rate for viewers watching a personalized video is 35% higher than one without.
Scriptwriting for your audiences starts with:
- Understanding the unique pain points that need solving in their lives
- Recognizing the characteristics that might play a role in how they speak, what they care about, and what messages they need to receive
Keep Your Video Marketing Simple
Writing lines to be read aloud is much different than writing content to be read on a page. While written content might contain more complex vocabulary, adjectives, and longer sentences, none of this will fly in a video’s script.
Keeping your messaging simple, concise, and to the point does two major things:
- It helps your script sound conversational and natural, which is always the goal for authenticity. After all, the majority of people don’t speak quite as eloquently as they might appear on paper.
- It sustains your viewers attention more easily. Nobody likes a video that panders and rambles away from the main point.
If you’re struggling to decipher the flow of your script, read it back to yourself out loud. It may feel awkward at first, but reading lines aloud and noticing how they feel and sounds coming out of your mouth is a good gauge for knowing if it’s conversational or not.
Outsource To Professional Writers If Need Be
Let’s face it: many of the best of marketers don’t feel comfortable in a writing role… and that’s totally okay. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of writing a script, outsourcing to a copywriting agency with professional scriptwriters is always a viable option.
Hiring outside of your business grants you an objective creative partner for the process of brainstorming, crafting, and editing your marketing script. Plus, professional writers have the training, practice, and knack for storytelling that will help any script flourish.
Try Your Hand At Scriptwriting Today
With only 37% of video viewers staying until the end of a video, an incredible script might just be the impact you need to grab viewers attention and leave them inspired for more. To make a marketing video that you will be proud of, try your hand at scriptwriting today.
Font: https: //www.raindance.org/why-script-writing-is-the-key-to-the-ultimate-success-of-your-video-marketing/
* This article was originally published here