What's going on, everybody, Matt Johnson here helping you make videos that sell. And what I want to talk about is how to script a commercial that actually moves somebody to buy your product or service. I see this messed up so much because people don't understand the buying cycle, the stages that a potential customer needs to go through to be able to move through, to be an actual customer.
You Need More Than Beauty...
So let's figure out how to actually script the stories for these videos, because these pretty little B roll videos and the gorgeous landscapes and drone photography that you have there, they might not actually be selling anything, the real reason that anyone will buy will not just be because how beautiful your video is.
Don't get me wrong. Beauty is great, but if it doesn't move people logically and emotionally you're in trouble.
See, the biggest misconception that we have is that beauty solves everything, but that only solves one little reason why someone might buy or catches their attention. Maybe it demonstrates value, but it serves a very specific purpose in the selling process. So what you need to do is you need to come up with a few elements to actually tell the story.
I want to show you how I work my process to actually script these videos out before I shoot anything. Even if there's no talking in them at all, or even texts, you have to put together some sort of story and storyboard to lead people through a journey.
Here's my five part structure to be able to structure these stories, no matter what format they come in so that people will buy this stuff.
The Process
Pain, problem, solution, features and testimonials.
Pain means the actual emotional hole or gap that your potential customer has before they become a customer. This is something that they either feel or don't feel. It depends on where they are in the awareness of that. And it's different for every product or service. You have to assess that first, but when you do, you have to be very clear. "What is the pain that this solves?"
That moves very quickly into step two, which is problem. What is the problem that the avatar (the potential customer) has that they don't have a solution for right now? Or they don't have a good solution or they're trying to choose between a lot of solutions. And I note, and they don't know which solution is the actual solution.
Solution is third point. So that's when you finally get to introduce your stuff, but this is the mistake that people make. Not that you can't show the product right off the bat. In fact, you should show it right at the beginning, right? In the first couple of frames and you can continue having it. But the story, the way that you move people through, needs to be this logical arc, where pain and problem is felt and then solution comes in to fix that pain and problem.
The fourth part in the story is where you can get into features. A lot of people lead with features. They show the product and then they're like "this does that" but that's not really enough to be able to make a dent because they don't know why they need it yet. They haven't felt moved yet. You have to get them there first then you can talk about the main features and benefits.
Last, you can get into testimonials and social proof. So these help close the deal and they help build trust. One of the great ways that you can help build trust is by having a well shot video. The other way that you build trust is just simply by having social proof, because it's just sales and marketing.
Pain, problem, solution, features and testimonials.
Logical & Emotional Certainty
What this process allows people to do is establish a high level of certainty in two major ways, logical certainty and emotional certainty. I got a lot of this from Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street. If you read his great book on sales, he talks about how actually selling something is all about moving up to a 10 on the logical scale and 10 on the emotional scale.
People have to be emotionally certain that this is right for them. And logically certain that this is right for them. What we do in this process is we first talk about the pain and the problems; that helps move them on a logical standpoint. "I am convinced that I need this solution" or "I need a solution to this pain and problem, because it's really bad. But now how do I know that this product will work? How do I know it's any good? How do I know it's not another scam?"
That's where you go with features and testimonials to help move them over the edge in that way. So having these two pieces together are huge for building the creative that you need to build in any advertising campaign, in any marketing campaign.
The Process In Practice
Let me show you exactly what this works like in practice with this recent video I put together for one of our clients.
Hopefully you can see how this story works and how I was able to clearly articulate what the pain was, what the problem was, what the solution was, features, benefits and testimonials; but notice how all of that went through the end.
Here is the storyboard that shows how I go through this creative process to come up with a script.
Check out the full video at the top of this article to see the entire storyboard explanation and find out how to create one for your videos!
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