That is what a client and I were recently discussing. They had a team member skilled at making 15 and 30 second videos but challenged at the task of making longer videos. We talked about what we wanted the video to do (sell one of their core products), product cost ($1000-1300) and the audience type (unfamiliar with us).
My answer: if you can sell an item at that price to a person unfamiliar with us in 15 seconds, let’s do it.
Turns out they couldn’t and here’s what we found.
We developed a longer, 2-minute video and the team member that makes the videos responded well to the challenge. That worked!
When we used a 30 second video to an audience familiar with us, we sold that product to them.
Finally, we found that the 15 second videos worked for services that were less expensive as long as we wrote a longer description in the ad. The video grabbed the attention of the viewer and the text above it did the job of selling.
What does this mean for you?
It means that depending on what you’re selling and how familiar your audience is with you and your products, short videos can work well.
Here’s what worked for us.
Using a short video to invite people to watch a longer video works well. The only job of the short video is to encourage people to watch the longer video, which they click a link to see.
The job of the text above the video is to get people to watch the short video and the long video does the heavy selling.
Each asset has a job to do that puts your viewer on a slippery slope that they can’t get off. Before they know it they’re watching a longer video, getting out their credit card and buying your product or service!
Questions to answer to determine course of action:
- What is the value of the item you’re selling? How big of an ask are you making?
- Who are you asking? Cold traffic, Warm traffic, or Hot traffic? Click Here to read a previous article about What a difference your name makes.
Your answers to these questions determines the length of your video and your ad copy. Once you have those answers, get busy and create the videos you need!