http://youtu.be/xpvXCnuSNSA

3 Steps to Making Killer Business Videos

The three steps are easy;

• Intention
• Value
• Call to Action

Let’s break these down and see how we used them in the video.

Intention

Every video needs to have a purpose. Without a purpose, there is no reason to create a video.  Are you entertaining?  Are you teaching?  Are you inspiring?  Are you sharing a story?

The intention creates the ‘feel’ and ‘mood’ for the video. Having the whole video moving toward a single goal helps keep your viewer engaged and keeps you on track when creating the video.

First thing you want to do is grab attention.  In the video, I shared the hook about what you will learn in the video.  If you were interested in creating videos, you would have been hooked from the beginning.

A hook can be a question, an interesting graphic, a joke, or something that stands out as different. You want to wake someone up when they come to your video and give them a reason to continue watching.

Second, you want to show the benefit of listening.  What are you going to cover and why is it important.  I put the hook and the benefit in the first few seconds of my video.  I wanted you to know exactly what it is that you would get from watching the video.

Third, you want to show why people should listen to you.  Now, don’t go too crazy with this one a simple sentence like, “I’ve been creating videos for over thirteen years.”  Or “I have created hundreds of videos and talked in front of audiences of over a thousand.”  Those are credibility statements.  (Both are true, but did you notice I did not use them in the video!)

Some people take credibility to the next level and talk about expert authority.  If you are doing a 5 minute video a sentence or two would work.  If you are doing a 30-60 minute presentation, you want to share a story about what you do and why you are doing it.

The point is you want people to believe you.  You can see from this one channel that I know what I am talking about, so I decided not to bother you with details, I just jumped right in because I tried to keep this video under three minutes.

PRESENT VALUE

First thing you want to do is make people feel comfortable.  You want them to feel like you are talking directly to them.  Don’t pretend to talk to everyone in the world, picture in your mind one person whom you are sharing.  Create the video for that one person.

Imagining this one person makes your conversation more intimate and people will relate to you better.

Second, you want to show off your personality.  Even if you are a mellow person, be who you are.  It is so important to be real and authentic.

People want to relate to you, not some online persona you created.  If you get to know me, you will see that I am just like I am in person as I am on video.

If you are who you are and you are talking to that one person, your video will be so much more powerful.

Thirdly, (who uses thirdly anymore. . .) Make it easy to grasp.  Present your information into bite sized chunks.  I suggest using lists and keeping it simple.  Think of three important take aways or five quick tips.

You may have heard a preacher, he covers his three points in his sermon, then continues to go into another mini-sermon.  Don’t do that.  Deliver the content intended.  If you have more content, create a new video.  That is the power of editing.

CALL TO ACTION

Every video needs to have something for someone to do.  Psychology has proven when someone finishes reading a blog or watching a video, they are looking for the next thing to do.  Give them something specific that relates to your intention.  (See how that comes back around?)

Be as specific as possible.  Tell them what to do, how to do it, where to do it and why to do it.

If you listened to the video, I told you to come to the blog.  Read this page so you can learn about videos.  Then, I asked you to create a video.  I can see that you got the first two right, now all you have to do is create a quick video and share it with us on on Youtube or GooglePlus.

Suggested videos for you to create and share with us:

• 3 questions I have always had about creating videos for my business.
• One thing I have always wanted to know about videos.
• A topic I would love to see covered on this blog/video page is . . .
• If entrepreneurs were as cool as you are, then . . . .

If you share a video with me and email me (or use the contact page) I will share with you two tools to help you come up with great headlines and topics to write about no matter what your topic of interest is.