5 Elements Your Video Needs to Grab Attention

You literally have seconds to acquire someone’s attention before they keep scrolling, so you need to create an engaging video that grabs (and keeps) their attention. Before I tell you how to do this, you need to know one thing: Your brand has to include video content. It’s just how the world works these days. Story videos are able to keep someone’s attention and get them emotionally engaged in your brand in a matter of seconds! Creating an emotional connection is the best form of marketing. Engaging with someone’s emotions is the most critical thing you can do. Why? Because it allows you to transcend your product and service while winning people over to your brand. There may be lots of products and services almost identical to yours, but what you want is for your customers to know that they feel something when they see your brand, and they can’t get enough. Now, when it comes to eliciting emotion, not every story video needs to make you cry. Comfort, wonder, and joy are effective emotions as well. You may be asking “How do I do that? How do I grab someone’s attention and begin an emotional connection to a brand in a matter of seconds?” You create an engaging story video that includes these 5 key elements: 1) Wow factor 2) All the feels 3) Tailor-made 4) Short and sweet 5) Now what?

Wow Factor

You need to “wow” people in the first 5 seconds of your video. Grab their attention. Using story format in your video will keep people engaged. The opening scene doesn’t need to be an epic drone shot, but it does need to grab people’s attention immediately. Show people something they’ve never seen before, or show them something they have been wanting to see their whole lives. Give them a show!

All the Feels

This is the reason Coca-Cola ads are famous. It’s because they have gotten this one thing down so well. They make you feel things. For example, they may you want to:

• Cry
• Cuddle
• Call your brother

What kind of emotions can you feed with your product/service? Really spend time figuring this one out. If you don’t have any emotion in your video, it will suck. And it will only get 323 views in 10 years. Your mom will be the main viewer, and you’ll have to move back in with her because you never sold anything. You’ll live a sad little life with no friends and once you and your mom die, no one will ever know you existed. ... See what I did there? Note: Don’t use the emotion of depression to sell anything — you’ll end up like the person no one ever knew existed.

Tailor-Made

People want to see themselves in what they are watching. What is your target audience thinking about each day? What does life look like for them? Say your video is about a new CrossFit gym membership. If it is, then you need to include clips of normal people working out, working out together with friends, smiling in between tire flips, high-fives, pats on the back, etc. If you were to start out with a shot of some ripped dude squatting 400 lbs., you’d lose most people after a few seconds. Who's looking for a gym membership and is going to be ripped, starting off with 400 lb. squats? No one. Show relatable situations. Show relatable emotions.

Short and Sweet

We have very short attention spans these days. Thanks, Internet. The video you create will need to be edited down to as short as you can make it while keeping all the 5 key elements in it. Forget the time frames you’ve seen other videos have. The 30 second TV ad is dead. Most people keep scrolling after 5 seconds of any video. Obviously, 5 seconds is way too short to include all 5 key elements in a way that doesn’t look like a literal blur. But if you grab people’s attention successfully, maybe they’ll watch half of it. If they can relate to it, maybe they’ll watch the entire video. If they felt something, maybe they’ll want to watch the next video in the playlist that follows it, and if you give a Call To Action in both the videos, maybe they’ll click that link and you’ll get a new customer. Just... like... that!

Now What?

Now it's time to think. Why did you create this video in the first place? Was it to get more web traffic to your website? Tell people to visit your website. Was it to get people to subscribe to your YouTube channel? Give them a “Subscribe” button to click on. Was it to get people to come to your event? Invite them. Personally. Tell them you’ll be there to meet them. Was it to make people buy your awesome new shirt? Tell them how to buy it. Better yet, tell them all they have to do is click on the link right below the video. Make it as easy as possible for people. Like crazy easy. Plan out and create your story videos using these 5 key elements as guidelines. If you've already got videos, that's fine! Use these as a filter for your edits on the back end. Consider...

• Are my clips including visuals that my target audience will relate to?
• Do I use the “wow factor” to grab attention in the first 5 seconds and throughout?
• Do I feel anything after watching this video?
• Did I tell people what to do after watching?
• Were there any wasted shots in there that just make the video longer, not better?

Don’t waste your time creating videos that people just scroll past. You can harness the power of an engaging story video just by putting some time and thought into the process. If you're not sure where to start, you can always make the process even easier by hiring an online marketing agency.