If you’ve seen my content, you’re probably catching onto me.
I tell lots of stories.
Last week, I shared how authentic storytelling of persons with disabilities was what I needed as a child. It got a fairly good response, and it was a friendly reminder of just how much one story can work wonders.
But here’s the thing: most marketings videos, even the good ones, don’t tell a single story. They talk primarily about an organization’s offerings and the CEO explains why they’re so good. While that is helpful, it’s not memorable. It’s also not something anybody can connect to.
Human beings are multi-faceted species with a whole bunch of feelings, emotions, pains, struggles, desires, wants and needs. Arguably, most of the decisions we make are based on what we want, or our emotions, instead of what we need, the hard facts.
A story, when combined with facts and heart, touches on both our wants and needs, and the emotion will encourage people to take action.
Let’s use AccesSurf as an example. They could have asked us to film their Hawaii Adaptive Surfing Championship, and we could have gotten some neat shots of people surfing. Yet, we didn’t, and I totally would have passed on that opportuity.
Actually, we did the opposite.
We focused on the sense of community the surfers feel as a result of AccesSurf and its HASC. We asked a few individuals how it felt to find surfers with disabilities like themselves, and what that means. The answers, I think, were way more memorable than a focus on who won and lost.
Here’s how it turned out.
If a story on belonging doesn’t make sense for your organization, no problem. There’s likely tons of people who have been transformed by your offerings.
Just remember, in each story, a person is trying to overcome something to live an ideal life. Maybe that’s an injury, weight gain, huge debt, etc. Whatever it is, that’s a story, and it’s one that will make your audience believe that you are the go-to source to solving their problems.
Don’t worry about the story not looking like a Hollywood film. Focus on creating content, and the more you create, the better you’ll get.
If you’d like to improve your video marketing faster, download my free Video Marketing Guide. It gives you step-by-step instructions on how to create videos like the pros.