How to Make a Product Launch Video [Step-by-Step Guide]
Video marketing is making up a greater and greater share of online content. In fact, Facebook users watch over 100 million hours of videos on the platform every day. It’s easy to see that video-based content is a great way to reach consumers and add some extra power to your digital marketing strategy, especially when you factor in the number of videos people also watch on other apps and sites like:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
But with all this video content online for you to compete with, how can you capture your audience’s attention to build excitement and support your company’s sales goals?
The answer is a product launch video. It’s a great way to create hype around your upcoming product that will help you reach your potential customers where they are.
The best product launch videos create excitement around your product while also providing something of value to your prospective customer. Sound confusing? Keep reading to learn how to make the perfect video to debut your new product.
Step 1: Start with the Story
As any experienced sales or marketing professional knows, you need to help your customers build an emotional connection with your product. Purchase decisions are often based on this emotional connection just as much as on the product’s attributes and features.
Storytelling is a powerful tool to help your customers build this emotional connection. Treat your audience like the viewers of a movie, and you’ll be able to build a story that draws them in.
Audience Research
Before you can tell an effective story, you need to thoroughly understand who you’re telling the story for. Are you planning to sell your product to:
- Existing customers of your company?
- New purchasers?
- Old fans of your brand, or people who have never heard of you before?
Once you know who your target audience is, you can make informed decisions about the information they’ll want and need before deciding to purchase your product. All this information will need to be in your video.
Video Style
Depending on your desired tone, style, and distribution platform for your video, there are several styles of product launch videos you can create:
- Explainer video
- Product origin video
- Behind-the-scenes video
- Unboxing videos
- Livestream product launch
- Testimonial or review
- Animated video
- Overall brand video
Some of these styles present great opportunities to connect with your community. For example, a testimonial or review could come from a current customer who either has already tried your product or is planning to buy your product as soon as it comes out. This is a perfect example of leveraging peer-to-peer trust to encourage other people to also buy your product.
Many live streams and unboxing videos are hosted by influencers across social media platforms. They’ll fully demonstrate your new product, all the way from taking it out of the box to using it for the first time. Consumers tend to see these individuals as unbiased sources, lending extra credibility to any recommendations they make for your product.
In addition to the overall framework of your video, you’ll also need to decide the tone you want your video to take. Are you looking for something comedic or more serious? Do you want to have the standard “commercial” feel for your product video or something more cinematic? Answering these questions ahead of time will make your production process more efficient later on.
Choose a Point of View
Make the story relevant to your customer’s life; help them see themself as the hero in the story you’re telling. Showcase how your product can help them accomplish their goals and dreams. Using your audience’s eye in this way will help them personalize the story immediately.
This comes back to doing your research and knowing what your customers need from the product. If you can identify their pain points, for example, you can showcase in your video how the features of your product can help them resolve these issues.
Product Details
Don’t forget that the ultimate goal of your video is to inspire your customer to buy your product. Leave time in your video to fully explain to your customers what the product is, how it works, and who needs it. This might be done through the script you write for your video, or it may be best explained through your cinematography.
Call to Action
Always end a product launch video with a strong call to action, or “CTA.” All your efforts to emotionally appeal to your audience will go to waste if you don’t let them know what follow-up action you want them to take!
Often, the CTA on a product launch video will encourage your audience to buy the product or schedule services. Make sure you give them a website URL or physical address so that they know where they can buy your product.
If the launch video is going to come out before the product is available for purchase, you can encourage them to pre-order, or at least let them know the launch date of the product. Anything you can do to build awareness of your product and how it can eventually be purchased will be helpful to your bottom line.
Step 2: Begin Production
The specifics of your production process will depend on the style of video you’re doing and whether you’ll be recording and editing or presenting live to your audience.
Live Product Launch Videos
Thanks to today’s technology, live streaming is accessible to any brand, and it’s a convenient event-type for most consumers. After all, your customers will be able to watch your live stream from anywhere in the world! Live videos are a great way to build a collective atmosphere for your launch, make viewers feel like they’re part of something unique, and build an incredible amount of energy before your product launches.
For a successful live stream event, you’ll need to carefully plan all aspects of the event. Decide which platform(s) you want your video feed to stream to. Figure out who from your company is best to host the launch, or if you have a brand ambassador who you work with and is well-known among your consumer base, consider having them host the launch. Set aside time for a Q&A and other audience interaction portions of the event. Afterward, download the recording so that you can use parts of the footage in other advertising capacities.
Pre-Recorded Videos
With a pre-recorded product launch video, you have a few extra things to consider. Creating a storyboard for your video will ensure that you don’t forget anything during principal photography. Decide as much as you can about the lighting and framing ahead of time. If you don’t have an in-house crew for video production, you’ll need to hire crew members for the day of filming, as well as any actors you plan on using in your video.
After filming, you’ll need time to sort through your footage, choose the shots you like, edit them together, and add any music, sound, and visual effects you need. This tends to be one of the more time-consuming portions of the process, and it can be helpful to hire a video production company to help everything go as smoothly as possible.
Step 3: Distribution
No matter how high-quality your product launch video is, the ultimate success of your marketing campaign will depend on your distribution strategy. Product launch videos offer you some unique opportunities in your marketing strategy that aren’t afforded through other kinds of advertisements.
Social media audiences love to share video content with their contacts on their personal accounts. If you can get some of your tried-and-true followers to distribute your content for you, you’ll get the most mileage out of your video. Plus, when people see content shared from their personal contacts, they treat it as if the product has an endorsement from someone in their inner circle. This helps you to build trust and credibility in new circles, leading to more sales of your product in the long run.
Start Planning Your Successful Product Launch Video
The keys to any successful product launch video are precise planning, strong storytelling, skillful production and post-production, and effective distribution. Even when you’re an expert in your industry, this list can be daunting if you’re not already an expert in video production.
Luckily for you, that’s where we come in. From conceptual planning to video launch, Stringline Pictures can help you with your product launch video every step of the way.
Contact us today to learn about our unique approach to video production and to find out how we can help you with your next video project!
