Stop Creating Explainer Videos, You’re Doing It All Wrong!

Have you ever wanted to make an explainer video? You know, one of those animated videos that explains what your product or service does and why people ought to buy it? You see them everywhere… and companies are using them to explain what their product or service is in hopes that it will boost their conversion rate.

We use the video above on the Crazy Egg homepage, and it works so well that the video drives an extra $21,000 a month in new income.

So, why not to create one of these explainer videos for you site? If it works for Crazy Egg, Dropbox, and even hosting companies, it must work for you, right?

The reality is most explainer videos won’t boost your conversion rate or make you more money.  It isn’t because the idea sucks, but it’s because you are likely to take the wrong approach to making the video.

Here’s how you can create an explainer video that’ll convert:

Step #1: It’s all about the script, not the video

The most important part of a video is the script and not the actual video quality. Whether you have a high quality video or a mediocre one, if the script isn’t good, it won’t convert well.

Important: you don’t want the company who is creating the video to write the script. The video company doesn’t know your business like you do. They don’t know what pain points your customers are experiencing. They don’t know how to write to boost conversions.

The goal of the video is to answer all of your potential customers’ questions and concerns. If you can do that in a short video, you’ll see an increase in your conversions. If you can’t, you won’t see your sales increase.

Step #2: Here’s what you need before you can write a script

Before you start writing your script, you need to survey your readers. You can use services like Qualaroo to ask your potential customers questions such as:

  • What else would you like to see on this page?
  • What’s the number 1 reason that is stopping you from buying?
  • What’s your biggest concern about this product or service?
  • Is there anything that is confusing on this page?
  • What can we help you solve?

By getting the answers to the above questions as well as other questions you may have, you’ll get a better understanding of what’s stopping people from purchasing. It could be that they don’t understand what you do or how easy your product is to use. Knowing what all their concerns are will help you create a better script.

Step #3: How to write a script

Now that you have all of your potential customers’ objections, you can start writing your script. When you are writing it, you need to answer all of those objections, or at least the important ones. You don’t want to create a script that is longer than 2-3 minutes. If it becomes too long, you’ll start to lose people.

To explain how to write a script, I’m going to show you the order we used to create the Crazy Egg script.

  1. Introduction slide should state what your company does– the explanation of what your company does should be short and sweet. For Crazy Egg it was “The heatmap tool shows you why your visitors aren’t converting”.
  2. Explain the problem – you have to carefully articulate the problem your potential customers are experiencing. For Crazy Egg, we explained that it is hard to understand why visitors are leaving your website. We then went on to show that Google Analytics doesn’t do this because in our survey, a lot of potential customers thought Google Analytics does the same thing as Crazy Egg.
  3. Create a transition – use common phrasing that your potential customers gave you during the survey to talk about specific problems they are experiencing. Then go into why you created your product or service.
  4. Show off your features – videos are visual for a reason. Show off your product or service. When showing it off, make sure you explain how specific features solve specific problems your potential customers are experiencing. With Crazy Egg we showed that features like the heatmap gives you a visual representation of where people are clicking. We did it because our potential customers were looking for a solution like that.
  5. Tell people to sign up or buy – after you explain what your product or service does, you have to tell people to sign up or buy it. During this process, you need to answer any customer objections or concerns they have about signing up or buying. For example, with Crazy Egg, people thought it was a bit pricy. Plus, they didn’t know how easy it was to use. In the video, we told people that we offer a free trial and that they can get set up in less than 30 seconds.
  6. Answer any last objections – this is where you answer any last concerns a potential customer may have. For us, people wondered if Crazy Egg would slow down their site, if they could track secure pages or if it worked with flash sites. We answered all of the questions here. If you are not sure what questions to answer, ask your support team what your frequently asked questions are.
  7. Use proof elements to seal the deal – after you answer any last objections, make sure you tell people to sign up or buy from you, while visually showing proof elements. With Crazy Egg, we told people to sign up for our free trial, and we showed logos of the companies who use us to help build trust.

Your script won’t be perfect at first, and it will take a few revisions before you get it just right. When you are writing it, keep in mind that 120-150 words roughly translate into a minute of video. Ideally, you want to keep your video to less than 2 minutes.

Step #4: Find someone to create your voice-over

A voice-over (an audio narration of your video) for a 2-minute script shouldn’t cost you more than a few hundred dollars. I’ve found thatDemo Duck and a lot of the popular explainer video companies use a professional by the name of Mike O’Brian. His rate is only a few hundred bucks.

You can use him or anyone else you like. Or if you really want to save money, you can find someone on Craig’s List to do it for free or under $50.

Step #5: Find someone to create your video

Again, you can go through a professional video company to get your explainer video created, or you can go through freelancers. Big companies typically charge $5,000 to $25,000 for a video, and they can take up to a few months to complete it.

A freelancer can typically do it within a few weeks and will charge anywhere from $500 to $2,000. I’ve found that Sean Duran is an affordable freelancer and can typically get a video done in a few weeks.

Step #6: A/B test your video

The reason I explained how you can get your video created cheaply and efficiently is because you’ll have to A/B test it to maximize your conversions. This means that you’ll continually have to spend money to tweak your video (both the audio and video files), and the last thing you want to do is go through a big company as they can easily charge you a few grand to $20,000 to continually modify it.

When you are doing A/B tests, make sure you are also tracking your video plays. Through software solutions like Wistia, you can see video engagement stats, which will help you figure out how you need to modify your video to maximize conversions.

Plus, as your product changes, you’ll need to get your video modified, and, of course, you’ll have to A/B test it again.

Conclusion

If you want to create an explainer video, you have to take the time and do all of the steps I mentioned above. If you don’t have the time, don’t waste your money creating videos then. Or if you are willing to spend a bit more to get things done, hire someone like Conversion Rate Experts, which is what we did with Crazy Egg. They didn’t create the video, but they did get to know our product, surveyed our visitors and then created our script.

When I first started creating explainer videos, I took the easy route by hiring a big company to create our video and script… I wasted tens of thousands of dollars on videos that didn’t convert well.

Remember, the most important part of an explainer video isn’t the video… it’s the script.

移动应用常用的推广途径都有哪些?

作者:白杨

 

首先,应用的质量是决定推广效果的最关键因素,推广的渠道相对次要。但是从商务的角度,卖一个不成熟的产品反而更有挑战性。总之事情均有两面性,不能太绝对的看一件事。

  1. iOS 推广的目的一般有两个,一个是上榜,一个是吸引用户。这两个可以兼得,但是在推广的时候仍然需要区分重点。(ROI 就不要问了,这是需要花钱和试错的)
  • AppStore,免费而且高效,前提是你的应用足够好。
  • 移动应用广告平台,国内支持 iOS 移动广告的平台已经有数十家,例如 admob,madhouse,domob,艾德思奇等等。一般按点击收费。同样,不同类型的应用进行推广,结果也往往有很大不同。而且与媒体质量有很大关系。在这里为果合(http://www.guohead.com)做个广告,果合是国内最早的移动广告聚合产品,目前聚合了 17 家国内外的主流广告平台,是国内流量最大的聚合广告平台。
    • 提到移动广告的效果,实际上国内的移动广告从一开始的单纯模仿 admob,到现在各种富媒体,html5 的创新,以及各种广告呈现方式与定向功能的尝试,在我看来都是在努力向 web 端的广告路子上走。基于用户定向的精准投放虽然目前困难重重,但毫无疑问的是移动广告的表现的确是越来越好。果合作为其中的一个参与者,由衷的希望这个行业能够持续繁荣,出现类似 doubleclick 或 quancast 这样的 geeks。
  • 激励下载,譬如 tapjoy。虽然去年就已经被 Apple 封掉,但是还是有漏网之鱼。实际上也有一些用户量较大的明星级游戏类应用自己做一个类似 tapjoy 的平台自主销售。激励下载模式最让人无法割舍的地方在于其对冲榜有异常大的助力,只要肯花钱,就可以上榜。但是这个模式被人诟病的地方在于用户的激活量与下载量的比例不是很高。
  • 广告交换,这个是去年大家都在说,实际上有很多应用开发者用自己的老应用去推广新应用的时候效果很好,例如一个做阅读类的应用曾经用自己的阅读器成功的将另外一个天气类媒体推上榜单。但是不同开发者之间互推的案例虽然很多,但是并没有看到效果特别好的案例。果合最早在国内推出广告交换产品,而且我们也一直在积累和完善第三方广告交换的功能,希望能够解决叫好不叫做的难题。
  • 类商店应用,例如桌面手机助手,限免平台等。有代表性的是 91 助手,同步推以及各种限免应用。91 助手的用户量在那里摆着,所以直接出售广告位。同步推是去年刚刚出来,除了桌面端助手,他还支持用户直接在手机上安装 ipa,另外他也有类似限免的版本,比较多元化,但是用户量还有待持续。这些站点上的推广效果差异性很大,游戏的激活可能远远大于工具类。限免类例如 gao7,是国内最早的限免类应用,用户量也很大。
  • 传统推广途径,即门户 / 论坛 / 下载站,例如威锋,91,电玩巴士,当乐等等卖广告位的土财主。因为是从 web 和 java 时代过来的,因此这些站点的推广效果都比较稳定而且可靠,有很多游戏类的应用通过这些站点进行推广的效果非常可观。据说也有些 wap 站提供 CPA 的方式,见仁见智。
  • 社交推广,微博营销在电商方面的确有难以企及的优势,然而在应用推广方面恕我孤陋寡闻,没有看到太好的案例。但个人认为微博的运营重点是在品牌建设,不应该将目光紧锁在短期的效果上。具体到渠道而言,一个朋友的朋友做的产品,微博易最近吸引了很多眼球,其基于富媒体方面的一些广告尝试影响很大。
    • 除此之外,公关方面发一些软文,也可以获得一些眼球。
  • 线下,一般大家提线下就是刷机,这是最土但也是最具中国特色的方式了。前阵子 360 产品下架让大家开始把眼光集中在这个渠道上。不到 1 块钱的下载虽然仅仅是为了刷榜单,但是不得不承认的确好用。最早 AppSotre 说要重奖 250 亿次下载的用户时我就在想,哪个 iphone 的用户能够拼的过刷机专业户呢?这位中国青岛的幸运儿,是不是就是 AppSotre 的大佬们最痛恨的那位正主呢?哈哈
    • 线下一个比较小众的渠道是一些新技术的可能性,例如 LBS,瞥如街旁。还有就是找一些门店,例如星巴克通过自己的门店推自己的应用,在美国星巴克也曾经推广 shazam,如果你想锁定一些高端商务人群,找星星美元靠谱。
  • 与 iOS 不同,Android 的推广没有上榜一说,大家其实都是为了获取用户。
  • Android 比较特殊的地方在于各种应用商店,这也是 Android 推广最重要的渠道。这里面又可细分。
    • 第三方商店:国内做的好的有应用汇 / 安智 / 安卓 / 机锋等,有的卖广告位有的卖 CPA 还有的时免费推争首发,这些渠道的日下载量都在百万级甚至有的近千万,是最主流的推广渠道。除这些之外大佬们去年也开始发力,腾讯,网易都在做,大家拼个不亦乐乎。
    • OEM 厂商,分两种,预装和厂商商店。预装的话就得看应用卖相和商务总监的嘴皮子了,至于商店,每个厂商都有,直接上传然后求推广就是了。但 OEM 厂商的下载量相对较低。具体到渠道,三星摩托 HTC,华为联想 ZTE,百度阿里雷小米,山寨 ROM 也很给力哦!瞧这押韵多有才!
    • 运营商商店,移动 MM,天翼空间,沃商店。下载量虽然不怎么样,但是电信运营商的优势在于付费方案。去年一个朋友有讲到移动 MM 号称其每日的应用收入 70 万,也就是平均一个应用挣 10 块,但我猜想应该是以 Java,sybian 为主吧….
    • 比较特殊的一个渠道是浏览器,UC/Opera 的安卓浏览器都有应用收录和下载功能,其实跟 wap 站属于同一个类型,效果也很好。
  • Android 的推广渠道与 iOS 有一些重合:
    • 类商店应用,例如豌豆荚,91 助手。豌豆荚支持 CPA,91 仍然卖广告位。个人更喜欢豌豆荚的付费推广,物真有所值。
    • 移动广告平台,基本上支持 iOS 的都支持 Android。
    • 激励下载,例如万普,橙子,大头鸟。因为不追求上榜,所以大家开始争论激励下载的激活率。
    • 广告交换,果合也支持。
    • 传统推广渠道也同样,砸钱换眼球和下载。
    • 社交也类似。
    • 线下,这个地方的刷机与 iOS 不同,主要是指深圳华强北的水货刷机专业户们。一个激活几块钱,简单实惠。但激活率也是因应用而异。

颜色用得对, 营销成绩好

(文/reBuzz 来报这)

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你看过斗牛的惊险场面吗?穿着华丽的斗牛士在场上灵巧地摇摆大红旗子,引诱愤怒的凶猛公牛狂奔而来,只见斗牛士一销售个转身闪躲攻击,优雅地向群众献礼并赢得满堂掌声。这幕戏当中有三个主角:俊拔的斗牛士、疯狂的公牛以及大旗上亮眼的鲜红色。

虽然大部份人们并不在斗牛圈里搏斗讨生活,然而身在拥挤而忙碌的商业化岛国,消费者每天都暴露在大量的讯息刺激下,缤纷多姿的色彩搭配往往是营销讯息能否突出重围并获得消费者宝贵注意力的关键。你也许不曾注意到,但这些周遭的小小颜色早已在不知不觉中改变了你我的购物行为!

心理学家早在 100 多年前研究具有暴力倾向的病患时就发现,改变环境的颜色也会改变人们的心理状态、进而影响行为,因此医师可以藉由控制颜色的变化来帮助病患提升或减少发生特定行为的动机。随着相关理论的发展趋于成熟,营销实务也开始致力于应用正确的颜色来刺激销售、增强品牌在消费者心中的印象以及创造良好的购物环境。

揭开颜色背后的心理奥秘

人们的心情时常受到外界刺激的影响,像是颜色、气味、空间大小、物品位置、形状等等,其中色彩是各种刺激必然的要素,对企业来说,对色彩的最大想象不外乎找出一个最能刺激销售的颜色。

不过从科学的角度来看,颜色并不只是映入眼帘“看起来的样子”这么简单,它除了客观的色调差异外,还具有人体生理测量上的意义,更与特定环境下的心理认知变化有关。

例如被广泛检验的红色,它除了在可视光当中被归类为暖色系的代表外,暴露在红色的刺激下,还有促进人体心血管机能的功用(例如加速心跳、提高血压、增加一定时间内的呼吸次数)。在许多研究当中,红色引发的心理状态一致地指向“侵略( Aggression )”、“竞争( Competition )”、“紧张( Tension )”的情绪。另一方面,经常拿来与红色作为对比的蓝色,则是冷色系的代表色,蓝色刺激的主要影响是让人觉得心情稳定以及放松( Relaxation )。

但除了冷暖色系的差异,“明亮度( Brightness )”也有着不可小觑的作用,1996 年曾有一份研究指出,亮度较高的颜色(像是白色、粉红、红色、蓝色)比起亮度较暗的颜色(例如黑灰色、棕色),比较能帮助人们感觉到快乐以及其他正面情绪。

色彩威力,不容小觑!

曾有学者统计了各种项目奥运选手的背心颜色与比赛成绩,结果发现穿着红色背心的选手居然也有比较高的得奖机率,这些选手的教练们恐怕从没想过,只是改变背心颜色居然就有这么大的影响吧!

学者认为,红色是人类愤怒与情绪激动时表现在身体上的天然颜色,当受到红色的刺激时,心理上就会产生暗示作用,暗示个体正处在危机存亡的关头,因此身体机能也会自然地做出反应,好让个体能度过眼前的挑战,这种机制能够帮助运动选手在短期决赛中表现得更好。

这样看来,只要多加利用红色之类的暖色系颜色、以及选择明亮度较高的色彩,应该也比较能够牵动消费者的情绪,从而提高注意力、刺激购买行为吧?然而事情可没有这么简单。

求知心切的研究者们针对颜色的应用做了更多的检验,他们发现店内有“蓝色墙壁”的店铺比起“红色墙壁”的店铺,更受到消费者的喜爱,而且消费者也认为蓝色墙壁的店铺让他们觉得比较放松。

在其他网络研究中也发现,蓝色似乎比较能引起正面的购买行为,而大量的红色则会降低搜寻、浏览网页的意愿。研究人员甚至发现,套用蓝色当网站基底甚至还可以减少消费者下载软件时的知觉等待时间呢!

既然不同色彩之间有不同效果,那么营销人员应该如何选择有效的颜色呢?这个问题显然没有简单答案,关键就在于消费情境。

用“对的”颜色为销售大加分!

最新的一份研究中,巴格奇(BAGCHI)和且玛(CHEEMA)两位学者发现,根据网络竞价( Bid )与一对一议价( Negotiation )这两种不同的购物模式,详细比较了不同色彩(红、蓝、灰、白)的影响力,结果发现在“竞价”模式中,红色刺激比起其他颜色可以显著提升投标动机,但另一方面,在“议价”模式中,红色却是四种色彩选项中,对购买意图最没有贡献的颜色。

蓝色在“议价”模式的表现则是所有颜色最好的,同时在“不二价”的情况下,也就是卖方不愿意做任何让步的时候,反而是最能引起购买意图的色彩。

研究者认为较合理的解释是,在公开的网络竞价中,消费者注意到的对象不只是商品与卖家,而是“所有其他可能参与投标的消费者”,这时候红色刺激能够加强竞争的意识,结果造成投标次数与金额的增加。但在一对一的议价情境里,消费者的注意力都放在卖家身上,因此红色的刺激会使得消费者不愿意付出更高价格,因此投标的意愿偏低,同理,在卖家不愿对价格让步的情况中运用红色刺激也将收到反效果。

这里也特别为大家整理了各大网购平台的按钮颜色,你有看出甚么玄机吗?

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各大购物网站的配色方案

选对好色彩,就从了解消费者开始!

“什么样的色彩才能最有效帮助企业得益”的这个问题,得视营销的目标来做调整。例如想营造舒适放松的用餐环境,不妨多加一些蓝色系的布景试试,而那些商店结账柜台上摆放的随手小物,则可以考虑选用鲜红色包装的商品,来吸引消费者的注意力。 营销人员应该了解,色彩运用不该流于刻板的调色公式,因为人的心理状态不只是受到营销刺激、内在暗示的影响,同时也和个体对“其他人”的认知、当时的购物情境有很大的关系。 因此面对面的销售服务与网络购物两者之间自然就有很大的不同,而这种“理解”消费者购物需求的能力,不只是对于色彩的应用,也是创造成功营销案例的关键所在。

本文转载自PanSci,部分文字有改动