How to Shoot a Video Advert that Converts

Several statistics prove that you could reach your target audience better through video adverts. Guess what? 92% of B2B prospects consume online video and 4 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day. These whooping figures reveal one thing: that you'd be losing tons of profits by excluding video ads from your marketing campaign.

Online shops such as eBay and Amazon have reported that you could increase sales of products by 35% by adding a video to your product description. Those who view an interesting or valuable video ad will love to share it with their followers on social media. About 700 videos are shared by Twitter users every minute. 

A video ad must be aligned with the product or service's brand image. Many businesses desire to increase their video marketing efforts, but the process can be stressful. In this article, we shared tips for producing video adverts that convert.

Planning the scenes for a video ad

A storyboard is a series of cartoon-like pictures that depict the progression of the video. Each graphic depicts a scene from the finished film. There are online templates, and a fast Google search for "storyboard template pdf" can yield numerous results.

You don't have to be an artist to conduct storyboarding, stick figures are perfectly acceptable. It's all about figuring out what pieces you'll need and writing out your video strategy before you begin filming or putting it together.

If you're going to overlay text on top of the video, make sure you have enough footage and a location for each line of text.

Free stock footage

For your free stock footage, Pexels is a well-suited option. Pexels is a website where you can find a lot of high-quality stock footage for free. All you need to do is enter terms relating to your niche into a search engine.

Some videos may demand attribution, so be sure to read the notes before downloading.

Filming content and product footage

For a better filming experience,  you need a device that allows you to exercise complete creative control over the content.

Majority of internet marketers have smartphones capable of producing high-quality video. To make a commercial video, you don't need expensive camera equipment.

Some smartphones lack good audio, you'll need an additional microphone like a lavalier mic if you want to record a voice-over or speech.

A key light is an alternative step to take your filming to the next level. To give a more appealing and professional look, an LED or CFD light is normally set at a 45° angle from the subject.

If you don't feel comfortable doing the video yourself, there are plenty of Fiverr gigs for product demos, or you can locate an influencer to work with on Instagram or TikTok.

Using an editor for video ads

The best video editor is a hot topic of discussion. If you're using a Mac, Final Cut Pro is a fantastic choice; if you already have Adobe Creative Suite, Premiere Pro is included. However, we recommend DaVinci Resolve, because the free version has all you need to create high-quality video advertisements.

The DaVinci workflow is:

• Clip — Make a rough cut of the footage in a few minutes.

• Add transitions and effects to your video.

• Fusion is a powerful graphics system based on nodes.

• Grade the footage in terms of color.

• Fairlight – Sound design and audio effects

• Deliver — Save the project as a web-ready file.

So once footage from a camera is imported, a rough cut is made to remove any errors. The majority of your time is taken up in the edit tab when you are using a multitrack editor to create project clips.

Adding backing tracks and audio

Here are some amazing free audio backing tracks and sound effects resources:

YouTube Audio Library - YouTube has an audio library that is searchable and royalty-free, although the quality might be a hit or miss.

Free Sound - Used primarily for sound effects rather than backing tracks. Houses loads of content with variable quality.

Zapsplat - Another site that has more effects than Freesound; with a more modern appearance.

Ben Sound - This is owned by a musician. If you listen to the most popular tracks, you'll undoubtedly recognize them from promotional videos.

If you're recording your audio, utilize an auxiliary microphone and be aware of delay, as the video and audio will often be out of synchronization and require post-production correction.

Color grading the video ad

Color grading can transform ordinary smartphone footage into something more professional. It's similar to applying an Instagram filter to your video, except it's a lot more powerful.

You can add unique nodes for each filter effect when color grading in. A node tree for color grading might look like this:

Whitebalance > Contrast > Saturation > Skin Tone > Vignette > Final Adjustments

Experimenting to get a look you like is the most significant approach to learning color grading.

Exporting for high volume distribution

Before uploading to an ad network, it's critical to compress the video as much as possible. We recommend exporting in H264 .mp4 or .mov format at 30fps (frames per second) at the required resolution for the ad network.

Keep an eye on file size, and if you're addressing a lot of mobile users or people in developing nations, split-test a lower-quality, smaller-file-size video to see whether it loads faster.

Optimizing video ads post-launch

An ideal promotional film, like a perfect banner ad, does not exist. Creating video variations takes longer than creating banner variations, but there are a lot more things to test.

Split testing options include:

• Video length: amateur vs. professional

• Whether or not to use a text overlay

• Variations in sound

• Cutting with vigor

• Getting rid of the introduction

• Watermarks for brands

Conclusion

You don't have to run with the misconception that creating video ads that convert is always expensive and difficult to execute. You can create a high-converting video for absolutely no money and without any prior video editing experience.

There are a number of video editing programs available that will walk you through the process step by step and make it simple to reformat your movies for any site, such as TikTok, Instagram Stories, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Visit our website today to register for our amazing course on video production and editing.