Every video marketer dreams of making the next Squatty Potty or Dollar Shave Club video. You want a viral video that skyrockets your conversion, leads and ultimately sales. But, the reality is that most video don’t get those results because they don’t know understand the reasons why people buy.
In this episode of Making a Video Marketer, I share my insights into one of Jim Edward’s “secrets” from his Copywriting Secrets book and how it applies to your marketing videos so you know what really drives people to buy.
Read the Transcript
This is the making of a video marketer, a podcast to help you navigate the wild west of marketing videos, so your videos are engaging and persuasive. I’m your host Ame Proietti, a freelance script writer. And I take on every burning question about scripting, producing, and promoting marketing videos, so you put out videos that actually get results.
Thanks for joining me and my burning question of the day is does your marketing video know why people buy?
It’s time to get meta! I’m kidding. This episode is actually about a chapter in Jim Edwards, Copywriting Secrets. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend checking it out. The reason it’s a great book is because it’s filled with what Jim Edwards calls 31 secrets that will get you results from your emails, sales letters, or whatever you’re writing.
Now, does this apply to video?
Video is a Form of Copywriting
Absolutely. At the end of the day, your marketing video is a form of copy. Sure, having the visual message adds a layer of complexity, but you’re still writing a form of copy. When you write a video script, that means all the marketing and copywriting principles, people talk about apply to do high converting and engaging video marketing.
You need to learn from two camps: the videography camp, and the copywriting camp. Jim Edwards, if you don’t know him, is the co-creator of Funnel Scripts with Russell Brunson. They’re very much in the copywriting camp. Now, one of the secrets Jim Edwards shares in his book is that without a strong “why” people don’t buy, and I want to dive into that principle today.
You can make the most beautiful video with the most gorgeous cinematography or animation the world has ever seen. I personally could watch beautiful clips all day and just admire the lighting and the frame.
But I’m watching out of interest, not buying.
The #1 Goal of Your Marketing Videos
And that’s an important distinction in video marketing because your goal is to get people to buy. Even if you’re raising brand awareness, you want people to know your brand because ultimately you want them to buy from you.
The very first question I ask whenever I start a project is what is the goal of the video? And I have never had anyone say something like “make a pretty video”. No. people want their marketing videos to sell. So, to make sure your video is working for you and not against you, you need to understand why your target audience buys.
The Real Reasons Why People Buy
In addition to his lovely stick figures, and I mean that genuinely, I think they’re kind of cute, I really like that Jim Edwards starts off this chapter on this secret by sharing 10 reasons why people buy and then he goes on to share which five reasons he focuses on.
Anyone in video marketing must know why people buy because good marketing is rooted in psychology. Your video is the vehicle that carries your message to whatever need prompts people to buy.
This was a concept that I had been somewhat familiar with before. I’ve been freelance script writing and making marketing videos since 2017. So, I know about the problem solution format marketing. I need to identify a problem because the problem sells. Your target audience needs to see their problem before you can position your product or service as their solution never underestimate the power of a problem, but it’s not enough to just identify a problem.
Go Deep Down the Rabbit Hole of Buyer Motivation
You need to go deeper and understand the reason behind it. Books like StoryBrand by Donald Miller, Storytelling Made Easy by Michael Hague, and Jim Edwards’ Copywriting Secrets, all talk about this underlying “why”. The reason for that is because it’s the why that actually gets people to buy.
For example, my problem could be that I’m not getting clients highlighting that in a message that’s directed towards buyers like me is important. Now go one step further and ask yourself, why does that matter? Why does it matter to me that I’m not getting clients? Once you do that, you get into these “whys” that Jim Edwards is talking about.
People buy things because they want to make money, or they want to save money. Sometimes it’s to save time. Other reasons include avoiding effort.
Although that sounds bad when you put it that way, it’s a perfectly valid reason. Courses are a great example of this. We want to avoid sifting through countless resources that may or may not be useful. The right course is a shortcut to the answers that we want.
Identify Multiple Whys That Motivate People To Buy
All right, going back to Jim Edwards chapter, he also points out that we want to figure out multiple whys that our product or service appeals to, and then we should tie our offer to those whys. He used a tarp analogy that I thought made his point quite perfectly.
You want to tie down your tarp in as many places as you can, so it doesn’t blow away. When you apply this to your marketing video, your message is the tarp you want it nailed down solid so it doesn’t fly away in the winds of doubt and objections. And those winds can be strong.
Unless I’m already sold on an offer, the first thing I do when I see a sales offer is think of reasons why I don’t need it. I don’t know if other people do that, but I certainly do.
Not always, but I do stop to think if this offer is going to fulfill any of my needs. Deeper to that, I’m basically trying to see if this offer fits any of my whys.
Recently, I’ve been looking to upskill my editing and videography skills. I did what any person would do. And I went to my good friend, Google to check out the options from there. I stumbled upon an offer I couldn’t refuse godfather style…without the horse.
Just so, you know, my jokes are rarely funny, but I refuse to give up and I’m not sorry.
Think Like Your Target Audience
Getting back on topic. When I was checking out this course, in my higher level thinking I was telling myself that I wanted a course that would help me upscale. There are a ton of courses that will help me upskill.
What a marketer needs to understand is that I, as the buyer, really want two things from this course: 1) to save myself time and 2) to make more money.
The internet is filled with free information. That’s no secret. If I knew what I was doing, I’d just go search topics on YouTube or something. Clearly though, I need guidance since I don’t know what I’m doing.
I want someone to tell me, “This is what you need to know so you can make more money with these new skills”. And this course that I found, that’s what it told me. Not verbatim, but pretty close. I distinctly remember hearing something like, “this course will teach you what took me seven years to learn”.
And when I heard that I was sold. I personally don’t want to spend seven years learning a new skill because that means I can’t offer services that will help me make more money for seven years. You need to approach your video with that same kind of thinking so the messaging can laser focus on your target audiences’ motivations for buying.
Stretch Your Thinking and Get Creative For a Unique Selling Point
Jim Edwards also sets out 10 questions to ask about any product or service to force you to think about how it relates to a buyer’s why. I tried answering these questions and came up with the basics. Typical. Right?
So, I really appreciated that Jim Edwards had a ton of example answers because these examples showed me how far I needed to stretch my thinking.
The typical answers aren’t bad. They’re not great either though because your competition will have those same answers. In saturated markets, you need a unique selling point to stand out.
Seeing how Jim Edwards tied a bunch of offers to a bunch of why’s made it clear that you can come up with way more reasons than you’d expect, which is how you find your unique angling.
Overall, I’m really glad I got this book. Again, it’s called Copywriting Secrets and it’s packed with a ton of actionable information. And who doesn’t love information they can act on?
Takeaway
Alright, time to summarize this episode. Every time you script a marketing video, you need to know why your target audience buys.
In fact, everything about your video should come back to the reasons why your target audience buys.
When, you know, the simple, yet deep rooted reasons, you can focus your message into something people won’t want to resist. And then your video will actually perform the way you want it to.
Thanks for listening to the making of a video marketer and my burning question of the day. If you have any questions or comments, write them in the comment section below, or reach out to me. I’ll link my contact info in the show notes. In the next episode of Making a Video Marketer, I’ll be diving into whether copywriting formulas have a place in video marketing.
Please remember to leave a rating and subscribe until next time happy trails.
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