Photo by Dan Hodgett

You want potential customers to buy from you and you want existing customers to come back for more. If you want to reach your target audience, you need to speak to them in terms they will understand. I’ve seen far too many websites and watched too many corporate videos that either use a lot of vague language or technical jargon. This often leaves a potential customer confused and they leave the website, or finish watching the video, without learning any answers to their questions. If you want to communicate effectively with your target market, the copy on your website and the script for your video needs to be…

1. CONVERSATIONAL – Write as if you were meeting with your audience one-on-one.
2. CLEAR – Avoid vague terminology that doesn’t specifically state your core values, mission, identity and services. Avoid generic, cliched words, like “synergy.”
3. CONCISE – When someone visits a website, he/she doesn’t want to read a book. They will scan the content. They won’t read everything thoroughly. Hit the highlights. When you are writing a script for your video, write sparingly. Let the visuals do the talking for you.
4. COMPREHENSIBLE – Make sure the benefits of your company’s services are well-defined. Tell potential customers why doing business with you will be a valuable experience for them. If you work for an accounting firm and you perform business valuations, don’t simply tell your audience that you can do business valuations. Tell them how that service affects them. Tell them why it’s important that they use a business valuation service. Tell them when they would need it.

When someone first lands on your website or watches your video, he/she should be able to grasp the basic information about your business quickly. Remember, there’s nothing more valuable than time. If you can hook a potential customer with engaging content, he or she will spend more time with your brand. And the more time they spend with you, the more likely they will be to buy from you.

As you market your services to potential clients, it’s important to remember that perception is everything. If people see you as knowledgeable and experienced, they will be more inclined to listen to what you are offering. Image is key.

I recently came across a website promising visitors that success can be found in a video production career. On the home page is a brief video, featuring a spokesperson who covers a few introductory items in a “how-to” lecture format. The spokesperson was well-prepared and, based on what he said, seemed knowledgeable.

But something wasn’t quite right with the image they were presenting. This is a site for a company that wants you, the viewer, to consider them as a valuable resource in your fledgling production career. However, the quality of the home page video was unimpressive.

It was shot with a standard consumer camcorder under flat lighting conditions. The camera was pointed at the spokesperson standing in front of a dry erase marker board, creating a presentation that failed to engage the viewer.

It seemed that the on-board camera mic was used, rather than a lavaliere or shotgun mic. Therefore, the audio sounded thin and the levels were too low. The auto-focus was left on, meaning that during the video the whole scene would fall out of focus as the camera tried to calibrate itself.

Visitors to the site might come away from watching this video with a little less respect for the company, because little consideration was given to the image being portrayed to potential clients. A more effective video would have included behind-the-scenes footage of the production process: on location shooting with high-end equipment, in the studio working with the lighting gear, in the edit suite putting everything together, etc. This would have given the viewer a general overview into the production world and would have been far more engaging than a single shot of a spokesperson in front of a marker board.

Remember, perception is everything when it comes to marketing. Position yourself as a knowledgeable expert in your field and constantly re-evaluate the image and brand you are communicating to potential clients.