The Perpetual Traffic crew has found a video ad formula that works no matter the industry or the product/service.
In Episode 67, they’re going to share how you can use this strategy to craft video ads that will increase ROI, grow your brand, and scale your business to levels you never thought possible. When you use video ads right, the results are crazy good.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
- The pattern interrupt to utilize and when to use it within your video.
- The “game changer” that raises awareness and increases the urge to check out your product/service (<< It’s called EDIE).
- What you have to provide to encourage people to share your video.
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Episode 03: Facebook Video Ad Game Plan
Episode 56: How DollarBeardClub.com Generated 100 Million Video Views in 13 Months
Episode 59: 7 Facebook Ad Critiques
Episode 63: How Ezra Firestone Sold 84,583 Jars of Face Cream Using Video Ads
Dollar Beard Club main video
Poo~Pouri (Ackerman Brothers & Harmon Brothers)
Squatty Potty (Harmon Brothers)
Keith’s 3 Biggest Mistakes People Make with Their Facebook Campaigns video – Dominate Web Media uses this video as an example for clients to model after
Beats By Dre Thanksgiving NFL commercial produced by Karen X Chang
LaForge product video produced by Karen X Chang – an example of “Demonstrating”
Zenreach software for restaurant owners – an example of “Demonstrating”
SketchSHE video (over 500,000 views on all platforms)
Episode 67 Transcript (swipe the PDF version here):
| Keith Krance: | Hello and welcome back to Perpetual Traffic, Episode Number 67. Over the next couple episodes, we’re going to be walking through what we’ve seen as the biggest game changer for so many businesses, not only clients of ours, but also friends of ours, as well and colleagues. It’s a strategy that is literally taking several businesses we know firsthand and doubling, tripling, even quadrupling their sales in one year. I’m talking about companies going from doing $10,000,000 a year, to $30,000,000 overnight. Brand new companies doing a few hundred thousand a month to $1,000,000 a month.
|
| You might be wondering what it is. It is a video ad. We’re going to be talking about video ads, and specifically how you can use video ads to get more ROI, grow your brand, and put your brand in places that you never thought possible. This leads to getting big partnerships, getting in big media, getting on talk shows, etc. because you’re able to create a video that you can use as a Facebook ad to amplify and scale out your business. When you do this stuff right, it’s pretty crazy what can happen.
|
|
| For example, back in Episode 63, Ezra talked about the video ad funnel they used to go from doing $2,000,000 a year to $24,000,000. That was more specifically about the sales funnel. We also had Chris Stoikos, from Dollar Beard Club, back on Episode 56 talk about how Dollar Beard Club has generated over 100,000,000 video views and did $12,000,000 in their first 12 months in business. All that happened about three months into their business when one video went viral, and then they started continually amplifying, really pouring gasoline on the fire, ever since with Facebook ads. It continued to increase their span over the last 15 months.
|
|
| What we’re going to go over the next couple of episodes is talk about what works inside the video.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | This is totally cool stuff we’re going to be talking about today. I think this is the biggest game changer. When people ask me what’s new with Facebook, I keep going back to video. Video in all its different formulations, there’s lots of different ways in which we actually use video to achieve certain objectives within the agency based upon what the customer is looking to do. There’s a formula we found, that we’re going to talk about here in this episode, that almost works in just about any industry.
|
| We were going through this before the call here today, and this video ad formula works no matter what kind of product or service you’re offering, in most cases. What I’m really excited about is going through a lot of the different strategies that we’ve used to harness the power of video inside Facebook in future episodes.
We’ve talked a lot about video, starting with Episode 3, going way back when, Keith. Remember that? Back in July 2015. So much has changed with video ads since then. And there’s so much more that we’ve learned and the types of results we’ve gotten with video—it transforms people’s businesses, like you were talking about earlier. We’ve really found certain ways in which it works, and are really psyched to talk about it here today. |
|
| Keith Krance: | Facebook has rolled out so many more features to make video even better in terms of ROI and growing your business. Things like improved custom audiences, where you can build your warm audiences five to ten times faster than any other way, which also gives you the ability to build your cold and lookalike audiences that much faster.
|
| I just got back from an event last weekend–the Unconscious Content Event that Chris Stoikos from Dollar Beard Club put on. It was unreal. The amount of case studies I saw there. There was only about 50 of us there; all the speakers were also attendees. I got to spend three days with people like Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank. A girl from SketchShe, who have generated 600,000,000 video views. That’s over half a billion video views!
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Holy cow!
|
| Keith Krance: | Yeah. The Ackerman brothers, who created the Poo-Pourri video. They talk about how Poo-Pourri was doing just under $10,000,000 a year when they launched that one video. They went from $10,000,000 to $30,000,000. The numbers from their video, the growth it led to, was two to three times faster than it was from being on Shark Tank!
Karen X. Cheng, who produced the Beats By Dre commercial, where you have the celebrities and the camera turning around to celebrities and it’s switching different celebrities in different environments. She talked about how to make videos that sell. She does a lot of product selling videos with different industries. |
| The list goes on-and-on. We’ll be having some amazing guests coming on this show over the next couple months. Definitely stay tuned for that.
|
|
| Today, we’re going to be talking about a 3-Step video ad formula that we know is proven. Let’s get right into it. One thing that everybody wants to know is, “How long should my video be?” I’m here to tell you, it depends. We have videos going from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. We usually give the customer an assignment. We say, “Hey, create a really short one, 20 to 30 seconds, and then create more of a content-rich one that follows this 3-Step formula.” A lot of times it might be three to four minutes; it might be nine. A new client just rolled out one that’s 16 minutes that’s doing really well.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yeah, in some cases, this is just re-purposing some of the assets you might already have. Maybe you have YouTube videos like the ones we’re using for Keith’s example. That was just a video they created for YouTube. They didn’t create it specifically for Facebook. Then, they re-purposed it and made it a little bit more Facebook friendly.
Twenty seconds to 20 minutes for this 3-Step formula. Everything in-between, it depends on your product, your service, how engaged your audience is, how much you have to say, etc. I’d hate to give somebody a hard-and-fast rule because we’ve seen such a wide variety of lengths.
|
| Keith Krance: | Step 1 is stop the scroll, get the view. Get them to view your video or, even better, click “unmute.” It’s all about a pattern interrupt. There’s a lot of different ways to do this, but the key is that first one to two seconds. If you don’t catch their attention, then you lose them.
|
| Ralph Burns: | The pattern interrupt can be anything, really. When we first started this, I know we were taking your lead on this, because you said, “Hey, you should say, ‘Stop the scroll.’ Get them to turn up the volume with some sort of flashing red, text overlay that says, ‘Turn up your volume.'” That still works, I would say. It’s a little bit overplayed now. I think it’s annoying, but it was novelty, I think, when videos first started on Facebook. Now, we’re realizing you don’t necessarily need that. You don’t necessarily need flashing lights and telling people to, “Click. Turn up the volume.” You can certainly do that. We’ve got one customer that points an arrow down to where the volume button is. We’ve got others that don’t do any of that.
|
| Typically, it’s motion. Motion typically is the thing that will get people to stop the scroll and hover over the video. We, as humans, have a basic instinct we are attuned to see in our peripheral vision, or our focused vision, moving objects. When we were in the caveman days, we didn’t want to get eaten by whatever it is—the Saber-toothed tiger. It’s an instinctual thing. We’re drawn to motion. If you can create motion in that first three to ten seconds, that’s the most important thing. We’ve got lots of different ways in which to do this. Maybe it’s showing them your product, maybe it’s showing them something that is important to them, maybe it is saying, “Stop the scroll.” You can try a lot of different things here. | |
| The point is you’ve got to get some kind of motion in that first three to ten seconds. Sometimes, we use text overlays that fly in or maybe it hovers, and then it dissolves and then it opens again. There are lots of different ways in which you can do it. I don’t think there’s one size fits all here, but the point is, you want people to hover over your video, ideally click it, and turn up the volume.
|
|
| Keith Krance: | You want to be able to tell the story in that first 20 to 30 seconds; maybe that’s how long your video is. You’ve got to be able to tell the story on mute. If you’re doing a really short video, say you’re doing one under 45 seconds, you need to make that video so they don’t even have to click “unmute” to be able to know what you want them to do. You’re going to visually tell the story as well with text.
Have some kind of motion, even something unique, and we’ll give you some example links in the Show Notes. Sometimes, a weird type of motion with the camera or maybe something unique, like a guy jumping out of a garbage can, or a lion in the background, like they do at Dollar Beard Club. There’s a lot of different ways you can do this. |
| Ralph Burns: | Yeah, motion is the key in the first three to ten seconds. Absolutely.
|
| Keith Krance: | Step 2 is the body of the video, the main content. We refer to this as, “the meat.” The meat in the video, baby. We’ve got a little acronym for you called, “EDIE.” You can have all four elements of EDIE in the meat of your video, or you might just have one. In most cases, it’s really just having one of these core principles. This is the game changer. This is how you turn cold audiences on Facebook, or any other platform, and increase desire and make them aware of a problem, and, then, have a desire to take action and go check out your product or service.
|
| EDIE: it’s Educate, Demonstrate, Inform, or Entertain. For example, Educate is the key, especially if you’re in an industry where it’s a B2B audience. Maybe you have digital programs, maybe you sell online courses, or digital products, maybe you’re a consultant. There are lots of different industries. One of the best examples we use is the six-minute video one I’ve done.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great one. The reason is you actually cover a couple of different techniques in that one. You do educate, but you also are telling them something they didn’t know. It’s debunking a popular myth. That’s very, very important too. In that video, and I use this as an example all the time, you say, “Are you making these three mistakes with your Facebook ads?” And you list out each mistake.
|
| For example, Mistake 1 is using the wrong objective. A huge issue, but then you tell people, “90% of the time we use website conversions.” You tell them what the problem is, but you also educate them on the solution. You don’t tell the whole thing because you want them either to opt-in for the Lead Magnet or you want to sell them your low-priced offer, whatever your offer is. You want to at least give them something, give them some education, and also show them, by helping them, that you can actually help them, which is the next step of this relationship.
|
|
| Now that they’ve watched the video, now that you’re informing them of this particular problem they have and helping solve it, the next logical solution is going to be in Step 3, which we’ll get into in just a second. You have to establish that credibility and also Educate, Inform, right in the news feed. I think that video does a really, really good job of it.
|
|
| Keith Krance: | What he’s talking about there really is giving them an Aha! moment. Give somebody an Aha! moment and guess what they’re going to want to do? They’re going to want to share your video.
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yes.
|
| Keith Krance: | Whenever you’re making your videos, whether it’s a short video, whether it’s a longer one like this where you’re educating, and it doesn’t really have any humor or anything, you can still add ways to make people share your video. This is the whole key. The whole key is to have a video that people will share, but also will want to take action on. If you can do that, it’s a game changer.
|
| I’ll give you several examples. I always like to lead with making them aware of a problem or some kind of really good tip. In this video, I talk about the three biggest mistakes we see people making with their Facebook campaigns. I actually list them out in the ad copy itself.
|
|
| The video goes through these three mistakes, and it also gives people a rule of thumb on audience size; why we’ve increased the suggested audience size for Facebook targeting. We used to suggest 200,000 to 400,000, now we suggest 500,000 to 2,000,000. It’s because the algorithm has changed. I talk about that. People love rules of thumb. Guess what? They’re going to share that video, but they’re also going to want to come on my webinar because the call to action on my video is to go through this webinar where I’m going to go deeper into these three big mistakes I’m revealing on the video on the ad, but on the webinar, I’m going to show them how to solve those three mistakes as well as case studies, etc.
|
|
| I try to give people an Aha! moment and then also something concrete. Sometimes, we can do that in the ad copy itself. Make it so people will want to share it, because guess what happens? They’re going to come into your funnel. They’re going to click your link. They’re going to opt-in for your webinar with their guard down, instead of their guard up. Psychologically, it’s the right thing to do, right?
|
|
| Like we always talk about, nobody likes that guy at a party who tries to sell you something 30 seconds after shaking your hand. However, if I met that same guy at a party, and I was interested in learning how to play the guitar, and he talked to me for five minutes and showed me how to play some really cool guitar riff, then, I’m probably going to want to learn more. I’m like, “Dude, can I get some lessons from you?” That’s what we do; that’s how we use Facebook ads. It’s a game changer in a lot of different ways.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | You show them you can help them by actually helping them. I think that is a really, really important thing. Now, in this video, we’re talking about Keith’s videos still, which is a very effective video ad, the key to this also is these three mistakes. Keith knows exactly what three mistakes because we know that avatar—we know these are the most common mistakes that people make.
|
| If you’re listening to this and you’re saying, “That’s great. Keith knows how to do videos on Facebook.” You do as well, as long as you know what the biggest pain points or the biggest desires of your target market are. For example, one of the biggest mistakes people make in your target market that you know they make, but you can actually help them create a solution with your product or service. What’s the number one thing they have an issue with? Or, maybe what’s the number one thing they really want that you can educate them on? We tend to use these as benchmarks, but really, this section of the video is really you knowing your avatar, you knowing your customer, and what their pain points are and what they ultimately want. Your solution is the final resolution. | |
| Keith Krance: | The reason why the six-minute video works so well and has been running for six months straight, is every time I talk about one of the three mistakes and then teach on it, I seed the next step. I’m saying, “On the free web class, I’m going to go deeper into this.” I’m giving them education, but I’m also seeding the next step. |
| We know the online attention span is really short. Even if somebody only watches one minute of the video, I’ve already had a call to action in there. The last four or five minutes is icing on the cake. That’s really important. If you’re going to have a longer video, get those extra calls to action in there, make them authentic and natural.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Seeding calls to action makes Step 3, which we’ll get into in just a second, just a natural, easy, next step. It’s not forced. I think a lot of people who use, for example, webinars or online training to sell to new customers, they have a tendency to just teach, teach, teach, teach, and never actually seed the other solution. Try, “I’m going to give you a solution at the end of this webinar,” or, “The end of this online training might be beneficial to you.” Or, when you’re telling them what the solution is, say, “I’ll get into that in my online training, which I’ll tell you about in just a second.” |
| Keith Krance: | The other thing I did with this video is I faced the camera for the first 20 seconds, and then I went to a PowerPoint presentation recording my screen. The reason I originally did that was actually to prove to our students that you don’t have to be good on camera. I didn’t even need to be on camera in the intro, but I like to do that to establish that connection with the viewer. Then, I went right to the keynote. That one worked just as well as face-to-camera videos. I don’t think either one is better, but the point is, if you’re afraid of the camera, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to be on camera.
|
| The next one is Demonstrate. We’ve got Educate, and then we’ve got Demonstrate. Demonstrate is where you’re going to show your product in use or show some sort of a transformation or solution. For example, maybe you have a tool or a gadget that’s really unique that people don’t realize is there and you can show it in action. You can show this software building something cool. That works really, really well.
|
|
| Karen X. Cheng, who did the Beats by Dre, said a lot of people try to get too cute with their Facebook videos instead of just showing the product in action.
|
|
| I’ve actually talked about another video that is not a client, but it’s a restaurant video. On Episode 59, we went over seven Facebook ad critiques, and on it, I talked about this restaurant video ad I love. It really shows this software. It’s targeting restaurant owners who want to get more customers and get more customers to come back more frequently. This video ad makes people aware of a problem they might not have realized they had, and shows them a solution at the same time by demoing the product and having a story around it.
|
|
| Another example of Demonstrate is you could show some sort of transformation. Maybe you have a skin care product or an exercise program or something like that, and you show it in an action. Maybe you put on a skin care solution that clears up your skin in five minutes. You can do that and show the transformation. While Facebook won’t let you do Before and After pictures with image ads, in videos you can show the time lapsed transformation or maybe if it happens live.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yes.
|
| Keith Krance: | That’s the key.
|
| Ralph Burns: | Very true. It’s huge! That is a great formula because you’re simply showing your product in use. I mean, this probably won’t work if you just sell coffee makers. It’s no different than any other coffee maker that’s on the market. If your product is just a run-of-the-mill coffee maker, and all you’re doing is just showing the thing in action, everybody knows how a coffee maker operates.
|
| The point is, you’ve got to show something distinct. You put in the water. You put in the coffee. Then, you put the coffee pot back in there and let it brew. That’s great. Your product has got to do something a little bit different. Maybe it is some sort of way in which it’s better, faster, or cheaper than what people are normally doing. It’s got to deliver some kind of Aha! moment in one shape or form. It can’t be a mundane kind of thing.
|
|
| You refer to software, for example, which is a great example. You might want to show the software being used as an over-the-shoulder demonstration. If it creates Lead Magnets from a blog post, which we actually have a customer that does that, it’s a great transformation. It’s a screen capture and it shows the product in use. You are educating them on your product, but you’re really demonstrating it. The difference is, the solution you provide.
|
|
| Keith Krance: | Exactly! Love it. Let’s say you had a coffee maker that’s like a Keurig, that makes coffee much, much easier. You could do a Dollar Beard Club style video, where it’s funny. You have an actor come in and try to get up in the morning, all tired, and make their coffee, and they’re stumbling around, and it’s taking too long. The next thing you know, they’re running out the door late, trying to take Tyler to school, like me, sometimes. Instead, you could reverse the camera and show this amazing tool that you have that takes the whole process, makes it faster and easier, and then your day is serene and relaxed. |
| Lots of ways you can do this. That’s Demonstrate. The next one is Inform. Like Ralph mentioned a minute ago, making somebody aware of a problem they didn’t know they have, or a solution they didn’t about. Maybe you have some kind of an amazing supplement that gives people more mental acuity and focus and memory. You can show a video of these amazing nutrients that the brain needs to be getting every day and say something like, “If your brain got these nutrients you would have more focus, energy, motivation, productivity, but guess what? They’re very hard-to-find. You’ve got to go to South America to find these nutrients or to Whole Foods and spend a lot of money. This is why we’ve created this amazing, organic, natural supplement that you can have for $59 a month.” | |
| You see what we did there? If you do something like that, you’re making people aware of nutrients that the brain needs that people may not know about, like, “I didn’t realize that Asuraganda does this for my body.” They’re going to share that with their friends even if they don’t want your product because you gave them some good value. That’s how you really inform.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yeah, absolutely. Let’s move on to Entertain.
|
| Keith Krance: | Entertain. Dollar Beard Club is a perfect example; definitely listen to Episode 56. There are different ways to Entertain. Poo-Pourri and Squatty Potty do this. These videos both entertain and educate. They’re actually educating you in a funny way without making it gross. Entertaining, that’s how you get people to share.
|
| Ralph Burns: | Absolutely. I think all 4 of these overlap in a lot of different ways because Entertain can be a part of Educate, Demonstrate, and Inform. They do crossover a lot. I think Dollar Beard Club, Poo-Pourri, and Squatty Potty are great examples of that because they’re so good at humor. It’s hysterical. Plus, you’re actually learning something in the process or you’re becoming a part of a movement, in the case of Dollar Beard Club. Really, really important.
|
| Sometimes this is hard to pull off. If you’re not naturally entertaining, it’s okay. You can go back to Educate, Demonstrate, or Inform. You don’t have to be the life of the party to do this. You don’t have to be the funniest guy in the room. If you’re informing, demonstrating, or educating, that’s perfectly fine. The Dollar Beard Clubs and the Squatty Pottys of the world are extremely good at this sort of thing, and it is a very effective way of getting your message across, as well as what Keith says, “Get an element of virility to it, which is off-the-charts.”
|
|
| Keith Krance: | You don’t have to start with something that does that. You can start with some of these other basic, such as Educate. Then, as you get momentum and as you start to grow your audiences and get better at it, you can start to try new styles and take things to the next level, maybe invest in somebody that can help you write out a script. Is it worth spending some serious time and energy and sometimes money crafting a video that will change your business forever? |
| Ralph Burns: | God, yeah.
|
| Keith Krance: | I think it is. I’ve seen it happen so many times.
|
| Ralph Burns: | We spend an inordinate amount of time in the agency on this very thing. We travel out to talk to people and educate them and direct videos to make sure this 3-Step video ad formula is adhered to. It’s super-important. You’re going to be able to reap the rewards if you follow this formula. Let’s get to Number 3.
|
| Keith Krance: | Step 3 is adding a call to action. This is where you pivot and you transition smoothly into telling people to take action. You can do this with text overlay. Obviously, if you’re doing a 20-second video, the call to action is going to go at the end of the video. If you’re doing a longer content-rich type of video, then we’ve already talked about this: You want to try to seed some calls to action that make sense throughout your video, if you can. A call to action is the next logical step. Think about why you built your product or why you really did what you did. That’s what you use for your call to action. |
| Ralph Burns: | It’s simple. If you’re seeding it along the way in the meat in Step 2, then, this will be a really natural transition. We call this the pivot-and-the-pitch. Pivot-and-pitch is really what we tell people. You might want to do a little summary. Maybe if you went through 11 ingredients that they need in their juice, you say, “Hey, those are the 11 things. Just so you know, if you’re looking to get a boost in your life and you want more energy or you want to combat any challenging disease that you have, I’d highly recommend that you get these 11 things in your diet.” |
| There’s your pitch. You’re summarizing and then turning it to promote your solution. In Keith’s case, it’s three mistakes you make in Facebook advertising. So he might say, “Hey, if you found those tips to be helpful, like I said, I’m holding an online training. I’d love for you to be a part of. Click the link below or the link in this post to reserve your spot. You’ll learn tons of other helpful, useful, informative things about Facebook advertising on that online training. We look forward to seeing you there. Click the link in the post.” Off you go.
|
|
| Keith Krance: | Maybe you’re having somebody opt-in for a workout, maybe you’re having them buy your product, maybe it’s a free trial. Just say the same thing. “Click the button you see below this video or in the post. Start a free trial now.” Or, “Download now.” We usually try to verbalize it, because Facebook will put their button in different places. They’re testing different places to put the call to action button.
|
| Ralph Burns: | Yep.
|
| Keith Krance: | On next week’s episode, we’re going to be going deeper. I know you probably have a lot of questions. What campaign objectives should I use? Should I put a link in the post? How should I create my custom audiences? All these types of things. Next week, we’re going to go deeper into really setting up your video ad. How to do it the right way. How to choose the proper campaign objective. When it’s best to use website conversions. When it’s best to use video views. Should you put the link in the post? When you should, when you shouldn’t. Most cases, you should if you’re in a direct response niche. There are some cases, though, if you’re in a B2C audience, you might not put the link in there.
|
| Make sure you come back next week, next Tuesday; we’ve got a lot of great stuff for you. Head to the Show Notes where we’ll have additional examples for you to check out. | |
| We’ll talk to you soon. Have a great day.
|
|
| Ralph Burns: | See you. |
Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Perpetual Traffic? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes!
iTunes not your thing? Find us on Stitcher or at DigitalMarketer.com/podcast
![[INSANE Case Study] How to Spend LESS & Make MORE on Meta & Google](https://perpetualtraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/646-768x768.png)
