August 16, 2024
How Video Storytelling Works and Why Use It?
If you were to name one of the most important traits any one person or marketer could have, storytelling would have to be up there. The history behind storytelling has been prominent since the dawn of time, so there’s certainly a reason why it is as timeless as life itself.
As for video, this is the new age. Visual content has become widely regarded as the most popular form of marketing and is backed up by the fact that digital video spending rose from approximately 1.3 billion euros in 2013 to 21.02 billion euros in 2022, which is just solid evidence that it’s becoming favoured among online audiences.
Now, when you mix those two together, you have an age-old, timeless piece of history that inevitably evokes emotion mixed with a new-age visual desire that can capture the attention of a very distracted generation. Let’s see how they work together and how you can use them to engage and convert your audience.
What is Visual Storytelling?
Visual storytelling, in simple terms, is the art of using visual content to tell a compelling story about a brand, company, movement, topic, product, and many more. The main power of storytelling is to create a deep connection with the viewers, providing a narrative that they can relate to in real life and see your entire brand, product, topic, etc., in a positive light.
Captivating your audience’s attention, creating emotion, and making people act is often the goal – with the goalposts moving depending on whether you just want to engage an audience, inform them about something, or try to sell them something.
Often, the combination of high-quality video production, sound lighting, captivating angles, etc., mixed with a well-thought-out, emotion-evoking story to go with it will pull the audience in and if it’s done well enough, there’s no chance they can’t stay until the end. As long as it’s authentic to go with this and touches all human senses, you can’t go wrong.
Different Types of Video Storytelling
Although you’ll have a clear goal in your mind for what you want from the video, it’s another thing to choose what type of video storytelling you want to use for your content. Here are some of the most popular options that businesses, brands, educators, etc., use for their videos:
Brand Films
Short film style used to tell a story about your brand, whether it be your mission, vision, past, or future goals. Essentially, you’re outlining your values and reasons for why you do what you do.
Animated Stories
Using animated storytelling is a more fun, fictional way of telling a story about your business; often using characters, a plot, and emotions through animated sequences.
Documentaries
These are essentially a longer form of content, similar to brand films, but dive deeper into everything related to your business, from the past to the present and into the future, while aligning your values, mission, and vision along the way.
Customer or client testimonials
This is essentially where your customers or clients can tell their personal experience of using you, which allows the audience to envision themselves in the same spot, or better, using your products or services.
Narrative ads
Although this is essentially more ‘salesy’, you’re essentially telling your audience a story through advertising in hopes of achieving more engagement, reach, sales, or conversions.
What Are the Benefits of Visual Storytelling?
If you’re thinking about implementing a video marketing strategy into your business and feel like you have a story to tell, here are some of the inevitable benefits you’re going to fall upon:
- You will have a massive reach (Over-the-top (OTT) video apps generated around 3.1 billion downloads in 2023)
- Visual storytelling will capture your audience’s attention more than anything else
- Each kind of story creates deep, meaningful relationships with potential customers/clients, making for long-term retention
- It will make you more relatable to your audience (humans love humans)
- According to a report by the Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners
- Visual content is the most popular form of marketing, giving you the best chance of reaching your goals
Examples of What Great Visual Storytelling Looks Like
If you’re a visual learner, we’re going to give you some of our favourite visual stories so you can take some inspiration for your own brand videos in the future. Here are some different types of stories:
1. LEGO’s Story
This is an extremely captivating story about the entire history of Lego. These great storytellers give you the whole rundown in a short, emotion-evoking, and powerful animated film. Give this a watch!
2. John Lewis Nursery Department (Made by Guide Video)
This is an example of something our team created for one of the leading department store companies in the UK, with the team at John Lewis sharing their mission, values, and vision for what they’re trying to achieve for their customers every time they step into the nursery department.
3. Volvo’s Instrumental Visual Story
This is an emotion-evoking advertisement that uses the power of high-quality video production and powerful music to persuade the audience of Volvo’s amazing capabilities as a luxury vehicle company.
4. Bolt’s Story
This is an introductory video to how a small, Estonian company became one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Europe!
Visual Storytelling Tips: Must-Knows (Added Bonus Tips)
If you watched all the above examples, you may want to know what they all have in common so you can use them in your own visual story. Here are some must-know tips for visual storytelling:
| Tip | What it can do |
|---|---|
| Creating a strong arc and narrative | A strong arc and narrative are the fundamentals of a brilliant story. Without it, it’ll be dislodged and people won’t be able to keep up with or understand what is happening. |
| Having a high-quality video production | Although it can be expensive, if you want to create the most captivating, meaningful visual story that will really evoke a response from your audience, having the best equipment is extremely necessary. |
| Be mindful of your audience’s attention span | Know your audience and your platform. Understand what the best length of video is for your audience and platform for the best results. |
| Know your customers or clients (what they like and don’t like) | If you’re not creating it for an audience and considering them at all, they’ll lose interest at first sight. Completing deep research on your target audience can help you find what will press their buttons. |
| Use emotional triggers (music, zooming in, slow motion, etc) | Each emotional trigger will evoke a different response and telling a story while hitting these emotional triggers with different production tricks will keep your audience on the edge of their seat at all times. |
Abiee is the Business Development Executive at Guide Video. She is an accredited Marketer and has worked within the hospitality and marketing industries for a decade. Abiee works with a range of businesses across Liverpool and beyond.