Why You Need A Lifestyle Video For Your Brand
Lifestyle videos inspire your audience and appeal to their deepest desires. They show people what life is like as one of your customers, and this can have a powerful impact on viewers. Through a lifestyle video, you can share information about your brand in a very informal way. Let's take a look at what a lifestyle video is and how it can help grow your business.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
What is a lifestyle video?
It's a form of marketing that shows the lifestyle behind a product. It appeals to your audience's deepest desires. It shows what life could be like (amazing) with your product. Lifestyle brand videos niche down into the specific demographic you're trying to reach.
Here's an example of a Lifestyle Brand Video for Accor Hotels that I voiced. See if you can pick out the main message of the video and was there a hard sell or call to action?
How can a lifestyle video help grow my business?
A lifestyle video can help educate or inform your audience.
Your customers have many choices! Why should they choose you? What makes you different or unique? A lifestyle video is a great way to show them instead of telling them. You can connect with your audience based on values and not wanting to sell them a product.
A lifestyle video can help improve your SEO. Search engines reward websites that use video because the audience is more engaged. Optimize your video title and description with the right keywords. Keep them relevant to your specific audience and niche.
It's an emotional connection to your audience. They feel understood. When your audience feels understood, they build trust with your brand. They are more apt to share your products with friends.
Lifestyle videos can boost your conversion rate by up to 46%. Putting a face and name to your product makes it more human.
Before You Create A Lifestyle Video
The first few questions you should ask yourself is:
What Message or Story Am I Telling? (most important)
What Is The Purpose Of This Video?
What Is My Budget?
What Does Success Look Like As A Result of Your Video?
I have voiced thousands of lifestyle brand videos, it's one of my favorite genres in voiceover! The best lifestyle videos have a clear message, stunning visuals, and engaging music. But most of all, they tell a great story. You can have a very low budget and still create a lifestyle video if you have a powerful and engaging story.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
What message or story are you telling?
Make your customer the hero of the story, not you. You are a guide along their journey, helping them to get where they most desire. Donald Miller's approach to marketing centers around the story you are telling. "Clarify your message and grow your business." Learn more about Donald's workshops, listen to the Business Made Simple podcast, or hire a Certified StoryBrand Guide.
What is the purpose of your video?
Lifestyle videos show what your audience could look like when they buy your product. You're painting a picture of their future. You're not giving them a hard sell. But rather, you are showing them their amazing new future!
Do these videos have a CTA aka Call To Action at the end of the video? I suppose some do, but that swings things back into more of a hard-sell video to sell something. The goal with a lifestyle video is to send a message of "we understand and we are here whenever you need us."
What is your budget?
I love this question because right away you begin to focus on what you can and cannot afford to do. Are you able to hire a production company or creative agency? If you are looking for a company to produce your video, find someone who is passionate about what they do. They should have the experience and equipment necessary to make an effective video. Find people who will listen to your needs. Be certain they understand your story and have a proven track record of excellent work. Look at their portfolio; do you love their work?
Do you need to create something by yourself? Always invest in the story first. If you need to create the video yourself, there are many online options. I'll take a deep dive into creating your own lifestyle brand video in another blog post.
What does success look like as a result of your video?
What kind of engagement do you want to see on social media? What kind of traffic do you want to see on your website? What are you hoping people will do or feel after watching the video? Do you want them to subscribe to your mailing list or follow you on Instagram?
Success doesn't always look like the highest number. If you had 10 thousand views, but very little engagement. If the measurement of your success is engagement, then that video didn't perform as well as you wanted it to. Yet, if you only had a thousand views and very very high engagement, you can count that as a huge success.
Another way to measure success would be to see if people are sharing your video. It sparked an emotion in them and they wanted to share it. You could also measure the success of your video by finding out how long someone watched your video. Did they watch the entire video or only a few seconds?
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Conclusion:
A lifestyle brand video can be an excellent way to find and connect with your tribe, your core audience. Make it appeal to their emotional needs, their deepest desires and genuinely give them a solution (your brand!).
