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How to engage the audience trough choose-your-own-ending marketing videos

If you remember reading those choose-your-own-adventure books as a kid, I can imagine how awesome your childhood must have been. You see, it wasn’t just about the fact that you can get a number of different endings in a single story. What made it truly engaging was the fact that you have complete control over what happens next.

Now, imagine giving your audiences that power.

Without a doubt, that’s a great way to make your interactive videos pop out of the mold.

Basically, this format is done by splitting an entire storyline into different videos, all of them branching out to choices that your audiences will make. They click on the video that they feel should succeed the preceding video and build their own story themselves.

 

Why Share Control with the Audience?

Maybe the real question here is, why not?

If there’s one concept that the digital era introduced, it’s the fact that your target market has the ability to think for themselves. Gone are the days when consumers based their decisions mostly on what salespeople and marketers tell them. Now, people actually do their own research to ensure that they make informed decisions.

This is exactly why sharing the control with your audience does not mean losing control of your own campaigns. If anything, it actually places your business in a better position. By letting your customers feel that you’re giving them control, you’re also assuring them that their needs and wants take top priority in your book. Now, that’s a great way to get their loyalty.

 

Maintaining Your Own Share of the Control

Just because you’re giving the audience control does not mean they get to take 100%. Remember that your interactive videos should, ideally, work towards a specific goal. This is why you still have to maintain your own share of the control by shaping the entire storyline to your advantage.

How do you come up with an effective storyline for this?

1. Pinpoint a specific goal
Why are you making this video? Are you hoping to promote a specific product? Are you merely trying to gain leads? Are you using this to see what kind of personality your target market has? By pointing out a specific goal, it will be much easier for you to shape the story.

2. Know who your audience is
Now that you know what your goals are, the next thing you have to figure out is who your audience is. This allows you to use an approach that would appeal to the right kind of people. Remember that getting the attention of a lot of people is great, but if they’re the wrong sort of people, then your conversion rates will still suffer.

3. Come up with the story
With a clear view of what you goals are and who your audience is, you can start shaping the story. Remember that your goal here is for your audience to dictate what happens next. So you’ll need multiple scenarios, with your audience clicking on the link to the video whose outcome appeals to them the most.

4. Add calls to action
Remember the last blog where we talked about how important your calls to action are? Yes, this is still applicable in this case. Especially when they reach the end of the story, you have to make sure they perform some sort of action. They already reached the ending. They’ve already invested time and energy following the story from one video to another. Adding a short request to fill out a form or like a social media page would be easy enough for them to do.

5. Track your progress
Yes, posting your videos is not the end of the process. The real work comes after. Did your audience follow the entire storyline all the way to their chosen ending? Did most of them drop out of the game on the 2nd video without reaching the ending? Find out and tweak the campaign as needed until you get the desired results.

Trust me, this approach is as interactive as videos can get. With the right storyline and the right distribution channels, there’s no doubt you’ll be the talk of the town.