This Promotional Video Made Half A Million Dollars!

Check out this promotional video case study and see how a virtually unknown startup earned half a million dollars in sales with just one video.

What makes a Great Promotional Video?

A promotional video is a 1-2 minute video that promotes your brand, product, or service. 

A great promotional video helps position you as an expert, and moves your viewer one big step closer to the sale. 

It’s a powerful marketing tool that helps you build trust and excitement with new leads on your social media or your website. 

Your video needs to be inspiring and exciting to watch. 

Many promotional videos fall short of this, and that’s not surprising since great video is an art and a science. 

It’s no different than creating a gourmet meal; you need the right amount of ingredients, and the right tools.

Mission8’s video got it right, and as a result, they got a ton of sales. 

 

 

Mission8’s Surprising Success

Mission 8’s promotional video was created with one goal in mind. Help them achieve $20,000 in sales. 

Instead, they generated $500,000. That’s half a million dollars from just one video!

This kind of success is definitely uncommon, but goes to show how powerful video production can be. 

Want to copy their success?

Let’s break down their down video into it’s raw elements, so you can decide what to apply to your own promotional video.

 

Concept Creation

The first thing that led to Mission8’s successful promotional video was to create an original concept. 

They came up with something totally unique that had never been attempted in their industry. This was the foundation for its success. 

At UpMedia, the one thing we insist on before we start your promotional video, is to spend quality time on concept creation. 

I learned this from my days of working in TV and film production. The truth is, if you don’t have a strong concept, you don’t have a successful show to air. 

The same applies to your promotional video. 

Don’t attempt to do the same thing everyone else is doing. Successful marketing requires innovation. 

But how can you make innovation less challenging, and more achievable? 

It starts with having great reference material. Reference is the great hack to creating good ideas.

If you have other great ideas in front of you, then you have a foundation to begin with. A head start.

Truthfully, all great ideas were spawned from previous great ideas. Therefore, nothing in essence is original. 

“If you see someone do something you like, take it. They got it from someone else.” – Micheal Cane

So start with reference. 

Combine and collage many great ideas into one. Then add your own original input to the mix. 

Soon, you will end up with something unique, powerful, and original!

Just like Mission8.

 

Theme

Want an even simpler approach to creating your concept? Start by choosing a Theme.

A theme, is a subject or idea that recurs throughout your promotional video. 

Mission8’s theme was simple. Two men dressed in black that look somewhat like gangsters doing a private deal. Except instead of the usual gangster-related items (drugs, weapons, money, etc.) it was a shower head! 

That was their concept. It’s actually pretty simple. 

Getting back to your brand, where can you find other popular themes? What would be a fun theme to use in your promotional video?

Comedy In Your Promotional Video

Another thing that Mission8’s promotional video did to succeed was use comedy. 

If your video can make people laugh, your video will succeed. 

There are many types of comedy. The type they used is called Satire.

 

Satire

Satire is different from other forms of humour, such as silliness (which includes people acting stupid or ridiculous), which just isn’t as classy. 

You want to make people laugh, but not always at the expense of your dignity. 

Satire can be funny, and still be classy. 

You can accomplish satire with the use of irony, or exaggeration. 

Here’s a brilliant quote on satire:

“Satire is always a critique of some form of human behaviour, vice, or folly, with the intent of persuading the audience to view it disdainfully and thereby encourage a degree of social change.” – LeBoeuf, Megan, “The Power of Ridicule: An Analysis of Satire” (2007). Senior Honors Projects. Paper 63.

Satire is a powerful form of communication. 

If you incorporate it into your promotional video, you’ll likely get massive attention, and move closer to the results you’re hoping for. And who knows, you may even go viral. 

Cinematic Production Quality 

The third thing that Mission8’s promotional video used to succeed was great cinematic quality.

It does play a huge role in the success of your vide. Especially if you combine it with a great concept! 

This is what Mission8 has done. Their concept is great, and the production value is very high. 

It’s worth mentioning that if you want to attract an audience of higher net worth, you definitely need a video with cinematic quality.

Now, you don’t need a Game Of Thrones budget, or anything like that to achieve high quality video. 

In fact, there are just four ingredients you need in order to have a promotional video that is considered high quality. Let’s look at those in detail.

 

HD Cameras & Lenses

High Definition cameras and lenses will give your video an amazing look. 

This means, you can’t shoot on your smartphone, as amazing as the camera might be!

 

Location

Where you shoot your video matters. Determining this ties in closely with your concept, but the more unique or interesting your location is, the better quality your video will achieve. 

 

Actors 

Consider investing in actors. Mission8 only used two, so it wasn’t a huge cast. And neither of them gave Oscar level performances. However, it was still well worth the investment for the ROI. 

 

Lighting

How you light a scene determines how cinematic your promotional video will look. Light can draw attention in incredible ways. Investing in a bit of extra light will boost your production quality quite a lot. 

These four elements require expertise, which is why you need a strong film team, and it does take budget up front. 

But look at the results they got! Is half a million dollars a good ROI? You bet!

Great Storytelling Structure

The final winning component of this great promotional video is it’s storytelling

The story is different from the concept. The concept is the overall theme. The story is what happens in the beginning, middle and end. 

Make sure story structure is clear and appealing, and you’ll have a winner!

There are four main ingredients to a great story structure.

The Hero

 

 

 

This is the person who faces the most risk, and goes through the most transformation. It’s also the one who gets to live a better life, once the balance is restored. 

In a promotional video, the hero is the person who stands to benefit the most from your product or service.

In this video, the “Hero” is the guy purchasing the shower head. With this new product, he gets the opportunity to live a better life. And maybe he can finally stop doing deals in a shady warehouse?

The Villain 

 

 

In famous movies and books, it’s the one who causes the hero the most problems. 

In a promotional video, it’s the one thing that causes pain and suffering for your ideal client. The villain is the “pain point”. 

You must have a clear and defined pain point to have good storytelling. 

In this video, the rusted pipes are the villain, and they are outlined by the photos. It’s very simple and clear for the viewer what the problem is, but uniquely shown by using photos. 

What pain point can you outline in your promotional video?

How can you dramatically define it so that it becomes compelling?

The Mentor 

 

 

Every good story needs it’s own Yoda! 

The distinguishing trait of a mentor, is that they show up in a time of need, with a solution to the problem of the main character. 

The cool thing is, when you position your brand as the Yoda, people get very interested in you. 

Ask yourself, how can you do that in your video?

In this one, the “showerhead dealer” is the mentor. He’s showing up to help the Hero!

And thank goodness, because the hero’s water quality is pretty disgusting.

The Offering

 

 

What allows the mentor to help the Hero save the day? An offering. 

In movies it often comes in the form of wisdom and experience. In the case of a promotional video, it can come in the form of a product.

The mentor shows up with a product that can revolutionize showering, and turn rusty pipe water into clean purified water! That’s a compelling and unique offering. 

Using The 4 Elements Of Great Story

 If you can break down a story into four simple elements, you can have a winning story come to life very easily. You may still need to spend some time getting creative, or working with a script writer.

Definitely spend as much time as needed strengthening your story, and making sure it’s got the essential story points to stand out the way Mission8 has.

 

Ready To Start Making Videos That Work? Get A Quote Today!


By Anthony Madani

Anthony is the Director at UpMedia Video, and an expert at Video Marketing, with a rapidly growing business. He’s spent over 18 years in media production, from award winning television shows (on Netflix and HBO), to producing ads for large corporations such as Toyota, Flight Center, and Canada Life.

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