I started blogging in 2007 because I’d just signed my first book deal with Random House and I realized that social media was about to become a huge tool in any author’s marketing arsenal.

What I didn’t realize was how huge.

It’s become the core of my marketing outreach not just for books, but for everything I do.

But with the launch of my new book, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance, I decided to take things to an entirely different level, test a bunch of new strategies, and bring video strongly into the picture.

I knew some things would hit big and others would bomb. The results, though, surprised even me.

Here’s how it’s unfolded …

A brief outline of the entire approach

My Major Goals for the Launch:

• Generate thousands of pre-orders
• Build substantial buzz that ramped to fever-pitch on launch

My Major Goals for the Book – Long Term:

• Get ideas and strategies into the hands of creators to help them do great work, without suffering
• Arm entrepreneurs and corporate teams with tools that fuel higher-levels of creativity and innovation

My Approach:

• Create a highly-differentiated design & user experience
• Create a time-release anticipation & buzz-building launch sequence
• Leverage video to turn a text product into a multi-sensory experience
• Give a ton of high-value content, experiences, and tools along the way
• Create irresistible pre-order “experience” offers
• Blend response-principles with social outreach
• Integrate social media, video and applications

The big picture strategy

I’m a bit of a freak about visual feel.

I was heavily involved in the cover design process of the book and I wanted to ensure that everything we created online for the launch also created a visual experience that said, “wow, this is different.”

But, I also knew I wanted to be able to start to let people know something was coming, while we worked on the bigger launch pages. So, I started by adding a very simple “book page” on my blog that had the book cover, a few paragraphs, and links to booksellers to pre-order.

Behind the scenes, though, we were in heavy design and marketing mode.

The big challenge was to create something that was visually stunning, but also was really smart and effective from a response-driven marketing point of view. I’d seen a lot of book mini-sites and, while some were very polished, they were also really ineffective at driving visitors to a particular call-to-action.

And I began to realize that to really pull of what I wanted to do, we’d need to create not only a series of very cool pieces of mixed-media “engagement” content to release, but a website that progressed through a number of different phases that would allow the structure and design to support the key calls to action and media at each point of the pre-launch campaign.

So, here’s what we did …

The tactics and the sequence of events

Phase 1: The Opening Shot and Conditioning the Market

This happened almost two months before the book came out.

Traditional book marketing wisdom says this is way too early. But the main point here was to get onto peoples’ radars and start to build an emotion around the “brand” of the book.

We were also looking to start building a segmented list of people who’d be interested in pre-ordering the book, which would allow us to reach back out to them a number of times over the course of the launch.

I also didn’t want to put up a full mini-site with navigation at this point. It was too early to be giving so much information and asking for any substantial action. This was all about building energy, emotion, anticipation, and a list.

I wanted to set the tone for what was to come and use storytelling and video to make that happen. So we hired Michelle Vargas and her video production team to create a very simple, yet really powerful book trailer where I actually never even mentioned the book or asked anyone to buy it. In fact, the only call-to-action in the video came in the form of a bigger question about life at the end. You’ll have to watch the trailer to see the question.

Here is the video:

We then embedded the book trailer on a very simple landing page and made the video ginormous on the page. Next, we added a few calls-to-action aimed not at selling, but at evangelizing and commenting.

• Sign up for info about pre-order bundles
• Share the page on social media
• Leave a comment

At first, we were going to use the typical WordPress comment section, but changed it to Facebook comments to capitalize on the viral potential within the Facebook platform.

I had Charlie Pabst, from Charfish Designs do the building all the way through every phase of this launch and he also did the design for the first few phases, until we launched the full mini-site.

Here’s a screenshot of the first landing page (it’s not public anymore).

As soon as we published it, I shared it on my blog, twitter, Facebook and Google+ and did a small amount of DMing to simply tell a few friends “this exists.”

I didn’t overtly ask anyone to spread it around, but rather leaned on the gut feeling that we’d created something that would really resonate. Sure, I hoped people would consider it worthy of sharing. Whether they were compelled to share it or not would come down to how good the video was and how clean the page was.

A few minutes later, I had my answer.

It took off. The site started getting shared very quickly, Facebook comments poured in creating powerful social proof, the social buttons underneath the video were racking up serious counts, and the pre-order notice list started to build.

My email was flooded with stories from people all day, sharing their own stories. I literally sat in front of my screen for an entire day on the verge of tears. It was amazing to be sitting in the eye of a tornado of such deep emotion and connection like that.

We then pulled back and let that energy feed on itself for about a week, then it was time for phase 2.

Phase 2: Rolling out The First “Experience”

In this phase, I wanted to inspire people to not only pre-order, but pre-order more than 1 book for a number of reasons.

One, because I wanted to move books. But, also, for a more old-fashioned, human reason. I love when someone hand-selects a book and gives it to me. There’s something really powerful about that. It’s much more meaningful. So, I wanted to encourage people to buy multiple copies and give the book to friends. To create that connection.

But as a marketer, I also knew that the more options I introduced at once, the more likely potential buyers would be to suffer the paradox of choice and buy nothing.

So I started with a single offer, the one I thought would be the most desirable (and likely to be purchased). This was a 3-book bundle “experience.” I knew I’d create other offers, but I held them back to avoid muddying the decision-making process and hurting conversion.

We kept the same design, but stripped the Facebook comments and list-building form and added in long-format copy for the 3-book offer. We also kept the video in mega-size on top because, by then, we knew it was really moving a lot of people and driving a lot of sharing of the site.

It was also important to me to create an offer that was truly extraordinary, not just another dopey “pre-order and you’ll get a bazillion PDFs worth $2 gazillion dollars that everyone knows are available without cost all over the web.”

Not my style. I wanted to create a genuine experience that both expanded on the book and also allowed me to create a real value proposition that was somewhere between 50 and 100 times the cost of the book.

So, I did some things that have never been done before and decided not to just keep it digital, but create something powerful and tangible.

I spent months working with badass Austin, Tx illustrator, Marty Whitmore and Megan Morris from IdeaSchema to create two insanely cool concept illustrations around two key ideas from the book. These were then turned into 16″ x 20″ limited-edition, signed, numbered giclee fine-art prints — real works of art with real value.

Here are mini-images of the two illustrations:

Then I added in a 6-week live teleseminar-based training with me and convinced many of the high-level people I interviewed for the book to allow me to edit the interviews into a super-cool Creative Masters Interview series.

The value of this bundle went into the thousands of dollars, and it was a real value. People realized that. Once we had this all ready to post, we went live, I again posted it around social and the pre-orders began to flow.

Time for the big shift.

Phase 3: Mini-site, Multiple Offers and Buzz-Central

We gave that first offer some time in the market. Then, behind the scenes, I’d been working with the amazing Reese Spykerman to design the fuller mini-site. But even then, I didn’t want the entire site to go up all at once.

Too much to think about.

And as long I was creating multi-book experiences with additional elements that allowed me to create irresistible offers, I didn’t need a whole lot of extra information about the book itself up. People were buying the larger experience and the larger value proposition. At this point, the book pretty much rode along as the sprinkles, not the cupcake.

I knew that would need to change over time, but not yet.

We launched the new design, but only in the form of a landing page with multiple pre-order offers and, again, people started buying. Though, as I suspected, the 3-book experience was very much the sweet spot.

I then introduced a number of videos, all designed to keep drawing people back to the site to experience the video content. And I spread them around, too, both on the book site and on my main blog. I hosted all the video on Youtube in order to create the greatest opportunity for sharing, too.

One video was a really goofy, tongue-in-cheek offer to shave a company’s logo in my hair and dye it to match if they brought 10,000 books (Marc Benioff from Salesforce.com, call me, dude!). That got a lot of giggles and the production value and animation was actually super professional.

The next was a slideshow video based on a poem I wrote called Have a Little Faith. It had a powerful indirect message for the exact demographic that would benefit from the book. I went subtle again with the call-to-action here. You can see it at the very end.

There’s nothing about buying the book in the video. It’s more about creating an emotion that anchors to the book in a very under the radar way, while also creating a standalone experience that had value, regardless of whether the viewer ever bought the book.

Some went on my main blog at JonathanFields.com. But if it wasn’t on the book site, there was always a clear call-to-action in the post text and leading the Youtube description field to learn more about the book by clicking over to TheUncertaintyBook.com.

At the same time, with each passing week, the buzz around the book, the offers, the videos and the ideas from the book were gaining steam.

Uncertainty and its “multi-sensory brand extensions” were pretty much everywhere. Pre-orders were rolling in.

About two weeks before launch date, I staged in the full mini-site with a ton killer reviews, sample pages, the whole yadda yadda. You can see the current full site design here.

Oh, and, I should probably also tell you, I was running a bunch of this while spending 3-weeks driving up the California coast with my family. That was an interesting adventure!

Phase 4: Launch Window

This is where we are right now.

During this entire process, I’ve also been doing a massive amount of outreach to my community, my relationships and friends to inspire them to help in the final launch phase. A lot of people offered to help get the word out, both because they believed in the book, and in me.

That, by the way, is an incredibly humbling thing.

I wanted to make that process as easy as possible, so I offered to write a lot of guest posts (like this one) and do a ton of interviews.

This was a huge amount of work, but many of these folks were friends who were doing something really nice for me, so to the extent that my personal bandwidth could handle it, I was happy to do it.

Starting about 10 days before the launch date, I began to post more actively about the book and ask my tribes to do the same. Every day, the buzz continued to build.

This week, I then launched a story-sharing contest which has seen the creation of dozens of insanely inspiring personal stories, both in the comments on my blog and on websites all over social media.

On Tuesday, I released a special online application called the Creative Mindset Audit tool, which is a mindset assessment app I had built for the launch. I mentioned this tool across social media and hundreds of people started completing the assessment and sharing both the tool and their scores.

And, today, to celebrate the actual launch day for book, I’m holding a live-streaming book launch party at TheUncertaintyBook.com.

I’ll be live-streaming there from 1-4pm EDT (New York) time, having a ton of fun, answering questions, having special guests stop by and giving away a bunch of super cool prizes that include a Kindle FIRE, Kindle, iTunes and BN Gift Cards and more. But you’ve gotta be there to win. Feel free to swing by and say hello, btw!

Wrapping it all up

While this may seem like a lot, what I’ve shared here is actually only a fraction of what went on behind the scenes. And, since this is already a monster post, I’ve left a bunch of things out.

I have an amazing team and, in the end, what we’re really all trying to do is not just move a ton of books (we pre-sold thousands, btw), but change a lot of lives.

The book’s website is still getting shared across social media like crazy with nearly 3,000 Facebook shares, 1,110 tweets, and, to my surprise, it’s been emailed more than 600 times. That’s all due, in large part, to the power of the book trailer video and the strong emphasis on sharing on every page. But, it’s also about the message.

I worked so hard to bring this book to market, because I know in my heart it’s going to help people. Especially artists and entrepreneurs who struggle with the need to make choices and take action in the face of uncertainty. The big message is that you have to go to that place, but properly armed, you don’t have to experience it as anxiety, pain or suffering.

And, that’s a message I hope people can get behind and experience.

Truth is, this is all fun, cool stuff, but the single most important thing you can do as a marketer, an entrepreneur or a creator is … build something remarkable.

Do that, everything else falls into place.

About the Author: Jonathan Fields is the author of Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance, he blogs at JonathanFields.com and runs the acclaimed Tribal Author Camp online book marketing training.

Almost forty years ago, storied ad man David Ogilvy sat down in an office somewhere in India and recorded a little film confessing the — as he put it — “secret weapon” of the advertising world.

It was a hot day, so he took off his jacket, exposing his infamous red suspenders.

Ogilvy spoke simply and directly to his audience on the other side of the camera.

The prophecy he uttered in that grainy 7-minute film all those years ago has come to pass, with a bullet.

Though visionary, Ogilvy could not have imagined just how powerful his “secret weapon” would become in the age of the internet, or how it would ultimately be wielded by individuals building media companies with nothing more than a laptop and sufficient quantities of sweat.

Watch the grand old man below. If you think his ideas outdated, you’re simply not thinking.

Make the connection between Ogilvy’s 80-year-old secret and the principles we talk about around here week in and week out.

There is nothing new under the sun, we need only the humility and wisdom to correctly apply and re-apply what has come before.

(And in case you’re afraid that Ogilvy’s legendary impatience with “creativity” means you have to be a hack, nothing could be further from the truth. Ogilvy wrote about the benefit of an ad writer being both a killer and a poet, and the ads he wrote showed he was a master of both.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I envy you. For forty years, I’ve been a voice crying in the wilderness. Today, my first love is coming to its own. You face a golden future. ~ David Ogilvy

About the Author: Robert Bruce is an American writer and amateur recluse.

Remember those puzzles you used to do when you were six or seven?

That mass of dots and numbers on a page just looked like a mess.

But when you went through and connected dot 1 to dot 2, moving on through dots 100 and 101, you wound up with a picture of a pony.

You might think you’ve outgrown connect-the-dots. But actually, it’s one of the most important strategies for online entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to build profits with online marketing.

Learn to connect the dots in a smart and strategic way, and you could very well paint yourself a real pony. It’s not quite as easy as it was when you were six, but it’s still well within your grasp.

Connect the dots from the best free content

Content marketing is a massive trend that’s only getting stronger. And in the best content marketing, smart marketers will give you free material you can use right away to start creating great results.

If your goal is to market your business, don’t overlook the value you can get from free information. Some terrific businesses have been built by acting on the advice found in free content.

Benefiting from free content is all about connecting the dots. Take the great lead generation strategy from one source, connect it with the solid headline and conversion tactics from another, and wrap it up with some good social media sharing you learn on a third.

It’s a bit like playing connect-the-dots without numbers. Challenging, but if you put the work in, it works.

The real trick, though, isn’t finding great free stuff. It’s sifting out all the junk.

The most important dot

The most important dot to connect is this: Be sure you’re studying someone who’s worth your time. And there are very few marketing teachers out there who have changed more lives than Jeff Walker.

Jeff’s the creator of a program called Product Launch Formula, which helped Brian connect his own dots, way back in 2005.

Brian knew a lot about copywriting and marketing from his previous ventures, but it was PLF that showed him how to string everything together — to create not just great content, but also a great business powered by content.

You owe it to yourself to watch Jeff’s free instructional videos. Jeff’s a teacher at heart, and he loves to give out quality information you can use to start improving your own marketing, even if you never spend a penny with him. You’ll do particularly well if you combine Jeff’s approach with what you learn here on Copyblogger.

Click here to watch Jeff’s tutorial video, which he just posted today.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and co-founder of Inside the Third Tribe.

The written word is having a tough time.

It’s not just that literacy rates are surprisingly bad. (One source maintains that half of American adults can’t read an eighth grade-level book.) But even among people who can read, fewer and fewer want to read.

If you’re a passionate reader (as I am), this might bring you to the brink of despair.

I’ve been a writer ever since I was a little kid in great big glasses. That only solidified in the late 1980s, when I got started in what’s now called social media. (Back then it was called “virtual community,” when Stewart Brand and Howard Rheingold were the Darren and Seth of their day.)

The rise of the web brought in a renaissance of text. Billions and billions of lines of text. From bulletin boards and IRC to those first, stunningly hideous static sites, all the way to today’s mainstream explosion of the social web.

Now we’ve got some new tools to play with. It’s actually a lot like 1989 (when I started) all over again. And there’s a real opportunity to benefit by getting comfortable with the new technologies.

Trust me, it’s a lot easier than figuring out enough Unix to get around in a 1980s bulletin board system.

Compelling audio

If your idea of web-based audio stops at podcasts or internet radio, you might want to take a second listen.

The beauty of audio is that it’s tremendously portable. Your “readers” can bring you anywhere. To the gym, on a commute, even to Thanksgiving dinner. (OK, we don’t endorse that last one.)

Audio also creates an especially close rapport with your audience. The spoken voice is a wonderfully intimate thing. When I began creating audio content regularly, my interactions with my audience took on a whole new dimension. People felt like they knew me in a way they never had before.

One other thing that took off: my sales conversions. A trustworthy, friendly voice turns out to be a fantastic way to address prospect fears and concerns.

You still need to create valuable, authentic, and remarkable content. It’s just that audio gives you some very powerful new ways to do that.

Viral video

I’m just getting my feet wet with this one. I’ll admit it, the new Teaching Sells video made me itchy to try it out.

If you’ve been reading me for awhile, you know I’m a sucker for strong, emotion-driving imagery. The idea of combining that with voice and music is irresistible.

And now that I’m taking the tools for a test drive, I’m surprised that the technical part isn’t tricky at all. It’s really about creativity, a strong message, knowing your audience, and having fun.

Full circle to text again

We might want to think twice before we throw text into the trash can.

You know who still adores text? Search engines. I don’t know if search engines will ever be able to parse audio and video content as well as they can text. Having plenty of written material lets the search engines know what you’re about, and that’s still a very helpful thing.

And there’s one other group who loves text: buyers. Experienced marketers know that very often, “buyers are readers.” That’s because buyers are the ones who (because of their own need or your brilliant marketing) are desperate for what you have to offer. For many buyers, it’s text that closes the deal.

And don’t forget that there will always be some who just plain like to read. Audio and video by their nature take time, something in short supply. Whenever I accompany my audio content with a clean, well-optimized transcript, I get effusive thank-yous.

Who creates all of this?

If you’ve been judging multimedia based on half-baked podcasts and unfunny cat videos on YouTube, I can see why you haven’t been interested in jumping on.

But persuasive audio and video are another matter entirely.

We’re in the very early days of smart, sharp, relevant multimedia content made to be consumed via the web. And when you add in interactivity, conversation, and the ability to adapt content to suit different learning styles, you’ve got a revolution in the making.

The multimedia web needs smart, passionate content creators. It needs writers.

Like you.

We cover the creation of multimedia content extensively in Teaching Sells. In fact, that’s how I got started using these new formats for my own businesses.

We not only teach the technical aspects (thanks to our wonderful partner, Tony Clark) in a step-by-step way that even I can follow, we also show you how to create compelling, high-quality content that can be used in a nearly infinite number of ways.

Whether or not you’re interested in enrolling in Teaching Sells, you’d be smart to sign up for the wealth of free content we’ve created. You’ll learn a lot about the future of online business, you’ll pick up some ideas you can use in your own projects, and the video is just plain cool.

This free content will only be available for about 9 more days, so you’ll want to move quickly to make sure you get your copy.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and an instructor for Teaching Sells.

It’s that time of year again…

Summer’s just about over, the kids are heading back to school, and Teaching Sells is opening up for the Fall semester.

Many of you might not be familiar with Teaching Sells, and that’s perfectly fine.

Here’s what we’ve got to introduce you:

For starters, a 22-page PDF report (or audio version) called Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online (And Start Making Some). You’ll discover why you need to forget all the “get rich quick” crap and start building a real online business.

Plus, we’ve got three case studies for you that demonstrate three different ways Teaching Sells members have taken advantage of the online training opportunity we provide. You’ll also see why being an “expert” at the training you sell is completely optional.

Plus, we’ll also send you:

• A bonus report about building quick and easy membership sites.
• A 20-Step Process Map to building an online training business.
• An instructional video that reveals the solution to the “traffic problem” every online entrepreneur faces.
• And a complete course listing of the entire Teaching Sells program.

But hey, why read this?

We put together a brand new video that explains all of the above to you in wonderful Technicolor Teaching Sells style (and yes… we teach you how to create videos like this in the course).

You’ll notice the video is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek play on the typical “make money online” promotion. We had a lot of fun making it, so hopefully you’ll be entertained as well as informed.

Watch the Teaching Sells video here and sign up of all the free goodness.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of Teaching Sells. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is “the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” Twain had an incredible knack for nicely summing it all up, didn’t he?

The value of your content and/or your offer is what ultimately matters. And yet the words you use to demonstrate that value and present that offer will determine to what degree people take action.

The goal of this post is to give you some examples of words that bring the lightning. And by lightning I mean words that invoke and engage emotion.

Of course, these words work exceptionally well in written copy, too. But with multimedia content, you’ve got a lot more electricity to draw upon.

With audio, you’ve got the enthusiasm and emphasis that comes from your voice inflection and tone. And with video, the power of relevant visuals to enhance your message should not be underestimated from a psychological standpoint.

There are way more emotional trigger words and phrases than the examples I list here. And there are many more categories of emotion to tap into. My hope is to simply get you thinking about word choice, regardless of content format.

Let’s get started.

Health and Hope

They say if you don’t have your health, you’ve got very little. And health as a metaphor also works for all sorts of other areas outside of the realm of mental and physical wellness, such as relationships and businesses.

• Boost
• Cure
• Energize
• Flush
• Vibrant

Likewise, if you don’t have hope, life is bleak indeed. The desire to believe that things will be better in the future is a primary motivator for action, recently exemplified as a core theme of the Barack Obama campaign for U.S. President.

• Bright
• Destiny
• Empower
• Overcome
• Undo

Anger and Frustration

Let’s face it, a lot of people are pissed off about a lot of things, and empathizing with that anger while simultaneously engaging it is very powerful. You don’t provoke anger for anger’s sake though; you do it to create an identification with your solution that ends the anger and moves people to a more positive emotional state.

• Arrogant
• Cruel
• Greed
• Hate
• Unscrupulous

Tapping into the frustration your audience feels can be incredibly actionable. After all, frustration stems from the inability to solve a problem. If you have a real solution, identifying with the frustration first intensifies the immediate desire for that solution.

• Had enough?
• Never again…
• Pointless
• Temporary fix
• Tired

Betrayal and Revenge

The word betrayal itself is a powerful emotional trigger word. As a theme, it powers Shakespeare’s most powerful works, and runs repeatedly though current headlines regarding the economy, Wall Street, Big Pharma, and on and on.

• Burned
• Conspiracy
• Disinformation
• Fleece
• Swindle

Revenge is the desire that results from betrayal, and it’s so powerful because revenge connotes action. The action you want people to take, however, is more along the lines of “living well is the best revenge,” not something ugly or destructive (unless you’re selling something ugly or destructive, but that’s your issue).

• Avenge
• Payback
• Reclaim
• Turn the tables
• Vindication

The Forbidden and the Powerless

The power of the forbidden is why banning books to prevent exposure to the ideas in them is a stupid strategy. It’s why we’re drawn to secrets and why Adam took the apple from Eve. In a nutshell, we want what we can’t have (or what we’re told we shouldn’t have), and respond favorably to a solution or promise that we can now have it.

• Banned
• Controversial
• Exposed
• Insider
• Taboo

Powerlessness is frustration taken to the extreme, and we’ve all felt it. Beyond that which is forbidden, we feel a solution is literally unattainable. Beyond anger, we feel intense resentment. The ability to empathize with and empower those who feel this way makes you a hero.

• Agony
• Floundering
• Helpless
• Paralyzed
• Surrender

Passion and Urgency

When your audience is passionate about what you have to say or sell, there’s no need to convince them of need, it’s all about want. Beyond attaining the objects of our desire, we love to experience excitement along the way. So don’t take passion for granted; enhance it!

• Blissful
• Delightful
• Jubilant
• Rave
• Thrilled

It’s not enough to make someone want to do something, you’ve often got to get them to take immediate action if they’re to take action at all. A sense of urgency is an emotional response that can range from fear of loss to unbridled enthusiasm, and one way or another you’ve got to create it at your close.

• Before you forget…
• Deadline
• Limited
• Seize
• While it’s fresh on your mind…

The Power of the Right Words

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is determined by the level of emotional identification that word prompts. In other words, the right emotional trigger words take the same basic message to all new heights. Don’t settle for lightning bugs on a clear summer night when you could be shooting for the stars.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Google+.

Video can be highly effective as a persuasive and engaging form of web content. But all too often, it’s… well, not.

Online video must be engaging before it can be persuasive. Just as with getting someone to read an entire article, the idea is to get someone to start watching, and keep watching until the end, or at least to the point where you prompt the viewer to take a desired action.

Let’s take a look at the things to keep in mind to make your video content—whether live-action or presentation-style—worth watching until the end.

Audio Techniques and Structure Still Apply… But Differently

As you might have guessed, the four copywriting techniques that are great for audio content—stories and anecdotes, metaphors and analogies, mirroring, and mind eye’s projection—are all applicable to video. In fact, they become even more powerful with the addition of select visuals.

And the structure we discussed last time—attention, empathy, solution, action—is also useful for short-form video (generally 5 minutes or less). Longer-form video is tougher to pull off from an engagement standpoint, so you may want to consider borrowing a three-act structure used in movies (or infomercials).

The differences between audio and video are important. Audio is a portable content format that allows for greater mobility and requires less of an attention investment. Your podcast or audio presentation can be listened to in the car, at the gym, walking the dog, or while multitasking at a desk.

Video requires a greater attention investment due to the need to watch and listen. You’re restricting the options of the viewer significantly more than with audio, so you need to keep things tight and moving along at a nice clip.

In other words, your pre-writing becomes more important with video that with audio. The question becomes whether you script out every word or not.

To Script or Not to Script?

With audio, a detailed outline is preferable to a script in my opinion. With video, I write out every word due to the need to say more in less time. It’s really tough for most people to “wing” an effective short video, because it often becomes less effective and less short the more you improvise.

With presentation-style videos, you’re off camera. This allows you to use your script directly and still present with a conversational tone of voice. You don’t want to sound like you’re reading if at all possible.

One tip for achieving a conversational video presentation style is to record small sections of your script at a time, rather than trying to plow through the entire thing in one take. You can do this with recording software like Audacity by creating separate audio tracks out of smaller sections of the script, and then blending each part into a single audio track that you then marry to your visual elements.

If you’re turning the camera on yourself instead of doing a presentation-style video, you’re in a different boat. You’re either going to have to learn your lines, or get really good at using some kind of teleprompter.

The good news, however, is that there’s no need to nail it all in one single take. In fact, as we’ll see below, it’s much smarter to string together a series of clips than one stream of unedited video footage.

Delivering Your Message Payload

To keep your message focused and highly effective, keep in mind at all times your goal for the piece. What point are you trying to make? What action are you trying to prompt?

With that goal firmly in mind, make sure that every single word of your script supports that goal—or cut it. This can be tricky, because leaving out key information will hurt your effectiveness. You need a method for determining what’s essential to achieving the goal, and how best to say it.

Think of it this way:

Imagine you’re at a cocktail party and you’re the center of attention. You’re telling a joke or humorous anecdote and you want to nail it.

It doesn’t always go that way in real life, right? But scripted video is a chance to present the story perfectly…. as long as you work out every detail beforehand.

So when telling a joke, the punch line is the payload. Delivering it is the entire point of the exercise. But the way you set it up makes the difference between getting uproarious laughter, tepid giggles, or blank stares.

Now, simply substitute your goal for the punch line when crafting your video message. Writing your script with this mindset can be highly effective, and a whole lot more fun.

Show… Don’t Tell

So we know we’ve got to present our video message in a tight and fairly quick manner. While this requires actual scriptwriting, the addition of visual elements takes a load off of our reliance on words, especially when it comes to educational content (which is what a good sales message really is).

This is due to what psychologists call the picture superiority effect. That’s a fancy way of saying that concepts are much more likely to be remembered if they are presented as pictures rather than words.

The key is to identify the key concept in every sentence of your script, and pair it with a relevant and engaging visual element. This accomplishes two things:

1. You take advantage of the picture superiority effect to make your spoken content more engaging and memorable; and
2. You are changing the onscreen visual element approximately every 3-6 seconds, which keeps the viewer’s mind from drifting off (television editors figured this out long ago).

Notice I said to use “visual elements,” not “bullet points.” Beyond being lame, bullet point presentations fail to effectively harness the power of picture superiority and result in the same drivel that has been boring people to tears since Power Point was invented.

The occasional use of reinforcing on-screen text is fine, and can even be a desirable part of the mix. But even then, just say no to bullet points.

When to Become a Talking Head

Turning the camera on yourself and addressing the audience is less effective as an educational presentation, but it has other uses. People love to see what you look like, so video can be an easy way to get closer to your audience. Plus, your facial expressions, mannerisms, and body language can communicate a lot about you that goes well beyond your message (I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a good thing).

And, like it or not, if you’re an attractive person, providing video of yourself on a regular basis will be very powerful. Psychological studies have shown time and again that we rate good-looking people as more intelligent, more competent, and even more trustworthy than relatively unattractive people. It’s not logical, but neither are we when it comes down to it.

Just remember the importance of editing and changing visual perspective often, even with talking-head video. Remember how Amanda Congdon (original host of the online video show Rocketboom) used to do those ridiculous hair tosses as a segue for camera-angle changes?

Five to six second edits are too quick for talking-heading video, unless the video is really short. But make sure you switch things up on a regular basis using transitions and/or new camera angles to avoid losing the viewer’s attention.

What About You?

Are you actively involved in developing video content? Thinking about it?

Feel free to share any tips or tricks you’ve got in the comments.

About the Author: Brian Clark is Executive Editor of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

It’s no secret that the web is moving more and more toward video and audio content. Text is still going strong and will always be a prominent part of the web content mix, but the shift to multimedia will only continue and intensify.

And for some, this is very good news. Not every one is (or wants to be) a great writer, and audio and video content can allow these folks to shine.

So does copywriting matter if you’re not dealing exclusively with the written word?

Well, given the subject matter of this blog, what do you think?

The answer, of course, is an unequivocal yes.

In fact, multimedia combined with a strong working knowledge of how best to present information (which is what copywriting is all about) can make you an incredibly engaging and influential web presence. All you need is a nudge in the right direction.

So here’s what’s covered in this Multimedia Copywriting series:

• Three Copywriting Techniques for Engaging Podcasts and Audio Presentations
• Persuasive Online Video Strategies That Prompt Action
• 50 Trigger Words and Phrases for Powerful Multimedia Content

About the Author: Brian Clark is Executive Editor of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

You can listen to the replay of Web Video Marketing: Trends, Techniques, and Copywriting Tips now. And if you’re at all interested in Web Video University, you won’t want to miss the end of the class.

I’ve got two teleclasses for you to check out, and neither one will cost you a dime. The first involves online video marketing and how it relates to copywriting, and the second is all about copy.

First up, as promised Dave Kaminski and I will be doing a live call this Thursday evening at 7:30 Central (8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific). Dave is the founder of Web Video University, and the topic is Web Video Marketing: Trends, Techniques, and Copywriting Tips. Check out the event page here, and you might consider printing out that page as a reminder. We’ve got room for 200 people on the call, but any number of people can listen via the Flash web cast.

Next up is a teleclass hosted by A-list copywriter David Deutsch. David has been doing an entire series of free calls called Quick Start Copy, and this week he has the infamous Dan Kennedy as a guest. Dan may be a bit grumpy, but he’s also a marketing genius, so I’m betting this call is well worth your while. You’ll also be able to catch the next two free calls in the series… Brad Antin of Centerpointe Research, and then the wrap-up with the legendary Jay Abraham. You can register for the calls here.

About the Author: Brian Clark is the founding editor of Copyblogger, and co-founder of Teaching Sells and Lateral Action. Get more from Brian on Twitter.