Creating Quality Video Ads

In this section we will go over the different ways that you can create video ads for your company as well as the fundamentals of creating quality video ads. We will talk about some tools that are helpful for editing as well as the different formats to use for different platforms. After going through this section, you should be able to go from a complete beginner to someone that could potentially get paid to create videos or simply use them to market your own brand effectively.

Before we go into how to make video ads, we will go over the basics for creating effective ads that grab attention and bring new customers to your brand. As we have gone over before, the name of the game is grabbing attention quickly. Before even opening software or pulling out your camera you will want to first focus on creating an attention-grabbing hook and creating a plan or script for your video. When thinking about a good hook try to come up with a short line that will evoke emotion from your viewers. You should aim to bring up pain points in your customers that you will provide a solution to later in the ad. For example, with the Black Sheep Project, our ads grab attention through our passion for the project. We try to get people thinking about the hard times they have had to overcome in life and the people who have it even worse. We relate to the forgotten and those who never had guidance in life and had to figure it out on their own. To do this we may use a hook such as, “The Black Sheep project is here for the ones that were forgotten. Every sale of our clothing helps provide education and resources for anyone that needs it. E believe education should be a god given right not a commodity.” We may also create ads on our resources themselves and bring out emotion in viewers by reminding them of the dreams they have forgotten going through the motions of life and how these can help. In this scenario we may use a hook like, “Don’t forget about those dreams you used to lie awake thinking about.” It does not have to be this extreme for your brand but try to think outside the box and focus on the problem you are solving rather than your product or service itself. You can also make your hook something a bit controversial to grab attention but be sure that it will not paint your brand in a negative light.

Once you have a great hook for your video, you will want to write the rest of your ad script out, which becomes so much easier once you have created your hook. The rest of your script should briefly drag out the pain point you have created and lead the video into introducing your product as the solution. For our example with the hook, “Don’t forget about those dreams you used to lie awake thinking about.” We would then focus on bringing more attention to the problem of inaction by continuing to bring out more emotion on the topic. “When it is time to meet your fate, your inaction will cause more regret than any mistake you have ever made. Do not throw away those dreams for a life of scrolling and instant gratification.” As you can see, we have highlighted a lot of pain points for our potential users and painted a picture for them in their minds. Try to make these emotions relate to as many potential customers as possible so you are not spreading yourself to thin.

Once you have finished painting a picture of the problem you will solve, then it is time to introduce your solution. You should have a transition sentence to segway into the revealing of your brand at this point. It should be a simple sentence that leads to the solution gracefully. For our example the next line may be something like, “Start believing in a better reality.” This is the solution to our potential customer’s problem, and it transitions well into showing off how our resources can help do that. Once we have a transition, we can then reveal our product with a line like, “The Black Sheep Project can help you start on a life worth living.”

After you have introduced your brand, you will simply add a few key points on what your business does to solve their problem and end with information on how they can become a customer. For our example we may say something such as, “Learn how to start almost any business, marketing, even controlling your emotions all for free in our online resources.” These key points have shown what our product does concisely and show specifically how it can solve the problem that the ad brought up. Once you have laid out those solutions you have to make sure that the viewer knows how to find your business and I always like ending ads with a short one liner to drive home the point of the ad. We may finish this ad off by saying, “Go to blacksheepproject.info. Make your dreams a reality.” This tells them everything they need to know to get to our site, learn something and hopefully become a customer of our brand. It also ties everything together with our short catch phrase at the end. You can be as creative as you want with your ads, and you should always try to think outside the box, but this should give you a great outline to follow when coming up with ideas.

Now that you understand the structure of an effective video ad, it is time to go over how you can get the audio and video files to edit and make your ads with. There are a lot of different ways to do this but we will be going over the two most popular methods that tend to get great results. My favorite way to create video ads is with AI generated voice audio and with stock video online. Now that you have a script written up you can go to an AI voice generator like Elevenlabs.io and you can simply paste your script and generate the audio with different voices you can choose from. It is as simple as creating a free account, pasting your script, and downloading the audio as an mp3. Once you have done this you are halfway done with creating your first quality video ad!

After you have your audio downloaded you will want to find clips or shoot a video that will match up with the audio. If you would like to film a video, we will go over tips for that In the next paragraph. For now, we will talk about some great places to find royalty free videos and pictures to use for our ad. The best free places I have used for this are pexels.com and pixabay.com. These sites have great videos and images that you can use for free, and you can download as many files as you would like. You can also pay for services like Envato Elements and Motion Array that will offer better clips and provide unique transitions and video templates if you have the money. Make sure that the first clip you use in your ad is the highest quality and grabs the attention of your viewer the best. Always keep in mind that your first 2 seconds of video and audio should be the best in your video to keep your viewer engaged. If you have any feeling that your first clip is not that great, you will want to search as much as you can to find something that will catch someone’s eye. Once you have a great opening clip, you can focus on adding more clips that will highlight the other points in your video and then show off your product or service. I also like to combine these stock videos and images with AI generated images from platforms like Mid Journey. Be sure to check out AI image generators especially for those images that you can’t seem to find online. You can get so much more specific with the images for your ads using AI and they can grab attention much better than some clip that you settled for. Once you have all the stock files to cover the problem portion of your ad, you will need to gather some high-quality clips of your product or service, and it is also good to have a logo animation to end your video on as well.

If you would rather film a video for your ad, you should still follow the same outline that we have went over before for creating an effective ad. If you have a newer phone with a good camera you can get to work filming using your phone itself. I would recommend buying either a cheap ring light stand off Amazon or if you have the money and plan on filming a lot of videos you can buy a phone gimbal off of Amazon to keep the camera stable as you move with your shot. Either way make sure you have a way to keep your camera steady. You can also buy a cheap lapel microphone online to get better up close audio. If you do not have the money to buy a lapel microphone, then you can always record with your phone’s microphone and use an AI background noise remover like Audo.ai to remove any unwanted noise from your recordings. Once you have your ad filmed you can save the files to your computer and move on to editing your first ad!

Now that you have gathered all the files you need, we will go over the different ways to edit your video. The first tool we will go over that I personally love using is Adobe Premiere Pro. It is very easy to use after watching just a couple short videos on YouTube and offers everything you need to create and edit videos. Premiere Pro allows you to drag and drop audio and video files onto a timeline that you can drag around and overlap in places that make sense. It also allows you to cut out parts of your video and audio that you do not want in your ad. This is basic video editing on pretty much any software, but I believe Premiere Pro does it best. You will simply take all the files that you have saved for your video ad and drag and drop them onto your timeline. Once they are on your timeline, you will simply match up your clips or video to the audio below them and remove any unnecessary fluff that will lose your viewers’ attention. The most important thing you want to ask yourself when editing your video at each spot is if there is quality emotion evoking substance to each part of the video. If the answer is no, you can use your cut tool by pressing c and cut out the parts that don’t belong in an effective ad.

After you have set up your clips and audio on your timeline it is time to add transitions and text that will make your video stand out. I highly recommend getting a template subscription like Motion Array that will offer a ton of transitions and text animations that you can use consistently with your videos. However, Premiere Pro does also have some transitions and texts that come with your subscription that you can use as well. To access your transitions, you will simply click on the window tab at the top of your screen and click on effects if it is not already checked off. At the bottom of the effects section, you will find your video transitions. I always like to use a transition to my second clip of the video to grab more attention right away. You don’t usually want to use a transition for every clip though if you have a lot of small clips, but you can shoot for using a little more than 1 transition for every 2 changes of clips. You do not want to make your video corny and childish so keep it as classy as possible. At the top of your effects section, you will find your presets. One preset that I find is a must, is 3D image animators. You can find multiple versions of this on Motion Array. It will allow you to make the images in your video move easily to keep the attention of your viewers and make your clip transitions smoother.

Another nice thing about Premiere Pro is that it will automatically transcribe videos for you and add subtitles that you can edit and move around. To do this you will click on sequence at the top of your window and click auto-transcribe sequence. Once you have transcribed the video, you will see a window that shows you all the audio in your video as text that corresponds to its part in the video. If you look at the top of that section, you will see a tab that says closed captions. If you click on it, it will allow you to add subtitles automatically to the video from the transcription it made. You can select all the subtitles that will now have appeared on your timeline and double click them to set a style for your subtitles. Just make sure that the font you use will grab attention and that you choose a number of lines that makes sense for the orientation of your video. If it is vertical, I recommend using single line text. If it is horizontal, you can use double if you like. Just mess around with those settings until it suits your video, and you will be good to go. By default, Premiere Pro will set your aspect ratio to horizontal but if you are making content for Reels or Tik-Toks be sure to click on sequence at the top and click Auto-reframe sequence, then change the aspect ratio to 9:16. Once you have the orientation changed you should make sure that all of your images and clips fit your screen for your video. You should remove every black bar on your clips so that the ad is consistent and professional. To do this you will click on the window at the top and select effect controls. You can then change the size of your clips with the uniform scaling if your clip is already in the right orientation or you can uncheck that box and resize the clip horizontally and vertically.

If you do not have the money to pay for Premiere Pro, I recommend searching on YouTube, “How to get adobe for cheap” and that will show you how to save almost 90% on your subscription! If you are looking for a free alternative, you can always use Davinci Resolve online and it has very similar features and layout to Premiere Pro. Remember that when you are starting a business, it is always good to keep monthly expenses low so this can be a great route to go if you are just starting out on a project. Anyway, if you have followed the steps we have laid out in this section and continue to learn more functionality of different tools, you will be a pro at creating amazing video ads that will give you a ton of exposure to your brand in no time. Just remember to stay consistent and post everyday if possible. If you are looking for more detailed information on posting to different platforms, you can check out our other sections under marketing and apply these tips to blow up your brand fast.