Videos are how we communicate. OK, they’re not the only way we communicate, but they have rapidly moved to center stage for professional communicators. Like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, video now comes in many flavors. There are explainer videos that tell you how a new app works; instructional videos that show how to change your furnace’s air filter; advertising videos designed to go viral (you’ve got to love that Dollar Shave Club guy).

The best videos don’t push information out; they draw people in. Your audience actually does want to hear your story – but you have to present it as a story, and a good one. For example, you’ll watch most of this without even realizing it’s an advertisement, and you won’t mind having done so.

Effective marketing is about engagement, and engagement is emotional, not rational. Most of us think that we make rational decisions all the time, especially around spending money. But research has shown that emotions play a critical role in much decision-making, even when we think they’re not. We may believe we’re being rational, but our emotions are driving the bus.

Emotional engagement occurs through story. A story requires a narrative and a character. In terms of engaging people around a cause, the best story is not even about characters. It’s about a single character, preferably a girl. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has studied the social science around this phenomenon extensively, and he uses that knowledge very effectively in his writing and recent film, as he describes here.

So tell the story of an individual. Even though we didn't make it at Take One Creative, one of our favorite examples of focusing on an individual story to convey a larger truth is Richie’s Journey, a four-minute film about a single at-risk teenager. A Bay Area funding group, Tipping Point Community, made the video as a funding tool. Rather than describe all of Tipping Point’s work, the film describes one individual who benefited from one TPC-supported organization. Tipping Point premiered the video at their annual fundraising dinner and reported they raised more money that night than they ever had.

In Part 2 I’ll share a few techniques for making an effective video even if you don’t have a big budget.