Sales Video Thumbnails: What Makes Someone Press Play

video marketing podcast Aug 09, 2021

What Makes a Sales Video Thumbnail Great?

A great sales video thumbnail shows your real, friendly face and something personal to the person receiving it, such as their name on a small whiteboard, with room left for the play button. It tells them at a glance the video was made for them, which is what makes them press play.

Key takeaways

The thumbnail is the first impression of a sales video, and in an email it decides whether the video gets watched at all.
Auto-generated frames often catch you mid-blink or mid-word and say nothing about what the video holds.
Clickbait and fake personalisation look spammy and push people away.
A friendly face holding a small whiteboard with the person's name is simple, hard to fake and easy to make.
Keep the email around it short, with one action, so the thumbnail is the obvious thing to click.

This page comes from a 2021 Get Coached episode of Ridge Films' podcast. Samantha, who works at an insurance company, asked Chris Schwager what makes a sales video thumbnail great.

What is a sales video thumbnail?

It is the still image that stands in for your video before anyone plays it. In a sales email it is often the only part of the video the person sees, so it does the work of a first impression. Chris described it this way:

"So a video thumbnail is your viewers very first impression of what they will get once they watch your video." Chris Schwager

If the thumbnail doesn't make someone curious, the video behind it never gets a chance.

Why do some sales video thumbnails put people off?

Chris gave four reasons a thumbnail fails to get the click:

It's a random frame. Let the platform pick and you may get an odd expression, half-closed eyes or a mouth caught mid-word.
It's boring. There is no emotion or warmth in it, so nothing invites a click.
It doesn't say what the video is about. The person isn't sure what they'll get for their time, so they don't spend it.
It's overdone. A thumbnail engineered to look like clickbait sends the wrong message. People read it as spam and stay away.

There is a fifth trap inside the fourth. Some tools paste a person's name onto a thumbnail automatically. Done carelessly, it reads as a trick, and Chris's advice was to play it down and keep it sincere.

What makes a sales video thumbnail great?

A real face and a real gesture to the person you're sending it to. Chris's own method costs a few dollars:

"So what we do is we use a whiteboard, just a tiny little whiteboard you can get from Kmart, a whiteboard marker and an eraser." Chris Schwager

He writes "Hi, Samantha" with a smiley face, holds it up to the camera with his own big smile on the other side of the frame, and records.

Three details make it work:

Write their name, and only a few words. "Hi Samantha" is enough. It proves the video was recorded for them.
Smile at the lens. A friendly face is the strongest reason to press play.
Leave room for the play button. Hold the board to one side so the button doesn't cover your face or the message.

Chris's point is that this is very hard to fake, and that the effort shows. Someone who bothered to write your name and record a message for you has probably put the same care into the rest of the email. For thumbnails on YouTube and other public videos, where the rules are different, see how to create clickable video thumbnails.

What should the email around the thumbnail say?

As little as possible. The thumbnail already gives the reader an action, press play, so the rest of the email should only support it:

Put context in the subject line. Tell them what the video is about and that it is for them.
Keep the body to a line or two. Say why you recorded it.
Don't surround the video with links. Ridge Films puts the video player in the email and makes the ask, such as booking a time, inside the video itself.

More on writing the email itself in how to use personalised videos in sales emails.

How do you know if your thumbnail is working?

Watch what people do. Sales video tools can tell you when someone opens the video and how much of it they watched. Chris described sending a video at 5pm on a Friday and getting an alert within the hour that it had been watched, along with the percentage viewed. Ridge Films records these videos with Vidyard, and recording with Vidyard walks through how.

A personalised sales video will never get thousands of views, and it isn't meant to. The measure is whether the people you sent it to watched and then took the next step. If they are opening the email and not playing the video, change the thumbnail first. For how these videos fit into the rest of your selling, see planning a video strategy.

Sales video thumbnail questions we get asked

What makes a good thumbnail for a sales video?

Your real, smiling face and something personal to the recipient, such as their name written on a small whiteboard, with space left so the play button doesn't cover either. It shows at a glance that the video was made for them.

Should I use the auto-generated thumbnail?

Usually not. An automatic frame can catch you mid-blink or mid-word and says nothing about what the video holds. Choosing or recording your own thumbnail takes a few seconds and gives the video a far better chance of being played.

Do personalised thumbnails with the person's name work?

They can, when they are sincere. A name you've written yourself and held up to the camera is hard to fake. A name pasted on automatically can read as a trick, so keep it simple and genuine.

How do I know if someone watched my sales video?

Most sales video tools, such as Vidyard, send you an alert when someone plays the video and show how much of it they watched. That tells you whether the thumbnail earned the click and whether the message held their attention.

Want help making these quickly?

The thumbnail is the easy part. Recording a short, warm video for each person, again and again, is where most people stall. Our clients record from a studio at their desk with one button, and we coach the script and the delivery. Book a call if that's where you're stuck.

Episode transcript

Read the full transcript

Welcome to Get Coached the video marketing legend podcast segment where you submit your video marketing questions at ridgefilms.com.au/question and I'll help coach you through them. By listening in each week you'll learn how each video marketing problem is solved, giving you the knowledge that will make your videos more valuable. And so you come across as a true business professional on the open market.

I'm your host, Chris Schwager.

And today's Get Coached question was submitted at ridgefilms.com.au/question and is from Samantha. And what Samantha from an insurance company wants to know is what makes a sales video thumbnail great.

This is a good question because sales videos are a powerful tool to build rapport and human connection, and potentially convert more sales, but your audience must be enticed to watch your videos.

So first, Samantha, let me first explain what we're talking about here to the audience. What is a video thumbnail? It is a static image within the player that represents your video and gives the audience an idea of what the viewer will see, at a glance. Video sales emails have been very effective to grab people's attention, and you may never get a second chance to make a first impression. So a video thumbnail is your viewers very first impression of what they will get once they watch your video.

So if you don't consider this thumbnail as a priority within your sales emails, I think it could be problematic for you. And there's really four reasons why video thumbnails may be off putting to somebody or really not effective in terms of getting conversions that you'd like.

So first one is the random generated thumbnail that is created by the video itself. Now that might be weird ass expression of yourself that might have picked a frame within the video where you got your eyes shot. It's not adding the context of what the video is going to be about the you know, obviously there's no emotion or empathy or anything that's really enticing people to click to it's not enticing. It's not compelling. So it's kind of a boring thumbnail really saying nothing about what people are going to get by watching three doesn't convey the message of the video. So by somebody clicking, they're not really sure what they're going to be getting as a result of clicking, and four it's overly engineered where it's trying to be clickbait, you know, but it sends the wrong message and the wrong information to the viewers. And they leave the video because I think it's kind of spammy. They're kind of cautionary about clicking on it. And maybe there's a lack of personalization.

So there are auto generated thumbnails that you can get that personalised. But if that's not done sincerely, and authentically, it can have a adverse effect where it's tricking the audience cheating the audience, if you're like, where they kind of repel against it. And we don't want that either, right, we want to real, so you'd be better off to play it down a little bit. But play it with sincerity so that you get the outcome that you're looking for.

When you embed video in your sales emails. This is a really great step in personalising the connections. And using a thumbnail that would be ultimately the gateway and would compel your audience to hit play. So Ridge Films has been coaching DIY clients in particular, over the years in ways that they can practice this and do this properly, to take the time to create a thumbnail, which can virtually be very minimal effort, but could be so enticing, compelling, and a real reason that people will click because they see you as professional because if you can't be bothered to look like you look and to put a personalised video thumbnail together with a personal message in there, I think there's a lot of care gone into that. And I think that really reflects in the way that you put your video together and the sales email in general.

And people really do then want to click play because they want to see what will happen next, as a result, and I think that's really important. The best practice for sales video emails, though, is to show a friendly human face. So what we do is we use a whiteboard, just a tiny little whiteboard you can get from Kmart, a whiteboard marker and an eraser and we just I just pie Hi, Samantha with a smiley face on it and hold that up to camera with my big smiley face on the other side of frame. Allow space for that play button so that doesn't cover the message or doesn't cover my face, and then we're all in the one shot together. So it's very hard to fake that. And I think that's really important.

I also think that it's not just about being creative in the thumbnail, it's also about adding context within the copy of the email as well within the subject line of the email, you know, being simple about your messaging, because you're already giving them an action to take, which is click to play, right. So you want to make sure that you simplify the content of the email, and be really clear about the way that you word it. Because ultimately, if you're just wanting them to take a single action to book, let's assume it's to book a meeting, to buy to sign a document to whatever the action is, right, you just want to make that simple and singular. You know, so don't put too many hyperlinks around your video for us, we've got the video player, and within the video itself, we tell the audience to book in for the appointment.

I think that's really that's it, you know, there's really not much else I need to do. But the success rate of these sales video emails is just through the roof. It's really changed the way that we do business, customising video thumbnails in the way that we do it, which again, is very simple, but really authentic, is so powerful in conversion, getting people to book in for their first free video consultation when they're clicking through to the video, it means that we can also see when they've watched the video, and then we can also ascertain whether they book in, and there's just a whole bunch of data we're collecting in amongst all of that immediately when someone clicks the video, I get an alert to indicate that they have watched the video and it's usually pretty quick, so I can send the video at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, I get an alert by 6pm saying they've watched the video and what percentage of the video that they've watched. That's really powerful too. And that's something I can get through in another podcast. high rates of conversion in these videos.

It's really a video for a single person, you know, it's not going to get 1000s of views by any means. But the rate in which people book in I think is a great indicator that the video is working that the thumbnail is active, it's doing a good job at creating a positive first impression by putting a face into that real estate and making it very easy and simple for people to understand what to do next.

A good video thumbnail makes you want to watch your video. A bad video thumbnail or no video thumbnail doesn't make a good impression role. By having a dynamic and engaging video thumbnail, you can do something really special to grab the eye of your prospective client and get your message heard.

Creating a sales video and its thumbnail shouldn't be difficult, you should be able to produce these with ease, speed and scale. And this is where the DIY program is going to be really great for you. If you're interested in understanding how we can coach you through this thing go to ridgefilms.com.au/diy and get all the information that you need to produce videos yourself with the support of a video marketing company who will be able to guide you with video thumbnails with how to script your sales video emails and how to really maximise the opportunity, particularly in this day and age where access to salespeople is often denied.

And Samantha thank you so much for asking your question. We know that video marketing can seem overwhelming. Knowing what makes a sales video thumbnail great, but if you use this method I've coached you through you'll be able to create a sales video thumbnail that would compel your audience to watch a video and build human connections in the process.

And I'm sure this is going to give you peace of mind and really help you with what you're looking for in the first place. Something to help you create a thumbnail for your sales video emails and for everybody else out there trying to solve the mystery of video marketing your business what has you feeling overwhelmed? On Get Coached we're here to help coach you through it. Just submit your video marketing question to ridgefilms.com.au/question for your chance to get coached by me just go to ridgefilms.com.au/question and see you next week.