Creating videos that make good sales is an art form. You need to be able to craft a video that looks great, sounds great, and also gets the message across to the viewer to take further action. It’s a balancing act between giving too much information and not enough information. In addition, it matters where the video is going to be placed. If it’s on a sales page, it can be much more directly sales oriented than if it’s being placed on YouTube, for example. To ensure that you create converting videos there are some best practices to consider.

1. Use the Right Tools – There are many tools you will need to create good videos including editing software, presentation software, a good microphone, a good camera, and potentially a green screen or other technology and tools to help you produce the most professional video that you can.

2. Never Forget Your Call to Action – If you want your viewers to take an action after viewing, you’re going to have to tell them what to do. You can also insert, with the right software, clickable links right on the screen to take them to a sales page or other information, making the video interactive.

3. Know Who Your Audience Is – Like with any other content that you produce, don’t suddenly change the subject matter just because you changed the format. Your audience is still the same, so create videos for that audience and stay on track even though it’s a new form of content.

4. Edit Your Videos – Don’t just spend five minutes making a video then upload it to YouTube and expect something to happen. You need to create as professional quality videos as you can afford to produce. While you don’t have to be perfect, you should get better as you go along.

5. Keep It Short – Don’t make long videos as your audience will lose interest. More than 3 or 4 minutes may be too long, but definitely not longer than 10 minutes on harder to grasp information.

6. Stick to One Topic – One way to ensure that you keep your videos a good length is to pay attention to getting off topic. Each video should cover one aspect of a topic, and not seek to be an overview but rather just one little portion of a topic covering one thing at a time.

7. Use Visual Cues – A good way to enhance your videos is to use some sort of visual cues within the video to make it interesting. Don’t just tape yourself talking into the camera. Use something visual that gives your audience something to help them learn the concept you’re trying to teach.

8. Add Music and Sound Effects – In addition to nice visual cues, adding audio besides your voice with music and other sound effects can also help you retain interest of your audience. If you want them to remember a specific point, highlight it with effects.

9. Write a Script – You don’t want to sound like a robot, but you do want to ensure that you cover each point, so write an outline, if not a script, to help you cover each point that you need to cover.

10. Practice Makes Perfect – Give yourself a few practice sessions so that you can get used to how you sound, look, and feel doing video. Remember that you can make several takes, and you can edit the best takes for each section together with your editing software.

Also, remember that not all content is good for video. If your content doesn’t need visual cues to get the message across, you may not want to spend the extra time necessary to make a video for that particular content. Find content to present in video form that is most easily explained with examples and video instead of just with text.