📈 How to Create Video Ads That Grow Your Newsletter

Welcome to BetterLetter 📧

Last time, I covered 8 types of image-based ads you can use to grow your newsletter with FB ads (plus insights on what we’re seeing perform best for our clients).

Today is all about video 📹️ 📹️ 📹️ 

Why?

The best performing ads for newsletters are most often video ads.

Which means if you want to acquire high-quality subscribers at a $2 CPA or less, you need to know how to create effective video ads.

The good news?

It’s not rocket science.

In today’s email, you’ll learn:

• ⚒️ The exact tools we use to record and edit video ads

• 📹️ 4 types of video ads you can start running today to grow your newsletter

• 📈 The 4-part framework for scripting winning video ads

Helpful Links 🔗 

• 👶 Not helpful but a fun announcement: my wife and I had our 3rd kid on Easter! (link)

• 🛍️ John Hu’s (founder of Stan.store) thoughts on the TikTok ban (link)

• 🥱 Don’t be afraid of long-form content (link)

•  🎟️ The first ever Newsletter Conference is happening in NYC on Friday, May 3rd. If you’ll be there too, let us know 🤙 (link)

• 📹️ Edit videos like a word document with Descript (link)*

• 🐝 The best ESP in the game: Get 20% off of a beehiiv subscription for 3 months (link)*

• ♻️ Get paid to make money: Get a $100 bonus if you make $100 in paid referrals within 2 months when you sign up for Sparkloop (link)*

_{*This is an affiliate link}

Let’s dive in.

Types of Ad Creative ✌️ 

Our agency has clients across a wide range of industries, from the VC/startup world to creators/personal brands to faith-based non-profits.

And across the board, video ads tend to be the highest performing ads.

Static images are great. They’re fast and easy to create, but if you’re growing your newsletter with paid ads, you should also be using video ads.

To review, here are types of ad creative broken into 2 categories:

Before we talk about the types of videos you can create, let’s about a simple toolkit for actually creating them.

Tools we use 🛠️ 

📱 For Recording: If you’re recording the ads yourself, all you need is a smartphone. Don’t overcomplicate it.

The best performing video ads we’ve run were shot on an iPhone (not even the most recent model). “Normal” quality videos look native and organic.

Highly produced videos tend to scream “I’m an ad! Scroll past me!”

🎙️ For Audio: Few people know this (I learned it from Cam Houser), but your audio quality matters a lot.

Video quality just needs to be good enough. Audio quality should be good to very good.

Crappy audio quality makes people lose trust in you even if video quality is high. Good audio quality leads people to perceive you as smarter, more likeable and more trustworthy (UCal study).

TLDR: At the very least, buy a wired lapel mic or this wireless one.

💻️ For Video Editing: I personally recommend using Descript* to edit videos if you’re going to do it yourself. It’s a video editor that lets you edit videos like a Google Doc, which makes it great for people who aren’t video editors.

Their free plan is plenty for most people. If you never want to touch video editing, hire a college kid, your cousin or someone on Fiverr or Upwork.

_{*This is an affiliate link}

Video Ads 📹️ 

That’s how. Let’s talk about what.

First, I’ll share a 4-part framework for video ads.

Then, you’ll learn 3 types of video ads you can launch today.

4-Part Framework for Video Ads: HVEC 📹️ 

• Hook 🪝 

• Value Proposition 🧲 

• Examples 🤔 

• Call to Action ☎️ 

Hook 🪝 

Ad creative has 2 primary goals:

1. Stop the scroll 🛑 

2. Communicate your newsletter’s value prop ⏩️ 

The hook’s role is to stop the scroll. 🛑 

You have 1.7 seconds to grab someone’s attention and win the opportunity to share your value proposition with them.

What stops the scroll:

• With words:

  • Stating the problem: “Most people think…but there’s this newsletter that…”

  • Sparking curiosity: “Have you heard about…?”

• With imagery:

  • Colors that pop

  • A face talking straight to the camera (with captions)

  • Quick camera cuts/changes in frame (cut in, cut out, zoom in, zoom out)

  • Something popping up on the screen within the first second (like a screenshot of your newsletter or any other graphic). Basically, watch any video put out by @ourfuturehq and you’ll get the idea.

Notice how within the first 2 seconds of this video, there’s a significant visual change along with a hook that sparks curiosity.

Value Proposition 🧲 

Once you’ve gotten someone’s attention, you have the next 2-4 seconds to communicate your value proposition.

Your value proposition is the problem you solve for your subscribers.

It’s the tangible end result your subscribers get — the thing you offer in exchange for their email address + time.

You should be able to communicate this in 10 words or less.

The best value propositions are like a magnet 🧲

They:

• attract your ideal subscribers, AND

• repel everyone else

Help the algorithm 🧠 

When you’re running Meta ads, you want to give the algorithm good data about who wants your newsletter.

The better you train Meta, the better your ad performance will be.

Which means your value prop should be so clear that:

1. Ideal subscribers should stop scrolling to learn more

2. Everyone else should immediately scroll away

Examples of concise value props:

• Here’s how to get your next 1000 Instagram followers in less than 10 min/day…

• This free newsletter helped me save 10 hours of work a week using AI

• This newsletter shares everything you didn’t learn about marketing in college

People who don’t care about growing an IG following, using AI and marketing will keep scrolling.

Everyone else will hear what else you have to say.

Examples 🤔 

Once you’ve captured attention (hook) and communicated the problem your newsletter solves (value prop), the people still watching your ad should be in your target audience.

Now your job is to convince them to subscribe.

An effective way to do that is to double click (figuratively) on the value prop.

If you know your audience well, not only do you know the end result they want (your value prop) —

— you also know what it takes to get that end result.

Now, share examples of previous newsletter issues that are the bridge from where they are now to where they want to be.

For example, one of our clients is a creator who helps young professionals reach their first $1M in net worth.

So he shared examples of past newsletters where he taught subscribers:

• How to get a raise at their current job 💼 

• How to pick a side hustle that brings in $1k/mo in income 💰️

• The 5 steps to take to make their first real-estate investment 🏘️

These examples expose the “how” of he’ll help people reach $1M in net worth.

So far, you’ve:

1. Grabbed attention

2. Communicated the what (the end result they want)

3. Communicated how to get there (with examples)

Now, you just need to bring it home.

Call-to-Action ☎️ 

It’s mind-blowing how many people neglect this step (it’s by far the easiest).

If they’re still watching, the hard work is done.

Tell people exactly what you want them to do.

“Click below to subscribe for free 👇️”

3 Types of Video Ads You Can Launch Today 📹️ 

Here are the 3 most common types of video ads:

1. ✍️ Plain text

2. 🤳 UGC (user generated content)

3. 📺️ Mini-VSL

✍️ Plain text

These are the lowest effort to create and are a great place to start if you’ve never created a video ad before.

Here’s an example from Overheard on Wall Street (link to ad).

Here’s how to do it:

1. Download stock video for free from Pexels

2. Overlay your copy over it using Descript, Instagram, Canva or another video editing software

Tips:

• Pick a background video that’s relevant to your target audience (the newsletter above is about investing, so the NYC skyline makes sense)

• Experiment with writing the copy from your subscriber’s perspective (my boss was amazed..)

• Communicate the value prop and provide social proof (200k+ readers)

• Make sure the copy is easy to read

• The video should be 10-15 seconds long

🤳 UGC (user-generated content)

In the newsletter context, UGC is content created by subscribers (or actors, or you) about your newsletter.

UGC works for the same reason influencers are a thing.

People trust people more than brands.

Here’s one from Morning Brew (link to watch).

A few things you’ll notice:

• He’s a regular looking guy sitting at a desk in his house/apartment

• Big visual change + stating the problem within the first 2 seconds (hook)

• Video quality is good but not movie quality

• Audio quality is good

• Addresses the main objections (completely free, short read)

• CTA: “Swipe up to check it out”

📺️ Mini-VSL (video sales letter)

VSL’s are common parts of funnels for high-ticket services like coaching or consulting.

How it works:

• People run ads to a landing page

• On the landing page is a 10-25 minute long VSL that sells someone on the value of the service

  • The seller builds up the value prop and addresses objections (the most successful ones follow Alex Hermozi’s Value equation)

    

    source: The Process Hacker

• The call to action is to either book a sales call or make the purchase

Newsletters are free so you don’t need a 25 minute video.

You only need ~30 seconds to sell someone on signing up.

How?

Using the 4-part HVEC framework we already covered (hook, value, examples, CTA).

We used a Mini-VSL for the $0.28 CPA ad we covered here.

👉️ Here’s a summary of the takeaways:

Video ads are always part of our overall subscriber acquisition strategy for our agency clients.

Why + how you should be using video ads:

• Performance: More often than not, they outperform static image ads and can get your CPA below $2.

• Tools: Use a smartphone to shoot, a lapel mic for audio, Descript to edit.

• Framework: Use HVEC

  • Hook: grab attention

  • Value prop: tell them the end result you’ll help them get

  • Examples: show them how you’ll help them get there

  • CTA: Tell them to subscribe for free

• Types:

  • Plain text laid on top of videos from Pexels are easiest/fastest. They should be 10-15 seconds long.

  • UGC/Mini-VSL take more work but often perform best. Use captions. They should be 30-45 seconds long.

If you’re not confident on camera…

1. Practice. You only get more confident on camera by actually doing it.

2. Remember the spotlight effect is a thing: The spotlight effect is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to believe others are paying more attention to them than they actually are.

3. Delegate. Write the script and get a friend or actor to do it for you.

There you have it. The tools, framework, and 3 types of video ads to get you new subscribers for less than $2.

Go get to work 🫡 

Until next time,

Isaac + Kieran ✌️

P.S. When you’re ready to grow your newsletter…

Let us do it for you. We help creators, brands and ministries grow their newsletter so they can drive more sales and donations. If you want us to grow your newsletter for you and are ready to invest at least $2k/month on ads, book a call with us here.