Video Branching

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Letting people choose and create their own adventure is nothing new— even Netflix entered the live-action interactive programming space with their series Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, an interactive “choose your own story” film. This type of technology allows video content to become more interactive and engages the audience like never before.

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Creating an interactive branching video is actually more attainable than one might think. Interactive video branching allows you to present viewers with relevant content and drive engagement as each viewer creates their own experience. With 80% of consumers being more inclined to do business with a company if it offers a customized experience, companies should create user-guided interactive marketing, sales, and training videos to ensure their content meets the needs of their customers. 

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What is interactive video branching?

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Let’s break it down. “Branching” is an interactive element that can be added to videos to help create a more personalized experience for each viewer. Through branching videos, viewers have a variety of viewing paths available based on the feedback they provide during the video—making your videos a dynamic resource that can appeal to many. 

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The viewer is able to take control of the video’s narrative by choosing between different actions that determine where the video is headed. As a result, viewers watch only the content they find interesting or relevant, which in turn leads to increased completion rates and customer satisfaction. 

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What are the benefits of using video branching?

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1. Increase engagement: When adding interactive branching to your video, you are instantly increasing your engagement rate amongst viewers. Whether it’s clicking a button or hotspot, or answering a question, you’re requiring your viewers to provide some sort of feedback or action to continue their experience either to a new chapter within your video or an entirely new video on a specific topic. 

2. Gather data to create tailored content: By allowing viewers to create their own adventure, you’re able to collect more information about each user based on their responses. You can then use that data to provide each viewer with tailored content and call-to-action elements throughout the rest of your video, or even for future campaigns.

3. Set your Lead Pre-Qualification to Autopilot: Ask your clients or site visitors pre-qualification questions that automatically route them to custom-tailored solutions based on their choices. 

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What can I do with interactive video branching?

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Video branching uses interactive technology to provide viewers with personalized videos based on their interests and needs, as well as create an immersive and engaging experience for each viewer. 

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With Mindstamp, you can create a variety of different branching experiences including:

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• Clickable hotspots or buttons: Add interactive elements such as hotspots or buttons with actions to change to a different time in the video or change to a different video entirely.

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• [ADD IN VIDEO EXAMPLE]

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• Dynamic personalized navigation: Provide viewers the opportunity to receive a customized video watching experience based on the content they are most interested in seeing by clicking a button or hotspot to navigate to different points in the video. 

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• [ADD IN VIDEO EXAMPLE]

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• Video chaptering: Organize your video into chapters, so that your viewers are able to see the full content line-up of your video and choose where they want to focus without having to watch an entire video. 

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• [ADD IN VIDEO EXAMPLE]

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Here’s an example of a branching video using Mindstamp’s interactive video platform: 

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[Add in example video either created by Mindstamp OR a customer video]

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Learn more about how to add branching to your videos with Mindstamp’s interactive video platform.

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Key Takeaways

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Interactive video branching is just one way to give your viewers a more personalized experience—something that is becoming increasingly important as businesses work to stand out in the competitive digital world. By including branching in your existing videos using interactive features, your videos can stand out against linear videos and give your audience the opportunity to “create their own adventure.”