An internal search tool
Nine minutes to answer a question someone already answered.
About the viewer's day, with an obvious consequence attached.
All selling angles
Selling angleRendered with: Pentagram Stat
The statistic angle
One number, given the whole frame. The statistic angle works when the figure is surprising, verifiable, and about the viewer's situation rather than your company's success — and it fails completely the moment the number cannot be sourced.
A single dominant number is the most compressible argument available. It survives being seen for one second on a muted feed, it is repeatable by someone describing your product to a colleague, and it gives a sceptical viewer something concrete to either accept or check.
That checkability cuts both ways. Every number in a marketing video is an invitation to verify, and an unsourced figure is treated by exactly the audience you want as evidence that it was chosen rather than measured. Put the source on screen. If you cannot source it, the angle is not available to you — this is the one place where the honest move is to pick a different angle entirely rather than soften the claim.
The best statistics are about the viewer's world, not your traction. "Teams check three tools before answering one question" describes their Tuesday. "We grew 300% last year" describes yours, and nobody outside the company has ever been moved by it.
When this angle works
- You have one genuinely surprising, sourceable number
- The figure describes the viewer's situation rather than your company milestones
- You are competing for attention in a feed where a number stops the scroll
- The number can be shown on screen with its source without crowding the frame
When to use something else
- The number is unsourceable, estimated, or extrapolated from a sample you would not want to describe out loud
- It is a vanity metric — funding, headcount, growth rate — which is about you and interests nobody else
- The figure needs three caveats to be accurate, which means the format cannot hold it honestly
Script structure
How to build the script
Each beat has a job. Keep the order, replace the examples with your own product and your own numbers.
- Beat 01
The number, alone
Give it the frame with nothing competing. This is the only beat that has to work at a glance.
“3 tools. One question.”
- Beat 02
What it measures
Say precisely what was counted, so the viewer knows what they are agreeing to.
“What an average team opens before answering a customer.”
- Beat 03
The source, on screen
Attribution, visible. An unsourced statistic is a claim wearing a costume.
“Internal usage data, Q2, 240 workspaces.”
- Beat 04
So what
Connect the figure to the decision. A number without a consequence is trivia.
“Which is why the answer takes nine minutes instead of one.”
What it looks like for a SaaS product
Product categories rather than real companies — we do not invent customers, and neither should your script.
A performance monitoring service
400ms. That is where your conversion starts dropping.
One threshold that changes a decision, not a growth statistic.
A localisation platform
Seventy percent of your installs are outside your default language.
Surprising, checkable in the viewer's own dashboard, immediately actionable.
Questions about this angle
What makes a statistic strong enough to carry a whole video?
Three properties at once: it surprises, it can be sourced on screen, and it describes the viewer's situation rather than your company. Drop any one and the number stops doing work — an unsurprising figure is filler, an unsourced one is a liability, and one about your own growth is for your investors.
Can we use an industry report we did not produce?
Yes, cited by name and year on screen. Third-party sourcing is often stronger than internal data because the viewer does not have to trust you for it. What you cannot do is quote a number whose original source you have not actually read.
What if our only real numbers are small?
Small and specific beats large and vague. "Eleven teams switched last month" is checkable and human; "thousands of users" is the sentence people write when the real number is disappointing, and readers know it.
Angles that pair with this one
The cost-of-inaction angle
Most deals are lost to nothing at all — not a competitor, but a decision that keeps getting postponed. This angle makes the price of postponing visible, using the viewer's own numbers rather than manufactured urgency.
Read the angleThe social proof angle
Social proof reduces risk by showing that people like the viewer already made this decision and did not regret it. Its strength is entirely a function of specificity — and weak proof is not neutral, it actively signals that strong proof was unavailable.
Read the angleThe comparison angle
The comparison angle places your product next to the alternative the viewer is actually considering — which is often a spreadsheet, not a competitor — and argues on one axis that matters. Done fairly it is the highest-intent angle you can run. Done unfairly it is the fastest way to look small.
Read the angleBrowse the full angle library for the rest of the directions available in the product.
Get this angle for your own product
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