Promotional Video Production: A Comprehensive Guide
Video is one of the cracking tools for companies to carry out their digital marketing. It has the capacity to circulate companies’ products and services fruitfully. Of late, videos have made inroads into digital marketing unprecedentedly. With the introduction of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. the popularity of video has stacked up even more. Despite this massive popularity of video content, there are many companies that are yet to receive the advantages of videos.
You may be wondering if videos are such powerful and imposing tools, why companies are not taking advantage of it properly? The premier reason behind it is the lack of understanding of the video marketing process and encountering logistics issues. In fact, video production is not a walk in the park rather it’s an uphill task. Along with a healthy budget, a company requires deft and creative video-makers to make an impact in the market with their video projects.
Even though most of the companies are lagging behind in producing and marketing videos as a way of promoting their products and services, some companies have kicked off their video projects.
The digital marketers and production managers belonging to these companies have gone through the processes and comprehended the demand for video marketing. In this article, would like to share an exhaustive guide on the benefits of video projects that can bring to a company.
Hacks and Tricks to Produce a Marketing Video
As per Hubspot, 78% of people watch online videos every week and 55% of people watch online videos every day. According to Cisco, by 2022, online videos will make up over 82% of all consumer internet traffic which is 15 times higher than in 2017. This indicates, that as the day progresses, the popularity of videos will escalate exponentially. Let’s outline the most crucial tips and tricks to video production that you should take advantage of to ace in your business.
1. Reflect and Fix your Objective
The first and foremost point to ponder over before scripting a promotional video is to reflect on the cause of making the video. Why are you making the video and how should it make a mark on the potential customers? As discussed earlier, producing a video is not a piece of cake and it’s a painstaking task.
You also have to invest a sizeable amount of money to produce a video. For example, you can make a video to create your brand awareness. Or, maybe you intend to launch a new product in the market which requires illustration. You can very well make a quality video and incorporate all the necessary detail into it. So, having a goal is inevitable.
2. Decide your Direction
To promote your company with video content, you have to fix the direction you intend to approach. There are various types of directions you can pick to produce your promotional video such as introductory, explanatory, product/service-focused, problem/solution-based, drive action-focused, informative, endorsement-based, etc.
For example, if you launch a start-up, your main goal should be to introduce your company. So, you can make a short introductory video to notify your audience about your identity and future mission. Likewise, if you float a new product in the market to resolve an existing problem, present your product and clarify how it is the solution to the problem in your video.
3. Set the Tone
Prior to making a video, it is incumbent for you to set the tone. That means you have to determine the mood of the content and how it should engage the audience with your video content. Whether you want your audience to get enlightened from your video or take action to buy your product or receive your service, you have to fix it.
You can also make a humorous video to make your audience laugh or narrate a story in the video to highlight the features of your products and services. Furthermore, it is very crucial that the character of the video aligns with the direction of the video. For example, if you are making an introductory video, the focus should be on your identity instead of enticing people to snap up your products or take your services.
4. Ponder over the Duration
The length of your marketing video is as important as the other essential factors. You may wonder how to fix the duration of the video without scripting it. But the fact of the matter is, if you don’t fix the duration in advance, the video will unnecessarily get longer. And if you limit the length, it will force you to incorporate the required points within the length. Moreover, setting the objective of making videos and deciding the video placement platform will also give you an idea about the duration. For example, if you target to display your occasional offer, a short video of 30 seconds is sufficient.
But if you want to make an informative video, it will automatically get a bit longer. You have to also think about the platform where you want to post the video. If the video is intended for cable TV commercials, it will be shorter but if it is meant for social media and online video ads, it will be a little longer.
5. Fix your Budget
For promotional purposes, budget plays an indispensable role to optimize your video project. You have to fix the budget in advance. Failure to determine the budget in advance may land you in a spot of bother. In a video project, there are certain pivotal elements that are very posh and can go beyond your budget such as adding voice-overs, hiring professional models, selecting a location, etc.
If you are looking to do cost-cutting and execute the video shooting in your office premises including your employees, you may ruin your video project. With a shoddy video, you will end up defaming your company as opposed to promoting your company. On the other hand, if you allow the task to any production company and give them your budget, they will produce first-rate video content with your budget. Not only they will produce high-quality content but also place it as an online marketing ad, thereby promoting your company.
6. Select the Video Type and Narrate the Idea
Now, it’s time to make up your mind about the video style. The visuals of your video can come into life in a variety of forms. You can create videos in the form of animation, real people, b-roll, stock, live-action, screencast, whiteboard, etc. Moreover, you can also produce videos with a combination of these forms. For example, you can create a video with the amalgamation of human actors and animation where actors can communicate with the cartoon character. Or, you can make a video including supplemental footage in between main shots or as background, action, and flashback-style scenes. Then, you should outline your idea and to do so you can write down a paragraph incorporating the essence of the idea. This will not only refresh your memory but also let you refer back.
How Should You Make Your Promotional Video Content?
1. Pre-production
Write the Script and Create a Storyboard: Scripting is the most essential part of making a video. Different people have different styles of writing scripts. On top of that, there are many script templates available online to guide you.
The script should lay out scene number, timestamp (When is a particular moment happening), audio, dialogue, voice-over (What we are hearing in a particular moment), the description of the scene, list of the characters, props, location, expression, etc.
The script will assist you to keep everything in order including product and character collocations, thereby enabling you to create a masterpiece. Along with the script, you have to create a storyboard as well. Storyboard will act to bring your script to life. It will help you to figure out the exact shot you need prior to filming.
An illustrator, artist, or designer will aid you to create a high-quality storyboard. If you wish to create an animated video, an illustrator or animator will come into play.
2. Groom your Presenters and Organize your Products for Shooting
Presenters of your video are one of the key characters as a huge chunk of your video’s quality will bank on their performances. They can be your own employees or hired models and actors. Whoever they are, they should be well-equipped of their jobs and responsibilities beforehand and that will diminish errors and save precious time.
You should also prepare your promotional products and must know the entire process of products’ functions in the video. Your presenters should also be aware of their roles with the products. You should also advise your presenters not to memorize the scripts as it will trigger mistakes and mess up the whole idea.
3. Production
After the pre-production phase, it’s time to go for filming, meaning you should commence the production phase. If you plan to work with actors and a director, you should hire a producer or a production company. You may afford to defray the production cost but having an expert beside you will most likely ease your task.
Normally, the film crew consists of a director, a lighting director, sound recording artists, camera operators, gaffers, grips, and production assistants. But the crew members can vary and it’s the job of the art director to customize and fix it. The film crew makes use of all the equipment necessary to shoot the footage and align the visuals organized in the storyboard.
On top of that, voice-over recordings are also carried out during the production stage. Make sure that everyone in the shooting spot knows his/her job holistically to produce high-quality video content.
4. Post-Production
This is the final phase of the video-making process. In this phase, the video editor assembles as well as edits the footage to produce a video conveying the right message and expressing fitting emotions. The video editor adds graphics and various types of special effects like 3D animation and motion graphics to spice up the video.
Apart from that, sound mixing is also done to create audio tracks. Music can be supplemented from the music library or custom music can be composed and recorded if required. In addition, color grading can also be executed to optimize the appearance of the video. Another key point that you should note is the text overlays.
If you want to place a text in a particular shot, you have to account for that to the video editor so that he retains space in the scene during the shooting. That will let you add text in the shot during post-production.
5. Marketing and Distribution
Once you are done with editing and revamping your video content with the help of an editor, it’s time for distribution and marketing your video. There are various channels you can avail to promote your video let it be cable TV broadcast, web, social media, and many more. But to make your video content functioning in all these mediums, you have to customize it. You have to develop all the file formats needed for distributing in all these channels.
Some Mistakes to Avoid While Making Promotional Video
Selecting an Unbefitting Location
Location can make or break your marketing video content. If you are shooting in a chaotic and distracting place, you are likely to lose your viewers’ attention.
On top of that, recording in a congested room or clamorous coffee shop can totally ruin your video content. Hence, avoid shooting in a turbulent and cluttered place to produce a masterpiece.
Cramming the Video Content
Many video marketers intend to incorporate all the necessary information in a single video and with that in mind they cram the video content with visuals and ideas. This makes the video content overcrowded, thereby making it complex and bemusing.
At the same time, the video gets longer which distracts the viewers from the focal point. To connect with your audience through your content, you have to ensure an evident, specific, and focused video.
Getting Ultra Promotional
It’s not very uncommon for companies to produce videos that feel like commercials and no one desires to feel like getting sold. But this is not the correct way to lure people towards your products and services. Video content is a cracking tool to narrate a story and grip potential customers.
You can spin a story and fit the entire story in a video and that will hook the audience. Hence, promote yourself through storytelling instead of a selling mindset and that will breed a unique and better branding of your company.
Making Unnecessary Long Video
Length matters amply in video marketing and excessive long video can ruin your video content. The online audience doesn’t have the time to watch and focus on a long video. They just tend to move from one content to another. Hence, you have to be very specific and get to the point as soon as possible as opposed to rambling.
Follow the standard video length which can vary on the type of content and that will hold the attention of the potential clients.
Lacking Entertaining Materials
If you look at the showbiz whether film, music, or theatre, they make crores of bucks every day. They invest exorbitantly and also generate profit substantially. The only reason for them to flourish is an entertaining audience. An entertaining video doesn’t necessarily have to be funny but it must contain something to hold the interest of the audience.
To prepare an entertaining and pleasant video, you have to just show a bit of flair and creativity whether by making an emotional connection or by other means.
No Inclusion of Call to Action
Many companies make promotional videos without asking the viewers to take action something at the end of the video. This is a grave mistake as it makes the video totally purposeless. And a purposeless video is unlikely to draw the attention of potential customers. So, know the purpose of the video. Do u want people to buy your products? Do you wish people to know about your social media impact? Is your goal to make them visit your website? Whatever your target is, you must mention that at the conclusion of your video. With the proper call to action, you will ace in your video marketing project.
Substandard Video Quality
Some companies behave too stingily that they are reluctant even to spend the minimum amount of money to produce a high-quality video. They also tend to finish the job rapidly, thereby making a shoddy promotional video. Either they contact cheap and substandard companies or execute the job themselves without any professional experience just to cut corners. This, eventually, ruins their entire project.
In fact, video marketing is such an extensive field that with a little bit of research, one can do wonders even with a moderate budget. Consulting and taking service from a professional company can add great value to the video content and entice the audience to take action.
Marginalizing SEO Implementation
In online marketing, the importance of SEO is ineffable. It is so crucial that with proper website optimization, it can make your company a giant in a very short span. Producing a video without implementing SEO strategies is one of the top video marketing pitfalls.
In this competitive age, it is very pivotal for you to rank at the top of search engine results. An optimized video, whether shared on Youtube or on your website, can drive massive traffic to your website. To optimize the video, you have to title your video with proper keywords, meticulously fill the video description linking with your website, and add keyword tags with the brand and industry terms.
Not Addressing Target Audience
Whenever you produce a promotional video, it must be intended for a particular group of people. Your business may have products for different categories of people but a single video should focus on one particular market. A society consists of the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class.
People belonging to different classes have their own requirements and pain points. In your marketing video, you should try to address the pain points of these target audiences. Do some research, know the concerns of the target audiences and produce your video content accordingly.
Failing to Focus on the Technical Errors
All the labor and endeavor will go in vain if the video contains any technical glitches. In fact, there is nothing more disappointing for viewers to play a video and find it crashing. This will irritate viewers so much so that they will switch the video on the spot.
Due to these technical glitches whether in audio and video quality or in the overall video content, you will end up losing valuable leads and customers. Therefore, it is inevitable to check the functionality of your video from top to bottom to ensure a video free from technical errors.
Few Viral Video Marketing Examples
1. Dove- The Power of Empowering Ads
Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” is a Guinness world record holder in the year 2013 for the most viewed online ad on Youtube. Gil Zamora, a forensic artist was featured in the video who sketched the face of a woman as per her own description without viewing her. Once he winded up drawing the sketch, a stranger (Who saw and got familiar with the woman) was asked to recount her impression on the same woman’s face. Eventually, Zamora disclosed that both the portraits were like chalk and cheese as the 2nd one showed more positivity and cheerfulness as compared to the 1st Dove uploaded this video in 25 languages across 110 countries availing Youtube’s vast global community and receiving an overwhelming 114 million views in 1 month. In 2 months, the video received 4.6 billion public relations and media impressions.
2. Nike
One of the prime examples of top-notch video marketing is Nike’s “Unlimited You”. Nike is a brand that carries out straightforward marketing, meaning they focus directly on their products while making video content. They portray in their video how you would look if you wear their products.
In this particular video, they showed some ordinary people working hard to become athletes. The narrator recounted all these athletes are horrible but they will achieve success at one point in the future. This motivates the viewers and imparts them one has to work hard to thrive in his life.
3. Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola launched an advertising campaign titled “Taste the feeling” with a view to celebrating the idea that drinking any type of Coca-Cola, with or without caffeine, with or without calories, makes each and every moment meaningful and significant. Unlike the brand’s campaign “Open happiness”, this one focuses and features the universal narrative with the product to showcase both functional and emotional aspects of Coca-Cola.
This campaign was launched by 4 advertising agencies and portrays over 100 images captured by renowned fashion photographers.
If you wish to produce marketing videos for your company pertaining to your products, services, or for other purposes, you require a crack team to assist you to get a professional touch in your promo video.
Even though you can make promo videos yourself as well. Whether you create videos yourself or take aid from professional videographers, you have to optimize your promo videos.
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