What is the video production process?

 How can businesses use video to help their business?

Video is one of the most powerful tools in the modern marketeer's arsenal. Year after year it outperforms almost any other form of marketing and that shows no signs of changing.

A recent Amimoto study found 88% of marketing professionals are satisfied with the return on investment of their video marketing efforts on social media - far outweighing any other marketing channel. And customers love it too - a HubSpot study found that 90% of customers said videos help them make buying decisions.

Finally, A HubSpot study found that 54% of customers want to see more video content from the businesses they support.

When asked what kind of marketing they would like to see from brands they support consumers answered:

 The same study also found that having video on a landing page increased conversion rates by over 80%. Even just mentioning the word “video” in the subject line of an email can see an increase of 19% to open rates.

The first and most obvious way that a company can use video is to build a brand identity. Films have the unique capability of allowing a marketeer to control a customer’s first impression of their business. You can meticulously plan the messages and thoughts you want a potential customer to take away from their interaction with your company.

Brands have needed a video marketing strategy for years, what has changed very quickly is how important video is for every platform and channel a company uses. Video is no longer one strand of a marketing strategy, it’s now a central component of all outreach and campaign efforts, particularly on social media.

How do you know if video is right for you?

Video is a brilliant way of distributing information in a simple, shareable, and accessible format. A well made video can drive an audience like nothing else - for a charity they can help raise money, for a B2C company they can draw in customers and send brand awareness through the roof or for a B2C company they can generate leads and position you as thought leaders.

Video is a fantastic tool and the vast majority of business will see brilliant results from the right video, but, before we go into the specifics, there are some businesses that video may not be the best marketing strategy for. Specifically those with a very specific target clients who deal in large contracts - if you only need two new contacts a year a more targeted lead generation strategy may be more appropriate.

Still with us? Good! Let's talk about some of the different types of video and how the to use them to the best effect. There are many many many different ways to use video, for the sake of ease we’ve outlined three basic categories of video for business.

Pieces to Camera

Pieces to camera are exactly what they say on the tin. They usually consist of a person speaking either to an interviewer or directly into camera about a chosen subject. They can either be scripted or an interview which has the key soundbites edited into a coherent story. They’re like a direct conversation between the speaker and the audience.

Pieces to Camera are particularly useful for dealing with information heavy topics, offering advice or telling your brand story.

There are some examples below

Royal Shakespeare Company - Timon of Athens

Carbon Theatre - Sea Girl

Wavin - Tigres K1

 Brand/Commercials/Marketing Films

This type of video is focused on maximising brand awareness. These films are traditionally concept driven and when they work, they really work - a good brand film can be like rocket fuel for a marketing campaign.

This method is done so well by companies like Guinness, John Lewis, & Coke and so irritatingly by companies like Compare the Market, WeBuyAnyCar.com, and Just Eat (although you definitely have the We Buy Any Car song stuck in your head now, so it’s clearly working). Huge companies spend millions of pounds a year on brand films, but that doesn’t mean they have to break the bank.

Below are some cost effective examples of marketing films which didn’t need a huge crew with 100s of cast members to solidify a brand’s identity.

Team Academy - Life’s too short for boring training

 Profile Films

Profile films are case studies, they take either a person or a subject and tell their story to an audience. They harness the power of storytelling that marketeers have been using for years and can create a lasting impression with an audience.

A compelling profile film is a great way to keep things interesting or humanising people. They work fantastically well for companies who want to shout about their success.

Profile films work fantastically well for charities, as they’re a really good way to convey emotion and show the affects that a project is having on the lives of its beneficiaries.

Help for Heroes - Seven Lives

The Good Life Experience - Alex Pole

 What do you need to have before getting videos made?

We think of videos as the start of a funnel - a piece of marketing the goes out into the world and gets people’s attention, with the hope of getting them to act. A well made video pushes people further into the funnel, through to your social media, your website and finally on to the ‘contact us’ or ‘check out’ pages of your website.

But, for this process to exist, video needs form part of a wider marketing strategy, if it exists in isolation it will not be as effective.

The first thing that needs to be nailed down is the message you’re hoping to give people. This should be consistent across all of your output - there is no point in having a brilliant video telling everyone you’re selling high end watches if your PPC campaigns only showing up on searches for “cheap watches”. Having conflicting messages will cost you sales/leads and waste your marketing budget - you have to attract the right audience for your product.

Video can be a good place to start compile your message, ask yourself if you make a video what three messages do you want your audience to take away from it? These points will form the key messaging that your marketing is suggesting about your brand. It might be “quality of service” “beautifully manufactured products” or “ethically sourced ingredients”. Once you have the messaging nailed down your video production company can make a video that’s giving people the desired idea about your company.

Branding is also key, most companies will have a logo and website by the time they’re commissioning a video, but some may not. Most video companies work in partnership with branding agencies and can help put you in the right direction of someone who can help you with

these assets. Similarly to messaging, launching a video without having any branding in place can be confusing for an audience and lead to sending mixed messages.

Finally, having an idea about distribution is vital for video making. You might have 50,000 followers across your social media or a video might be the first piece of content that you’ve ever put out on the internet, it doesn’t mater, what matters is knowing which channel you are hoping to prioritise. This will dramatically affect how your video is made as different distribution platforms will favour different type of video, for example Facebook will give better results to videos over 3 minutes in length, where as Instagram will only allow videos 3 - 60 seconds long. A good video production company can advice on which platform will work best for your message.

Once you have your messaging, brand assets and distribution in place you’re ready to plan your video, first think about what you want to achieve with it. Are you looking for brand awareness? Direct sales? Launching a new product? Highlighting a service? Changing your perception? As soon as you know what you’re hoping to achieve with a video you can start the vital planning stages.

How a video production company helps

In short, a video production company can manage every aspect of your video, from working with you to construct a creative idea, to managing the logistics like finding the cast and crew, right through to delivering the video and advising on a distribution strategy. We actually wrote another post all about what a production company does here.

Every video is different and requires a different approach, but the early stages of the process should be very similar no matter what the project.

It’s often said that a goal without a plan is just a wish, never is that truer than with video. If you want a cost effective, smooth video then get in touch with a production company a month or so before you want to shoot.

Once you’ve spoken to them they should host a project planning meeting. A project planning meeting will outline the project and ensure that it gets on the right path for success. In this meeting you and the video production company need to work out how to convert your aims and messages into a piece of video that functions as a useable sales too.

Key discussion points for this meeting should be:

• The aims you have for the project
• The creative ambitions
• What, where and who you will be filming
• The schedules and logistics of the shoot
• All of the mile stones
• Where it will be shown

A good video production company will guide you through the very technical and complex world of film making, but the right video production company will make it an enjoyable and rewarding experience. You should be left with something you will still be proud of in five years time.