Web Videos- what’s right for you?

Excerpts from Dane Frederiksen

Corporate video production is becoming mainstream and can be more effective than ever before, which is good news! Given the adoption of broadband, mobile, social sharing and video as a powerful communication platform, the ability to stand out online is unprecedented. Given the  power of video to build trust through client testimonials in a B2B environment -or- boost awareness and conversions for B2C, video is fast becoming accepted as one of the essential tools in an online marketing mix. Video can be expensive and complex if you are unfamiliar,  so here’s a brief overview of what types of video content are effective, the main decisions you’ll need to make….

 PART ONE: What Video is Right for YOU?

A company overview video: This is the ‘Swiss army knife’ of online video. A general overview video can go on your website, social media, in an email marketing campaign or your sales staff can use it to introduce the company prior to a call or meeting.

Product announcement / launch video: Expand your reach and help your customers, partners or other audiences quickly understand the big picture of your products and services. “Explainer videos’ are very easy for people to share and a recent Forbes study indicates that 59% of their respondents are more likely to watch a video than read text in social media.

Educational content: After face-to-face meetings, video is the second best way to ‘Show and Tell’ the finer points of what your products or services are all about and how they work. These can generally have a lower production value since the audiences for these types of videos really just want to get the information- but it’s best to not bore them to tears!

The Decisions

Video production has many pieces to the puzzle: First, there’s the concept, then the interview questions or script, the production planning, the type of camera, microphones & sound equipment, the amount of lights (if any), perhaps the software for graphics and of course, the skills, experience and talent of the person or team that pulls it all together. In deciding how much you can/want to budget for production, there are 4 main decisions:

    1. Picking the right people
    2. Picking the right equipment
    3. Deciding how important quality is (more on this later)
    4. Determining much time can be allocated (by budget or schedule)

 You’ll almost always get a better product if you have specialists for each role (producer, shooter, editor, graphic designer, etc.) but for some projects it might make sense to use one talented person who can do it all fairly well. The downside of the ‘one-man-band’ is that that one person can only do so much, both in a day and at one time. They will usually be more talented at some aspects of production than others (editing vs shooting for example). Every time they switch tasks, there is some mental refocusing and distraction which leaves rooms for human error to creep in, not good when you’re on a tight budget and schedule.  Video production tools have gotten very powerful and inexpensive in the last decade but knowing how to use them technically and artistically have big real world consequences of the final product. REMEMBER- it isn’t the equipment that makes a GREAT VIDEO; it is how you USE it- and WHO uses it, that makes a great video!

Next time:

The Costs

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