Production
The production phase is where all the raw materials for your final video will be captured. If you have specific visions, ideas, or visuals that you want to be included in the final product, be sure that you have clearly communicated that with your producer during the production phase.
Step 1:
Identify Your Best Video Stories
A video is nothing without great content to support it, the first step in any successful video project is to understand what makes a good business story.
Put yourself in your viewers' shoes and think about what they'll find interesting. They may like to know about your stats, execs, or sales figures, but only if they're really interesting. More likely, they will be interested in stories about how people are using your product or how your employees bring passion to their jobs.
Powerful videos are about so much more than your 30-second elevator pitch. No matter what the length of your video is, you have the opportunity to bring your company's most captivating stories to life with characters, visuals, timing, music, and storytelling.
Step 2:
Select Compelling Characters
Characters are the centerpiece of your video, so it's really important to choose the right ones. Remember that authenticity is essential and your audience will be able to tell if your video spokespeople are feeling uncomfortable or forced.
Choosing the best characters for your company video can be a little tricky. Sometimes it's easier to decide who is not the best spokesperson for your video!
A lot of companies make the mistake of assuming that their top executive or slick sales guy are the best options for on-camera success without considering who will actually resonate with the audience they're targeting.
Step 3:
Choose a Shoot Location
The location of your video shoot can really influence the mood of the final video (though it's not the only factor), so you'll want to make sure that your location is in line with the story and theme of your product. In other words, does your location make sense with what your video is about?
Would you rather showcase your characters in an office building, outside in a park, or in a cool building with some character? Each of these options will give your video a very different tone. Other considerations play huge role too, such as what is the best video interview background.
While recording your video outside on a sunny day is a great idea, the sun can make properly lighting your video a problem. Choosing a drab conference room, can be difficult to make unique and interesting. Finding the perfect balance of lighting and a non-distracting, yet non-boring backdrop is challenging, but it is crucial to a beautiful final product.
Step 4:
Craft a Production Timeline
Producing a video as part of your company’s video marketing strategy requires a lot of planning, patience and confidence. With a limited supply of money and time, knowing how and when everything is going to happen is crucial for getting the job done.
Though each video requires it’s own creative approach and shooting techniques, having a tried and true video production process (as mentioned above) will help you get the most out of your video production timeline.
Every company or internal team will have a different timeline that they use as a guideline. For example, our timeline from start to finish is about 6-8 weeks.
During that timeline all the aspects of the video have to be completed including planning, scripting, shooting, story creation, editing and more.
What to Create: Video Production Examples
It’s easy to treat video as the magic bullet of marketing. After all, nothing can take you somewhere, introduce you to someone, or show you something as well as a good video. However — and this is a big however — it needs to be a good video. Obviously, a good video should be well-thought, well-shot, and well-produced, but those production elements are only the start.
The key to video production is putting the right types of video in front of the right person at the right time. Matching the buyer’s journey properly requires a keen understanding of both your buyers’ personas and the different examples that work best in each part of the sales funnel.
Awareness
The awareness stage is the most obvious place to leverage video. When people don’t know anything about your company or products, the power of the play button becomes the magnet that attracts them to check out your content. Still, it needs to be the right kind of video — short and with a very specific point.
