Branded video content can inspire, educate, inform, and entertain specific audiences. It can also help drive results and support marketing goals.
Look for a company with experience in your industry. Check for client testimonials and search online for reviews.
Make sure your goal and core message stay clear throughout the production process to keep your project on track and meet your objectives.
Identify Your Goals
Clearly defining your goals is crucial when it comes to video production. It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process and lose sight of what you’re trying to achieve. With tighter budgets, it’s even more important to plan meticulously to ensure that your video is working towards the success of your marketing strategy.
Identifying your goals can be as simple as asking yourself why you’re making this video. The answer will help guide the type of video you produce, how it will be distributed and where it will live online. The goal could also be as specific as a call to action that you want your audience to take.
Setting measurable goals will help to hold yourself and your team accountable. Goals should be realistic and achievable, but challenging enough to spur determination. They should also align with the overall marketing plan to ensure that all of your content is working towards your end goal of increasing brand awareness and sales.
It’s also a good idea to identify your competitors and conduct thorough research into their marketing and branding strategies. This will allow you to develop a unique approach to your own marketing efforts and stand out in a competitive marketplace.
It’s also important to consider other projects that may be vying for your team’s attention when it comes time to make a new video. Having clear, defined goals will help you determine if the project is in line with the rest of your current marketing plans and can be completed within your given timeline. Otherwise, it might be wise to push the video project aside and save it for a later date.
Identify Your Audience
When collaborating with a video production team, it’s important to be as clear as possible about your audience. In this way, they can create content that’s relevant to the people who will be viewing it. For example, a video produced for an audience with technical knowledge of a product or service may need to be more detailed and complex, while those at an awareness stage would be more interested in a simpler video that simply outlines what the product or service does.
To help identify your audience, you can use a variety of methods including online surveys, demographic analysis and qualitative research. Using primary and secondary market data will give you the best possible picture of your potential audience, but it’s also good to go beyond this and find out what motivates your customers, for example, why did they choose your brand in the first place? What are their pain points that your products or services can solve?
The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to reach them with your marketing videos. This is why identifying your audience is so crucial, and why you should always be challenging assumptions that you have about who your ideal customer is.
If you’re still unsure about your target audience, a professional video production company can carry out some in-depth market research on your behalf. This will enable them to create a highly targeted video that is likely to achieve your desired ROI. They can even produce a demographic and geographical breakdown of your audience for you, so that you have a complete profile of your potential customers and what makes them tick.
Create a Storyboard
Once you’ve got your goals and your audience identified, it’s time to create a storyboard. This is an excellent way to plan out your video, ensuring that it will achieve all of the desired results. A good storyboard will show what happens in each scene, what characters are present and any essential props that will be used. It will also highlight any camera angles or movements that may be needed.
You don’t need to be an artist to create a storyboard. You can use stick figures to represent people, simple geometric shapes for objects and even drawings from a magazine. The important thing is to get your ideas down on paper, so that you and any collaborators can easily refer to them during the planning process. It is also helpful to number the panels so that it is easy to find specific scenes and reference them during post-production if necessary.
Storyboards allow you to spot possible problems before production and make informed decisions, which can save a lot of time and money in the long run. For example, you might realise that a certain character or location isn’t going to work or that your budget will not stretch to include all of the special effects that you have in mind.
If you don’t have the time to draw the storyboard yourself, there are several online tools available that will allow you to design and upload images to create a digital storyboard in minutes. Some of these tools are even designed specifically for business and have the functionality to add text, backgrounds, character selections, animation effects and more. You can even record audio to create a more complete and interactive experience.
Plan Your Shoot
When it comes to video production, pre-production is the most time consuming and challenging part. It involves creating a storyboard, sourcing locations, props and actors, and planning the shooting schedule. Having a detailed and accurate budget is essential at this stage to ensure that you are able to produce the final video within your set limits and deadlines. Business Promotional Videos need to be good for customers to be attracted making video production important in the business itself.
Next, it’s time to start getting creative. Draw insights from your research and create a concept for the video that best conveys your core message to your audience. Think about the style of the video – will it be live-action or animated? Will the video be designed to feel polished or more in line with authentic-feeling user-generated content? This will help you to determine what kinds of visuals you’ll want to use and how much footage you’ll need.
Using your storyboard and script, plan out the different shots you’ll need to capture in the shoot. This will help you to stay organized during the actual filming and minimize the chances of missing important scenes or taking unnecessary shots. This is also the ideal time to do location scouting and confirm that you have all the necessary equipment, such as lighting instruments, booms, dollies, etc.
Once all the details are outlined, it’s time to book your cast and crew. This may mean hiring professional actors, or it could be as simple as recruiting employees and customers who are willing to take part in the video. It’s also a good idea to plan a production meeting with your client to discuss the day of filming in more detail. This will also help to avoid any miscommunication during the shoot itself.
Prepare for the Edit
Creating video is time-consuming and requires a lot of concentration. Having the right strategy and support from marketing experts can help you make better decisions that will give you the best return on your investment.
Once you’ve outlined your objectives and defined your audience, it’s important to create a production brief. This will serve as a reference point for the entire process and help keep everyone on track. It should include the goals you’ve identified, who the core audience is, and what success looks like for this particular video.
After the brief has been written, it’s time to start writing a script. If you’ve hired on-screen talent, it’s also a good idea to get them involved in the writing process so that they’re well prepared for their performance. They will be able to provide insight into what tone of voice and style is most appropriate for your message.
Then, once the video has been filmed, you can start the editing process. This is where the magic happens! During this stage, it’s common to cut slow or sloppy parts of the footage to keep your narrative moving, add music and sound effects, and apply any other finishing touches that you think your video needs.
Finally, it’s time to prepare for distribution! This can be done by sharing your video on social media, embedding it in a blog post, putting it on YouTube or Vimeo, asking influencers to share it, or even paying for advertising that will place your video in front of the audience you’re targeting. It’s important to have a clear plan of action in place from the beginning so that you know what metrics you want to track, whether that’s brand awareness, engagement, or even new leads and sales generated from your video.