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We already know that video is becoming a huge part of the fabric of social media. As a result, many platforms have been specifically designed to enable users to create and share their original video content. These have been so impactful that Instagram has come out to say they are no longer an image-sharing platform.
According to Adam Mosseri (the head of Instagram), their reason for doing this was directly influenced by the popularity of video-focused platforms such as TikTok and Youtube.
Video isn’t just growing in popularity on social media, but it is also taking over marketing as we know it today. While organizations and businesses have spent decades gearing their advertising and marketing towards print and static graphic images, video has opened up a brand new realm of effective and engaging marketing.
Instead of relying on a still image to tell a story, you can use the art of videography to bring your message to life. The research proves the success of video marketing: 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than static imagery.
Combining the epic forces of video-focused social video platforms and marketing content, you find a recipe for success and engagement! Don’t get us wrong, not just anybody can pull off successful video marketing; basic marketing campaigns are complicated enough as is!
With adequate planning and the implementation of film strategies, you can create video marketing that captures your audience’s attention, generates leads, and furthers your mission.
Here are a few simple steps to keep in mind when planning and filming for video marketing.
1. Know Your Audience
No matter where you are in your digital strategy, knowing your audience will always be the very first and most important step every single time. Why? Well, imagine spending thousands of dollars on great video equipment, props, a video crew, actors, scriptwriters, and online advertising, and it ultimately falls flat. Then, you put out your video marketing content, and there is little to no impact on your desired results.
This is what will be almost guaranteed to happen if you do not fully understand your audience. We cannot just do a cattle call to any and everybody and expect them to respond. Connection is required for good marketing – this is precisely the characteristic that sets it apart from straight advertising! You cannot establish a good connection without first understanding your audience on a deep level.
How do you accomplish this? The classic way to do this is to conduct market research, which can play in many different ways. You can conduct one-on-one interviews with individuals of different demographics and even disseminate market research surveys. Another method to consider is putting yourself in your audience’s shoes. What are their pain points (i.e., the specific problem(s) your customer is facing)? What are their needs and desires? What are their normal spending habits?
While knowing your audience takes a lot of time, research, and evaluation, it is worth setting yourself up for success in effective video marketing.
2. Set your budget
This isn’t always an exciting step, but it is an important one. When creating content specifically for marketing, you have two budgets to keep in mind: the cost to produce a video and the cost to advertise. As you already know from step 1, video marketing requires a lot of research and planning.
Setting your budget helps keep your goals within a specific boundary and gives you a realistic expectation of what you can achieve. If a budget is not set, your dreams may far surpass what your finances can cover. The awesome thing about video marketing is it can be as simple & cheap or as complex & expensive as you desire.
Just remember, you don’t need expensive cameras and thousands of dollars in your marketing budget to have a successful marketing video!
3. Outline the image-story
Videos are the most powerful digital tool for storytelling by a long shot. They engage our senses of sight and sound and, because of this, encourage our brains to pay attention. This is why a cinematic, colorful, soundtrack-laden movie is much more engaging than a black and white silent film. When our senses are engaged, we are engaged.
Just as with movies, video marketing allows capturing the audience’s attention through a story. Before you doubt us, yes, when marketing is done well, it can tell an awesome story. But it starts with outlining the story through a process called storyboarding.
Storyboarding is a method used in video creation wherein you plan out the specific shots you want to capture for your video project. In this process, the focus is not on the actual words you will use in the video, but you are merely setting the scene and feel for your video. Practically, this looks like organizing a series of drawings or still images of your video’s potential scenes/clips.
This process will help give a general outline for your video and ensure that you don’t forget to capture desired pieces of footage.
4. Outline the script
This part of the process goes hand in hand with outlining the image story and helps to bring the full picture of your story to life. Words are powerful, and with shorter-length marketing videos, the words you choose must count.
Curating video copy takes an immense awareness of simplicity, word style, language, and writing ability. Your target audience must be at the top of your mind when you write out your copy. This is where you must learn to speak the language of the culture, especially the culture you want to generate engagement with!
The copywriting process should include a captivating opening statement, information about your company, and any other relevant information you want to include in the marketing video. Many companies are honing in on humor to help captivate their audience. This RXBAR video, often seen on Instagram, is a great example of combining humor, unique video techniques, and simple copy in a short but sweet marketing video.
When writing the script, you want to begin to align the words with the specific images you outlined in step 2. (Tip: the sequence in which you do steps 2 and 3 can be flipped, it just depends on what your video goals are!)
Once the copy is finalized, preparing your actors or narrators is helpful to ensure they know what is expected of them (e.g. knowing the tone of the video, purpose, etc.) This will help you save a lot of time when you get to the nitty-gritty of filming.
5. Get organized with a filming day schedule
Hip-hip-hooray – more planning! Once you have ironed out the details of your target audience, budget, and image/copy outline, it is time to bring it all together for the filming day! Before you can go all in, you have to have a plan.
Have you ever been involved in a wedding without a wedding itinerary? If you have, you know that things tend to get extremely chaotic. Without a plan (and someone to enforce the details of that plan) even your best intentions can run haywire.
Having a dedicated video schedule will help keep things organized and ensure that the day runs smoothly. There are a few key elements you want to be outlined in your plan:
Everyone involved in the filming or creating of the video should have this list to know exactly what to expect as the filming day(s) progresses. This schedule will help keep track of time, organize the details, and make sure everything that needs to be accomplished gets accomplished. A handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet can help get all of the details in order!
Alongside creating this schedule, you want to ensure you have taken inventory of everything you need for the shoot. Here is a general checklist of things to take stock of:
6. Lights, camera, action!
Once you have completed the many steps of planning, you can move onto the long-awaited day of filming! It has been said that “perfect planning prevents panic,” but the truth is that unforeseen circumstances may pop up.
You have to enter into this day with equal parts planning and adaptability. For example, the weather could fail, a personnel member could get sick, or a piece of equipment may break. Regardless, go into the day of filming with a clear plan and a few backup plans too!
With the guidance of your many storyboards, schedules, and spreadsheets, you can capture the necessary content you need to be utilized later in post-production when the video is organized and developed. The purpose is to capture all of the necessary shots, moments, and words to simplify the production process.
7. Find a home for your video
Once the sun has set on filming and the video is created, the next step is… more planning!
On top of the actual creation of your marketing video, you must also do the work of figuring out where the video is going to live. Of course, the primary place you want to use your video is through social media channels, especially Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
The planning process for utilizing your video will call to mind step 1: knowing your audience. An important question to answer is: which social media channels are best for your specific audience?
Doing a bit more research to discover where your audience spends their time digitally will help determine where you should focus your marketing efforts.
Once all is said and done, and your audience is targeted, you will be well on your way to captivating your audience with your spectacular video!
Need some help transforming raw video footage into an eye-catching, scroll-stopping video? Our video team has the tools to create a captivating video to be utilized online and help ignite growth! Contact us today to get started.
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