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Video Marketing Advice – The Three Steps To Successful Corporate and Promotional Videos 

The Key Questions You Must Ask

Engaging corporate and promotional videos for businesses can be very powerful. This is something that we all generally accept. But getting your video right and harnessing that power isn’t always plain sailing. When producing video for your brand or organisation there may be numerous stakeholders in the project, all with their own opinions and ideas. Maintaining a clear structure to your production is essential as this is going to help you achieve everything that you set out to achieve (which in most cases is to drive sales). So to keep the project and everyone involved with it on track we suggest using our 3 step approach to video production. It’s simple, effective and it’s a great way to prevent projects from entering what’s known in Hollywood as “production hell”. This is where multiple stakeholder input results in greater and greater reductions in the final film’s effectiveness and power.

Our 3 step approach is essentially 3 questions, the answers to which will provide a clear blueprint throughout the production. Ask yourself (and other stakeholders in the video project) these questions at regular stages in the production to help unify the production teams vision and ultimately deliver the best possible video marketing asset you can.

So here are the questions in our 3 step approach to the production of corporate and promotional videos.

1 – What is your message?
2 – Who is your viewer?
3 – What outcome do you want?

Simple questions. And yes, there are many other factors within most video marketing projects, however all of those other elements and the answers or direction that the require will be clearly visible once the 3 key questions are answered.

corporate and promotional videos

Forming concise and honest answers to the 3 step questions will give you pretty much everything you need to anchor the production of your video marketing in such a way that it’s goals are a lot easier to reach. Once the answers are established and agreed, they should provide clear signposts to many other elements within the production. The answers will inform and dictate aspects of the production such as tone, style, approach, duration, and content.

The answers to the questions should be one or two lines, or one sentence. You may be tempted to write paragraphs to answer each question, but this is not a test. It’s a tool. If the answers to these 3 questions are more than a single line, then there’s a danger that the final film will reflect this and have a mixed up and overly complex feel.

Answer the questions in a clear and simple way and your final film should do exactly the same for your viewer.

So remember, 3 questions that form 3 steps to successful video marketing production.

Number 1 – What is your message?

Keep it clear and simple. And don’t be tempted to try and shoehorn 20 different messages. If you do you’ll lose the viewer quickly.  Remember that video marketing is essentially an elevator pitch.

Number 2 – Who is your viewer?

Knowing who you are talking to will identify the correct way to talk to them. By considering the answer to questions 1 and 2 you should be able to quickly find the right tone, style and pace for your video. For example we’d use a different approach if we were delivering a message about life insurance to someone in their 40s than we would if we were delivering a message about soft drinks to a teenager. So by answering the 3 step questions, answers to other questions become much clearer.

Number 3 – What outcome do you want?

As with questions 1 and 2, clearly identifying a desired outcome provides clarity on how many aspects your corporate and promotional videos should be produced. Of course 90% of video marketing is aimed at driving sales, but in order for the video to be effective, it’s important to know how this increase is going to be achieved. For example, do you want to entice customers into local branches? Or do you want them to visit a web page? Of course you may simply want the outcome of the video to be increased awareness and visibility of your brand or service. So in order to clearly and simply identify the outcome that you require, ask yourself this supplementary question – what’s the first thing that you want the viewer to do when they’ve watched your video marketing?

Now it may seem that we’re over-simplifying or dumbing down the production of video marketing here but that’s really not the case. Successful corporate and promotional videos will have these questions at their core, whether they’re consciously identified or not.

Re-visiting the questions throughout the production process helps ensure that nothing is lost in the complexities of the production and will ultimately allow you to produce video marketing that hits the spot every time.

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fortyfoursixteen films

fortyfoursixteen films has over 15 years experience producing high quality video content for leading brands and organisations throughout the UK. Headed up by lead producer Neil Waddington we aim to create innovative, inspiring and engaging video for a wide variety of digital delivery platforms.