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January 2016

Jan 22
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How To Shoot Your Own Training Video

By Video Production Advice

Getting Great Talking Head Shots on a Budget

There are many occasions when a company or business may need a small video clip but simply don’t have the budget for an external production agency to produce it. This is especially true when creating training video. In these cases the video can sometimes be successfully produced in house by company staff members. Many companies have access to a reasonable quality camcorder but often we see some basic mistakes made that could easily be avoided. Let’s take a standard brief or common requirement that companies often shoot in house and highlight a few areas to look out for.

Training video

“The company needs some very short talking head/interview shots for use as an online training video There’s no budget for an external agency so this will be shot in house using an available camera and edited by the companies own creative department.”

Here’s what to watch out for.

Lighting

Lighting is vital to film. It can be the difference between making a piece look flat and lifeless or rich, engaging and beautiful. But it’s also easy to run into trouble if you don’t know what to look for. If you’re shooting in house video there’s a strong chance that you will only be using natural lighting rather than film lighting.

Whether you’re indoors or outdoors the key is to position your camera between the subject and the light source. The subject should roughly be facing the light source and the camera should have its back to the light source.

If you’re shooting indoors then you can either do one of two things. Use natural daylight from a window, or go with the internal lighting of the building. Avoid having a light directly above your subject as this will never flatter them. Instead look for areas of the building where the light source is to the front or roughly 45 degrees from the subject.

If outdoors never shoot with the suns position behind the subject. If you’re fairly new to using the camcorder and are shooting using the “auto” mode then shooting into the light source will make the subject appear very dark as the camera compensates for the bright light behind.

Ideally you’ll want to set the exposure first but if you’re a complete beginner then you may prefer to shoot on auto so getting the positioning right is important.

training video

Sound

If you’re shooting using whatever camcorder you can get your hands on then there’s also a good chance you will be using the top mounted camera mic. These mics are never going to be as good as a clip, boom or handheld microphones but there are a few things that can help you here.

Firstly camera mics are very sensitive. They can hear a lot more than we can and they don’t have a brain to filter the noise or focus on what they want so if you’re shooting an interview in a busy office the mic will pick up everything!

Try to find somewhere quiet. Turn the air con of if possible, and close any windows to minimize background noise.

If outdoors be aware of the wind. Even a gentle breeze can cause wind rustle on the mic so try to find somewhere with a wind break.

Then position the camera close to the subject. To do this ensure that the camera is zoomed out as far as possible. Then physically move the camera and tripod until you get a nice head and shoulders shot. What your doing here is essentially moving the mic closer to the subject so that you can record a nice clean interview and help minimize any unwanted noises.

Time

There’s a good saying in film production that goes – You can have it good, fast or cheap…..pick two.

You’re probably shooting in house to save budget and it goes without saying that you want the film to be good. So the sacrifice production wise would be the time element acheter du vrai viagra. So allow plenty of time to setup, shoot and even re-shoot the interviews you need. Even a short interview can take time and the more you can allow, the better your results will be.

training video

B-Roll

Rarely do employees or even board members deliver a word perfect sound bite that fits into you’re desired running time straight off the bat so some editing is always required. However if you’re cutting together like for like shots from an interview its handy to have additional footage to cut over the top so that your transition from clip to clip appears smooth.

Allow time to shoot some “cutaway” or “B Roll” footage. This is footage that you shoot for the purpose of editing and is always vital to training video as a way of illustrating what the subject may be saying.

If you have the time you could also shoot parts of the interview twice and shoot an alternative wide or close up shot to use as a cutaway in the edit.

Follow these simple rules and even a complete beginner should be able to generate footage to suit a basic training video  brief.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 22
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How To Conduct Great Interviews for Corporate Training Videos

By Video Production Advice

A Guide For The Interviewer

A big part of producing corporate training videos (or even video marketing and corporate video) involves shooting interviews or talking head type shots. Getting the picture, sound and general technical stuff right is one thing (which we’ve covered in other articles). However, someone has to conduct the actual interview and elicit the best responses for use in the final edit. This is by no means a walk in the park but getting the best content will ensure that your final film reaches its full potential. So here are some thoughts and tips from the angle of the interviewer and how to get the best our of your subject.

Research

Firstly, prior to shooting do your research. This sounds like a no brainer but you’ll need to be sharp during the interview so that you don’t lose the energy. Most people aren’t naturally keen on going in front of camera so if you’ve worked hard to get them into the flow you don’t want to lose them by dithering over your questions.

Know What You Want

You should also have a very clear idea about the kind of responses you are looking for. Shooting interviews for Video marketing or corporate training videos is very different from press or news interviews in that you’ll probably be working to a brief with some pretty clear goals in terms of what you need to convey.

We often start with a “perfect world” list of answers that we wish to elicit, then work backwards from there and develop our questions and talking points based on the answers we want.

corporate training videos

Warm Up Your Subject

Before starting the interview warm your subject up a little (especially if this is the first time you’ve met). Some chit chat goes a long way to helping them feel relaxed and gives you a better chance of capturing a natural feeling interview. A good tip here is to give them something about yourself. Try to find some common ground and volunteer up some personal information about yourself to try to establish a bond of trust.

Before rolling the camera also talk them through how the interview will run, ie where you want them to look (into camera or off camera to interviewer), give them a feel for the length of answer, and reassure them that there are “no wrong answers”.

Also suggest to them that it’s useful for them to give you some of your question back in their answer. This usually helps in the edit as often the interviewers voice is not required.

Make sure they are comfy if they are sat, and that their clothing is not riding up in any strange ways around their shoulders in the chair that you have provided.

Throwaway Question

Once you’re rolling always assume that you’re first question is going to be a throwaway. People often need a little time to find their flow so don’t go in with your big guns first. Your first questions can even be an extension of your pre-shoot chit chat.

If you have some quite specific comments you are looking for don’t be afraid to tell them. It’s sometimes easier for a subject if you give them a pointer of how to start their response.

Within your question list have the same key questions phrased in 2 different ways and ask that same question twice. It’s a great way of getting a second bite at some of the key points and you should have already primed them not to worry if they feel like they are repeating themselves. The 2 responses can always be edited together to form the best single delivery.

Ask open-ended questions and leave questions hanging a little for them to fill in. You’re certainly not looking for “yes” or “no” answers so give them the opportunity to get descriptive.

corporate training videos

Get Personal

When wording your question try to give them something to work from and don’t be afraid to get personal. Asking people how they feel about something often produces great soundbites that give the answers a more powerful emotional element. This goes a long way to creating compelling corporate training videos or video marketing in general.

Be quiet. In a normal conversation you’d tend to make noises of agreement to show who you’re talking to that you’re interested. However you don’t really want these sounds on mic during an interview so maintaining a facial expression of interest along with eye contact goes a long way to helping the subject feel like you want to hear what they are saying.

Finally ask good follow up questions to their answers, it shows that you have been paying attention and can lead to good additional information if they have only brushed over a subject initially.

At the end of the day people generally love talking and telling stories. But they also generally dislike being filmed. So if you can engage them as an interviewer to such a degree that they forget about the camera then you’ll generate some fantastic material for your corporate training videos.

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Jan 22
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Why is digital video marketing for business so powerful?

By Digital Marketing

Digital Video Marketing.

Video for business has grown into a crucial part of any company’s tool kit. Video marketing adds an extra layer of excitement to any marketing campaign and engages the customer or viewer on their own terms and often, in their own homes. But why has video for business become so powerful and persuasive. To examine this we need to look at the different generations that form the internet age and why they have been the ones who have driven this movement.

Customer Driven

Its quite a bold statement but we should accept that the strength of digital video marketing stems form the fact that the viewers (or customers) have a key part to play in the conversation and have essentially dictated the terms of how they would like to engage with us as businesses or organisations.

The rise of video marketing is not a product of a forward thinking cool marketing agency or the child of a heavy weight corporation. Instead it’s a truly customer led format that lives or dies based on their demands. It’s here that its power essentially stems from.

digital video marketing

History of Video Marketing

Online video took a long time to arrive in its current format. The initial incarnation of the web as we know it wasn’t able to deliver video in the way that matched our appetite for it. Viewers wanted quick, easily accessible bite-size information delivered in videos that were of high quality.

The web simply wasn’t upto this. Digital video marketing couldn’t be delivered to mass audiences due to restrictive bandwidth and data charges that made streaming far too expensive for most companies. However the advent of dedicated video delivery sites such as youtube changed this forever.

The poor user experiences that we’d previously had with online video are now a thing of the past and the days of waiting an hour to stream the spiderman trailer at a screen resolution the size of a postage stamp are thankfully long gone.

Give It Time

However what’s interesting is that users didn’t abandon their desire to frequently watch online video during these early teething troubles. No one was put off to such a degree that the medium was dead in the water and we were prepared to give it time. Our desire to consume information via web video was so strong that we waited and waited until finally it was fit for purpose, and then, we jumped in head first.

Many internet and social media users are from the original TV generation and recent users are born with an ability to quickly and efficiently consume, interpret, filter and judge video content in a matter of seconds.

digital video marketing

Customer Engagement

Today users will either engage with video content or switch off very quickly and it’s this personal selection that makes the bond with what they DO decide to watch a powerful one. The online video experience seems like the most natural way to watch content and the advances in streaming to tablets and phones only strengthen our belief in the medium.

It’s this belief that makes video for business the perfect way to engage in conversation with customers. I use the word conversation because the viewing experience is anything but passive and the viewer has made several decisions before watching your video content that help us understand why the medium has such power.

The business world is now in a fully fledged romance with online video and it will be interesting to observe where we go from here. One thing is certain and that is that the future of online video for business looks bright and mutually rewarding for both business and customer.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 22
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The Power of Music in Video

By Video Production Advice

How to Make the Most of Music

When producing marketing video for website and social media use getting the soundtrack right  is a critical part of how powerful the final film will be. Music can drive our emotions in such a way that it can multiply the power of your video’s message and engage the viewer in a much more emotional way. Let’s face it, people can talk passionately about music more than any other art form or medium out there. How many times have you got involved in a “top 5 albums ever!!” debate with friends? Or passionately argued why music today “isn’t as good as it used to be”? Because music forms the soundtrack that wraps around the sights, experiences and emotions of our lives we are connected to it in a way that’s very powerful.

So if we get the music right when producing marketing video for website and social media viewing we effectively amplify the power of every other single element within the film. Music can drive excitement, drama, suspense, tenderness and many other of the common messages that we may need to convey when producing video for businesses and organizations.

Powerful use of music

There are a few really useful tips when it comes how you use your chosen music within your video marketing production that we apply to a lot of the work we produce. These are: 

Don’t be afraid to use dramatic music.

Big powerful scores can really lift a production to a higher level and are not the sole reserve of Hollywood epics.

marketing video for website

Use 2 or even 3 pieces of music within your film. Changing the music within the film will do 2 great things.

It will make the film feel shorter (this is a great way to maintain viewer engagement). When producing marketing video for website and social media viewing we know that our potential customers attention spans are short. Therefore using this trick prevents the films from “dragging” and keeps our viewer for longer.

And it will allow you to change the tone/message/scenes as the film unfolds (useful when the brief requires you to convey multiple messages)

Balance your vocals.

In many cases we want the music to feel full and powerful throughout the film. However we don’t want it to make the vocals or voiceover in-audible. So always use a limiter type tool on your vocals to ensure they sore above the background music (a limiter works by pushing up all the quiet parts of the vocal while limiting the volume increase on the louder parts to generate an even level throughout).

Edit the music to fit your needs.

Rather than simply fading down the music at the end see if you can edit the track by removing a bar here and there so that the rises and falls within the track match your footage. This is tricky if your are using a vocal track but if your using an instrumental and you can tap you foot to a rhythm then it should be achievable.

marketing video for website

Avoid using dance music.

Its lazy, obvious and we’ve seen it too many times!

Sourcing your music

When sourcing music for our films there are several options that we could go down depending on budget and desired response. In some cases we can have music specially composed for our video, or we could use one of the fantastic music licensing sites (such as premiumbeat) which offer a huge choice of music for all moods that we can license for a one off fee.

However, it can get tricky if your client wants to use a “known” piece of popular music. The legal and financial aspect of doing this can be a minefield. And if you client wants to use a track by a worldwide artist such as Bruce Springsteen then they will need a mortgage sized budget.

In most video marketing we work with smaller budgets but that’s not to say that “known” popular music is out of reach. There are some great resources and companies (such as Ricall) who can provide you with some well known tracks (although admittedly mostly from a good few years ago) complete with legal and licensing aspects all taken care of. Its a good option if you need this kind of thing.

Above all, use the music within your film to help drive the message and bring the viewers emotions and senses into play. This will ultimately engage them and drive home the key messages from your brief in a much stronger way. Its the key to producing the most powerful marketing video for website and social media marketing.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 22
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The Promotional Video Is Not Dead!

By Digital Marketing

How Important is Promotional Video Today?

As a busy video marketing agency we’ve noticed that one of the by-products of the perceived power of content marketing and the language that accompanies is that the humble “promotional video” seems to have been left in the dust. Current marketing rhetoric constantly reminds us that “content is king” and that your online marketing video content should be original, and dare I say it, “quirky”. This has created a downward pressure on brands (both large and small) to create video content with the sole aim that it may potentially go “viral”. Unfortunately this pressure can sometimes actually restrict creativity and cloud the basic aim of video marketing.

The Truth About Viral

Let’s face it, we’d all like our video marketing to go “viral” but the truth is that the chances of your video reaching viral levels are pretty much non-existent (although you may not find another digital marketing agency prepared to admit this!). No matter how clever you think it is.

300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and over the course of 12 months only a handful of the videos uploaded will go viral. But this should not deter you from producing video content as a way to market your business or service. You’re potential customers don’t care of your video has 10 or 10 million views, they simply need it to fulfil their own needs and answer some obvious questions.

video marketing agency

The History of Promotional Video

That’s where our friend the good old fashioned “promotional video” comes into play. Over the years promotional video and corporate video had something of an image problem. Anyone who has in the past been tortured by having to sit through a company’s latest promotional VHS offering (usually featuring one of the least charismatic staff members they could possibly find) will know what I’m talking about here.

When VHS was at its height countless companies and organisations hired production companies to produce promotional, marketing and training films which were distributed on VHS to help them deliver there message. For the most part these films were terrible, over long, dull and offered with the choice, many viewers would rather set fire to their socks than sit through them.

So “corporate video” and “promotional video” were previously pretty dirty words to modern marketing experts. However 2 things happened that changed all this. Firstly as the web emerged and slowly increased its bandwidth capabilities we were able to watch video online at ever increasing quality levels. The rise of youtube is testament to how consumers grew their love of this medium and its delivery method and confirmed online video as one of their preferred methods to consume information and entertainment.

The second thing that impacted was the advances made in digital video production which put the power a skill base to produce, direct and edit great video content into the hands of an army of new professionals. This was essentially the birth of the video marketing agency, and produced a new breed of marketing experts who had innovative and creative ideas as to how it could be used to market businesses. We should also add to this that the explosion in social media usage provided additional advantages to businesses such as easy sharable content.

video marketing agency

Promotional Video’s True Objective

But to return to my original point, it would be unrealistic to suggest that the power, budget and opportunity for every single business, large or small to produce potentially viral content is within grasp. It simply isn’t.

But once again the key here is that your customers don’t care if your video goes viral. Both the brand and the customer simply need it to perform one simple task, that is to introduce (or “promote”) the brand efficiently. Any video content that’s primary purpose is to raise awareness of your produce or service is essentially a promotional video. Yes, it’s much cooler to call it video marketing or content marketing but basically its video intended to promote. All that’s different is the language.

So you shouldn’t get too worried about whether to produce inbound marketing, digital marketing, viral marketing or whatever people are calling it this week. Just worry about getting the content right for your customers. You don’t even need to be super creative, incredibly cool or cleverly original with the video you produce. In fact we see many examples of brands trying too hard to produce “cool” video marketing where we’re left wondering exactly what the product–or the point–is?

At the end of the day here’s some cold hard facts.

You sell a product or service.

New customers search for that product or service online.

These customers will be looking for answers to questions

Ensure that whatever kind of promotional video you produce tells them that you supply what they are looking for and answers their questions and you’ve nailed it. And hopefully you’ll see your sales reflect this. Promotional video, video marketing, content marketing have simple aims and simple methods. So stop worrying about the hype and simply give your customers what they need. 

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 22
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Make Great Corporate Videos – How to Write a Promotional Video Script

By Corporate Video Production, Video Production Advice

Making great corporate videos or video marketing assets can be a challenge. But getting your script right before you shoot goes a long way to helping produce the best video for your brand or organisation. Here are a few tips.

If you’re producing a film for your business or organization then developing some sort of script will probably be a key part of the process. You may need a full on shot by shot scripted breakdown of the film, a simple voiceover script or a script for the people appearing in your film. Scripting can be a daunting task and when initially faced with that blank page, so having a basic structure in place for writing your script will give you some useful support in getting the script to first draft stage.

Finding Your Message

Before you start a script for a promotional or corporate video we suggest bullet pointing a few things and asking some important questions. You’ll probably have a list of objectives and messages that you need to convey in the film but it’s quite useful to prioritise these and above all DO NOT TRY TO SAY TOO MUCH!!!

Keeping your message simple will also keep it audible is is key to making great corporate videos. In other words the viewer will absorb more information when you deliver short simple messages than they will when you bombard them with facts.

great corporate videos

Set the Tone

At this stage of the script ask your self this question:

“What’s the first thing I want the viewer to think/say when they’ve watched the video?”

The answer to this question should dictate the direction and feel on the entire script. Next ask yourself the following question:

“How does your company speak to its customers?”

This will help you establish tone and style. Every company has a way a speaking that’s unique and individual to them. They will have a vocabulary that uses words that tell us not just about their product and service but also about their beliefs and values. It’s important that you tap into this vocabulary when developing a script to ensure that the film feels part of the companies overall comms output and reflects their personality. A good idea is to review as much existing output as possible such as website and printed materials, then note down key words/phrases that crop up often within the text.

Once you’ve established the tone and style you’ll need to deal with the elements you want to convey. All great corporate videos will start life as a list of points, facts or messages that are part of the brief. Firstly we’d suggest prioritising these elements and don’t be afraid to discuss dropping a few if you feel at this stage that the final film could be overlong or too dense.

Warm It Up

The nature of briefs also means that at this stage these key points may simple be a bullet point list and not something that instantly jumps into a spoken script. One of the biggest mistakes at this point is to assume that copy developed for a brochure or website will read well when spoken aloud. More often than not if you read aloud the text from any website or brochure it will feel cold and lifeless. What works well in print doesn’t always translate into natural flowing spoken dialogue.

So a good tip here is to bring each point of the brief into the real world and add some warmth and context. For example, if the product you are working on is a car one it’s features could be:

“a Hi Tech comfort designed steering wheel”

But simply stating that will often result in a big fat “so what” from the viewer.

Adding some warmth and context to each point as you go will help you develop a script that works much harder. For example:

“Cornering is effortless and driving comfortable due to the Hi Tech comfort designed steering wheel”.

This is old news to most marketing professionals but its easy to lose sight of these basics when developing scripts so warming up your initial bullet points before you start the draft is very useful.

Once the key points have all been warmed up a little it becomes easy to start to join them up into a draft script. Be careful at this stage not to get too repetitive and constantly read aloud the script to check the work as you go.

great corporate videos

Time Can Tell

Once you feel that you have the bare bones of the first draft we then suggest something quite radical (and this may only be possible if your deadline and schedule allows). So here’s probably the most important tip for any script development.

When you’ve finished the first draft do the following:

Save.

Close the document.

Don’t open it again for at least 3 days.

As mentioned this may seem a little odd and will only work if your timescales allow but I guarantee that you will end up with a better script because of it. Putting some distance between you and the first draft is essential. It will allow you to re-read the draft with fresh eyes and there will be a strong chance that when you do, you’ll find something that clearly doesn’t work or sounds wrong. When developing a script it’s easy to become snow blind as there’s usually a lot to consider. Reading over a draft straight after writing makes it hard to be objective about it and spot the weak areas.

At all stages of the script development read it aloud as much as possible (ideally using a stopwatch). As mentioned what’s written doesn’t always flow when spoken so be aware of this throughout the process.

Finally don’t get too attached to each draft. Remember the first draft is exactly that, a first draft. Most first drafts are nowhere near the finished article so don’t expect to ace it off the bat and produce further drafts until you’re happy with the result. When it’s ready to go you’ll know as soon as you read it aloud as hopefully it will flow and feel natural.

Hopefully these tips will help you get your script off the blocks and on its way to help you produce great corporate videos that are engaging and effective.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 20
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Video production advice – How To Look Your Best On Camera

By Corporate Video Production

Your guide to appearing on camera.

When producing video marketing or promotional video for your company there will be strong chance that you personally, or one of your colleagues may be stepping in front of the camera for the first time. You may be delivering some lines to camera or demonstrating your product and service, or you may appear as a talking head in an interview format. We understand that you won’t want to appear vain however we also understand that you will want to ook your best as you’ll be representing your company. So here’s some useful video production advice for looking your best in front of the camera.

What to wear?

It’s important that you wear something that makes you feel comfy in front of camera. They’ll be other factors you may find a little daunting about appearing on film so if you can start by being comfortable in your outfit then its one less thing to worry about.

From a technical aspect there are a few things that you’ll also want to consider. Don’t wear anything that’s too busy, striped or patterned. This can cause a technical issue which will result in the footage looking flickery. Also be aware of the background you are being filmed against. For example if you’re being shot against a black backdrop don’t wear a black shirt/dress as you could end up looking like a floating head!

Avoid anything that’s very loose fitting or baggy as it can sometimes make odd and unflattering shapes when on film.

video production advice

Dark clothes on a dark background can look strange, whereas lighter clothes will make you stand out.

Hair

Being able to see your face and eyes is important so if you have long hair try to avoid having it falling down over your face. You may want to use some product to keep your hair in place but be careful about using too much as it can pick up a lot of bounce from lights and make your hair look un-naturally greasy.

Makeup

If you’re doing your own makeup then a golden rule of thumb is to apply a bit more than you usually would. You also want to minimize shadows around the eyes so we suggest a lighter shade of concealer and avoid harsh lines around the eyes. Lips can always benefit from a bit of extra definition to help them pop out so go for a darker shade than you normally would. Finally use translucent powder to help reduce shine.

Camera Angle

Don’t be afraid to ask the camera operator to show you a preview of the shot and if you’re not happy say so. If you are shooting with a professional crew they will understand and expect that you will want to look your best so working with them to perfect the shot is by no means unusual. Check that the camera angle is not too low, shooting most people from an angle below their eyes usually results in a less than flattering shot so if you’re not happy with the preview shot you’ve been shown ask for the camera to be raised slightly.

video production advice

Make up touching up for promotional video shoot

Lights

One of the most important pieces of video production advice we can give is to get involved in the lighting. If the preview shot shown to you doesn’t feel right there may be a chance that the lighting is too harsh. This causes faces to become too angular and casts hard shadows. Ideally for most people to look their best on camera a big soft source of lighting will be the best approach. So again, don’t be afraid to ask the crew to soften the lights a little if you feel they are not showing you at your best.

Above all you want to be proud of your video marketing output so taking that little bit of extra time to get the look right will give you a final product that you’ll be eager to show off.

 

We hope that this video production advice is useful but by all means drop us a line on the link below if yo;d like to know more.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 19
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How can business video marketing drive sales?

By Digital Marketing

Business video marketing is a powerful tool.

When done well it can drive awareness, visibility and have a positive impact on sales. However at the heart of effective video marketing is engagement. It’s purpose is to provoke an emotional connection or response from the viewer (or customer), and provide a persuasive message about your product or service in a credible way.

But it’s useful when producing business video marketing to really understand why (and more importantly how) this works so that we can produce effective material.

I recently read a stat that proclaimed: “1 minute of video is worth 1.8 million words” – Forrester’s Research

Pretty bold stuff eh?

Now whatever you make of that stat it does offer some interesting food for thought about engagement and communication. Whether the stat is bang on, or has an element of exaggeration (not that we’d suggest this for a second) what it is essentially demonstrating is how people absorb messages and information.

When reading copy our brain processes the text our eyes see allowing us to consider its meaning. However, it relies on our imagination to take that message and form something that’s not simply a one dimensional message.

business video marketing

The power of business video marketing

The power of video lies in its ability to present visual and audible information that fuse to create a multi-dimensional sensory experience that can often be overwhelmingly more powerful that mere words alone. Lets take the humble “promotional corporate video” as an example to examine this closer.

Many of the usual elements that you will encounter in a typical promo video are strong tools when used alone (ie, action footage, music, people speaking to us etc). But when combined together they form something that’s much more irresistible. Video marketing combines people, words, thoughts, footage, emotions, stories and music to engage the viewer in a wider sensory experience that involves their eyes, ears, emotions and beliefs. We retain information from good video material because it involves these senses (ie sound and sight) in a way that triggers emotions. These sense driven emotions can be strong enough to override what we already think and it’s this alone that allows video marketing to communicate in an engaging and convincing way.

Ask a random selection of friends for their favourite lines from a film. I’d expect them all to have at least one or maybe dozens of lines that instantly spring to mind.

Now ask the same group of people for their favourite line from a book.

I’m prepared to bet that you will receive significantly fewer answers. Not because books are in any way a lesser art form to film, but because we absorb and retain information delivered through the medium of video quicker and easier.

business video marketing

Real World

Lets take a possible client brief and see how this actually works in the real world. A client has asked us to produce a piece of business video marketing that has a primary message of:

“We are a company who care.”

Now lets first estimate how many words of web copy or print copy we would need to effectively and convincingly convey this message. People are hard to spin these days and we would need to present a pretty convincing case possibly including testimonial text from existing clients, backed up with several paragraphs of copy to re-enforce this message of caring.

Now lets try to convey this same message through business video marketing.

There’s an old saying that “people buy people” and this is still true in today’s digital age. Just a couple of seconds of genuinely convincing footage showing a smart looking company employee warmly engaging with a customer tells us a great deal. We don’t even need to hear what they are saying. The power of sight and our trust of film is such that if the footage looks genuine, then we will accept it as being the truth and the message of “we care” may be instantly conveyed.

But lets not stop there.

Lets also imagine that we hear a voiceover talking to us as we are seeing the footage. If cast correctly the voiceover artist will have that warm, caring, (almost matronly) feel to their voice that we may associate with our parents, a favourite teacher or someone who has shown us real care in our own lives.

Again, we may only need to hear this voiceover deliver one or two words to instantly accept their warmth and sincerity. So we’re only 2 or 3 seconds into the video and already it has engaged us and effectively communicated the key message in 2 powerful sensory ways.

Now lets add in a gentle musical soundtrack to the background, Again, this needs to be selected well and be sector appropriate but music is one of the most important tools in the video marketing arsenal. Get it right and suddenly the visual, spoken and musical elements fuse and are elevated in their power to deliver a persuasive messages that is memorable, genuine, and long lasting.

This is the power of business video marketing, and this is why it can drive sales in such a credible and persuasive manner.

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Jan 19
Love0

The most common b2b video marketing mistakes

By Digital Marketing, Video Production Advice

b2b video marketing – the 10 biggest mistakes

Whether you intend to produce your company’s b2b video marketing in house or through an external production agency there are a few common mistakes that can significantly reduce how effective the final film is. We’ve shared a few below to help you side step some of the biggest pitfalls in video marketing.

Shoot by Committee

Although its good to involve lots of ideas in the initial briefing and conception stage of b2b video marketing when you get to shooting you really need someone to steer the ship. Having someone solely directing the shooting provides the best way of capturing the footage needed within the brief. They should have a firm vision of how they want the shoot to run and in what order. Never has the saying “Too many cooks” been more accurate than when producing video.

Lose Sight of Your Customer

It’s easy to get very excited and carried away when producing b2b video marketing but if there’s one thing to always maintain it’s the viewer (and ultimately customer). Delivering a film that will engage the viewer is your ultimate goal and should take precedent over ever other aspect of the project.

Going For the Latest Thing

If you decided to be very current and forward thinking a few years ago and shot your b2b video marketing in 3D you’ll now be struggling to find anyone who can watch it. There’s always something new and shiny in the world of video but content is always king and has remained so over the years. Tell your story effectively and the sort of camera or fancy gadgets you use won’t really matter.

b2b video marketing

Recording Poor Sound

DO NOT cut corners on the way in which you record sound on your shoot. Capturing great moments on film can be challenging and you don’t want to end your shoot thinking you’ve captured some golden moments only to find in the edit that you can’t hear a word anyone is saying. Use good quality mics or if your budget will stretch to it a dedicated sound operator.

Using Animation When it’s Not Appropriate

Animation is cool. There’s no argument there. However it needs to be brief and sector appropriate. Using the right method to convey your message should take precedent over what’s “cool”. If you do use animation make sure it’s right for your audience, there are so many different styles of animation that it’s easy to alienate the viewer if you don’t get it right. While it can be quirky and often cost effective there’s no substitute for reality if you want to deliver a powerful message.

Trying Too Hard

We’ve said this before but “people buy people”. Peer to peer case studies may not be re-inventing the video marketing wheel but they are very, very effective. Seeing and hearing first hand testimony from existing clients may be all that you need to convince new customers of your worth. Sometimes simplicity is the best route.

Doing Everything Yourself

If you are going to produce your b2b video marketing in house be fully aware of the time required to develop, produce and deliver video effectively. The initial appeal of the apparent cost saving this route may offer could be outweighed by the actual total time and resources required realizing your goal. Worse still you run the risk of the project faltering mid way through and having to then incur additional costs of having an external agency rescue the project.

b2b video marketing

Being Led by Your Own Taste

Whatever you own personal taste in film, being objective about your brief is critical. Understanding the viewer, customer, client or organization should be much further up your list of priorities than your own creative whims.

Not Understanding Your Competition

If you’re product or service needs to sit alongside the Audi’s and Apples of this world then your video production levels should reflect this. Viewers will make a snap judgment call on the quality of what you sell based on the quality of your video marketing. Of course if your brand has more of a local or regional position then you have some latitude in how you present yourself. However if you’re going up against the big boys, you need to ensure you can meet them head on in terms of quality.

Forgetting to Provoke the Viewer

Finally (and probably most importantly) don’t forget that at the end of the day you’re aiming to provoke a reaction or emotion from the viewer. Video marketing should not be a completely passive experience and you need to elicit some kind of emotional response from the viewer. Remember that people encounter online video at least once a day and anything less than memorable will simple wash over them.

Many of these common mistakes will seem fairly obvious but it can be easy to lose sight of them once your production is in full flow. However get them all right and you’ll have something that will push your brand to new heights and ensure you rise above your competitors.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

Jan 19
Love1

How Poor b2b Marketing Nearly Cost Me My Business

By Digital Marketing

An Honest Look Into Where I Got my b2b Marketing Wrong

For a long, long time I made some very stupid mistakes when it came to the b2b marketing of my business. In fact if I’m honest it’s a miracle that I still have a business at all. I’m not sure what led me to make such a hash of marketing my company’s services for such a long time, maybe I was too young, not smart enough, lazy or even arrogant about this aspect of business.

My Background

To give you a bit more background – I own a video production company who (today) produce for a wide range of clients based in the UK and internationally. I’d grown my business over 9 years by a combination of luck, hard work and traditional b2b marketing approaches such as Yellow pages listings and a badly ineffective and costly Google campaign. However when the economic downturn hit in 2009 we lost 2 of our biggest clients (which we’d admittedly become reliant on) and I was forced to slash the workforce. The phone wasn’t ringing and we had very few new enquiries. These were dark days. I knew we provided a good service and for a long time I couldn’t work out why we weren’t growing.

However slowly but surely it dawned on me that if no-one else knew how good we were, then we weren’t going to survive.

The dogfight that was the economic downturn provoked such a radical change in my b2b marketing approach and activities that I often tell people that I’ve learnt more about running a business in the last 3 years that I did in the previous 9 years of trading.

Today things are very different for my company.

The way in which my business currently markets itself has been nothing less than a revolution and we are looking forward to a bright future. We have new clients, new projects, and daily new enquiries are the norm.

Now I’m conscious that I don’t come across as too smug here as I’m only writing this to share my experience with other business owner.

Corporate Video Production

So here’s what (I think) I got wrong.

My b2b marketing efforts before the downturn were poor, ineffective and a complete waste of money. There was a small part of me that (arrogantly) believed that because the quality of our work was high, customers would naturally find us. This was a HUGE mistake.

It simply does not matter how good we are at what we do if people/customers either
a) don’t know us.
b) can’t find us.

I came to realize that putting my business in the spotlight and making sure we are visible is critical to growing our business. Getting our work, approach and service in front of prospective new customers has been the essence of our recent transformation from “going out of business company” to what we are today.

So being known and being seen has become as important to our business as the actual work we produce. We allocate time (no matter how busy we are) to achieving this goal every month.

The way in which we have achieved this won’t come as much of a surprise to most marketing experts and in some respects can be simply described as a good old fashioned “marketing mix”. However in addition to getting the established marketing elements right we’ve also embraced digital marketing in all its glory which is where a lot of our new business has come from.

Corporate Video Production

A good old fashioned “Marketing Mix”

Simply throwing loads of cash at Google AdWords creates a world where its only a matter of time before your rivals throw even more cash at AdWords and you become embroiled in a marketing war of attrition. However that’s not to say that AdWords don’t play a part in our b2b marketing today. It’s just that they do not represent our entire marketing activity by a long chalk and we’ve spent time working with experts to ensure that every pound we spend with Google is now finding the right customers.

Now although we’ve turned things around I would by no means claim to be a marketing genius. In fact many of the things we learnt have been through seeking the advice (sometimes free, sometimes paid for) of skillful experts. And since I’m sharing most of what I’ve learnt here for free then you’re essentially party to a good deal!

One of the first things we did was to make sure that every element of our website was optimized so that search engines could find us. This was one aspect where we needed an expert but getting this part right was the building block for all our internal activity.

So we engage in lots of different b2b marketing activity over the course of each month. Alongside a modest AdWords campaign here’s what else we do every month to help drive visibility and ultimately sales.

Social Media and b2b Marketing

We have a regular blog where we share as much of our knowledge and expertise as possible(for free!). We offer advice, guides, and info-graphics from our particular field with the aim of positioning us as experts and creating articles of value that people will freely share (effectively spreading our name around the web).

We have an active Twitter output that helps us promote and share our blog articles. We try to update our other social media often, ie pinterest, youtube, vimeo, etc Hootsuite is great for this. We upload as much video content as possible.

Obviously being a video production company we have lots of material but having some video on your site or social media is very useful. And we ensure that we are listed on online business directories and sites.

Corporate Video Production

But it’s not all digital…

We also engage in some good old fashioned cold calling. But not to sell. Instead to simply say hello, and we attend regional business networking events so that we are seen out and about.

Now all of this may sound like quite a lot of work and something that could distract from the main activities of the business. But my business needed new clients to progress and grow (or back in 2009, to stop us going out of business). We found a way to schedule this b2b marketing activity so that it doesn’t impact on other elements of the business and fits nicely into our working week or month.

If I’m honest I can’t point to one single thing and say, “that single activity is where we’re growing our business”, all I can say is that thankfully, this combined approach saved my business.

To find out more about us and our services, please click here.

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