Planning Videos For Your Business ~ MD Internet Marketing Solutions

Planning Videos For Your Business

Making videos for your business can seem like an overwhelming task. Where do you start?  There are a few things you can do to make it easier and ultimately make sure that you are getting videos created for your audience.

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It’s important to lay a few things out prior to getting in front of the camera to insure your success. Once you get the hang of it, it will become fun. Once it’s fun then you will be more apt to making more videos and actually look forward to doing it! Just like anything else, if it’s not fun then you won’t want to do it and then the chances are that it won’t get done at all.

So where to start? Video Brewery recently made a post exactly about this and here is a short snippet from it:

7 Insider Tips for Making Your Video Production Process Easier

1) Internal Team Creation

Your video production process will only be as successful as the internal team involved. A well-planned and executed team and communication strategy will help your video to rake in far more conversions than one cobbled together without a thought. Once you’ve identified who is on your team, make sure to clearly define roles for each member. Identify the point person (singular) who’ll be communicating with the creative team so that they don’t end up with fifty emails written by everyone from the CEO to the janitor.

Like any marketing effort, nipping and tucking your clip with a comprehensive feedback strategy makes all the difference. We recommend using a collaborative platform for collecting feedback so that your entire team can see everyone’s notes in one place. Your point person needs to provide transparent, in-depth information to the team and the creative.

And don’t forget to keep your customer in mind throughout the video creation process, you want them to engage with the video once it’s live.
Plan ahead:

  • Decide on a time frame for collecting feedback from team members, we recommend 24 or 48-hours so that you can continue moving your video project forward.
  • Does legal need to review the script? Are there only certain stages that your CEO will need to review? Find that out before you approve a critical stage..
  • Make sure that you’re on the same page internally as to the video’s goals and purpose.

2) Prepare Your Creative Brief

Video marketing requires your producer to communicate your concept in only one or two minutes, so your brief needs to be precise and goal-oriented. Please don’t develop your brief in the half hour before you send it to your producer, instead spend a couple days with an evolving brief (Google Docs allows everyone to add comments and access the latest updates).

Include:

  1. Your elevator pitch.
  2. The problem your product solves or the need you aim to fulfill. Are you promoting a brand or a product? Are you looking to offer a service or simply promote your company (we caution against simply promoting your company, think about what you’re doing to genuinely assist your customer)?
  3. A detailed breakdown of who your target demographic is, which sites they visit, and what kind of content appeals to them. Which devices do they use to access the video? (Hint: Your targeted demographic is just that, targeted. While people outside of your target demographic will certainly occasionally buy from you, be really specific about your most likely customers.)
  4. The features your video needs to highlight. Resist the urge to list every feature, keep it focused on the top 3 – 5 that your customers (or market research) tell you are most important to them.
  5. The style and tone you need from your video
  6. The business goals of your clip. Are you looking for social media shares, phone calls, or purchases? Are you inventing a need or telling customers about an existing one?
  7. An assessment of your competition and how they’re marketing themselves.
  8. A call to action for the video to close on.

3) Delivering Constructive Criticism

No marketing effort is a one-step process. Video production needs to be tweaked into something that truly sings, so don’t expect your creative partner to get the clip perfect the second they submit the first version. Once you’ve seen your first ‘draft’, make notes about what that you’re unhappy with and how it can be improved on. If you request a change, explain why you don’t like the current version. Continue Reading Here…

Good stuff in that article! Well worth the read and will also help you get your videos done!

A few things that we would add to the previous article are front and rear bumpers. The front bumper is a small segment where you have your logo or brand play in a quick 5 to 8 second clip. We also always like to start our videos on the customers pain point or what they are searching for.

Example of the above –  “Have you had your house on the market for months and still no buyers? Are you looking for a Realtor that will actually get your house sold in a timely fashion? Then you need to watch this video!” – then bumper.

The closing bumper is just that, and we always put that at the very end. It’s your call to action, getting the viewer to do what you want them to do, visit your website, call etc.

Targeting The Right Audience

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Another important thing to really take into consideration is the niche that you are making the video for. The video needs to be more niche specific. This will not only help in targeting the correct viewers, but will also help in your SEO efforts for the video as well.

Stjepan Alaupovic recently covered this in a recent article on the site OnlineVideo:

How to Target Your Audience By Creating Niche Video Content

One of the most common mistakes in an online video strategy is messaging that is too broad. These days, smart audiences are on the hunt for more narrow niche video content.

They’re spending a lot of time watching online videos and are hungry for more content in every part of the conversion process. Here are three ways to target specific audiences with niche content.

Identify the Primary Audience

Before starting any video campaign, establish the primary audience for your content. It’s easy to fall into the habit of saying “let’s make a one-size fits all video for everyone.” The truth is that this strategy is not going to get you the results you’re after.

Take the time and identify if your audience is, for example, existing customers, potential new customers, investors, an internal audience, the general public, B2B, B2C, future employees, or someone who is completely unfamiliar with your company. Pick one audience and keep it in mind for every part of the process, including pre-production, production, post, distribution, and marketing.

Every step along the way will play a big role in how your messaging is received by the viewers—the creative direction, script, talent, and overall tone of your video. Always keep in mind the age and demographic of your audience and how it prefers to receive information.
One of the next important steps when crafting your niche video is determining the most effective call-to-action. What do you want this viewer to do? Do you want them to make a purchase, get more information, sign up for something, subscribe, share the video?

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One huge tip for reaching external consumers: Think about the storyline of your content. Most online viewers are already bombarded with advertisements, so try to demonstrate how your product or company can offer a solution to this audience’s problems. Focus on the pain points and create visual stories around them rather than creating flat-out commercials.

The call-to-action is going to be different for each audience, and some of this may depend on the abilities of your distribution platform (as discussed in the next section).

Identify and Master the Platform

You shouldn’t necessarily publish the same video to multiple platforms because it’s not effective when you’re trying to target viewers. In most cases, a company website is a different experience than social video platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, and Instagram. Continue Reading….

A good article, but there is one place where we do differ from above. We publish all of our videos on YouTube, then syndicate to other platforms like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.

The reason for this is that inside YouTube we are able to create calls to actions with clickable links inside the video. This makes it great so that no matter where the viewer sees the video they are easily able to click links and visit our websites.

There is only on problem with the clickable links though, they don’t work on all mobile devices. Mostly Apple, so the viewer will have to scroll down to the description to take the action that we want.

MUSIC

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We also LOVE adding in music. It is so boring to watch a video with just someone talking. Bottom line is music rocks! Jason Cliffen from Vidyard recently added a post where they also speak about how to add music to your videos:

Music and Video: 7 Things You’re Forgetting in Your Creative Brief

If you’re working in a creative field, it’s very likely that you already know what a creative brief is. Maybe you’re reading them…or maybe you’re writing them! In any case, the importance of a well-written and inspiring brief is paramount to communicating yours or the client’s wishes, goals, and path for a project.

The art of writing an excellent creative brief is a skill that takes some time to learn. I highly recommend the documentary ‘Briefly’ as an intro to what makes a great creative brief.

As a music supplier, we see creative briefs nearly everyday. We’ve seen the gamut of them, some very specific and others quite vague. Some good, others, not so good.

I would like to share with you what we consider is a well-written creative brief as it relates to music for your video project, because the process for finding captivating music is changing!

Consider the following when writing a creative music brief:

1. Know the role of music

Be prepared to explain the role of the music as it pertains to your project. Foreground or background? For example, if your video is educational, subtle background music can help set the mood but also ensure the viewer’s utmost attention is towards the technical information being presented.

Describe the character and mood of the music you want to hear. Common terms used are:

  • Dark
  • Light
  • Fun
  • Upbeat
  • Happy
  • Positive
  • Badass
  • Gritty
  • Playful
  • Uplifting
  • Empowering

2. What is the project about?

This is hugely important! We would even say it’s the most important part. Give as much information as possible as to what the message of the video is conveying. What will the audience be taking away?

If possible, send a rough cut of your video. Nothing beats seeing and hearing music selections within the actual video. We understand that sometimes this isn’t possible, as the video is being cut during the music searching process. In this case, a detailed synopsis of the video will aid in kicking off the music search!

3. Details about the project

This is the easiest part of a brief, albeit not very creative. Include all the information the music supervisor will need to know to understand the scope of the project. This will include things like:

Client: Who is this for?
Media: What medium will this be seen on?
Term: How long will it be aired for?
Territory: Where in the world will the video be airing?
Airdate: When will it air?

Continue Reading The Article Here…

Adding to the above article – if you are on a tight budget, or just a small business you can download music for your videos straight from YouTube without having to worry about Copyright issues.

Sign into your YouTube account and then do a Google search for YouTube Audio Library (if you aren’t logged into an account you won’t be able to download). From there you can search all types of categories from classic to rock as well as mood and much more. One important note, when you click on a song make sure to pay attention to the comments. Some of the music does require you to place a link to the author or artist of the song in the video description. Otherwise YouTube can place ads on your video.

Okay, so that was a long article, but worth every bit of the information offered. Remember, if you don’t want to take the time to create videos yourself that attract customers and clients, contact us to handle all of your YouTube Video marketing needs!

 

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