When we talk to clients about content for a new website or content for social media, we always encourage them to think about videos. I’ve found videos especially effective for clients who want to
a. Explain a difficult concept in an easy way
b. Want to establish their position in the market immediately.
‘64% of consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it’
There are different types of video we have managed and commissioned for our clients including
Animation
White board animation (Castle - https://youtu.be/Y1XoVBg2FPo)
Vyond animation (Castle – https://youtu.be/DyzjvZISa-c)
Standard animation (Reward4waste - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6xNW2iylTk)
Time-lapse: SWJ Steel frame building time-lapse https://swjconsulting.co.uk/
Talking heads: Castle CODA intro video https://youtu.be/xlxW4GfnxNs
Instructional: Castle 40-point minibus checklist https://tinyurl.com/ublcu42
Positioning: SWJ to demonstrate the type of client they work with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NISEoC5j6OA
Promotional: Daybreak, Oxford. The launch of their Christmas Campaign 2018 https://youtu.be/Z6enCS_sW00
Homemade explainers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVpJGYHVzaU
It doesn’t matter what type of video you want to make, you need to follow similar steps and ask yourself some important questions:
1. Who are you making this for – who is your audience?
2. What is the purpose of the video (educate, entertain etc) - this will help you decide on what format it should take?
3. Where will it be used - do you need to chop it up for social, is it going on a website, are you going to list on YouTube?
Once you’ve got the answers to these questions you can start planning your video and begin creating the introduction to your brief for whomever is going to produce it for you.
4. Sketches and storyboards
Storyboards are a great place to start for getting what you envisage in your head down on paper. Don’t worry if you’re not a great artist, this is just about creating an initial concept that includes all the relevant points. You can use a storyboard style of successive boxes to draw within or take photos of ideas. What’s important is you’ve identified a beginning, middle and end.
If it’s a talking head video, then you can start planning out the script.
5. Scripts and annotations
It might be that you’re leaving the illustration to the professionals, so you’ll need to concentrate on a script that gets over everything you need included. This is particularly important if you’re trying to explain something complicated in a simple way. Don’t over think it and keep it as simple as possible. Bullet point are a great place to start, the artist can then provide a storyboard and you can fill in the gaps.
6. Full brief to producers and project coordination
These documents form part of a complete brief for the videographer or illustrator. You’ll need to think about any extras like soundtracks, subtitles or credits.
7. Using your video across different platforms
Your final video should become the perfect showcase to position your website, explain your concept or launch your product. But it pays to think about how else you could use it and commission shorter sections to highlight separate services or products, great for social media posts, online forums, emails and online advertorials. Take a look at our ‘How to use video to get your point across blog’.
We use Filmora9 to edit footage, add subtitles (85% of Facebook users watch videos with the sound off https://tinyurl.com/y4r8doru) and resize appropriately for the platforms.
Videos form part of a comprehensive marketing strategy and should be one of the tactical tools in your plan. For advice on marketing strategy or if you’re ready for video marketing, but you don’t know where to start, give us a call on 01993 224522 and we can arrange a time to get together and plan it with you.
Examples of video marketing by Push Start Marketing
Daybreak Oxford – Christmas 2018 campaign, ‘Pay for a Day’
This video was storyboarded and briefed to a professional, who returned it to Push Start Marketing for subtitling and posting to the website and on social media. It formed the foundation of a fundraising campaign for Christmas 2018 and included footage of people enjoying the clubs, talking heads and animated still shots.
SWJ Consulting Ltd – website content
The full looping video was shot by a professional and returned to Push Start Marketing for segmenting in to service specific edits. From one film we made separate videos on:
· Basements
· Developer led housing
· Time-lapse of large commercial building
· New build homes
· The team
· Listed buildings
Each page on the website had a small video embedded and we could use these shorter excerpts for social media. See the website here: https://swjconsulting.co.uk/
Castle Minibus – Animated explainer videos
In this case there were people needed for on-screen appearances as the whole video is animated. The storyboard was written up and brief delivered to the producer.
It was then returned to Push Start Marketing for embedding into the website and resizing for social media use.
This film was also used to deliver a presentation to a large conference audience.
You can see the video on the client’s website here: https://castleminibus.co.uk/minibus-compliance/
Ready to get started? Give us a call on 01993 224522 so we can help you plan where to go from here. For advice on marketing strategy, please visit our website: https://www.pushstartmarketing.co.uk/marketing-services.
Comments