3 Easy Steps for Planning Effective Brand Video Content.
Adding video to your marketing and communication toolbox doesn’t have to be complicated and time consuming. In fact, simplifying and shortening might be exactly what’s needed to make an impact.
Are your struggling to put together a plan of action with video?
Are you hesitant to dive in because you’re worried video will take up too much of your time and resource?
Producing video content for your brand doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task.
As a marketer, you’re already using messages to get your customer’s attention. The following steps will help you convert those messages into an effective plan for video.
You can use this process with your own in-house videos or bring them to the table when hiring a professional video production company.
Establish a clear purpose
You’re first going to set a clear vision for what you want your organization to gain with video. Then you’ll invest in ensuring it brings value to your customers or audience. Finally, you’ll choose the most effective channels to meeting those first two initiatives.
Define your business and marketing goals
I know this might be obvious, but you need to have a clear goal in mind before you dive into producing video content for your brand. The best place to start is with your business goals.
Having your business goals defined will help your team begin to see where video can help.
Your list of goals might look something like this:
Sell more of a specific product or service
Recruit quality employees
Increase brand recognition
Increase brand favourability
Reduce time-wasting inquiries
The list doesn’t need to be exhaustive, but it should cover what’s most important to your organization. The main thing is that you and your team are clear on the objectives.
Write down a key message to fulfill each goal
We’ve been creating promotional videos for over 10 years now. If there’s one thing we’ve seen cause a video to lose steam, it’s trying to communicate too many messages at once.
Not only is it difficult to clearly communicate multiple key messages in one video, it also denies you the benefit of video content spread throughout your website and across your social media channels.
What do I mean by multiple “key messages”?
I mean trying to create a brand awareness video that’s also a recruitment video and also a product features video.
It’s a bit like serving salad, soup, the main course, and desert all in one bowl at the same time to your guests.
It might not make a big difference in terms of serving the purpose of nourishing your guest, but it’s going to be an awkward and confusing experience.
Your list of key messages might look like this:
Business Goal: Sell more of a specific product or service
Key Message: 5 awesome features that make our widget stand out from the competition
Business Goal: Recruit quality employees.
Key Message: We treat our employees like familyBusiness Goal: Increase brand favourability
Key Message: We’ve got a sense of humour
Producing multiple videos does not mean you’ll need to quadruple your video budget. It’s often just as feasible to make 4 individuals videos, each with separate messages as it is to make one long video.
By splitting the messages into different videos, you can keep the benefit of hitting your key messages without confusing or overloading your audience.
Speaking of your audience…
Make it valuable to your audience
I believe it was the famed copywriter, Ray Edwards who said in one of his podcast episodes:
“Everyone is tuned into WIIFM- ‘What’s In It For Me?’”
All of us are going about our days as the main character in our own story. We aren’t looking for businesses to buy from. We’re looking to reach goals, and we’re looking for businesses and organizations who can help us reach our goals.
This means your audience isn’t interested in what your organization is selling, they’re interested in how your organization relates to their aspirations, goals, and challenges.
It’s pretty easy to see what’s in it for our own organization to produce video content. It’s not until we spend time deciding how our video content is going to be valuable to our audience that we’ll be on the right track.
If we fail this step, we won’t have an audience.
By considering what your viewer wants from you, and then giving it to them, you’re showing that you have their interests in mind and are paying attention to their needs.
We’re big believers in design thinking here at Portage Creative. If you’re not dead-sure on how you can bring value to your customers, check out this summary of design thinking to get the wheels turning.
2. Pick Appropriate Channels
(and plan to repurpose your video content)Once you’ve defined the purpose of each of your videos, it’s important to decide which of your available media channels will be most effective in fulfilling each purpose. There are the obvious distribution channels, like YouTube and Facebook, along with the advertising opportunities they provide. But there are dozens of channels, online and offline that can be leveraged to help you meet your goals.
Consider a channel as a distribution opportunity. This means more than an online platform to upload video content. It’s any space in which you can leverage your video to help you meet your goals for it.
Taking time to determine your channels of distribution is just as important as setting the goal for your video. Having a goal without a distribution plan - a way to get your audience to see your video - means your video will likely sit where you upload it without much impact.
Thinking about the purpose you’re trying to reach while simultaneously considering your available channels is a great start to getting the most value from your video investment.
Take some time to consider channels that aren't as obvious. Again, consider the goal of your video and match your goal with the channels that will best help you reach that goal. A Facebook Ad Campaign for a recruitment video won’t look the same as a campaign aimed at gaining new customers.
In-store video loops at your bricks and mortar locations can be a great way to connect with your audience when they first come in the door.
Using a tablet for in person sales opportunities, when you want to easily show a person an overview of a previous project.
Live event video loops for trade shows, Galas etc.
E-blasts to an existing mailing list
Our friends over at AvocoBar (link to their page on our site) are doing a fantastic job at leveraging the video content we’ve provided them with.
Determining the channels that are best suited to meet your goals will lead to adjustments in how you approach your video production.
As we mentioned in the last section,
For a 30 second YouTube Ad, you might plan to take the best testimonial and highlight that part of the story. For a 15 second instagram video, you might only pick the best one-liner from a testimonial, and show beautiful footage of your customer enjoying your product or service. You’re adapting multiple versions of the same content in order to match with the format of the channels, and ultimately growing your reach across networks using essentially the same content.
3. Plan Long-Term
creating additional videos doesn’t have to mean scheduling multiple shoot days. In a lot of cases it takes only a couple of hours in additional shooting, and the rest of the cost is in editing - which is more affordable than on-location filming. Understanding this at the very beginning of your video planning is fundamental to getting the most out of your investment.
Imagine, for your marketing goals, you want to give your potential customers an in-depth look at your company process and how it’s built to serve their needs. You plan to use three customer testimonials, also showing each customer enjoying the product or service you provide.
A video like this could easily take 2 or 3 minutes to effectively communicate the key messages. For the landing page of your organization’s website, the full video will probably work great. Visitors to your website are likely there to learn about you and how you can solve their problem or make their life better. They’re prepared to watch a 3 minute video (especially because you’re showing them what’s in it for them).
A video like this might be effective on a few other channels, but for a lot of applications it’s just too long.
The beautiful thing about video content is that once it’s been captured, it’s often very simple to create multiple versions of the same content without adding the expense of additional filming. When it comes to leveraging distribution, this is key.