Producing great video content is one of the best ways to promote your ventures or to showcase your talent. When done well, video is a very effective marketing tool. From designers, to musicians, to makeup artists, promotional videos are all the rage now because they help in communicating the personality of the brand. Unlike stills and screenshots, videos bring a portfolio to life, and they are also good in explaining a process. At the same time, it is also important to remember promotional videos are a double-edged sword; a good one will do miracles for a brand, but a drab video can often do lots of harm. Read on to know how to make great promotional videos and avoid the common mistakes beginners often make.
Plan well
Even in video marketing, failing to plan is actually planning to fail. Does your promo video have a clear, strategic purpose? Does it brand you? What is the reason of you producing it? Make sure that you can comfortably answer the above questions, otherwise take a step back. Like all effective marketing campaigns, the solution is to make sure you have a concrete plan and a precise business objective that will be served by the video, then go for it.
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Get a decent camera
If you want to achieve results, put away your smartphone. Your DSLR would probably make the cut, but the aim is to make your life as simple as possible by getting rid of little annoyances. Good video cameras are ridiculously cheap, so you won’t have to break the bank. For a start, buy one with a view finder, a remote, a mic in, unlimited recording and at least 1080 HD recording quality.
Don’t ignore the audio
Even a great video camera won’t guarantee you quality audio. All video cameras suffer from ambient noise, but there is a very easy fix: a little lapel microphone. Viewers will give up pretty fast if they struggle to listen. Alternatively, you could record the audio separately and do the matching from the computer. Except that after a while you will get tired of all that, so just get a camera that has an audio in.
Make it short and sweet
Viewers on the internet have very short attention spans when it comes to various types of media. A long promotional video is one of the greatest mistakes beginners make, so aim for 30-90 seconds, 60 seconds being the sweet spot. How is it possible to convey all you want in just a minute or less? Simple, cut the introduction and dive straight in. Another important point to note is that most viewers don’t watch to the end, so your logo and brand info should be at the start of the video.
Be patient
Once you have done everything well, sit back and relax. Expecting instant results will only give you lots of frustrations which are unnecessary. Marketing campaigns need time to build momentum and produce returns, and video is no exception. Even if you don’t have a large following on social media, keep producing great videos and the results will come. Overnight video marketing successes are a rarity; it is a consistent effort with a strategy. As viewers watch, share and post views and comments, then you will start to see the results. Just continue producing great videos.