Video content isn’t the big scary monster a lot of digital marketers, inter experts and communicators of all kinds have convinced themselves it is.

Producing it is a lot like any other kind of content, just with its own peculiarities.

This post will guide you through the corporate video production process step by step, with tips for every stage, so you can stop feeling scared and start feeling empowered and enthused.

 

1. Solidify your Objectives

First things first. Everything begins with your ultimate goal for your video content.

Just like any other type of content, you can’t reach your aim without first deciding on what it is.

Whether you want to use video to raise awareness of your brand or encourage your staff to adopt a new internal process, you need to decide on SMART video objectives.

That means making sure your objectives are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

 

2. Research Your Audience

The success of any video project rests on your understanding of your target audience.

Unless you have a firm understanding of who your audience are, what they like and how they think, you’re going to have a hard time creating video content that appeals to and engages them.

3. Decide on Your Core Message

Now that you’ve done solid research on your target audience, let’s return to your objectives.

Keep your end goal in mind: what action do your audience need to take to make it happen?

Essentially:

• What do you want your audience to do after watching your video?
• What do you want them to think?
• How do you want them to feel?

This is probably simpler than you think. For example, if your objective for your video content is to increase sign-ups to a free trial, you’ll want your audience to… sign up to that free trial after watching. You might want them to feel excited, and to think that your service will help them to organise their busy schedule.

Once you’ve got your answer, you need to turn it into one thing your audience need to know to encourage them to think, feel and act that way.

 

Sometimes you’ll need multiple messages in your video, but try to keep them to no more than a few. The more messages your video content contains, the greater the risk of confusing your audience.

4. Build a Video Strategy

The next step is to create a solid strategy for your video content.

This involves planning a number of things, including:

• How you will create your video content — in house or externally.
• How you will target your audience and distribute your video so it reaches them.
• How you will reuse and repurpose your video for improved ROI.
• How you will achieve all of this within your budget and deadline.

Basically, a good strategy is vital to the success of your video.

That’s a lot of pressure, but don’t feel overwhelmed. Building a strategy for video is very similar to building a strategy for any other kind of campaign.

 

5. Write a Video Production Brief

Finally, a video production brief needs to be created before pre-production can commence. This document will serve as a guide during the whole production process to ensure nothing goes off-track. For more information on the same, you can check out Diamond view

The brief should include all the research and information you’ve collected so far:

• Your video objective(s).
• Your target audience and any insights you have into them.
• What you want your audience to feel, think and do.
• The core message(s) behind your video.
• Your budget and deadline.

I hope you found this an interesting read and if you did then do let me know in the comments below