Your company wants to produce marketing content. You grab the CEO, shoot all sorts of video, and you produce a terrific company profile.

Great… but don’t stop there. Many business leaders recognize the importance of having a company video, but they fail to follow-up on it. Video is a great way to engage with your customers and in many ways help them.

Courtesy: Nikon

Nikon is a photo powerhouse and does a great job of serving customers with interesting videos. Watch the following example I found through the company’s Facebook page. It’s a fun tutorial on how to shoot great photos of kids.

VIDEO– Nikon: Taking Natural Looking Photos of Your Kids

There’s no mistake it’s a Nikon video, featuring one of its products, but the focus of the video is on the audience. How can we as Nikon help our customers? We’ll show them how to better use our products.

By taking the focus off yourself and putting it on your customers’ needs, you actually benefit the company in the long run. Building loyal customers who appreciate hearing from you.

–Tony Gnau

Worlds collide. It can happen sometimes when a business sets out to create a marketing video. The corporate need for control versus the artist’s need for creativity.

One of the main reasons there can be a conflict is because many corporate leaders don’t even realize that producing a video is an artistic pursuit. In their eyes, it’s just another sales tool. However, look through the eyes of a videographer, editor, or producer and you’ll see art.

Ultimately, the video producer needs to understand the client should get what they want. They are paying for this after all.

On the other hand, business leaders need to understand what they’re buying. It’s not just a video. They’re also getting the creative expertise the production team is bringing to the project. At least, they better be.

The best videos come about when both sides set aside their egos and listen to the other.

–Tony Gnau

Courtesy: Virgin America

Any company putting on a big event these days that doesn’t incorporate video is missing a great opportunity, and Virgin America provides a nice example.

I’m not talking about featuring video at the event, although that can be done as well. What I’m referring to here is having a production crew shoot video during the event and creating a video that can be shared after it’s over.

By doing so, the event lives on even after the party’s finished. Send email links to participants. Share it with anyone who couldn’t attend, and by all means pump it out via social media.

I saw a good example over the weekend. Virgin America has moved into the Chicago market. Instead of making a one day splash, they created a video that I saw on Facebook.

Now I’m in on the party and celebration… thanks to their video.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO– Virgin America

Many business leaders are all about the numbers. Let’s face it, they have to be. Numbers are the backbone of just about any company, but they need to take a backseat when producing a marketing video.

Here… the story comes first. The story is what’s going to hook the audience. A good story will keep them interested, and that means they’ll be more receptive to the video’s message.

Numbers are fine. In some cases, they do a good job of backing up the story. Think of them as supporting characters, but they don’t play the lead role.

The star of the show is your story. That’s what will help the audience connect with your business.

–Tony Gnau

When a company produces a video, it’s easy to lose focus and bog down it down with unnecessary information. In short, many company leaders produce videos that make them feel good, but completely lose the intended audience.

That’s why you need to constantly ask questions like… how does this content impact the audience? Why should they care?

If you can’t answer the questions… guess what… you could be producing a great video for yourself that nobody else will care about.

–Tony Gnau

A surprise is one of the best things you can incorporate into a story, and that certainly goes for your marketing videos as well.

Is there something unique about your product, service, or company? If so, please resist the urge to just come right out and say it. Turning it into a surprise can have a much bigger impact.

A talented storyteller will lead viewers down a path, get them thinking they know where the story is going, then zing them with the surprise.

There’s a great example of this in a new Disney movie trailer, and it had me grinning from ear-to-ear. Watch it and enjoy… even knowing you’re about to get a surprise, you won’t see it coming.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Green with Envy-movie trialer

No doubt customers appreciate well-produced marketing videos. Your corporate stories can give them a better understanding about what you do and how well you do it, but there’s also another benefit. The videos can help crystallize your marketing message with your own people.

If you gave your employees a pop quiz asking them what the company is all about, what do you think their answer would be? I should probably ask, what do you think their “answers” would be?

Many of them probably have different takes on the company. Producing corporate videos allows you to share them with everyone… clients as well as employees.

Let’s face it, each and every employee becomes a sales person anytime someone asks them what they do for a living. Providing them with your corporate stories arms them with the right marketing message.

–Tony Gnau

Don’t get lost in your video’s details. Too much precious editing time can be spent working out a tiny detail that viewers will never notice, and it costs you money.

Certainly, errors need to be corrected, but try not to focus on “correcting” cosmetic things like a single shot that lasts one second.  Some edits to make a “correction” like that can take hours of work depending on how complicated the task, and guess what… you’re paying for that time.

Remember, you’re breaking down this video second-by-second, frame-by-frame. That’s not how the average person watches your video. They watch it once, maybe a couple of times, but they’re not dissecting it.

What you should be hoping for is that the audience leaves your video feeling good about your company. Chances are they’re not even going to notice a one second shot that includes a desk in the background that appears a little messy.

Don’t waste your editing time and production budget “correcting” those shots.

–Tony Gnau

One of the things rookie video clients need to know is that your video is never going to be perfect. Now, that’s not to say it isn’t going to good… or even great. It’s just that perfection isn’t something you can really achieve.

Video isn’t math. It isn’t a business equation. Video is art, and art is subjective. Artists are constantly tinkering, but you don’t want to fall into this trap when producing a marketing video.

I’m speaking from experience here. Ask any award-winning video producer about their favorite project, and chances are they’ll give you a list of things they’d still like to change about them.

These are real pros though because they know those videos will never be perfect. At some point, you just need to send that video out into the world.

Business leaders who set out to create the perfect video will get caught in an endless number of edits costing time and money.

–Tony Gnau

Producing a video is a good way to make a great first impression, but before you start make sure you’re on target with your budget.

I know, it’s a tight budget. Just about everyone has a tight budget these days, so why waste time? If you only have $3,000 to spend, ask the production companies you contact what they can do for that budget.

Why show them your cards? Giving the company a budget to work with from the start will allow them to custom tailor something to your needs. Without of budget, they’ll likely give you a proposal with all sorts of bells and whistles you can’t afford.

You’ll save yourself a lot of time and potential disappointment by telling them the budget upfront.

–Tony Gnau