The world of video production is on a roll! 🔥
With average production costs going 5x of what they used to be in 2017, businesses often hesitate while planning a video. Which is a bit sad!
But is it really needed? Does video production always cost the earth? Do you always need to break the bank for making killer branded videos?
While qualified video production comes at a cost, you don’t always have to shed $$$$ for it.
In fact, with these penny-pinching production tips, you can save a great deal on your branded videos.
Don’t start until you are really ready
Like any other business investment, a brand video also requires planning.
It’s important to note down your ideas. Research for similar ideas. Look around the web if a video has already been made around it. See how that video performed. Identify how your idea is different and better than it. Watch the videos that didn’t perform well. Look for the reasons why that video might not have performed adequately. And come up with a plan.
This will provide you a good direction to drive your video in.
Keep it short
Just as the concept of short videos works wonders for boosting engagement, it consumes way fewer resources saving your brand a decent amount of money.
Also, shorter videos hold great potential on platforms like Twitter where almost 82% of users watch video content. This unlocks a sea of opportunities that you can bag on by creating shorter videos.
So, go for it. Create an outline for your idea. Include important information but don’t reveal it all and at the end, tailor a crisp script.
Also, try to add a hook or a story to it. This will make it more interactive and enable it to speak directly to the viewers.
Use cameras that are readily available
A video for your brand can be shot using a Fujifilm X-H1 or your iPhone or even with a normal phone camera. The question is ‘what do you want to use?’
While a high-end camera will shoot great videos for your brand, it’ll be expensive to buy at the same time. To save yourself from these expenses you can use your smartphone to shoot videos.
Many famous directors like Steven Soderbergh have used smartphones to shoot brilliantly stunning films like Unsane and Tangerine.
Even Zack Snyder, after parting ways with the Justice League project followed by the failure of Superman vs. Batman, went on to create a short film named Snow Steam Iron using an iPhone 7 Plus and Filmic Pro.
That’s a lot like him shooting the 300 in a small green screen room.
And, then we know, when a director like Zack Snyder uses a smartphone to shoot his films or shoots the entire deal in a small room, it’s not for the lack of resources.
This simply backs the fact that shooting your videos on a smartphone doesn’t necessarily indicate the lack of money. However, it can save you a great deal of it, helping you create awesome branded videos in a tight budget.
Create a Hot-shot script
You may hire the best animator on the planet. Buy the most expensive camera. Or even get the highest paid director in the world, but, if your script lacks, your video lacks.
So, before you focus on improvising anything else, improvise your script with the following pointers.
Keep it short: Just as mentioned above, a good video script is short and concise.
Now, this doesn’t mean that your video has to be shorter than 2 minutes. At times you may have to create longer videos. The point is to understand the need for keeping it concise.
Simply remove words, sentences or even paragraphs that are not adding value.
Deliver your message in the first 30 seconds: Another great practice to make your video worth your efforts is to have it deliver your message within the first 30 seconds.
This will increase the chances of your message getting delivered to more viewers.
It’s because not all viewers would watch the whole video. We know how our fish-sized attention spans are, right?
Speak directly to your audience: This is something that will help you interact better.
Use personal pronouns like “you” and “your”. Talk about things that affect them. Things that matter to them. Their problems and then how you can help them get rid of those.
If your prospects believe that you know their pain, you can make them believe that you can ease it for them.
Tell a story: No matter what kind of a branded video you are planning to make, adding a story can always make it more interactive.
One simple way of doing this is picking one of your prospects’ most common problems and introducing it to a character in your video. After this is done, you’ll just have to think of a good storyline which your script (and obviously your video) can revolve around.
This is no breaking news that humans love stories that they can connect to.
You know how a joke becomes way funnier when you are able to relate to it?
Use humor wisely: While keeping your video on the funny side is a good idea, you’d need to make sure it doesn’t fight your purpose.
Basically, don’t go over the top ‘funny’. Be funny in a sweet and subtle way.
And also, don’t misplace or poorly time your humor. That can be distracting and can pull off attention from your potential customers.
Creating a great script may not cost you gold, but it can sure make you some.
Basically, if you do everything right, but neglect the script, your video will cease to gain the attention that it deserves. As a result, you’ll either have to make changes to that video or get another video made or in the worst case give up on video marketing (never do that though).
In all these cases, you’ll be losing money. So, what’s the point? Instead, you should mint more by creating a HOT-SHOT SCRIPT and a really cool video.
Distribute your video content
Many YouTube creators do this to generate funds for their future video projects. The same way, you can do it too.
The following video distribution tips will boost ROI against your brand videos.
(Businesses adequately distributing their content generate 6x more conversions than those that don’t. Hands down, the right implementation can dramatically benefit your brand.)
All your channels are important: Be it twitter or Facebook, all of your social media channels matter a great deal as they can all generate more leads for you.
Just write a good post. Share it on your (and your brand’s) social media handles using the right hashtags. And if you can invest in paid ads to boost those posts targeting the right set of people (as described later in this article), it’ll be no less than icing on the cake.
Also, you can indulge in A/B testing here.
For example, create a set of 10 titles along with 10 different thumbnails and try them all one by one every week and monitor their performance.
This will let you know which titles and thumbnails are performing better for your video. You can use this knowledge to improve your post titles and thumbnails.
Create a blog post: Another great way of promoting your video is to publish it on your or your company’s official blog.
This will benefit you in two ways.
1. Your video will get exposure through the traffic on your blog
2. Embeds on webpages improve search rankings for videos, so it’ll help your video rank better too
Just create a blog post about the video (pick the title and topic wisely. Something that is scalable and potent to perform) and distribute it just like you’d distribute any of your amazing blog posts.
You can also send out emails and push notifications to your subscribers.
Paid ads: Looking for some instant success? PPC is the deal for you.
Whether it is Facebook ads or Google Adwords, both can work wonders for promoting video content. You just need to know your audience. Their likes. Dislikes. Gender. Geographical locations and a number of other things.
Once you have this intel, it’s all about putting it to use by targeting your campaigns to reach the right people.
Doing this will:
1. Expand your video’s reach and viewership
2. Provide you more precise data about your audience and their behavior.
This data can be used to further optimize your ads.
Final words
While the word about money that goes into making videos has polluted the concept, video production isn’t as costly as it appears to be.
In fact, if you do the right thing, the right way, you can earn a spate of sales by using an inexpensively made branded video.
In this post, you read how that can be made possible. Hopefully, this article helped you.
Leave Comment