HOW TO DEVELOP A STRATEGY FOR YOUR VIDEO PRODUCTION

ARE YOUR VIDEOS CONVERTING VIEWERS INTO CUSTOMERS?

Your video needs to help convert casual viewers into customers, so how can you ensure this happens? Before you start calling video production companies, there are three things you can do that will greatly increase your chances for success:

STEP 1: DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES

To clearly define your objectives, it’s helpful to ask yourself why you need a video in the first place. It’s a simple question, but one that is commonly overlooked and not clearly addressed. Here’s a more helpful way to frame the question: “what is the business problem we are trying to solve?”

For example, do you need more traffic to your website? Do you need more email addresses from qualified leads? Do you need more brand exposure for a new product? If you’re a coffee shop (or another retail store owner), you’ll probably answer this question by realizing that you need more foot traffic.

While it might seem fairly obvious to you, your primary objective may not be clear to everyone involved in the process. Additionally, a well-defined objective will help you establish a way to measure success down the road and help you establish a reasonable budget for your video production.

STEP 2: UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

After you’ve identified your primary objective, take some time understanding who you will be talking to. While the natural tendency is to answer “anyone who will listen,” you’ll want to more clearly define your audience to ensure success. Here are some good questions to ask:

   •  What are the demographics of my audience?
   •  What are the particular geographic areas to consider?
   •  What is the context in which they will view this video?

Demographics are one of the most traditional ways of segmenting audiences, and while this model for profiling your target market is quickly fading in the digital age, a basic understanding of your audience’s demographic will inform future decisions like media placement. Demographic information will also help creatives like writers, directors, and cinematographers visualize the audience as they write the video script and design storyboards. 

The next question addresses the importance of geographic data. It’s important to note that dependance on this data varies from business model to business model. Some brands live and die by geographic data while others do not even pay attention to it. In the case of our coffee shop example, geography is very important because most coffee shops are almost exclusively locally focused as they target their surrounding neighborhoods. Other businesses like e-commerce websites will most likely not concern themselves as much with geography because their products are shipped to clients anywhere. 

Lastly, video placement has become more and more important as digital advertising continues to exponentially grow. It’s critical to think about where your viewers with see the video before video production begins. We’d argue that “where will this video be used” needs to be asked almost as commonly as “what is our objective”. For example, if your primary placement will be social media, you’ll need to understand that your video will most likely be viewed on a mobile device with no audio and have about 1.5 seconds to make an impression. In this scenario, it’s important for all involved in the creative process to consider what visuals you want to include at the very beginning of your video in order capture attention and drive higher engagement.

STEP 3: CLEARLY DEFINE SUCCESS

A plan of action should always include a metric that enables you to measure whether or not your video helped you accomplish your goals. The primary question to ask yourself is “how will we define success for this video?”

For example, a coffee shop owner might measure success by the cost per click (CPC) on a store locator link in a Facebook ad, or the number of online exclusive BOGOs that were redeemed within a particular time frame.

Measurable marketing objectives not only help justify marketing spend, they also help you understand the value of your video. The last thing you want to do is invest time and money into your video production and not have any results to show for it.

WANT TO GET RESULTS FROM YOUR VIDEO?

When you’re ready to begin producing a video for your brand, let us help you. We’ll walk you through our Script-to-Screen process to ensure that your video gets the best results for your budget.