A good deal of marketing communications professionals want to incorporate video into their strategy, but worry that it will be a huge undertaking. They may be concerned that it will be super expensive or that the process will monopolize their team's time and resources. It's possible that they've even had an experience where these horrors proved true. Perhaps you are one of these people?
Video content creation is actually fairly simple. You just have to get on it, like comedian Sarah Silverman, who has this to say about how easy it is.
I love making videos on my couch. You can put those on the Internet fast.
Just kidding, we don't endorse making videos on your couch. In all seriousness though, video content creation is easy. We've laid out 5 simple steps that, when followed, remove all of the stress factors typically associated with creating videos. Check them out and see if you can't get on board!
Finding the right partner to serve as your dedicated video resource is the first and arguably most important step toward simplifying the video creation process, because a good video agency will provide you the following benefits:
Having a solid partner will allow you to get things done efficiently, spur new ideas for your content, and most importantly, save you time. During the video creation process, there will always be things to re-think, hurdles to jump over, and fires to put out; and having an experienced agency on your side who acts as an in-house resource will ensure that your time and energy are devoted only to communicating your message.
Often times, marketers contact us wanting to get started with video, but have yet to determine a budget and aren't clear on why they want to incorporate video into their strategy. This is alright to a certain degree, as a good video partner will help you structure and define these things, however, it's important that you've done some work prior to starting.
In what ways do we see video benefiting our marketing communications objectives? How much of our yearly budget are we willing to dedicate to video? What would a successful year-end look like in terms of finished video products? What relative level of importance does video hold in relation to our other marketing assets? Having answers (even loosely formed) to questions like these, prior to engaging a partner, will ensure that the path you start down is the most efficient one.
See this article for a good overview on why it's important to plan for your video content.
We've said it before, we'll say it again - 'Too many cooks in the kitchen' is a real thing.
In an article titled Why Teams Don't Work (yes, the title is a little alarmist) by The Harvard Business Review, Diane Coutu discusses her conversations with J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard. The discussions surround why our culture has come to rely so heavily on teams and how this might be negatively affecting companies' performance. Hackman has this to say in regard to team leaders:
...if the leader isn’t disciplined about managing who is on the team and how it is set up, the odds are slim that a team will do a good job.
It's not that collaboration is a bad thing, it's just that the collaboration needs to be purposeful - You're the leader of the team for a reason. Your team should flex in and out as the process moves forward and reflect the goals of the particular step you're on. For example, it might not make sense to include your CEO in decisions as arcane as which font family to use for motion graphics.
At each step of the process, evaluate who the essential decision makers should be. This will go a long way in assuring that the process doesn't become muddied with unnecessary opinions.
In the same vein as the former point, you should make sure that you're not inadvertently stifling the progress of your video campaigns by micromanaging every instance of decision or execution.
In the initial stages of every campaign, it will be determined, through collaboration between your team and your video partner, who will handle what. At this point, you will make the appropriate delegations (i.e. the video team will handle the scheduling of all executives to be interviewed). Once you've collaborated and made the appropriate delegations, just sit back and relax. As we discussed earlier, your video partner will hold knowledge and experience in these areas, and they will possess unique problem solving abilities - Rely on this and trust the process.
One of the most overlooked roadblocks to marketing communications teams effectively and efficiently generating video content is the tendency for those teams to confuse evaluating details for evaluating the message. Does this video product deliver its intended message? That's the main (and sometimes only) thing to consider when evaluating your videos, both during creation and post completion.
Your Founder is probably pretty proud of a particular part of his warehouse. But is it detrimental to the message if a shot of it doesn't make the final cut of the video? Probably not. We understand that Sarah might not actually work in procurement. But is her standing in for a b-roll shot to be used during the procurement breakout going to confuse anyone in your intended audience? Probably not. Actually...definitely not.
Hopefully now you understand some of the things that stand in the way of efficient video content creation, and how to avoid them in your own endeavors. You can do it! We believe in you.
In your experience, what other things inhibit video content creation? How can a video partner do more to ensure that everything runs smoothly? Let us know so we can get better!
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