How To Shoot A Marketing Video 101

Video marketing is one of the best ways any small business can impact a potential client. Our digital world is becoming increasingly video-centered, and brands that don’t use video marketing to convey information are likely to be drowned out by those who do.

There are so many potential use cases for business videos, whether on social media, a webpage, email marketing, or paid advertising. Many brands understand the need for business videos.

However, few small businesses can use videos in their marketing strategy. Shooting a video can take a lot of time, effort, and technical know-how, and many small brands just can’t put the resources into developing videos.

Luckily, the experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design put together this handy guide on how to shoot a business video for marketing purposes!

Step 1:  Know Your Goal

If you’ve decided to use video marketing in your strategy, you’re likely excited and fired up to start shooting. We understand the enthusiasm, but take a deep breath and remember to tie the video back to your strategy. Each video you develop for your marketing should be tied to a specific goal. The way your brand will research, plan, and shoot a social media video about a new product will be quite different from a YouTube video series about cutting-edge issues in your industry.

The basics of video marketing won’t change from one video to another, but the length, props, storyboarding, and tone from video to video could be vastly different. We are so excited to help you plan your video, but we recommend slowing down and taking the time to consider your goal. Once the goal and video alignment are done, the rest can fall into place nicely.

Step 2: Know Your Format

It’s exceedingly easy to think of your video without considering where it will be displayed. That can be a problem. A two-minute video might make a lot of sense for your website. It won’t make sense for email marketing or social media. You’ll likely want to trim that 30 seconds or under for those mediums.

Now, you can take the same introductory video and trim it down into two versions, one for the website and one for social media, but it is worth pointing out that it’s not just as simple as “making a video.” Keep the tactics in mind for the best results.

Step 3: Know Your Audience

Always keep the intended audience in mind for the best results. Anything you know about your ideal customer profile should be analyzed for relevancy for this video. What are their pain points? What problem are they trying to solve? Why should they care about your business? What separates you from your competition? You don’t need to include these data points, but they could be helpful.

Step 4: Storyboard

Now that you’ve researched and planned, it’s time to sketch a storyboard before shooting. The purpose of the storyboard is to carefully plan out every piece of your video. Occasionally, a “point and shoot” approach might work, but generally speaking, you’ll want to lay out every scene in your storyboard.

This helps all parties involved prep their scenes, consider what additional accouterments are needed, and prepare for the video. Remember, a storyboard shouldn’t be the video itself but rather a comprehensive brief that gives everyone the high-level flow of the scene. Generally, we recommend:

• Making all instructions regarding the scene incredibly clear and easy to read
• Forcing yourself to make sure every scene in your storyboard is necessary
• Keeping video angles as simple and direct as possible
• Keeping any additional info that could be helpful in a storyboard (lighting, additional props needs, etc.

Storyboarding is a rich and intricate process. We recommend doing additional research into the subject to prepare yourself to create your first storyboard.

Step 5: Shoot

All the hard work is prepped, and you’re ready to get to the fun part: the shot itself. If you’ve done it right, you shouldn’t be making many changes in this scene. Your planning and storyboard should have gotten you precisely what you need, and everyone should know exactly what they need to do!

We always recommend keeping the shooting as brief as possible for a first-time business video shoot. Generally, viewer attention spans for business videos are relatively short. There will be some variation depending on your needs and goals, but often, 2-3 minutes is the maximum we’d recommend for a business video. This can help keep the shoot nice and short and reduce stress for all parties involved.

Step 6: Edit

If shooting is fun, editing is possibly the most crucial part. Well-shot and planned videos can fail if the video is skipped or done poorly. Inversely, a good video can become great with top-tier editing. Pay close attention to audio quality, light quality, and length.

Nothing is worse than a video with poor light and sound quality. Releasing any business video with subpar quality is also an easy way to lose your clients’ trust. For this reason, we recommend putting more time into editing than the shot itself.

Shoot Your Video With JSL

Are you looking to shoot a marketing video and need expertise to guide you through the process? JSL Marketing & Web Design is ready to help! Our talented videographers are waiting to assist you with the following:

• Video Ideation
• Storyboarding
• Shooting & Editing
• Video Promotion
• & More!