Video content is the future of marketing, and if you‘re not using it in your strategy, you‘re going to be left behind. Don‘t worry if you don‘t have an in–house video production team – there are skilled companies that offer the services you need.
In this article, we‘ll cover the video production process, as well as the services you should look for when choosing a company to handle your video marketing. With 60% of businesses already using video marketing and seeing returns on their investments, it‘s time to jump on the bandwagon.
The Production Process
Video content is an effective means of conveying a story and eliciting an emotional response, thought–process, or behavioural change amongst an audience. When executed properly, video marketing can significantly increase conversions for any business, regardless of type or sector.
For successful video marketing, there are three essential production services that need to be carried out, either by an in–house team or a video production company:
- Preproduction
- Production
- Post Production
Preproduction
Preproduction is the video production process that encompasses all the creative and planning stages of production. It includes activities such as:
- Evaluating the video‘s objective;
- Target audience,delivery method, and tone;
- Formulating a budget;
- Developing and pitching ideas;
- Writing scripts;
- Storyboarding and outlining;
- Creating shot lists; scouting locations; casting;
- Obtaining permits; preparing and renting equipment;
- Hiring subcontractors (as needed).
Before creating a video, pre–production is the crucial first step – the part that happens behind the scenes. It‘s the key to making sure you get the end result you desire and is made up of two main components: creative and logistics.
The creative side involves crafting your concept, writing a script, and storyboarding to ensure you fully understand your story and what you want viewers to do with it.
On the logistics side, the details of how your ideas will be turned into a polished finished video are taken care of. Without the hard work done in pre–production, you can never get the desired result.
Production
The production stage of video production is the process of capturing the footage. Essential services and personnel required for production include: shooting, lighting, sound recording, scripting, storyboarding, directing, and editing. It is important to understand the roles of each team member involved and ensure that they are all adequately staffed for a successful production.
- The Producer is an integral part of the filmmaking process, coordinating and controlling the budget, talent, and other resources from concept to completion.
- Director of Photography or Main Camera Operator collaborates with the Director to bring the script to life through visuals, leading the Camera and Lighting Departments.
- Assistant Camera Operator is responsible for making sure that the camera focus is set correctly and for reporting any discrepancies between audio and video, using a clapper board as a sync point.
- Field Audio Engineer is responsible for mixing, manipulating, and reproducing sound and effects.
- Gaffer is the head of the Lighting Department and is responsible for the design of the lighting plan.
- Grip builds the set, supporting the camera and lighting equipment.
- Makeup Artists must be knowledgeable in makeup application techniques and Body Makeup Artists are responsible for altering an actor‘s appearance, applying makeup to various areas of the body.
- Drone Operators manage any drone cameras used in the video production and Production Assistants are responsible for facilitating communication between the different departments and managing lockups.
- Specialty equipment such as high–definition cameras, lighting, and audio may also be required to produce amazing video content.
Post Production
After shooting your video, post–production starts. This stage encompasses various video production services like:
- Managing files,
- Editing the video,
- Creating motion graphics or animation,
- Recording voice–overs or doing voice acting,
- Audio mastering,
- Color grading,
- Delivering the final files.
Post–production covers all the processes that occur after filming has finished.
Types of Video Content
With hundreds of video formats and types available, finding the right video production company for your project can be a challenge. To help, let’s look at the eight most common video production services you’ll find:
Event Video Services: Event videos can range from 30 seconds to 3+ hours, and can be either a recap video or multi–camera production. This type of service is popular for lectures, meetings, sports, weddings, performances, and other live events. With a professionally–crafted video, you can capture the essence of your special occasion and share it with your family and friends.
Commercial/Ads Video Services: Commercials usually last between 30 and 90 seconds and can take on a variety of formats, such as scripted, documentary–style, and animated. These services often involve sponsored content, branded content, and pre–rolls.
Promo or Documentary Video Services: Videos range from 1–30 minutes, and use storytelling driven by interviews to create promotional videos, infomercials, and travel videos.
Corporate Video Services: Corporate videos are typically between 1-60 minutes and can include long training videos, brand culture videos, and promotional videos.
Real Estate Video Services: Real estate videos are usually under 5 minutes and use advanced filming techniques such as drones, sliders, and timelapses.
Educational Video Services: Educational videos are used for explainer videos, PSAs, tutorials, and how-to videos, and can range from 30-second videos to longer videos for more complex topics.
Music Video Services: Music video services include lip-syncing for musicians and can also be used for trailers and teaser videos.
Social Media Video Services: Social media videos range from 15-60 seconds, and include text, music, and narration, and do particularly well across various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and most TikTok alternatives.
Video Production SEO
Are you aware that leveraging video can generate up to 157% more traffic from search engines? To increase discoverability, marketing video production services should stay in line with SEO principles. Here are five video production services that will help you optimize your videos for search.
Begin Your Video Marketing Efforts with a Robust Strategy
By using a strong video marketing strategy, you can ensure that your efforts are put to best use and that your videos will help reach the right audience. Make sure you consider your objectives, target audience, platform, budget, and other important factors when creating your video marketing strategy. This will help you craft an effective plan to achieve your goals and maximize the results from your video marketing campaign.
Achieve Your Video Objectives by Setting Goals.
It is important to set clear, achievable goals when it comes to video production and promotion. This will help you measure success, determine areas of improvement and give you direction on what to focus on. Understanding the importance of goal–setting and utilizing good SEO practices can help you get the most out of your video content.
Talk to the Audience You Want to Reach
It‘s important that you identify the desired outcome of your video before you start. Once you know what you are looking to achieve, determine the specific audience that you want to target with it. You should know who your product or service is for, the action you want them to take after viewing the video, and where you can find them. This step will help you to craft an effective video tailored for your target audience. Additionally, it is also important to observe SEO best practices from Yoast SEO.
Every video should be an engaging narrative featuring your target audience as the protagonist, confronting the pain point that your product or service can resolve. Follow along on their journey as they discover and take advantage of your solution for a happier ending. Ensure maximum readability and SEO optimization with Yoast SEO.
Follow Your Timeline Strictly
To ensure the successful completion of your video project, create a detailed timeline that covers each part of the production process. Take into account any potential changes or delays which could influence the timeline, and allow some extra time to keep the project on track.
Remember that nothing happens in a vacuum; audio and visual elements may need revision, and feedback may need to be incorporated into the final product. By planning ahead, you can facilitate a smoother production process and complete your project without unexpected delays.
Remain Within Budget
Producing a great quality video can be costly, especially if you‘re hiring video production services from a professional company. But if you plan ahead and create an effective video marketing strategy, you can come up with the best budget for a high–performing video that will rank higher on search engine results.
Make Your Video Titles SEO–Friendly
Creating and optimizing video titles may be included in marketing video productions services but if not, you’ll want to make sure that your video titles are fully optimized to help with SEO. Titles should include keywords related to your video’s content and grab the attention of viewers.
While clickbait titles had brief popularity, viewers quickly became weary of titles that were designed simply for clicks. As such, your titles should be directly related to your video content and designed to draw attention while delivering once viewers click.
Video Transcripts
Video transcripts are essential for SEO. If your video production services don‘t come with them, you should create and write your own. Don’t rely solely on auto–generated transcripts as they aren‘t that great.
The advantages to having transcripts include making your content more accessible and appealing to a wider audience, plus they help search engine bots and crawlers easily identify the content of your videos and index them.
Keep Optimizing Your Website
Optimizing your website is key to achieving success with video production services. The addition of video to your highest–performing webpages can boost your rankings in search engine results, improve conversions, and offer more visibility.
Engage with your video production services to create targeted, relevant videos for those core webpages to maximize their impact. Combining website optimization with video production services is a great way to increase reach and engage more viewers.
Promote Your Video Content
Optimizing your video SEO strategy with promotion is key to success. When users watch or engage with your video, it serves as a signal to Google and other search engines to raise the ranking of your content.
This leads to a cycle of content being seen, engaging, and being rewarded with higher rankings, further contributing to its visibility to more viewers, and thus more engagement.
Video Production
Video production services can be an incredibly profitable asset that pays for itself in multiple ways. By creating a single video, you can use it in several areas of your marketing efforts, such as on your website, in email campaigns, and even on social platforms.
This helps maximize your return on investment, as you‘ll get more bang for your buck by squeezing every ounce of use out of the video. Furthermore, video is a great way to share your unique story, showcase your brand identity, and keep your visitors engaged.
A top-notch quality video and optimized video strategy can bring new customers and keep your current customers coming back for more.
