Reposted from Jimm Fox, President, One Market Media
Over the last few years the use and application of corporate video has undergone significant change. We’re moving inexorably from the text web to the ‘next web.’ Whatever this evolution may bring, one thing is certain – video and interactive media will play a growing role in how all company’s position and promote themselves.
We’ve put together a chart to highlight some of the key changes that have taken place in corporate video production:
| Traditional approach | What works today | What’s changed? | |
| Focus of corporate video | Your business or product | Solving your customer’s problems | The focus of video used to be just about promoting your ‘brand ‘- that usually meant a lot of talk about yourself. |
| Budget | Large | Small – Medium | Production costs have dropped and corporations are being far more tactical with their use of video today. |
| Access to videos | Tightly controlled by the sales team or marketing | Created with the express purpose of being shared… everywhere. | Social marketing isn’t a trend. People trust friends and colleagues considerably more than they trust corporations. |
| Primary delivery method | – Tradeshows – Meetings – Sales Calls | Web, as well as other traditional methods | Soon, everything will be ‘online’ – broadcast media, corporate communications, presentations, etc. |
| Typical message delivery | Actor, presenter or professional voice-over | Real people saying real things | Your customer is more skeptical than ever. Actors still have a place in video, but nothing can replace the value of a real employee representing your company in your corporate video. |
| Desired perception of a corporate video | Authoritative | Informative | ’Pizzazz’ isn’t what it used to be. Sounding helpful is better than sounding important. ‘Important’ is about you. ‘Helpful’ is really about the customer. |
| Frequency of production | 1 or 2 videos a year | 10’s or even 100’s of videos | It used to be that marketing would set aside $50,000 for one video. Today it might make more sense to set aside $50,000 for ten or more videos. |
| Scope of video production | Broad – a single video covered as much ground as possible | Narrow – video focuses on a specific audience with a targeted message | There will always be a place for large scale video productions but the vast majority of videos will be targeted videos delivering a single message to a single audience. |
| Where videos are found on a corporate website | In your ‘video’ section | Wherever customers need to view video on your site | No one comes to your site looking for a video (unless you are YouTube). They come to your site looking to solve a business problem. |
| Where videos should be found | On your website | Wherever your client happens to be: YouTube, a business portal, on their mobile phone, searching, etc.) | Your website isn’t the ‘destination’ you think it is. Creating content that can be viewed wherever your customer happens to be makes a lot of sense. |
| Uses of Video | – TV Commercials – Sales Presentations – Homepage of your website. | – Customer Testimonials – Video Case studies – Product ‘explainer’ videos – Product FAQ – Event promotion – Recruiting – Viral Video – Content marketing – Infomercials – Interactive video – Branded entertainment – Video press releases – Community relations videos – etc. – click here to discover 51 ways to use video to promote your business | The number of uses of video continues to grow every day. |
This is the first part in a two-part post. The next post will look at managing your next Corporate Video Project
Reposted by permission. Jimm Fox is President of One Market Media – a video marketing company in Canada ( Ottawa Video Production – One Market Media).