Like many integrated marketing practitioners, you probably know that putting video on your website is a good idea. After all, video is viewed more than other web content, and rewarded accordingly by Google’s Hummingbird and other major search engines.
Still, knowing you need video doesn’t mean any video will do. We’ve all seen the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly online. And being the good Clint Eastwood in this scenario always starts with good strategy.
Strategy Smooths the Production Trail
According to video guru Michael Mogill, strategy is the #1 factor that ensures video success. So before you touch a script, hire actors, commission crew, or roll camera, make sure you can answer these four questions clearly:
- Who Will Be Watching Your Video and Why? In integrated marketing parlance this is called audience analysis. Remember, the main reason people visit business websites is to solve a problem or get information. Anticipate your audience’s needs and succinctly address them. Cut to the chase, as they say in Tinseltown.
- Why Are You Making a Video? What’s it supposed to do? Do you want visitors to request more info? Sign up for a newsletter? Attend a seminar? Make their next step clear and easy to take. You’ll be amazed how much smoother scriptwriting goes, since it’s easier to create the plot when you know the ending.
- What’s The Main Point you’re trying to impress? That’s your video’s theme. Get that theme statement down to 12 words or less and it will reveal your story’s structure, which producer/director Haden Black recommends outlining before scriptwriting ensues.
- How Can You Tell Your Story Visually? As video marketing expert Ryan Spangler emphasizes, video is a visual medium. It’s about showing, not telling. That’s why “talking head” videos, such as speeches or lectures, perform poorly. Think in terms of intrinsically visual content, such as demonstrations, people in action, or processes that transpire over time. Visual footage tells your story without sound, every video-maker’s ideal.
- Bring Your Strategy Into Focus From Hitchcock to Spielberg, visual storytelling masters agree. When you write out your production strategy, you’re halfway to success. If you produce the video yourself, you’ll have foreseen the production path clearly. If you hire production professionals, you’ll have saved major time and money by having preconceived their map.
