Three ways video content can help (or hurt) your business

Video content is everywhere today, and the reason is clear: it's one of the best ways to market your business, get your messaging across, and see a great return on your investment. But with anything as complex as creating great video productions, there are some pitfalls that may not be immediately clear to a business new to the process. Here are three elements of your next video production to keep in mind to ensure the process goes smoothly and that your investment is worthwhile.

1.) Hone your message (and that means just one message per video)

One thing is clear when it comes to marketing today: video is the king of conveying your message in a compelling way, and is essential to growing your business. But how do you make sure your investment in video gets the returns you are looking for? There a few factors to keep in mind that may not immediately be obvious, but that any TV commercial production is plan a multi-project strategy and through that figure out which videos will focus on which fine points. Once you've focused your message for each video, it will become much easier to refine concepts and see your project through to a satisfying conclusion.

2.) Have a strategy in place to leverage your video content (before you create it)

While this may seem obvious, many businesses creating video productions for the first time do not thoroughly explore the ways they can leverage their videos. They may decide long after the fact that they want to try their video in a new way on a new platform, but because it was not planned for in the beginning, they try to shoehorn everything in the edit and the result is not as effective as it could have been. Every video in your marketing strategy should have a clear goal: who is it targeting (very specifically), where is it in the detail chain (overview video-->more specific video-->nitty gritty video), and how can it be used to direct attention towards further content that will end in a conversion. This means thinking outside the box sometimes, whether pre-editing a video to different lengths while it's still on paper, creating storyboards of multiple versions of your video ahead of time that can all be created during the same production, or doing all of that in conjunction with exploring new platforms to deliver your content to potential customers. The more you plan ahead, the more effective your video will be in all of its different forms.

3.)The quality of your video is one of the most important aspects of your branding (sometimes more important than the content itself)

The element of your video marketing that is the most apparent but also the easiest to overlook is the quality level. Many business fall trap to the idea that content is all that matters, and that as long as they are producing something, they are making progress. Sometimes that may be true, but often times skimping on quality can end up being harmful to your business. There are a number of reasons why this is.

Firstly, there are so many videos out there that viewers demand videos be produced with a high level of quality, watch-ability, and contain attention-holding concepts. Otherwise, they won't watch enough of your video to be impacted by it. This means that a level of expert directing, cinematography, editing and creative is required to stand apart from the pack. Where this balance of cost and quality ends up is particular to you, your business and your competition, but it cannot be understated. A good video production company should treat budget as a discussion, not a hard quote, and help guide you to the right solution for your business.

Secondly, the quality of your video IS branding. While the average viewer may not be able to tell you why, they've watched enough movies, TV shows and commercials to recognize "national" quality content, which immediately gives them a sense of your business, equating it to large, stable, trustworthy brands that they are already familiar with. As soon as your video reminds them of a lower end product or brand, it could harm your image before any information is conveyed through the messaging itself; people can usually tell within seconds if a video is well done or not. Make sure you don't focus so much on maximizing ROI by minimizing your investment, because the results will likely be the opposite of what you expect.

Creating great video content to market your business is one of the best investments you can make. By finding the right video production company to partner with, you should be able to find the perfect balance of cost, quality and creative strategy to make sure the returns you see well worth the effort.

Flow Production and Post is one of the premier video production companies in New York City. We create high-end videos and TV commercial content for a wide range of clients across many industries worldwide.