We all know that an exciting new product needs a video to match its charm. A product or service that you know your client base can benefit from needs the right tools to promote it properly. Who’s it going to reach? Where will they see it? What will they gain from your services?
This is where promotional videos come into play. Differing significantly from traditional advertisements, promotional videos directly target your specific audience. As they search for solutions to their problems, your promotional video needs to stand out from the crowd and cut through the clutter.
And how exactly can you achieve this? Partnering with a video content agency is just the beginning. By following our handy top tips, you can quickly publicise your products and services and increase your brand awareness via video. A promotional video has the power to captivate viewers, keep them wanting more, and convert them into consumers. Listed below are the ways we can help you get the most out of your promotional video content.
The Purpose of Your Promotional Video
The effectiveness of your promotional video is determined by the overall purpose you want your video to embody. Whether you want more social media engagement or more viewers subscribing to your services, the intention of your video has to be clear to avoid complex messaging. The shorter and more definitive your video’s purpose, the better.
It’s particularly important to highlight the difference between promotional videos and more traditional forms of advertising. Whilst advertising focuses on drawing in a wider audience from various backgrounds, promotional videos target a specific client base. Adverts usually elicit emotion from the audience, either through a traditional narrative arc or representing the buyer or user, corresponding to the brand’s identity. The purpose of an advert, therefore, is to promote a feeling rather than a product.
On the other hand, promotional videos publicise a new product or service, demonstrating how it works and, most importantly, how consumers’ lives would benefit from investing. Promotional videos usually end with a Call to Action, such as signing up to a mailing list or a direct link to a product page. Ending a promotional video in this way will keep your viewers wanting more and show them clear directions to the next step.
Your Target Audience
As mentioned above, your target audience has to be as specific as possible. Promotional videos are mainly aimed at an existing client base rather than attracting new customers. Think about who your clients are. Are you informing them about a new product or service? Do you want to direct more social media users to visit your website? What about converting website traffic into sales?
Thinking about specific characteristics of your clients will tell you where they spend their time and what type of video content they will engage with the most. The more information you can gather about your clients’ lifestyles, the more focused your video will be. You’ll be able to specialise and optimise video content specifically for their needs, answering questions they’ll have about your services. Considering your audience’s emotional response to your promotional video will also help nail down those requirements.
Finally, it’s important to establish where your clients will most likely see your video. An older consumer base will most likely use Facebook, whereas younger generations will be more active on Instagram and TikTok. Knowing where to distribute your video will help you reel in those existing clients and keep them hooked with your brand.
Key Messages
The key to a successful promotional video is brevity. Ensuring that your video is short, clear and concise will make your message memorable and engage your audience. With attention spans shortening, those first seconds are crucial in gauging interest.
You might have a lot you want to cover in your promotional video. This short timeframe will help you prioritise certain information and make sure your message is communicated clearly. Step into your audience’s shoes – after all, your promotional video isn’t (ironically) about you. Your video shouldn’t be about what you’re selling but what your clients want to buy. Highlighting this slight difference will help you relate to your audience more effectively, as you’ll create a more personable approach.
A definitive ending to your message will further guide your viewers to more information. If you’re planning on devising a video series, your Call to Action could be linked to other relevant video content, depending on where your audience is on their customer journey. Adding share icons is a highly persuasive way to motivate viewers to pass your message on.
Thinking Up a Concept for Your Promotional Video
Now we come to the actual creative elements of your promotional video production. This is where you’ll need to come up with a video marketing brief. Depending on your message and what you want to promote, there are different aspects to consider. A video introducing a new product, for example, differs significantly from a video explaining more about a product’s details.
Testimonials and talking heads are highly effective ways to introduce your product or service to an existing audience. These interviews can be from both current customers and colleagues, giving your promotional video a human touch. This, therefore, automatically relates to your audience and naturally adds authenticity and personality to your brand. You can be as creative as you like with how you edit and fit your interviews together. Maintaining a logical sequence and clarifying the functionality of your product will help the audience understand as much about your product as possible.
An explainer video, on the other hand, might benefit from animated rather than live-action footage. Animation offers you greater flexibility in the motion graphics you want to present, creating impactful visual content your audience will remember. This type of video content breaks down complex ideas into digestible chunks of information. If you want to demonstrate the inner workings of your product, an animated video can show a more polished and comprehensible version.
Making up your mind about using either live-action or animation isn’t always the easiest hurdle to overcome. It’s also important to address the costs involved for both formats. Check out our guide and see what type of video content is ideal for achieving your marketing goals.
Scripts and Storyboards
This is all about the narrative arc you want your promotional video to encompass. Writing down as much information as possible will let everyone involved know exactly what shots to film and how you would like them to be produced. You want to hook your audience in with a strong opener and persuasive wording, not just enthralling visuals. Knowing the words to your video will strengthen your understanding of the images and graphics you want to include. For an animated video, you may need to consider a voiceover script to correspond with your storyboard. If you choose to partner with us to produce your promotional video, we can guide you through the process, ensuring we have all the key components for both script and storyboard.
Focusing your script on the benefits will gain more interest than just selling your product. Otherwise, your viewers will see this as more clutter to wade through when looking for solutions to their problems and will deter them from investing in your brand.
To find out more about writing a script, click here.
Plan, Plan, Plan
The pre-production stage will give you a clearer insight into the logistical concerns of your video production. What kind of lighting do you need? Do you need to consider recruiting talent? Have you thought about including a voiceover?
Working with a video content agency will iron out those technicalities. We can organize the casting, location, art direction, crew, travel, catering, and health and safety, so you won’t have to lift a finger. You might also find a site visit beneficial, giving you a clear idea of the visuals you want to include. With animated video production, you’ll just have to agree on a style with the animator and illustrator.
Never rush the pre-production stage. Communicating your time and budget constraints will also help your video content agency to plan your promotional video. Regardless of how tight your deadline is, don’t hurry any decision-making, so there’s no confusion with your marketing goals, and you avoid disappointment during the final editing stage. Allowing enough time for all of your ideas to be jotted down and fully understood will ensure you haven’t forgotten anything.
Lights, Camera, Action!
Now we start bringing your ideas to life. The production stage is all about filming raw footage, capturing interviews, and recording b-roll. B-roll is stock footage that enriches the story and context behind your video. This also allows greater flexibility in the final editing stages.
To make your promotional video stand out, it’s important to address the filming style best fit for your video’s purpose. Communicating all your information in the right format and at the right pace so that your audience fully understands your brand and product. A video content agency should have distinct ideas of what shots to include and the type of lighting needed to convey your brand’s message in the best possible way. As a result, you’ll have a relevant, targeted, and deeply informative video your viewers will engage with.
If you have any specific visuals in mind, make sure these have been communicated to the video production team by the end of the day.
Editing Your Promotional Video
The post-production stage is all about fitting raw footage, sound design, and motion graphics into a promotional video you will feel proud of. Cutting and editing all of these aspects will create a nicely and logically assembled video.
This is where your branding comes into play. The specifics of your branding guidelines, such as incorporating your logo, typography and colour scheme are all in accordance with your brand’s identity. However, it’s important to just stick to the basics of your brand guidelines, otherwise, your videos will start to look too similar. As a result, your audience will quickly forget and disengage with your video marketing campaign because they won’t be able to distinguish your videos.
We also recommend having a look at the localisation of your video. This includes translating your voiceover, subtitles, captions and audio descriptions into different languages. Thinking about the location of your audience will tell you if you need to consider this feature.
The video content agency will also discuss the size and layout for the point of delivery, depending on where you would like to promote your video. Think about where your target audience will most likely watch your video to make sure it gains as much visibility as possible.
Now that the final promotional video is in your hands, you can repurpose it as much as you like. You can either cut it down into shorter segments for social media promotion or embed it at the top of blog posts and other relevant web content. Using the video-hosting site Wistia will show you where viewers resonated with your video the most, helping you cut down accordingly.
To find out more about our video production process, click here.
Final Thoughts
Creating a memorable promotional video for your brand is ideal for hooking in your existing customers. Knowing your audience, your message and your purpose are all significant in devising a highly effective promotional video. Partnering with a video content agency can alleviate many logistical concerns and match the right wording with the right visuals.
We can make video work for you, not the other way around. With over 2000 videos, both animated and live-action, we can sort all of the logistics associated with your promotional video, meaning no hassle or stress on your part. Still interested? Give us a call to get our creative partnership started.
