The decision to engage professional video production services is a common scenario for many businesses today. Video content has become a key ingredient for driving digital marketing success. 

First and foremost, consider the level of professional video production quality required.  If you’re looking for a high-end video to use for branding your company in the most professional light, pro video production services is the best solution.  Trained video professionals are the ones to turn to when you need a professional-looking video with high-quality audio, seamless transitions, animated titles, and other advanced production effects.

Do It Yourself Marketing Videos

Many marketing videos used today do not require high-end, costly video production.  It’s perfectly acceptable for marketing videos to appear more raw and self-made.  In some cases, a more personal format captures an outstanding level of online attention on social media and serves the marketing purpose perfectly.  Impactful marketing videos can be very easy to produce using some widely-available software applications.

Do You Have An Advertising Video Maker on Staff?

You may not consider yourself to be an advertising video maker, but it’s very possible for anyone to create good quality videos.  A simple screen capture program is a great way to produce a nice video.  Screen capture software records everything you do on your computer from the point when you turn it on until you turn it off.  The video files can then be easily uploaded to YouTube for distribution, added to your company web pages, or included in attention-getting social media posts.

Screen Pal: A Simple Solution for Creating Marketing Videos

Follow these steps to make a screen capture video using Screen Pal

• After a small application is downloaded from the Screen Pal website and installed, there’s an option to start a recording.
• You can choose to record your screen, camera, or both.
• A box appears that can be resized and moved to define the portion of the screen that will be recorded.
• Pressing the record button starts the recording, pressing the pause button stops it. 
• Save the recording to your computer for use.

Creating Marketing Videos Using PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint can also be used to easily create a nice marketing video. In the example below, I use Microsoft PowerPoint to add some simple animation effects, slide timing, and audio. The video is then exported into an MP4 video file. 

Engaging A Video Marketing Agency

Beyond these basic techniques for creating a video, you may decide you need some editing help.  For example, you want to cut a few video segments together to create your final video, add some titles, transitions, or a stock audio track.  These tasks are best accomplished with advanced video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro.  If this type of video editing is needed, it’s best to engage the services of a video marketing agency that has qualified professionals that are trained to use pro-level tools like this.  They’ll typically chat with you to discuss your project requirements and how the video will be used, and also offer creative ideas and options you may not have considered.

If you need help creating marketing videos for your business, Contact Us and let’s get started.

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Many people don’t fully understand the importance of planning ahead. They progress through a series of steps in a sequential manner and when all the steps are done, the project is done. Often, they realize at some point along the way that there isn’t enough time to get it done. Then they either miss the original deadline, throw money at the problem, or cut corners and compromise quality to deliver on time.

Some deadlines like the start of the tradeshow or the date when a publisher prints and mails a trade magazine are beyond our control. These deadlines cannot be extended. So, our only choices are to cut corners or throw money at the problem. The first corners cut are typically those that assure the highest quality work, like additional proofreading and fact-checking. Throwing money at the problem can involve getting additional resources involved and paying exorbitant rush charges for shipping, printing, and so on.

Careful and responsible project management can help marketers achieve a high-quality result while meeting deadlines and budget requirements. A simple system of timing requirements, communicated to everyone involved, makes a world of difference. Having a good grasp on this gives project managers control over the process and a high confidence level in the results.

The first step in managing a project responsibly is to list all the steps involved. Think the project through from the end result. If the end result is 25,000 printed brochures in the literature fulfillment center ready to be shipped, then start with that and work backwards. The brochures need to be shipped from the printer to the fulfillment center. Before that they are printed. Before that, they are approved to print after being reviewed by those with the authority to approve the final. These final steps happen after stakeholders review the second draft, first draft, etc. And ultimately it all starts with someone kicking off the project in some form: calling the agency in for a meeting, preparing a strategy brief, or having some other type of initiation activity. You can get as granular or broad as you’re comfortable with and add as much detail as needed to manage the project and the project team towards a high-quality result.

Try to keep the time frame of reference consistent through the steps. That is, if you have an end date for “review first draft” that naturally includes providing comments on that draft. You don’t need to list a step for “provide comments.” If you think this level of instruction will be helpful to your team, combine that step into “Review first draft and provide comments.”

Once you have all the steps lined up, apply your best guess to how long each takes. Later, you’ll be able to adjust for actual practice as you track and analyze the results from individual projects. Build in a reasonable amount of time for each step, keeping in mind that people are unavailable sometimes and everyone is always busy. Once you have all the steps and the time it takes for each, add it up and you have the time it will take to complete that project, or that type of project.

If you typically rely on your experience in managing projects to estimate project timing requirements, you might find your estimates or rules of thumb need to be adjusted to allow more time. You might discover through this process that you need more time to do a good job.

Also, keep it as simple as possible. Have a few “generic templates” that all follow some standard project workflow or sequence. Then apply the templates to a wide variety of projects as needed. This helps when communicating the system to your stakeholders. If you can simplify it to just one or a few generic workflow tools and use them each time, it would be even better. Add or remove steps if you find the planning documents to be too complicated or too simple for your project team.

How does this system help in practicing marketing and marketing communications on a daily basis?

Many project stakeholders don’t believe the time involved in completing a marketing project the right way. Why should they? They don’t live it day to day. They have other things on their minds. They may think the timing requirements are overestimated and that extra time is built-in to make the project manager’s jobs easier. They push or ignore timelines and deadlines and don’t take them seriously.

In this case it helps to explain each step involved, what’s going to be done, and when. If your timeline for the development of a new ad is going to take 10 weeks, and you now only have 7 weeks, you can go through the individual steps with your team and adjust.  For example, you may need a faster turn-around of draft reviews, or you might need to reduce the number of reviewers.

Keep production windows and required start dates in front of everyone and top-of-mind. Make sure they know the timing requirements for each type of project. Remind them frequently in a way that keeps everyone thinking far enough out into the future. For example, if you know a new product introduction is on the horizon, but a launch date has not been identified, make sure they know how long it will take to prepare. If it’s June, and you require two months to prepare for a launch, make sure they don’t expect a July product launch.

The written agreement also gives you a tool to manage stakeholders. When your team is considering a new project and they want you to identify the date you can have it done, you have a useful tool to quickly give them an answer that you can back up.

Use the system to track projects. List the timing and dates and then monitor progress. Mark down the planned dates and the dates it actually happened. You can use it later to evaluate the project. (You might need to explain why the original deadline was missed). You can also evaluate a number of projects and adjust your system accordingly once you have some data. If you have the tracking dates from a number of projects, and they all show that it took consistently 10 business days to review the first draft, you’ll have more credibility when you build 10 business days for first draft review into the schedule.

The name of the game is having a clear grasp on exactly what it takes, and how long it takes, to complete a project. Then, you can better manage your team towards a good quality result.

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