A segment from his series on production, by Lee Miller, ATBA Executive Director
Video content has become a viral and powerful medium for businesses looking to engage their audiences in an impactful way. With video viewership continuing to rise across platforms, now is the time for companies to showcase their critical messages through compelling stories told on film.
However, crafting a business video that captures attention and leaves a lasting impression is an art form that requires strategic thinking. You can’t just point a camera and hit record. Great business video content should inform, educate, entertain, and inspire audiences to take action.
Follow these essential tips to create worthwhile videos that will represent your brand in the best light:
Focus on Storytelling
At its core, a great video draws viewers in through an exciting story. Build your business videos around a central narrative featuring authentic, real-world characters. Construct a plot that builds drama or interest as it explains your product, service, or core messages. Utilize storytelling elements like protagonists, obstacles, stakes, and resolutions to pull audiences into your branded video content.
Keep it Concise
With short attention spans ruling the modern digital landscape, concise messaging is vital in video content. Tell what you must say compellingly within the first minute, if possible. Choose the most critical information about your company, product, or campaign and build your video around explaining it in a tight 2-3 minutes maximum. Don’t let videos drag on too long.
Incorporate Strong Visuals
Compelling imagery vastly improves video watchability and retention. Use striking cinematography, animated graphics, and eye-catching edits to create dynamic visual content. Invest in a quality camera and capture b-roll footage showcasing your offices, employees, products, and customers in real-world environments. Combine this with logos, text, infographics, and kinetic graphic elements to reinforce key messaging.
Personalize with Real People
The most potent business videos feature authentic employees, founders, customers, and partners rather than paid actors. Introduce real people within your company who share their passions, successes, and stories about your products or services. Let their personalities shine through. This humanizes your brand and forges an emotional connection with audiences.
Align with Branding
While video provides more creative freedom, the visuals, messaging, music choices, and overall tone should align with your established branding. Use the same color scheme, logo placements, fonts, and stylistic decisions featured on your website and collateral. Maintain a consistent brand identity across all assets, including videos, even if they have an informal vibe.
Consider Vertical Video
With a staggering 80% of online video consumed on mobile devices, vertical video filmed in portrait mode is highly relevant. Vertical videos fill more of the smartphone screen and create an immersive experience. While landscape video still has plenty of use cases, nearly all social platforms and websites now accommodate vertical formats.
Include Captions
Transcribing dialogue, sound effects, and speaker introductions through closed captions and subtitles maximizes video accessibility and comprehension. Audiences across social media can watch quietly in public settings and still understand essential messaging thanks to captions. This also helps videos play without sound on most platforms as viewers scroll silently.
End with a Strong CTA
Videos provide exceptional opportunities to guide viewers toward key conversions. Close each video with a prominent call-to-action reminder and link to drive the desired outcome, whether to purchase a product, sign up for a newsletter, learn more about services, or contact your company. A strong CTA is invaluable for translating video viewers into engaged customers.
Promote Your Videos
The highest quality video content will only make an impact with promotion. Develop a distribution plan focused on your target audiences and share videos proactively across the social media channels they frequent. Invest in video ads to expand viewership beyond existing followers. Videos are prime vehicles for social engagement when seeded on the proper platforms.
By combining storytelling, concise, informative content, visually striking imagery, and a human touch, businesses can produce videos that genuinely resonate with target audiences rather than fading into background noise. Video provides an unmatched vehicle for crafting compelling narratives that leave a substantive and lasting impact on those you aim to reach. Leverage these key tactics to create videos that advance your brand and drive results.
