Video production for a marketing video that truly works involves strategically including certain key points and attributes. To make sure that your marketing video is conversion-capable and able to capture viewer attention readily, while keeping it lastingly, read the following marketing video production must-haves compiled by our Dallas video production experts.

What Should a Marketing Video Include?

• Clear Message Up-front: Define the purpose of your video “above the fold”. In web designer lingo, this means placing something as high up on a web page as possible, so that it is seen before needing to scroll down the page.

  

• If the video’s purpose is to promote a product, explain a service, or build brand awareness, it’s imperative to have that be immediately known to all who view it. Clearly articulate the primary message you want to convey to your audience and do it in a concise manner, at the very beginning.

• Indication of Targeted Audience: Use a digital marketing expert or video marketing company to research the audience attributes with the most qualified elements. Then, combine those findings with your own industry expertise, market research and goals in your brand’s ideal buyer personas.

  Communicate to your videographer that your intentions are to tailor your message in a way that resonates with their pain points, preferences, and needs.
  A marketing video should speak directly to the intended viewers, as explicitly as possible (without unintentionally excluding potential buyers/clients) and express the unique and noteworthy ways in which your product or service solves for each of those.

• Early Hook: It’s been proven that the first 3 to 8 seconds are the most important for audience retention, before they move on to something more endearing (usually in video marketing, this would mean a user continuing to scroll down the page).

  Facebook’s recent video and content marketing study revealed that once that time passes, the odds of keeping your viewers viewing decrease drastically, down to as much as only 35% remaining attentive after the first few seconds. They further decrease from the 65% range at three seconds to 45% remaining at just ten. A great hook can be a show-stopping cinematic scene, an emotional, thought-provoking, or paint-point identifying question, or reflect specificities that resonate with your target audience.

• Professional Video Quality: Use high-quality video production services and express the importance of using cinematography vs videography as a promotional tool for your brand to your video production company/videographer. Make sure that your video production company uses cinema cameras regularly and has both skilled videographers and video editors, as it takes them both to hit a video production home-run.
  

  Ensure that the video is appealing to the audio/visual senses by refusing to settle for less-than-great audio, ensuring it has thought-out and professionally staged lighting, and that there are no distractions taking away from its persuasive purpose. Video production services for advertising and marketing should bring to life a personification of the brand’s message, and when this isn’t done in a professional manner, businesses or organizations suffer the consequences of a base that’s turned-off and hesitant to entrust their transactions.

• Product or Service Showcase: Showcase your product or service in action. Highlight key selling points, differentiators, best-sellers, features and benefits. Service and product video production services should demonstrate how the product solves for a want or need and not merely one of the item itself, but how it contributes to the lifestyle for which its buyer personas seek to adopt.
  

  Consider a software that enhances remote monitoring of hospital patients. In this example, the marketing video would show the viewer how their work environment as a healthcare professional will be efficient, peaceful, and devoid of high patient fall rates. Establish on-screen what it will look like to be free of the anxious, chaotic air of a short-staffed hospital unit.

  The same can be said about a professional service or corporate video production piece. An attorney’s marketing video production would aim to assure that its firm meets the needs of its prospective clients. For a personal injury lawyer, she may want to show that her office is welcoming and private, with a representative at-the-ready to assist and answer questions. While also conveying that she is ready and willing to fight for justice and compensation with aggression, if necessary.
  

• Call-to-Action (CTA): Clearly state what specific action you want the viewer to take after watching the video. Give them easily digestible information for how to do it, and if possible, make sure it’s concise enough to be remembered without needing to write it down. Whether it’s visiting a website, making a purchase, or subscribing, include a call-to-action that’s enticing, brief, and easily accomplished.
  
  
• Establish Roles: Establish the roles and responsibilities between all involved in the video production process and outline who will be responsible for each part. For example, the person writing the video script will need to integrate the pain-point resolutions, while the video editor will ensure the video purpose is at the very beginning of the timeline, and the CTA is displayed prominently.
  
  
• Social Proof and Statistics: If relevant, include statistics or data that support your claims. Social proof, such as the number of satisfied customers or successful outcomes, can strengthen your message drastically. Ask your videographer to schedule a client testimonial video shoot. Share that video across your channels and platforms, and then have your marketing video or video ad include clips from it to instill confidence in viewers.
  
  
• Video Optimization: Tailor the video to be optimal for the platform(s) where it will be published and shared. Use video optimization services for SEO and communicate with your videographer or video production company to consider these platforms’ ideal or necessary aspect ratios, video dimensions, and any platform-specific features to maximize visibility and engagement.
  
  Social media marketing video production should aim to ensure the video takes up the most real estate on the screen, by producing videos vertically and creating edits specific for each social media platform. This is especially true for platforms including Facebook, Google, and YouTube video ad production services, as campaigns on those sites must have very specific video ad asset specifications.
  
  
• Branding Consistency: Ensure that your marketing video aligns with your overall brand identity, graphic elements, and core mission. Maintain consistency in messaging, visuals, and branding across all marketing channels, and pull in any team member required when you do this, so that all are aware and give their go-ahead.
  
  
• Reporting and Analytics: Set up reporting tools and track metrics that will reveal how the video performs. This may include call tracking, Google Analytics, or other mechanisms to measure the video’s performance. Many social media platforms have analytics data available to view within the account from which the video was published.

  Use multiple reporting tools in order to understand at an umbrella level how the users interacting with your marketing channels relate to your videos.

  Do they originate from the video link? Did they originally find you on Google, but returned after viewing the video? How long did they watch the video before continuing to scroll past it? Which video topics seem to bring subsequent spikes in website clicks? Analyze metrics such as views, engagement, total watch-time average, bounce rate, monthly subscribers, and conversions in order to find answers to these types of questions and to refine and maximize the potential in future video marketing strategies.

By carefully incorporating these strategies into your video marketing, video production and video advertising efforts, you can use marketing videos to successfully increase awareness of your business and brand, capture attention of potential buyers still in the process of making a decision, effectively communicate your message and persuade viewers to take the action that you call for.