Most marketing videos have a pretty standard format. With more and more videos being produced and put online, how can you stand out?
The key is to have a video marketing premise that is unique.
We have mentioned before the last thing that we need is another staid commercial that introduces a company’s CEO. Not to say that you can’t introduce the CEO, but don’t have them in a chair in a boardroom staring at the camera.
Think of it this way. When there were only three channels in the 1950’s, anything produced that showed a modicum of talent was a hit. Now compare that to today. Some of the best shows are on AMC, HBO, and Netflix. There is a ton of competition. The way to survive is to have excellent programming. Similar to online video. Do you know that there are currently more than 400 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute? That is a ton of noise that you have to fight through. However, a good premise (and a few other things) can help you cut through and meet the goals of your video.
The first step with anything marketing is to set your goals. What do you want to accomplish? For instance, in a recent video, we wanted to introduce the team of a civil construction company in South Carolina. Our goals were to present them as the fun, hard-working people they are.
And of course, we didn’t want to do anything boring. So we knew that we wanted it to be fun.
One of the problems that we had was that they were busy with a bunch of different projects. That’s when we had our Eureka moment.
Let’s use the problem “the principles are so busy” and make it our premise for the movie. We set up the shoot as a Mission Impossible style. The title slide introduces our premise: Our mission is to get video footage….However, we have to make sure that we don’t interrupt the very busy crew… Let’s Go.
We filmed at a few different sites, and we used both a ground camera and a drone. We interspersed the footage of the video crew “searching” for the principals and incidentally showcased a lot of their work.
When the video crew finds our “targets” we swoop down with the drone to get shots, and we intersperse with the shots on the ground.
Oh and of course the music underlay was a driving beat that sounded exactly like a real action thriller would.
Another marketing video that we did for 366 Marketing also had a fun premise. It was that I was trying to prove to people that they needed to look at marketing from a different angle. Not to do the old marketing standbys and expect to make it work. To prove it I would live in my kid’s tree house, ignoring a better option, living in the real house.
We set it up as a British mockumentary. All of the family got into the idea and played parts. It was a lot of fun and got a ton of views, which was the goal. It was very much a “share our brand” video. We want to demonstrate that we can have fun and meet goals.
By the way, if you check out the image you can see that the post on Facebook had 829 views 191 likes and 91 shares.
That blows away our traditional post.
So what are the lessons to pull out of our video shoot?
- Set goals
- Have fun!
- Find a unique premise
- Look to feature movies or tv for inspiration
- Use what you have
I hope this article helps you find a premise for your video that cuts through the noise. If you need help with your video marketing in the Charlotte area, or anywhere in the US, please let us know. You can also get our free e-book, A Complete Guide to Video Marketing, here.