Why Is Creative Video Production Important To B2B Marketing?
It’s impossible to argue the value of video in digital marketing nowadays. Video marketing is important to all businesses; it’s literally everywhere, with over 240 million Americans having watched video content in 2020 and a global average of 100 minutes of video consumption per day. These statistics show how important video can be, and that a lack of marketing video content available for consumption is a missed opportunity in your corporate advertising strategy. However, they also indicate that there’s a ton of competition for viewers.
Your target audience is already consuming video content in one form or another, so you need to find a way to ensure your videos stand out from the competition. To accomplish this, your video content must be top quality. Producing videos that are consistently creative and compelling is the key to both attracting and keeping an audience engaged over time.
Before beginning video production on any project, consider what it is about your video that will make it stand out among the competition. Is there anything you’re doing that’s unique to your videos and your videos alone? If not, is there something you can introduce to your video production process to ensure your final product is as compelling and engaging as possible? By beginning to think about this in the early stages of production, you can ensure that you’ll keep a creative perspective front and center throughout the entire process.
How Important Is Story To Creative Video Production?
Humans love stories and are hard-wired to recognize and invest in them emotionally. Think about the marketing videos you remember most strongly: Do they have a storytelling element to them? Chances are high that they do. What was it about those videos that stuck with you? Did you have a strong emotional reaction to them?
Using the power of story in your video production will make your content more engaging, memorable, and effective by giving the viewer an opportunity to connect with your company more deeply. Think of any video you produce like a movie or a book with a narrative, characters for the viewer to relate to, and an overarching mission or goal. If you’re struggling to figure out how to turn your message into a story, consider using traditional story-telling concepts like the Hero’s Journey or a three-or-four-act structure as a reference. Utilizing dramatic structure can even help “boring” videos to be more attention-grabbing. Videos that are more interesting will receive more engagement on social media and other marketing channels, leading to increased reach and a larger audience of potential customers.
While it’s easy to think of all the ways this works for B2C brand video production, don’t overlook the power of storytelling during business-to-business video production. Story is just as important in a B2B context as in B2C. For example, you could use this as your opportunity to tell your company’s story and show potential customers and partners what they would gain from doing business with you.
What Role Does Strategy Play In Creative Video Production?
A video marketing strategy is essential when creating marketing video content. This strategy should incorporate your overall B2B marketing strategy, not just your strategy for producing a single video or series of videos. Starting with the top-level strategy will help you stay focused on your goals as you develop video content ideas, as well as give you insight into how your videos interact with other components of your corporate marketing strategy.
Focusing on your long-term goals will keep you from wasting time creating content that doesn’t align with your brand standards or current video marketing strategy. Rather than just winging it during the video production process, every series, individual video, or single scene should have a purpose within an overall strategy. This way, each video you create and share helps you take a step toward your ultimate marketing goals by building upon the successes and weak areas of previous videos.
Additionally, designing a strategy will establish how you should repurpose video in different formats and distribution channels, allowing you to make a greater impact with less content. This will help you maximize the ROI on your marketing videos while also ensuring all the time you spend on video creation is value-add to your business goals.
A realistic, top-down strategy will help you remain consistent, which is critical to video marketing success. You won’t always see results right away, but if you remain patient and continue creative video production and publication, you’ll eventually see the progress you are striving toward.
How To Use More Creative Video Production Concepts
Understanding the importance of prioritizing creativity is great, but it's only half the battle. Next, you need to find ways to add a creative spin to your videos in a way that aligns with your branding, resonates with your audience, and helps you achieve your goals. While that may sound daunting, it’s absolutely within your reach — especially if you follow these pro-level tips used by companies offering video production services to level-up your video skills.
Incorporate Your Key Brand Elements Into Your Video Production
Some of the biggest elements to keep in mind during every corporate video production are the key components of your brand. By strategically incorporating your brand, you’ll ensure your content is cohesive, and you will never leave the viewer questioning whose video they watched. The most important elements to consider are:
- Voice and tone: Are your videos usually more serious or entertaining in tone? Do you prefer a more conversational style? Who are you marketing to? Prioritize keeping these elements consistent so your viewers will know what to expect from your videos.
- Color and typography: Using the same colors and typography will ensure your videos are recognizable and memorable. This is especially important on social media, where your videos can easily get lost among the sea of video content.
- Key messages or mission: As previously mentioned, each video should fit into your overarching marketing strategy so that your company’s mission will be consistently communicated across each platform and message.
Use all these elements within your story-based video to refine your creative concepts and create a video style that will fit your goals.
Incorporate Key Visual Design Principles Into Your Video Production
To ensure your videos are the highest quality, you should learn and understand some of the keys to professional video composition and production and how you can utilize them in your corporate video production. The most important items to keep in mind are contrast, proportion, emphasis, and negative space.
- Contrast: The variance of colors, lights, and shapes within your frame that create visual intrigue.
- Proportion: The size of your subject in relation to the other elements within your frame.
- Emphasis: Ensuring the viewer pays particular attention to your subject by placing it in a position to stand out.
- Negative Space: In the case of composition, more isn’t always better. Use empty spaces to encourage the viewer to look at your subject/s.
Once you understand each of these principles, you should experiment as you see fit. A common saying among photographers is to “learn the rules so you can break the rules.'' While adhering to these principles often works best, that won’t always be the case. In fact, artistically downplaying or over-exaggerating these principles can aid creativity and help your videos stand out.
Vary The Format For Successful Creative Video Production
There are a multitude of options for producing video content, meaning there is no reason to get stuck making the same video repeatedly. In B2B marketing alone, you could create product-specific videos such as explainer videos, promotional videos, and testimonials, as well as behind the scenes, company culture videos and event videos.
Don’t get stuck in a rut by doing the same thing every time. Instead, change up the tone within brand guidelines; try for humor occasionally, and remember the importance of telling a great story. It’s okay, and even encouraged, to experiment — as long as you’re staying within brand guidelines and prioritizing your video marketing strategy.
Consider Professional Creative Video Production Services
With the high demand for video content, it’s essential to incorporate some type of video production in your marketing strategy. It’s important to keep in mind that simply creating videos isn’t enough — they should also be of high-creative quality to maximize your chances of success. You can do this by implementing professional composition techniques, staying within your brand standards, and prioritizing storytelling within your videos.
Keep in mind that while rewarding, creative video production can be difficult. If you’ve been trying to add a more creative spin to your videos, but you're struggling to take your videos to the next level, don’t panic. Charter & Co is here to help you with our creative video production services.
