Secure MDF Approval for Your Corporate Video Production

High-quality video content can leave lasting impacts on potential customers and clients, regardless of where they are in the purchase funnel. Many partner teams are now using market development funds (MDF) for corporate video productions, significantly expanding their technical and creative possibilities. 

Here's everything you need to know about using MDF for corporate videos, including approval steps, your best types of content, and the most significant challenges. 

Key Steps To Secure MDF Approval for Your Corporate Video Project

MDF can significantly elevate your video production by increasing your available budget and the types of content you can create. Obtaining MDF approval for corporate video production services requires you to assemble a comprehensive proposal based on several key factors, including the partner's goals and relevant metrics.

Aligning Goals and Stakeholders

First, consider the key objectives and requirements of your MDF campaign. While passive MDF programs support general marketing goals, most funds are provided on a project-specific basis, focusing on either brand awareness or lead generation. So they'll often approve product and brand-focused videos, but they likely won't fund even the best of the best recruiting corporate videos. 

These requirements also dictate how you can and can't promote your partnership. For instance, Microsoft typically requires you to promote its solutions or showcase your integrations with Microsoft products, but you can't treat the ad like a sponsorship. 

Of course, your MDF campaign isn't all about your partner's interests. You must also consider your internal marketing goals, including stakeholders' priorities. A professional production company can offer corporate video production tips for the best marketing strategy to align your campaign with your goals, your MDF requirements, and your target market's unique needs. 

Building a Strong Proposal and Budget

A strong proposal is crucial for renewing and increasing market development funds. Your proposal must clearly lay out everything partners need to know about your campaign, showcasing why it's a financially viable investment for their sales and brand recognition. 

Your corporate video proposal should include the following key elements:

• Campaign goals and benefits: Define the exact goals you aim to achieve by using corporate video production services, such as specific sales numbers or your intended social media reach. 

• Budget and spending needs: Corporate video costs vary based on your specific production needs, whether you're interested in animation, interviews, or event coverage. Estimating your budget early on helps avoid the risk of overspending and clearly communicates to partners the amount of funding needed to achieve your goals. 

• Target audience: Define and research the key markets you're advertising to, including their demographics, online behaviors, and purchasing motivators, to develop the best possible marketing strategy. Create customer personas to visualize the real-life people you're trying to reach and distinguish between different audiences, such as young entrepreneurs and senior decision-makers. 

• Key message: Craft a clear call to action (CTA) for the end of your videos, and take your time writing and rewriting your video's overarching message. Keep the phrasing concise and focused on what you want viewers to remember, whether that's what your product can do or what makes your brand so unique. 

A corporate video production agency can work with you to assemble a comprehensive and compelling proposal with clear data about your budget, target market, and anticipated return on investment (ROI). Experienced producers know how to estimate every dollar that goes into corporate video production near you, including crew costs, location permit fees, and equipment rental prices.

MDF budget management eliminates the guesswork when budgeting and planning your production, giving partners confidence in your video strategy. 

Documenting ROI and Post-Campaign Reporting

Tracking, analyzing, and reporting key performance indicators (KPIs) offers crucial insight into your campaign's success. With the right metrics, you can refine your marketing strategy as you go, such as by adjusting your video formats or the times you post on each platform. 

Documenting KPIs and ROI can also help maintain compliance and boost trust with MDF partner programs. These insights prove that you have used your funds appropriately and effectively to achieve goals such as more sales, brand recognition, or lead generation. This can improve your relationship with partners, support renewal, and potentially increase the market development funds available for your next campaign. 

Corporate Video Formats You Can Fund with MDF

Market development funds can significantly boost your video production budget, but you can't use these financial resources on every video format. Your video content must align with your corporate partner's MDF goals and requirements, such as lead generation or brand awareness, with clear, measurable ways to earn an ROI.

Explore the top corporate video formats for MDF marketing.

Explainers and Demo Videos

Explainers and demos introduce your products or services while answering questions and highlighting what makes your solutions stand out from competitors'. These can slide potential clients and customers further down the sales funnel, especially when published on product pages. 

Product demos offer comprehensive insight into how your solutions work and how they'll benefit potential clients, which can directly support sales. They let you easily address common questions, share the story behind your product, and give possible consumers a glimpse of what it's like to use your solutions. While demo videos may be only a few minutes in length, you can also integrate demos into webinars, events, and livestreams to go even more in depth.

Explainer videos are even shorter, typically lasting about 30 to 90 seconds. This lets you share a basic, easy-to-digest look at your solutions without overwhelming potential clients at the top of the funnel with too much information. These videos focus more on lead generation than direct sales, clearly introducing your product and inviting viewers to learn more when they're in the market for your solutions. 

Forté's Animated Microsoft Places Ad

Charter & Co. provided script-writing, motion design, and animation services to Forté to introduce and showcase its IT solution's best technological features. The video promoted integrations with Microsoft Teams Rooms, Windows, and Android, using simple animated text to explain what the solution does. Motion graphics made the content more engaging, while fun, upbeat music maintained a calm, non-overwhelming vibe.

Product Videos

Product videos are straightforward types of corporate content that simply introduce and show off what you're selling. Rather than the in-depth explanations of explainers or demo videos, these videos serve as excellent introductions to your products (or reminders that your products exist). This gives you more creative potential than other corporate video formats, but you must still follow key campaign requirements when using MDF. 

Popular types of product videos include:

• Launch videos

• Short-form product demos

• Feature highlights

• Social media content

Truly Engaging's Multi-Channel Video Marketing

Truly Engaging needed product videos to announce and promote its latest line of holiday card designs. However, with the holiday season right around the corner, the company was operating on a tight deadline, which limited its technical capabilities. 

Charter & Co used animation, motion graphics, and grabbing transitions to show off each individual design across several video ads. The post-production team then exported the videos in multiple styles, including horizontal and vertical formats, and ads between 6 and 30 seconds long. 

Truly Engaging could easily share this content on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms while adhering to each app's best practices. The company also posted each video at different times to lengthen its campaign and keep its card designs on customers' minds. 

Case Studies and Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials, case studies, and other success stories are a crucial aspect of corporate video marketing. This type of content builds credibility and awareness of your brand while highlighting exactly how your products solve real-world problems. 

Case study videos share the full customer journey, highlighting the problems that current or previous clients faced that led them to your solutions. You can then use interviews, client data, and B-roll footage to share how your products and company went above and beyond in fulfilling their needs. Focusing on clients' pain points makes your content more relatable to potential consumers who are also experiencing similar issues. 

Customer testimonial videos are typically shorter than case study videos but build credibility and social proof in similar ways. This content gives customers and clients opportunities to share their thoughts about your products, services, customer support teams, or other aspects of their experience. For example, user-generated content (UGC), such as short reviews from content creators, can give potential consumers a third-party endorsement demonstrating real-life uses of your products.

Webinars and Events

Webinars, trade show coverage, and other corporate event videos can boost your social proof. Even if the event itself only had a small crowd, event recaps can significantly magnify your message's reach and get more people interested in your product announcements, demos, and other talking points. Additionally, you can share the event coverage in full or work with a corporate video production company​ to cut the footage into shorter, more digestible recap videos.

Furthermore, webinars and other content focused on industry trends and recent technological developments establish credibility and trust in your brand. These videos prove that your company keeps up with the latest trends, innovations, and integrations, establishing your solutions as clearly worthwhile investments. 

Brand Awareness and Company Culture Videos

Videos focused on company culture can elevate brand awareness and help your business be more than just a name to consumers. Branding videos spotlight the stories, values, and people that make your organization what it is, highlighting the core differences that distinguish you from competitors. 

Brand awareness videos are essential for business-to-business (B2B) marketing. Rather than driving immediate sales, company culture videos aim to leave a lasting impact on future clients and customers. After all, the odds are that most B2B clients won't be in the market to invest in your solution the first time they see your ads, especially if they're already involved in another contract or subscription. However, brand awareness can keep you in their minds when it's time for them to actually consider investing. 

Measuring ROI and Reporting Video MDF Success

KPIs and other metrics can paint a clear picture of your campaign's success, letting you track your ROI in real-time, even for brand awareness campaigns without immediate financial returns. These insights can help you readjust your best marketing and distribution strategies and improve your relationship with MDF partners. 

The most important metrics for MDF video success include:

• Views: Look at how many people viewed your video, along with your content's average view duration, the percentage of viewers who watched your whole video, and other viewership KPIs.

• Engagement: These metrics can include your video's likes, comments, saves, and shares on social media. Analyzing which videos receive high or low engagement can help you reconsider your best types of corporate video content during your next campaign. 

• Partner-sourced leads: Trackable URLs and links share exactly how many people visited a product, service, or sign-up page from each specific source. For instance, you could add tracking links to your TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn content to identify which platforms generate the most leads. These insights can showcase exactly how much your marketing campaign has contributed to partners' promotional goals.

Common Challenges and How Charter & Co Helps

Like any type of video production, creating corporate films can be a complex process. A dedicated production agency such as Charter & Co can help you plan for the most significant corporate video challenges:

• Timelines: Production processes can take days, weeks, or even months, depending on your video's needs and the production team's schedule. Charter & Co's flexible production team will prioritize your project timeline to create the best possible content before your upcoming deadline. 

• Justification: Some partners may not always see the purpose of spending money on your corporate video content if you don't explicitly lay out the numbers. Charter & Co will help you assemble a strong, compelling proposal that justifies every dollar of your budget.

Start Your MDF-Approved Corporate Video With Charter & Co

Charter & Co can help you use your market development funds to maximize your ROI and your partner relationship. Our expert team offers both corporate and small business video production services in the Chicago area, allowing us to easily scale your production around your exact budget and needs. 

Want to learn more about making corporate videos? Let's get in touch.