Is Commercial Video Production Useful for Your Business?
Oftentimes the concept of commercial video production can be overwhelming and intimidating. While the first thing you might think of when you hear the word “commercial” may be a Super Bowl commercial, that’s only one very uncommon, very extreme example of a commercial. In fact, it’s unlikely your business will have a Super Bowl commercial – or even need one. However, commercials, in the sense of marketing videos, can still benefit you.
Commercials are only one component of a video marketing strategy. Video marketing encompasses all video marketing content created with a specific business goal in mind — meaning there is a way to make it work for businesses and nonprofit organizations of all shapes and sizes. Because of this, it’s important that you don’t write off the concept of commercial video production. Depending on your audience and target demographic, your commercial video content could be utilized across many platforms, from YouTube to TikTok to local television.
Video is a type of content that consumers enjoy and actively seek out, and it can lead to increased sales. Whether shared on Super Bowl Sunday or on YouTube on a Wednesday evening in July, a video commercial can be effective if you do the research you need to make it work for you and your goals.
How to Use Commercial Video Production in Your Business
Video marketing is a form of content marketing that uses video to convey a message about your business, product, or service. This can include increasing your reach on social media, educating existing customers about how to use your products, and live-streaming events to allow a wider community to feel included. Commercial video is a subset within video marketing that consists of videos that are specifically aimed at spreading awareness about your brand and converting leads.
Any kind of marketing needs a strategy and a purposeful or focused effort to ensure long-term success from your video marketing strategy. The unifying element of all your marketing should be your branding. Regardless of the goal of each piece of content you produce and share, all of your videos should fit into your overarching marketing strategy and match your brand identity. To effectively incorporate your brand into your marketing, you need to have a good grip on what your brand really is. This means having a clear understanding and parameters around your:
- Voice
- Identity
- Values
- Mission
- Logo
- Colors
- Typography
All of your marketing efforts, including brand video marketing, should consistently incorporate these elements for you to see success from your video marketing campaign. When done well, however, video marketing can make all the difference when it comes to elevating your business to the next level.
Tips for Maintaining a Consistent Brand Voice in Your Commercial Video Production
As you begin to put together your commercial video marketing strategy, it’s important to keep a few things in mind to ensure success and get the most out of your video content. The following tips can make all the difference when it comes to maximizing your return on investment, but it’s important to recognize that at the end of the day, they are guidelines, not rules. There is no one-size-fits-all video marketing campaign, so it’s important to try new things and track the results to find the strategy that works for you and your unique needs.
Use Video in Multiple Ways
As previously mentioned, commercial video content consists of so much more than Super Bowl commercials. There are many ways to use video to sell products and retain customers, including:
- Product videos
- Explainer videos
- Testimonial videos
- Event videos
- Social media videos
- Brand videos
When producing social media marketing video content, mixing things up to create and share a variety of video styles can offer a very high return on investment, as long as it’s done right. The key to successfully using a mixture of these is remembering to incorporate your brand identity on a consistent basis. If you stay true to your branding, your content should be recognizable regardless of the video type, distribution method, or target audience.
Additionally, if you’re keeping your branding consistent across all platforms and video styles, you’ll be able to reuse footage within those other videos, further increasing the return on investment you will see from each video shoot.
Keep Your Audience and Your Products Front of Mind
When producing videos, create content for your specific audience. To do this, you must know who your audience is, and what they like. This requires feedback, surveys, client interviews, and other investigative methods.
Make sure your content makes it clear what your product or service is. The ultimate goal is to increase sales, so your audience must understand what your products/services are, and how they will make life easier or better. This will make it simple for your audience to identify and ultimately buy from you.
While video trends can be a great way to take advantage of social media network algorithms, you won’t see the results you desire if the content you produce doesn’t keep your business, products, and audience in mind. Focus on your own needs and goals first and trends second, and you’ll be able to find the video marketing solution that works for you.
Incorporate The Power Of Human Emotion In Your Commercial Video Production
Creating an emotional connection using video can make your customers committed ambassadors of your brand and products, inspiring long-term brand loyalty.
Because story is a crucial aspect of human emotion, utilizing stories as part of your video production can make a significant difference in the emotional impact of your content. However, successfully incorporating story into your videos requires intention to ensure you’re able to properly convey your intended message and emotions.
Think of a story not just in the sense of words read by a narrator or host — the images or footage you use also have the ability to tell a story. Consider all the ways you can depict a narrative and evoke emotions through your video without needing to stick with a rigid video structure, and make those concepts work for you.
Note that story is particularly useful when it comes to social media marketing video content. In addition to improving the relationships you have with existing customers, using video to evoke emotion can help improve your video’s impact. As a result, you’ll see increased engagement, which can lead others to your brand through social sharing.
Remember Your Strategy As You Begin Commercial Video Production
The most important element of a video marketing strategy is sticking to your strategy. You should always plan and produce content that’s informed by your overall marketing and video marketing strategy. This will ensure you create and share content that helps you reach your goals and provides a substantial return on investment.
Strategy includes not only planning, designing, and filming video, but also crafting a plan for distributing your videos. This is an essential step in the video marketing process because it helps you identify your goals and the best ways to achieve them.
Spending adequate time crafting the strategy will make you more efficient. This is because you’ll know exactly what kind of video content to create, meaning your content will be more focused. Additionally, you’ll be able to make fewer videos to accomplish your goals and you won’t waste time and resources on videos that sound cool on paper, but don’t actually move the needle on your marketing, or resonate with your audience.
Without a well-founded strategy, you’re really just hoping something good happens, which is a poor use of your resources and can lead to burnout or feelings of frustration — leading you to give up on video marketing.
It Can Be Hard to Produce Commercial Videos On Your Own
While video marketing can make a significant difference in your business results, it’s important to remember that to see these results, you need to create quality content that adheres to your brand identity, prioritizes your audience and product, and fits into your overarching marketing strategy. Creating and sharing video that doesn’t utilize any of these elements can actually do more harm than good, as it wastes your time and money and can even turn potential customers away from you.
Successful video marketing and production takes expertise and time that you may not have at your disposal. Fortunately, that isn’t your only option. Working with an expert can save you time and money while ensuring you get the results you deserve from your video marketing campaign.
If you want to see results from video marketing but aren’t sure how to create commercial videos that work for your specific needs, Charter & Co is here to help. With a history of successful brand partnerships, we have the expertise and experience to help you achieve results through effective video marketing.
