Optimize Your Video Marketing Strategy: The Creative Process

On Monday, October 24th, 2016, Christina Skillman, founder of Skillman Video Group, spoke at the American Marketing Association’s Fall 2016 Marketing Workshop at the Omni Parker Hotel in Boston.

Skillman Video Group is a leading Boston video production company that services a wide variety of clients. Christina is an expert in the field of marketing, and her presentation titled “Optimizing Your Video Marketing Strategy: Stop Wasting Your Video Budget” provided many useful tips and techniques for improving digital marketing.

Christina was selected to lead a discussion at this workshop because of her extensive skills and experience in the marketing world. She spoke about creating stimulating video content and how to promote it through social media, email marketing, and SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization.”

Why is Video Important

According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words, that means that companies can package hours of reading into short video clips.

45.4% of Internet users view at least one online video over the course of a month. The average Internet user is exposed to an average of 32.2 videos per month. 100 million Internet users watch online videos every day.

From a business standpoint, 90% of online shoppers reported that they find video very helpful in making buying decisions. Incorporating video into any marketing strategy is key because over 100 million Internet users watch video content daily.

Video is easy for viewers to absorb, and much more information can be shared in a much shorter time through videos. 59% of business executives would rather watch a video than read text, meaning that in order for a video production company to stay relevant, they need strong video content.

All of these statistics argue the importance of video, but what Christina believes is really important is knowing how to take advantage of the opportunities that video presents in the marketplace

Content Strategy 

discussing video marketing strategy

How do you define success? What does success look like to you? A successful video is different for every business, but all marketing videos should share the common goal of their video reaching the largest audience possible.

Christina explained that video viewership can be increased through marketing tactics like enhanced SEO, increased social media engagement, and informing the audience by telling your brand’s story!

Different marketing strategies are looking for different reactions, styles, and video formats, but, no matter what type of video, the most important thing is to tell your brand’s story.

The most effective videos have a human touch, meaning that they make an emotional connection with the audience, and this is usually done through captivating and relatable stories. 

For Bond Brothers construction, Skillman Video Group produced this scripted video that displayed just how many individuals work for Bond and showed that Bond cares about their employees.

This unscripted video produced by SVG for Arianna Skincare tells a story rather than describes the product. The viewer feels an emotional connection to the company and really gets to know and understand the life of the founder.

In this video for TimePayment, Skillman Video Group was able to make something that can be considered dry and boring, funny. Humor is used to communicate the goal and services offered by this financing and equipment leasing company. This video is scripted and filmed using paid actors and a studio set.

The Creative Process

In the initial stages of planning your video content, the production team is faced with many tough creative decisions.

Christina summarized her experience with the creative process into three simple questions to help guide videographers through these early stages.

  1. What graphic style do you prefer? (Remember: the style of your videos should be aligned with the style of your brand; branding should be constant in all digital content.)
  2. What do you want your video to look like? (it is helpful to find inspiration from outside sources; for example, look to other successful brands and marketing campaigns to help develop your ideas.)
  3. What kind of energy should it have? (the energy and tone of a video are conveyed through the music, lighting, color palette and editing style.)

A pro tip in both video production and storytelling is to always understand “the why” and “the what.” This simply means that your content should have a purpose. Why should people be watching this? Why should they care? What is it about?

Christina ended the creative process discussion by talking about authenticity. The key to successful video marketing is to be authentic, because people hire other people that they like. This means that the best thing a video production team can do is be themselves!

Full videos of both segments of Christina’s presentation are available on Skillman Video Group’s Youtube site.

Skillman Video Group, LLC, specializes in Boston video production. Please call 1-800-784-0140 to learn more.

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