Crafting the Perfect Video Production Script: A Guide for Marketing Professionals

In the bustling world of corporate marketing, video content has surged to the forefront as an essential tool for engaging audiences, enhancing brand visibility, and driving conversions. The foundation of any compelling video is its script, a blueprint that guides its creation from concept to completion. For marketing professionals striving to capture their audience's attention, crafting an effective script is a paramount part of the video pre-production stage.

Top Tips for Creating a Video Production Script

The first step is ensuring you have a video production brief that clearly communicates your objectives, once you’ve got that and are ready to move into the pre-production stage, the next step is developing the script. Here are the YourFilm Production team’s top tips to ensure your video production script resonates with viewers and achieves your marketing objectives.

Understand Your Audience

Before putting pen to paper, it's crucial to have a deep understanding of your target audience. Who are they? What are their pain points, preferences, and behaviours? Tailoring your script to address their specific needs, interests, and the language they relate to will make your video more engaging and relevant.

Define Your Core Message

Clarity in your video's core message is key. Determine the single most important takeaway you want your audience to remember. This message should be concise, memorable, and evident throughout your video. Everything in your script, from dialogue to visuals, should support this central theme.

Keep It Concise and Focused

In a world where attention spans are shrinking, brevity is your ally. Aim to convey your message in the shortest time possible without sacrificing clarity or impact. A focused script ensures viewers receive your message before clicking away. An ideal length for most marketing videos is 1-2 minutes, depending on the platform and purpose.

Start Strong

The opening seconds of your video are critical to capturing your audience's attention. Start with a compelling hook; a provocative question, a surprising fact, or a relatable problem to draw viewers in and encourage them to watch the entire video.

Use a Conversational Tone

Even in a corporate setting, a conversational tone can make your video more relatable and engaging. Write as if you're speaking to a friend, using simple, clear language. This approach helps to humanise your brand and makes complex information more accessible.

Show, Don't Tell

A fundamental principle of storytelling, "show, don't tell," is particularly effective in video scripts. Use visuals to illustrate your points and convey emotions, allowing the audience to experience your message rather than just hear about it. Descriptive scenes, actions, and dialogues can make your script more dynamic and impactful.

Incorporate a Call to Action

Every marketing video should have a clear call to action (CTA) that guides viewers on what to do next. Whether it's visiting your website, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting your sales team, make sure your CTA is direct, simple, and easy to follow.

Revise and Refine

Writing a great script is a process of revision and refinement. Share your draft with colleagues and stakeholders, gather feedback, and be willing to make changes. A fresh set of eyes can offer valuable perspectives that enhance your script's effectiveness.

Practise Visual Storytelling

Remember that your script is the blueprint for a visual medium. Incorporate descriptions of visual elements that align with your narrative, such as setting, camera angles, and visual effects, to ensure that the final product aligns with your vision.

Crafting a compelling video production script requires a blend of creativity, strategic thinking, and audience insight. By following these tips, marketing professionals in corporate settings can create scripts that not only capture their audience's attention but also drive meaningful engagement and action. Remember, a powerful script is the cornerstone of any successful video marketing strategy.

---

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your budget, an experienced video production team and a network of +1,000 film crew across Australia & NZ.

If you would like to see some of our work or find out more about our video production solution to fit your business needs contact the team at YourFilm.  

The Importance of Original Footage in Corporate Video Content in an AI-Dominated World

In an AI-dominated world, the enduring value of original footage in video content for business shouldn’t be underestimated.  According to 2024 research by Wyzowl 75% of marketers have used AI to help create or edit marketing content, including video.

When it comes to brand content or the more premium end of the video scale, don’t underestimate the importance and impact filming original footage can make.

Whilst AI video tools are excellent and certainly serve a purpose when it comes to creating video content for business use. However, generally AI video is still generic and can be a bit impersonal, as you can see when comparing the AI presenter on the left with the human on the right in the simple piece-to-camera style videos below.

There are several areas where original footage really makes a difference and is worth investing in, including authenticity, brand identity, regulatory compliance, and audience engagement. 

Authenticity and Trust: Original footage conveys authenticity and fosters trust among viewers. For corporate companies, showcasing real employees, actual products, and genuine customer interactions can build a more authentic connection with their audience. In a landscape saturated with AI-generated content, authentic footage can stand out and resonate more deeply with viewers.

Brand Identity: Original content helps in reinforcing a company's brand identity. It provides a unique voice and visual style that differentiates a brand from competitors, especially in an environment where AI can replicate styles and themes. Original footage ensures that the brand's messaging remains consistent and distinct.

Regulatory Compliance and Ethical Considerations: With the increasing use of AI in content creation, there are growing concerns about misinformation, deepfakes, and copyright issues. Original footage can help companies navigate these challenges by ensuring their content is compliant with legal standards and ethical practices, avoiding potential pitfalls associated with AI-generated content.

Audience Engagement and Emotional Connection: While AI-generated content can be highly polished and visually appealing, original footage often has the unique ability to evoke emotions and engage audiences on a deeper level. The nuances of real human expressions, locations, and interactions create a more compelling and relatable viewing experience.

SEO and Originality: Search engines value original content, and this extends to video content as well. Original footage can help improve a company's SEO strategy, making it easier for potential customers to find their content online. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, the originality of content will likely play a more significant role in search engine rankings. At this time, Google has made it clear that AI-generated video will not impact search rankings if your content is helpful, original and relevant, which is where challenges can arise with AI content. For instance, many AI models cannot discern whether the information it collects from the web is correct or not.

Cost and Accessibility: AI-generated content can be more cost-effective and accessible, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises or for purposes where the authenticity of the footage is less critical. However, for branding, marketing campaigns, or situations where trust and authenticity are paramount, investing in original footage can offer a better return on investment. Building a stock library of your brands footage will allow you to repurpose it, or use it in conjunction with AI tools giving you the best of both worlds and longer term, a better ROI.

Many companies are finding a middle ground by integrating AI and original footage. AI can enhance original content through editing, effects, and even creating complementary scenes, providing a cost-effective way to produce high-quality, engaging video content that still retains a level of authenticity and brand identity.

While AI plays a transformative role in content creation, offering efficiencies and new possibilities, the value of original footage remains significant for corporate companies. It plays a crucial role in maintaining authenticity, brand identity, regulatory compliance, and emotional engagement. As the digital landscape evolves, the strategic integration of AI and original content may become the gold standard for corporate video content.

---

YourFilm is your end to end video production partner who can help you achieve your video marketing goals, with AI and bespoke solutions. YourFilm also have a global network of experienced film crew, centralised video asset management solutions to build your stock library and professional video production services.  All of this means we can provide your business with a centrally managed, end to end video production that can be scaled across multiple business divisions and geographical locations.  

If you would like to see some of our work or find out more about a video production solution to fit your business needs contact the team at YourFilm.  

Video Revolution: Navigating Gen Z's Communication Landscape

Take a moment to think about our relationship with video and how it’s evolved even just in the past 2-3 years. Where do we get a lot of our purchase inspiration from? What is it we look for when working out how to do something or where to go on holiday? How are we communicating with each other in our daily work lives?  More often than not these things all involve video in some way.

Our behaviour in both the amount and the type of video we watch isn’t the only thing that has shifted, how we watch video can vary depending on the platform we are using to watch it.  For example 85% of videos on Facebook videos are read in silence with no audio. 5 years ago you’d have said that audio was an integral part of video and now a high proportion of us get alarmingly irate if there’s any audio at all on our Facebook videos.

Video production and video marketing has to adapt to human behaviour. 

Pre COVID, many of us broke into a cold sweat at the thought of turning on the video function on a Zoom or Teams call, in fact, most of us hadn’t heard of zoom let alone used it regularly. We collectively got over our self consciousness pretty quickly and for most of us being on camera is now so commonplace we hardly even think about it. 

These changes in our behaviour are happening constantly and at an increasingly rapid pace.

Now, consider the emerging generation of consumers Generation Z , generally defined as being born between 1997 - 2012, and the even younger Generation Alpha, currently school and pre-school kids. Technology, social networks, streaming services, the use of video in classrooms and pretty much all areas of their lives from birth will have a significant impact on how we effectively market to them in the future.

These incredibly tech and video savvy young people are fast becoming the heartland of consumer, and for them video isn’t A form of communication, it’s THE form of communication. In fact, research suggests Gen Z prefers face to face communication, rather than a call, text, email or still images. The twist here is that they consider zoom, facetime and video to be face to face.

YourFilm, recently conducted a market research project with the team at Insights Exchange to have a look at the emerging Australian consumer. We focussed on 18-24 year olds specifically to get a glimpse of how video marketing will need to evolve to be effective in the future.  

In this article, we’ll share a few of the insights in 4 of the key areas we looked at:

• How Gen Z engages with short form video content

• Their platform preferences and uses 

• The type of short form video they watch

• Why is video so important to this generation

Engagement

It’ll come as no shock to anyone that Gen Z watches a lot of video, but what is interesting about them is that nearly 90% of them are regularly engaging with short form video - not just watching, but engaging with it; commenting, liking, following, sharing and creating.

If you can get your customers actively engaging with your brand in, hopefully a positive way, that’s incredibly powerful (and potentially profitable!) and this audience is absolutely primed to do this. It’s up to us as brands and video production companies to find a way to create content that entices them to engage with our brand over someone else's.

Platforms

Looking at the platforms the older consumer cohorts are currently using, when it comes to viewing video, YouTube & Facebook are firmly at the top, with Instagram in something of a distant 3rd position.  

That changes dramatically when we look at the emerging Gen Z.

You’ll see that Instagram leaps ahead to the number one spot ahead of YouTube, when you consider that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google, this is substantial.  

YouTube, Facebook, TikTok & Snapchat are all very close behind in a fairly even field. 

With this generation TikTok & Snapchat are on par with the traditional powerhouses of YouTube & Facebook and Insta dominates, so these are platforms you can’t afford to ignore. As each of them has their own style and purpose it’s not necessarily a one size fits all when it comes to creating video content for all of them either.

Type of Video 

Taking a look at the type of video people are watching, what we’ve seen traditionally with the older demographics is that they are big on the How To’s, Testimonials and Explainer videos. 

Comparing this with the younger Generation Z there are some similarities, for example How To videos still feature high on the list, however the list is much more fragmented and we see a drop in things like product demos and reviews and live streaming and webinars almost drop off the list completely. We also see a range of new video types, or variations on the traditional types we are familiar with, such as POV’s (point of views) and hacks join the list.

The importance of influencers & personalities can’t be underestimated, this isn’t anything new however it’s clear that these personalities are the celebrity, authority and inspiration for this generation. 

Educational content is also important for this cohort, which is consistent across other demographics, but with the younger audience it has evolved to include not only the typical How To’s and Explainers we’re familiar with but also things like hacks, new trends, makeovers in many ‘life’ areas such as home, garden, car, beauty, fashion even finance and finally thrifting is making an appearance, which probably speaks to the economic and climate conscious world this cohort are growing up in.

Memes & entertainment always have and always will be strong, but we now see things like mindfulness and relaxation and POV’s (point of views), which can be considered forms of entertainment, moving up the list too.

Why is video so important to Gen Z?

Why are people engaging with video? This is an important thing to understand because if we can tap into this and speak to our audiences on this level we quickly build trust and rapport and become part of their world.

Broadly speaking the video content Gen Z consumes falls into one of 3 categories: Entertainment, Inspiration & Community. 

Learning new skills, education and sharing ideas is very much at the heart of each of these categories.  ‘Educational Video Content’ isn’t necessarily a stand alone category any longer - it’s a fundamental part of, or a thread that runs through, many different types and categories of video, sometimes subtle, sometimes direct but quite often there none-the-less.

Learning

A theme that came through consistently in the research was that this cohort relies on video in all aspects of their lives and learning in all areas is a big driver for them. From support with school or study to McDonald's hacks to understanding the global geopolitical landscape, there is a desire to engage and learn in a quick, visual way from peers, influencers and communities, through content that either Entertains, Inspires or Connects them.

The Future of Video Marketing

What this all means for the future of video marketing remains to be seen, but a few takeaways from this article are:

Instagram is king and don’t ignore Tik Tok & Snapchat. There are now 5 major platforms to consider in your video marketing strategy, as opposed to the traditional 2-3.

The emerging consumer actively engages with video content, it’s not a passive viewing experience for them.

Tap into the human motivators of Entertainment, Inspiration & Community to create content your audience wants to engage with to ensure the relevance and success of your future video marketing. 

These are just our thoughts based on what we see in our day to day business as a video production company, supported by market research data, for you to take away and adapt into your worlds. 

When you’re ready to produce video content, talk to the team at YourFilm as we’re excited to see how businesses will evolve their video marketing strategies and content for the future and how we as a video production company can support this evolution.

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your budget and requirements, an experienced testimonial video production team and a wide network of +1,000 film crew across Australia & NZ. If you would like to see some of our work or find out more about video production solutions to fit your business needs contact the team at YourFilm.  

Lights, Camera, Conversion: Harnessing the Power of Video Marketing

In today's digital landscape, where attention spans are shorter than ever, businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to engage their target audience and drive sales. Among the myriad of marketing strategies available, video marketing has emerged as a powerful tool to captivate consumers, boost conversions, and enhance brand visibility. As a head of Digital Marketing and E-commerce, understanding the importance of video marketing and knowing which types of videos to produce can significantly impact your company's success. In this blog, we will explore the significance of video marketing, the types of videos that drive conversions, and how to measure success effectively.

The Importance of Video Marketing

Enhanced Engagement. Videos have a unique ability to engage viewers emotionally, making them more likely to resonate with your brand's message and remember it. By leveraging visuals, audio, and storytelling, videos create a captivating experience, leading to increased engagement with your brand.

Improved Conversion Rates. Studies have consistently shown that incorporating videos on landing pages, product pages, and email campaigns can significantly increase conversion rates. Videos allow potential customers to visualise the benefits and features of products, thereby building trust and confidence, and ultimately influencing purchase decisions.

Increased Brand Awareness. Sharing videos across social media platforms and video-sharing websites can exponentially increase your brand's reach. Engaging videos have a higher likelihood of being shared, creating a viral effect that expands your brand's visibility and attracts new customers.

Audience demand for e-commerce video marketing content is significant and continues to grow. To meet the demand for ecommerce video marketing content, brands are investing in high-quality video production, optimising videos for various platforms, and leveraging user-generated content. By understanding the audience's preferences and aligning your video content with their needs, you can effectively engage customers, drive conversions, and enhance brand loyalty. Implementing a well-rounded video marketing strategy that leverages different types of videos throughout the marketing funnel, can effectively help you achieve your marketing objectives.

There are 3 things you need to implement a successful video marketing strategy in your business:

1. The strategy, based on your business objectives and target market

2. Professional video production company that can execute on your strategy, evolve video production based on metrics and scale as your business grows

3. Centralised video platform for hosting, distribution and analytics to manage your video content and provide the critical data to feed back into video production to optimise based on viewer metrics and results.

Getting started can seem daunting at first, however by keeping it simple and focussing on the most effective type of video content at each stage you can get your video marketing strategy up and running relatively quickly and cost effectively. Start with one vertical in your business and build out from there. Once you have the first phase up and running you’ll be able to start gathering and analysing viewer data, get an understanding of your audience’s preferences and then start optimising your content to maximise results.

Which videos to produce first?

Attract with a Brand Video • One video that tells your brand’s story, the objective of this piece of content is to create brand awareness and communicate your brands personality, vision and values in a a succinct, visually engaging video.  This piece of content typically takes more time to get right and has the highest production cost to produce, however if you plan for cutdowns and message variations during the pre-production stages you’ll get a suite of evergreen brand video content from one production project that can be optimised for  multiple channels effectively.

Educate with an Explainer or  How To’s . This content provides value to potential customers and can be either live action or animation. Simply put, it explains your product or service, how it works, why it works, what problems it solves and demonstrates why your products are the best fit for the customers needs. Don’t underestimate the power of this type of video content, research shows that How To videos are the most watched type of video by Australian consumers when making purchase decisions. A How To video is one of the first things consumers search for, making your How To videos the ones they watch is the quickest way to get ahead of the pack.

Convert with Customer Testimonials. Customer testimonials and case studies are a simple but very effective way to build trust and credibility. Let your customers tell your story through their successes. From a video production point of view, keeping it simple and doing the basic well will give you a quality, yet cost effective piece of content. A short piece to camera interview, with good audio and lighting is all you need to do. If you have a bit more time and budget consider filming b-roll footage to overlay for visual interest, and make sure you include a call to action at the end.

Measuring Success in Video Marketing. 

Once you’ve produced and distributed your video content, it’s important to monitor and analyse results on an individual video basis so you get a good understanding of not only what content your audience is engaging with, but what action your video is driving your audience to take and any resulting conversions. Armed with this information you can adjust your video production to optimise based on viewer metrics to improve results. 

1. View Count: Monitoring the number of views your videos receive provides a basic indication of their reach and initial engagement. However, it's important to remember that view count alone doesn't guarantee success, as it doesn't necessarily translate into conversions.

2. Engagement Metrics: Analysing engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares helps gauge the level of interest and interaction your videos generate. Higher engagement rates indicate that your content resonates with your target audience and has the potential to drive conversions. Note, depending on how you are targeting your video distribution higher engagement rates don’t necessarily mean higher conversion rates. A highly targeted video with less engagement may have higher conversion rates overall than a broadly distributed video with higher view count.

3. Conversion Rate: Tracking the conversion rate specific to each video allows you to determine which videos are most effective in driving sales. Connect video views with subsequent actions, such as form submissions or purchases, to gain insights into their impact on the bottom line. What type of video are customers watching before converting? What other video content of yours have they watched prior to this? What is the key messaging, format and call to action on the higher converting videos? 

4. Retention and Drop-off Rates: Monitoring the average watch time and drop-off points in your videos provides insights into audience engagement. Understanding where viewers lose interest or abandon the video can help you optimise future content for better results. For example, if people drop off in the first half of the video, make sure your key messaging is up front in the first 15 seconds. If a particular video drives an action which leads to a conversion, look at the messaging, where it is in the video and the call to action and replicate it across additional video content.

Tracking and analysing this data ultimately gives you an understanding of your audience's preferences. By producing video content that aligns with with their needs, brands can effectively engage customers, drive conversions, and enhance brand loyalty. Working with a video production company that understands this process and can take the insights from your analysis and translate them into video content is important. They need to have the creative flexibility to work with you to evolve your video content alongside your video marketing strategy.

In conjunction with working with a video production company that understands the video marketing process, it’s also worth considering a platform to host, distribute and analyse your video content. Video platforms such as Brightcove offer several benefits for hosting, distributing and analysing marketing videos including:

• Centralised video management, one place for everything.

• Seamless video distribution across multiple channels and marketing platforms.

• Enhanced viewer engagement with interactive elements that can be overlaid on your video, giving the viewer a richer viewing experience and providing you with richer data.

• Detailed video analytics giving you a deeper understanding of viewer preferences and behaviour.

• Data-driven optimisation empowers you to optimise your strategy, streamline your video production and further segment and target your audience based on their preferences.  This data-driven approach ensures that your video production efforts are optimised to deliver the highest impact and return on investment.

In summary, by implementing a well-rounded video marketing strategy, leveraging different types of videos throughout the marketing funnel, and working with the right providers to produce, manage and optimise your video content your business can effectively engage customers, drive conversions, and ultimately impact the bottom line.

If you’d like to find out more about how YourFilm, in conjunction with it’s partners, can support you in implementing your video marketing strategy contact the experienced video production team today.

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced video production team, a wide network of +1,000 crew across Australia & NZ and partnerships with hosting and analytics providers such as Brightcove to provide you with a complete video solution.

The Power of Video: Boosting Customer Engagement in the Cryptocurrency Market

In the cryptocurrency sector, where things move fast, attention spans are short and competition is fierce, the need for educational, engaging and up to date digital marketing content is paramount. Staying informed of the most recent news and innovative developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain market is demanding and many turn to videos not only for the latest updates and product launches but also significant insights and technical analysis on what’s happening from the wider crypto community. Video is the communication method of choice in the crypto community so for businesses wanting to succeed it’s a critical part of the marketing program. 

Marketing in the cryptocurrency sector, much like the sector itself, is disruptive. Whilst many traditional marketing methods still stand, how they are implemented and the tech stack behind them can be different. Twitch and YouTube are at the forefront in the blockchain and crypto sector with Twitter and LinkedIn being the next cabs off the communication rank. It’s become a necessity to understand the impact video has on your customers and potential audience. With thousands of YouTube channels dedicated to the cryptocurrency space, providing educational content for beginners right through to experienced traders, being part of the conversation has never been more important, or accessible. Videos on social media platforms receive 1200% more shares  than text and image content combined, significantly amplifying your reach and generating organic brand exposure.

Why Video Matters

Visual Appeal and Engagement. Videos provide a dynamic and visually appealing way to convey complex concepts in an easily digestible manner. They capture attention quickly, leading to increased engagement and brand recall.

Emotional Connection. Videos have the unique ability to evoke emotions and create a sense of trust and authenticity. By humanizing your brand through relatable narratives, you can establish a stronger connection with your audience, which can be challenging in the purely digital crypto space.

Demonstration and Education. Cryptocurrencies often require explanations of intricate concepts and processes. Video allows you to showcase how your product or service works, breaking down and communicating complex concepts in a way that is fast, memorable and recognisably on brand. All this helps customers understand your product or service and quickly grasp how it benefits them whilst building trust and confidence in your business and brand.

Video Categories that get Results in the Cryptocurrency Market

You can’t talk about video marketing in the crypto and blockchain arena without talking about YouTube marketing. Audiences here are generally looking for one of 3 things: Education, Entertainment or Inspiration, and if you’re looking to engage the community whether they are beginners or experts, Education is one of the quickest ways to get your brand, technology and message out there. 

Education video content falls into the Consideration & Conversion stage of the funnel, which generally translates into: Explainers, How To videos, Product Demonstrations and Testimonial videos, these are common types of video, but how do you tailor this type of video content specifically for a cryptocurrency market?

1. Explainer Videos. These concise and informative videos break down complex concepts, such as blockchain, decentralised finance (DeFi), or tokenomics. Explainers serve as a powerful tool for educating potential customers and simplifying their understanding of the cryptocurrency landscape and your product within it. The most commonly used video production method for these in the cryptocurrency sector is animation as animation gives you complete creative flexibility, the ability to demonstrate your product in a 2D or 3D digital world and is the best way to communicate complicated concepts in a memorable way.

2. How To’s and Product Demonstrations. These video types represent a real opportunity to engage, educate and be part of the conversation amongst the community and there are many different ways you can apply them to crypto and blockchain offerings.

• Technical deep dives - How does your technology work?

• Feature comparisons - How is your technology different?

• Guided Onboarded - How to get started

• Guided User Walkthroughs - How to use your technology

• Guided Developer Tutorials - How to integrate your technology

• Video pitches, feature announcements and product roadmaps updates

• Video FAQ’s

3. Testimonial videos. There’s no doubt that Testimonial videos are powerful marketing tools that help convert customers, however in the crypto sector where many value their anonymity, customer stories and video case studies can achieve similar results without your customer having to be front and centre on camera. Why the customer chose your technology, how they used it, what problem did it solve or opportunity did it open up for them and what did success look like for them. These types of stories connect on a human level, even in a complicated digital, tech-driven ecosphere.

In conclusion, incorporating video content into your cryptocurrency marketing strategy can yield substantial benefits. By leveraging the power of visual storytelling, educational explainers, customer stories, and engaging demos, you can effectively connect with your customers and potential audience. The statistics speak for themselves: videos drive higher engagement, increase conversions, and boost brand visibility. Embrace video content to enhance your marketing efforts and position your cryptocurrency business for success in today's digital landscape.

If you're to scale your company, DAO, or user base, work with a crypto video production company that understands the specific needs and technical complexities of your sector. Talk to the experienced video production team at YourFilm about your project.

The Power of Explainer Videos: Unlocking Marketing Success

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to capture their target audiences attention and create meaningful engagement. One effective way of doing this, that has gained immense popularity, is with explainer videos. These concise, engaging, informative assets have proven to be an invaluable addition to video marketing strategies. Delivering numerous benefits, including impressive returns on investment (ROI), increased customer conversions, improved acquisition rates and enhanced engagement, explainer videos play an important role in the consideration and conversion stages of your sales & marketing funnel. 

In this blog, we will delve into the advantages of incorporating explainer videos into your marketing arsenal, including an exploration of different video production methods and animation styles.

How explainer videos improve to your marketing results

Boost Conversion Rates. According to a study by HubSpot, including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by up to 80%.

Increase Engagement. An explainer video can keep visitors on a website for an average of 2 minutes longer than websites without video (Wistia).

Enhance Recall. Studies have shown that 65% of viewers remember information from a video after three days, compared to just 10% for text-based content (HubSpot).

Drive Sales. 74% of users who watched an explainer video about a product subsequently bought it (Wyzowl).

Increase Understanding. 97% of marketers believe that explainer videos help consumers understand their products or services better (Hubspot).

These statistics demonstrate the power and impact of explainer videos on marketing results and customer conversions. With such compelling benefits, it's no wonder that explainer videos have become a go-to tool for businesses seeking to create effective and engaging marketing campaigns.

Explaining the different explainer video production methods

Animation. Animation is a widely used and the most common production method for explainer video production. It offers the flexibility to bring any concept to life, regardless of its complexity. Whether using 2D or 3D animation, this method allows for creative storytelling, vivid visuals and the incorporation of characters, making it ideal for showcasing products or services that cannot be easily captured through live-action footage.

Live-Action: Live-action explainer video production involves real people, physical locations, and tangible products. This production method provides a human touch and can effectively showcase real-world scenarios, testimonials, demonstrations, and behind-the-scenes footage. Live-action videos can evoke authenticity, credibility, and a personal connection with the audience.

Whiteboard Animation. Whiteboard animation videos simulate the process of drawing on a whiteboard, creating a visually engaging, dynamic experience. As the hand draws and reveals illustrations, text, and diagrams in a step-by-step manner, complex concepts become easier to understand. This method is popular for explaining processes, tutorials, and educational content.

Explaining the different types of animation for explainer video production

Within the animation video production method, there are also an array of animation styles for explainer videos, depending on your brand identity, target audience and objectives of your explainer video, the different styles have different strengths.

Character-Based. Character-based explainer videos feature animated or real characters that serve as the central figures in the storytelling process. These characters can be customised to represent your brand and target audience. Character-based videos create emotional connections, inject personality into your brand, and make complex topics more relatable and enjoyable.

Motion Graphics. Motion graphics animation involves using animated elements, such as typography, icons, charts, and graphs to visually convey information. This style is ideal for presenting data, statistics, and abstract concepts. With its sleek and modern aesthetic, motion graphics can grab attention and deliver information in a visually appealing and concise manner.

Screencast. Screencast videos capture the screen of a computer, smartphone, or tablet while demonstrating a software, application, or website. This style allows you to showcase product features, user interfaces, and how-to guides effectively. Screencast videos offer a practical and hands-on approach, helping viewers understand the usability and functionality of your digital products.

Explainer Presentations. Explainer presentations combine slideshow-style visuals, voice-over narration, and textual information to present a topic or concept. They are effective for delivering educational content, sharing statistics, or providing step-by-step instructions. Explainer presentations can be customised with branding elements and offer a straightforward and professional way to convey information.

In conclusion, incorporating explainer videos into your marketing strategy not only provides numerous benefits in terms of ROI, customer conversions, acquisition, and engagement but also offers a variety of video production methods and styles to suit your brand and objectives. Whether you opt for animation, live-action, whiteboard animation, character-based, motion graphics, screencast, or explainer presentations, each approach has its unique advantages. 

By carefully selecting the production method and style that aligns with your brand identity and target audience, you can create impactful and engaging explainer videos that effectively communicate your message and drive marketing success. Embrace the power of explainer videos, explore the possibilities, and unleash the potential of your marketing campaigns.

Contact the experienced explainer video production team at YourFilm to discuss your project.

YourFilm have explainer video packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ and partnerships with hosting and analytics providers such as Brightcove to help you with a complete video solution.

Unleashing the Power of Brand Videos: A Guide for Marketers

Brand videos are a very effective marketing tool, they have the power to evoke emotions and connect with viewers on a deeper level. By appealing to emotions, brand videos create a memorable experience that drive positive brand associations. When customers feel a strong emotional connection to a brand, they are more likely to engage with it and become loyal customers.

In this blog, we will explore the benefits of brand video production and provide tips on how to create stand-out content that will engage your audience, increase brand awareness, attract new customers and ultimately drive sales.

Benefits of brand videos for marketing

Brand Awareness. Brand videos are an excellent way to increase your brand's visibility and awareness. By showcasing your company's values, mission, products and people you can create a lasting impression on your target audience. According to a study by Wyzowl, 81% of businesses saw an increase in brand awareness after incorporating video into their marketing strategy.

Customer Acquisition. Brand videos help attract new customers by showcasing your unique selling points and highlighting the benefits of your products or services. By telling a compelling story and connecting with your audience on an emotional level, you can build trust and loyalty with potential customers. According to a study by HubSpot, 80% of customers remember a video they watched in the past month, and 64% are more likely to make a purchase after watching a branded social media video.

Improved Engagement. Video content is more engaging and memorable than other forms of marketing material, such as blog posts or images. According to a report by Brightcove, adding a video to your landing page can increase conversion rates by up to 80%. By incorporating brand videos into your marketing strategy, you can create a lasting impression on your audience and improve engagement with your brand.

Tips for stand-out brand video production

Tell a Compelling Story. To create a memorable brand video, you need to tell a story that connects with your audience on an emotional level. Whether you're showcasing your company's history, mission, products or people, you need to create a narrative that engages your audience and inspires them to take action. People relate to people and well produced brand stories, telling a human story will connect with your audience like nothing else can.

Highlight Your Brand’s Uniqueness. What makes your brand unique? What makes you, you. Why do you employees like working for your organisation and what is it that makes your customers loyal to you? Rather than focussing on specific products and services, focus on your unique brand values, culture and people to show your audience why you are passionate about what you do. Your products and services will naturally be highlighted whilst not being the centre of attention in the video. Product & service explainer videos (explainer page) are an important tool for video marketing, but they are not brand videos and have a different objective in your video marketing plan.

Keep it Short and Sweet. Attention spans are short these days, so it's essential to keep your brand videos short and to the point. Ground your video in one key concept or value rather than trying to communicate too much at one time, and tell that particular story. According to a study by Vidyard, the ideal length for a brand video is two minutes or less. By keeping your videos concise and engaging, you can hold your audience's attention and improve engagement with your brand.

Choosing the right video production company to work with

When selecting a video production company  to create brand video content, you should consider several factors to ensure you find the right partner that will work with you to develop your creative concept and deliver to your objectives and budget.

Portfolio and Expertise. Review the company's portfolio and past projects to assess their expertise and quality of work. Look for videos that align with your brand's style and objectives. A company with experience in producing brand videos across various industries is often a good fit.

Creative Approach. A video production company should bring fresh and creative ideas to the table. Consider their ability to craft compelling narratives and visually engaging content that aligns with your brand's message and values.

Technical Skills and Equipment. Assess the production company's technical capabilities, including the quality of their camera work, editing skills, and graphics work. A company that stays up-to-date with industry trends and employs the latest video production tools can usually deliver high-quality videos.

Understanding of your brand and target audience. Choose a production company that demonstrates a clear understanding of your brand, its values, and target audience. They should be able to tailor the video content to effectively communicate your brand's unique identity and resonate with your intended viewers, and take the time to understand all the elements before diving into production.

Collaboration and Communication. Effective communication and collaboration are crucial throughout the video production process. Ensure that the production company is responsive, listens to your input, and provides a production schedule and regular updates on the project's progress.

Budget and Pricing. Consider the company's pricing structure and whether it aligns with your budget. While it's important to find a cost-effective option, remember that quality should not be compromised. Request detailed quotes and understand what services are included in the package.

Timelines and Delivery. Discuss timelines and delivery expectations with the production company. They should be able to provide a realistic timeline for the project and meet agreed-upon deadlines.

Flexibility and Adaptability. Look for a production company that is adaptable to changes, open to feedback, and willing to collaborate with your team. Flexibility in accommodating your specific needs and making necessary adjustments is crucial for a successful partnership.

Post-Production Services. Inquire about post-production services such as video editing, colour grading, sound design, and motion graphics. A production company that can handle the entire process from filming to the final polished video can provide a seamless experience.

Remember, choosing the right video production company is a vital decision that can significantly impact the quality and effectiveness of your brand videos. By considering these factors and thoroughly evaluating potential partners, you can make an informed decision and establish a fruitful collaboration that brings your brand vision to life. 

In conclusion, brand videos are an essential marketing tool that can help businesses increase brand awareness, attract new customers, and ultimately drive sales. By telling a compelling story, highlighting your unique brand story, and keeping your videos short and engaging, you can create stand-out video content that resonates with your target audience. With the right strategy and execution, brand videos can have a significant impact on your marketing results and help your business achieve its goals.

If you would like to find out more about more about YourFilm’s brand video production solutions and packages contact the experienced team today.

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ and partnerships with hosting and analytics providers such as Brightcove to help you with a complete video solution.

Customer Testimonial Video Production Guide: Create high converting video testimonials

Let your customers tell the world what’s great about your business. Testimonial videos build trust faster than almost anything else.

86% overall increase in conversions on vendor websites that include targeted video content.

90% of B2B marketers consider customer video testimonials to be the most effective form of content marketing.

88% more time is spent on websites with video content than websites with no video content

77% of buyers put testimonials as the number one most influential content when evaluating a shortlist.

It’s no secret that customer testimonial videos are a particularly effective form of sales marketing content, and play an important role in the customer journey, but what makes a great testimonial video and how do you go about testimonial video production? In this article, we break it down and share some examples of testimonial videos that get results.

What makes a great testimonial video?

1. Tell a story. First and foremost, the story is what engages your audience. It doesn’t need to be long and involved, but consider the start (problem), middle (your solution) and end (results) that the customer experienced working with your business.

2. Make it relatable. Focus on common problems, challenges or frustrations your customers face and how you help solve them.

3. Keep it short. 90 seconds is about right, consider 60 & 30 second social media cutdowns too.

4. Make it authentic. Don’t put words in their mouth. Pre-interview the customer to really understand their experience and tailor your approach to their story.

5. Include concrete, real world results. Be honest, share the details and data as much as possible.

Problem : Solution

Make it relatable

Real world data

What makes great testimonial video production?

• Invest in quality. Bad video can be worse than no video at all so it’s worth working with an experienced video production company to achieve the polished results you need.  This doesn’t mean it needs to be expensive, you can keep your video simple from a production standpoint, but investing in areas that will deliver real value is worthwhile.

• Efficient, well planned production. Pre-interviewing your customer to understand their experience and perspective will not only help prepare them for being on camera, but also help you develop the story arc for your testimonial video. This will also allow you to plan out any appropriate b-roll or overlay footage to film that will help visually bring the customer story to life.

• Good audio is critical. Poor audio can make viewers think the overall quality of the video (and its content) is much lower as well.

• Maximise your video production ROI. Film for multiple pieces of content in the one shoot, think about cut downs, ratio variations, general b-roll and branding elements that can be filmed along with the testimonial.

• Consider different styles. There are different styles of testimonial video, make sure your production style fits your business's brand and tone of voice. For example if you’re going for a more relaxed, conversational tone have the customer looking off camera, for a more formal, structured feel have them look straight down the lens.

Direct to camera

Event testimonials

Hosted interview testimonial

Pro Tip

Start collecting feedback from your customers now so you know who are good candidates for testimonial videos in the future. Shifting from text reviews to video testimonials on your website will dramatically improve conversion rates.

Testimonial Video Production FAQs

• How many should I have? One per product or service is a good rule of thumb.

• What should I ask? Have a series of prepared questions, more than you’ll need for the final video as this will give you plenty of options during editing plus potentially give you content for additional video content in the future.

• How much does a testimonial video cost? Between $1,500 - $5,000 depending on the complexity of the filming and editing.  Plan for multiple pieces of content from each shoot you’ll get a better return on your video production investment and have more conversion driving video content (even if you don’t edit it immediately).

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your budget and requirements, an experienced testimonial video production team plus a wide network of +1,000 film crew across Australia & NZ. If you would like to see some of our work or find out more about testimonial video production solution to fit your business needs contact the team today.

Event Video Production: 8 ways to use video to get more out of your corporate event

What video adds to your event and how to maximise the return you get from it. 

Video is a powerful marketing tool, its uses in brand marketing are as varied as they are impactful and corporate events are no exception.

You invest so much time, money and energy in your corporate event, once the event is over, what then? Video allows you, not only to make an impact during your event, but to continue the conversation with audiences long after the event has wrapped, extending your ROI, widening engagement and increasing brand awareness. Many of the elements that go into creating an outstanding event can be turned into video content to tell your brand story.

Event video content plays an important role during all stages of the event lifecycle, from pre-promotion videos that drive attendance to kicking off the event with an opening video to providing a range of brand and video marketing content post event.

Here we look at 8 ways to use event video production to improve the return you get on your event investment.

1. Pre-promotion and event registration videos
   Drive registrations, promote speakers and create sharable content about your upcoming event for attendees to promote to their networks.

2. Event opening video
   Set the tone, capture attention and create excitement in the first 60 seconds of your event with an event opening video.

3. Virtual keynotes
   You can’t always get the speakers you want in the right place at the right time, pre-recording (or live streaming) presenters not only solves this problem but also gives you video content that can be cutdown into snackable insight videos post-event.

4. Testimonial videos
   Nothing is more powerful than a testimonial video, increase your credibility, share event highlights and insights, let your audience tell your story and showcase your event attendees.

5. Turn presentations into webinar video content
   With a bit of editing to add slides, b-roll and branding, your event presentations can be turned into polished webinar video content, which can then be cut down into social media clips very cost effectively.

6. Event highlight videos
   This is generally what people think of when they hear ‘event video’ and these are important sales and marketing tools. A quality highlight video supports your sales follow ups post event, helps promote future events as well as providing brand video content for your marketing channels.

7. Sponsor video content
   Provide video content for event exhibitors, sponsors and partners. Videos can be tweaked to focus on a particular sponsor giving them marketing content that benefits you too.

8. Social media videos
   Every video produced can be cut down into multiple social media clips. Presentation soundbites, insights, highlights and testimonials, giving you a suite of social media content for use well beyond the event.

Tips on what to film 

You have a cinematographer there for the duration of the event so make the most of their time. As well as capturing presentations there is plenty of opportunity to film a wide range of footage; branding and brand activations, sponsor materials, audience reactions, networking and exhibitions.  You can even set up lights in a quiet corner to capture attendee testimonials.  Panel discussions create sound bites for social media and establishing shots of the venue and location itself help set the tone.

Considerations when choosing an event video production company

Event video production experience is a must, as is the right kit, 2 cameras (one on a tripod, the other roaming) and good audio patched into the AV desk if you have one. Capture plenty of b-roll footage such as brand activations, event activities, networking, people interacting, audience reactions, exhibition stands and break out sessions. Set up lights in a quiet area to capture testimonials and attendee reactions during down times.

The many hours of video footage you capture at your corporate event is enough to create a lot of pieces of video content if you plan it out and think broadly across your marketing channels and objectives.  Make sure your video production company archives your footage for repurposing in the future, having a library of video footage on hand gives you flexibility and cost efficiencies.

To sum up, video is a versatile and powerful tool that can drive real return on your corporate event investment. The opportunity corporate events present to capture a large amount of video content in a relatively short amount of time is huge. With a bit of planning and by working with the right corporate video production company you can easily and cost effectively produce a high volume of video content. One event, one shoot, many videos. 

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced event video production team and a wide network of +1,000 film crew across Australia & NZ, our work speaks for itself.

If you would like to find out more about an event video production solution to fit your needs contact the team at YourFilm.  

Altitude is Everything: What helicopter filming brings to your commercial property video

When we think about filming aerial footage for commercial property videos there are generally two options that come to mind. Drones are the easier, more accessible way to capture footage from the sky, and they play an important role in commercial property video production, but they do have their limitations. To really take your property video to the next level, adding a helicopter shoot will give you the cinematic touch to showcase your asset.

Altitude is everything

Where drone’s stop, helicopters begin.  Drone’s are an important video production tool, but there are downsides like flight zone restrictions, height restrictions and CASA rules and regulations limiting where, when and how they can be flown.

A helicopter can fly unrestricted over populated areas, it doesn’t matter if it’s a railway line, major road or CBD during rush hour.  If your property is near an airport the drone is a no-go, which is not the case for a helicopter.

The helicopter allows you to target locations that are nestled in highly built up areas to showcase their location in context, this simply can’t be done with a drone as you can’t get up high enough.  Track graphics into the helicopter footage to pinpoint your property and showcase its position amongst critical infrastructure and other key assets. 

A helicopter also gives you a greater reach. You can physically go from one location to another location showing the route and travel time, no matter the distance. The drone always has to be in line of sight of the operator which restricts mobility and distance.

As well as bringing scale and scope to your video, high altitude bespoke helicopter filming gives you the most up to date version of your building in situ as it is today. Our cities change and develop constantly so stock footage can date quickly. A bespoke helicopter shoot provides you with the most up to date footage and you get to capture the exact shots you want.

Feature film camera & lens quality 

Camera quality and movement can be an issue even if you’re using a large commercial drone as drones have a weight limit which restricts the type of camera and the lens that it can carry. Not so with a helicopter.

The Shot Over camera system, a gimbal mounted camera system attached externally to the helicopter and widely used in the feature film & TV production world, is now becoming more accessible for corporate and commercial property video production. This system can carry a high end, heavy weight camera and importantly very long lenses, without any shake. This type of kit captures a range of cinematic shots.  For example, a long lens can create compression (of distance), which compresses distance between things in the shot making them look closer together and allowing you to get more in a single shot, giving you a cinematic style and epic nature.

Get the full picture

A helicopter gives you the complete picture, it establishes your property in context of the wider surroundings.  Set the scene at scale with the helicopter, move to the drone for closer aerial detail of your building, then down to the ground and finally inside. All aspects, all angles. The complete picture.

Work with the best 

Given the cost involved, when it comes to helicopter filming it absolutely pays to work with the best, those who have the established relationships; pilots, aerial cinematography specialists and a video production company experienced with heli-shoots.  They have a relationship with Air Traffic Control, they understand the processes involved, they know how to adapt to unexpectedly changing situations and most importantly, they know how to work together to capture the right footage. When you’re spending that amount of money on a property video don’t cut corners.

If you would like to find out more about helicopter filming for commercial property videos, contact the experienced YourFilm production team today. With a network of +1,000 crew Australia-wide including expert aerial cinematographers and pilots and an in-house animation studio with high end 2D and 3D graphics specialists, YourFilm is uniquely positioned to deliver premium helicopter property videos anywhere in Australia.

How to build a ‘How To’ video marketing program for your business

How To videos, product reviews, tutorials, explainer videos and product demonstrations are the top 5 categories of video watched by Australian consumers. YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world after Google with the top 4 video categories watched by users being comedy, music, entertainment/pop culture, and ‘How To’ videos. For businesses, this represents a huge opportunity.

There’s no denying that video is a critical part of the consumer's purchase decision making process, and definitely something that should be an integral part of a brands marketing strategy.  But where do you start, What are the foundations of a successful How To video marketing strategy for your business?

Here we look at 4 key elements to consider when building your ‘How To’ video marketing plan.

1. Goals

2. Topics

3. Video Production

4. Distribution & Analytics

1. Goals
Given we’re talking about How To videos, which are the foundation of Conversion Stage video content, the goal here will likely be increased conversions. Define your measures for success. If you are just starting out, get the basics in place then build on them once you have more data. The goal in the early stage is to build a scalable, streamlined system for How To video production and marketing.

2. Topics
Look at your FAQ’s for inspiration, talk to your customer service team, what are the most common things customers ask? Look at your product or service lines, pick a few to focus on initially and break each of those down into smaller topics. You want to communicate a step by step guide on how to use your product, keep it simple and don’t overwhelm with too much information in one video, split it out into multiple ones. 

3. Video Production 

• Focus on Quality - whilst How To videos are functional video content, they still represent your brand so need a level of professionalism and brand consistency. Simplify and streamline the production process to reduce costs without compromising quality.

• Set up Video Templates - work with your video production company to create on-brand video template ‘shells’ which include graphics, music, provide structure and set the tone for all your How To videos. This will standardise filming and editing making it more cost effective plus it increases brand recognition and loyalty, people will instantly recognise a video as one of your brand’s How To videos.

• Film videos in bulk -  maximise the content you get from each shoot by filming them in batches. An experienced corporate video production company will help you plan your shoot for maximum efficiency and content. Consider b-roll, close up and product footage to overlay and provide detail.

• Build a library of video assets - manage, tag and store your video assets so you can quickly and easily repurpose them across other areas in your marketing activity or business.

• Work with a corporate production company that understands your goals, understands video marketing (as well as video production) and can provide you with the scale, consistency and cost effectiveness needed to produce the volume of How To videos across multiple channels, products or services.

• Include a call to action at the end of each video - make it easy for the customer to take action. Include links to products or services, add suggestions on related video content, you can even ask your customers what How To videos they want you to make.

4. Distribution & Analytics

Distribution and analytics are a critical part of the strategy. Set up your system early as it will streamline the process of getting your video content out to the right platforms at the right times, and importantly provide the data on what’s getting traction and what isn’t so you can adjust your topics, content and call to actions accordingly.

A platform like Brightcove’s Marketing Studio will make your video marketing funnel work harder for you. It also has plenty of features that can be built in as you gain traction, build your content library and have solid viewer data to base decisions on.

Work with your video production company to build an agile process that allows you to communicate, adjust and move quickly to produce and repurpose content based on what the analytics are telling you. 

In summary, How To videos are the most widely viewed corporate video category and a powerful tool that can drive conversions and real ROI on your video production investment. The basics of corporate video production still apply, but doing them well can set you apart and grow your business.

If you would like to find out more about an affordable, professional How To video production solution that fits your video marketing strategy contact the team at YourFilm.  

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ and partnerships with hosting and analytics providers such as Brightcove to help you with a complete video solution.

Your guide to social media video production

Social media is continually changing the way that we communicate and consume information. The most successful content marketers are delivering content consistently through multiple social media channels. It comes as no surprise that with all the content posted across these channels, video generates 1,200% more shares than text and image content combined. Are you making the most of your video assets across social media? 

Why is social media video so powerful?

Roughly 45% of users watch at least an hour or more of Facebook or YouTube videos in a week. 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service with 86% of them wanting to see more video content from brands. These numbers are staggering, but how do you translate this into your social media video strategy to make the most of it?  Here’s our guide to social media video production to help you maximise the ROI you get from your strategy.

Video has a strong hold on social media. While each social platform understands that video is now a core content medium and they're encouraging users to use video substantially through their respective platforms, they’re not all one and the same. Every social media platform caters to a different audience and fulfils a different marketing goal.

Are you talking to the right demographic on the right platform?

Research shows that smartphones are the device people most often watch video content on, but laptop viewing is on the rise, if we look a bit deeper into this we find that women are significantly more likely to view video on their phone, with men favouring laptops a little more.

Not surprisingly, YouTube is where most video content is watched, with Facebook close behind. YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google these days. Tik Tok is very much on the rise for younger demographics with it being only 6% behind Google in the 18-24 age group when it comes to starting a search for a product or service.  Platform of choice varies across age demographics and even gender with men more likely to watch video on YouTube with women relying on Facebook and Instagram. 

How do you get the most out of your social media video production?

Scale your content. Build a library of footage and video content to re-purpose & optimise across your chosen social media channels.  It’s important to optimise for each channel as they are not one size fits all, adjust ratios (vertical, horizontal, square) and durations to fit the platform. Utilise the same video with different call to actions or key messaging depending on the audience you are targeting on each platform.  Analyse and adjust based on what’s getting traction.

Focus on Quality. Viral corporate video content is typically reasonably high quality. Whilst social media video allows you to be more authentic and there is scope for more personality to come through, for corporate businesses, your video still needs to represent your brand so always keep quality and brand consistency in mind.

Hook your audience early. No matter which social media platform you choose, competition will be stiff, so you want to catch and keep your audience. Capture their attention in the first 5-10 seconds. 

Include a CTA.  Add a clear call to action at the end of every video.  What do you want your audience to do next? Tell them and make it easy for them to take that action.

Plan your ratio variations & formats for each channel early in your video production process

As well as having variations in audiences, each social media platform has variations in video format and specifications. To get the most out of each platform, optimise your video based on their guidelines. The top 3 things to factor into your video plan are:

• File sizes (minimum and maximum)

• Aspect ratios and dimensions

• Video length

Social media platforms are constantly evolving as their audience demands an increase in video content and features, YouTube reels, Facebook stories and TikTok are great examples of this.  Keep an eye on trends and evolve your strategy to include ones relevant to your goals.

What are the trends for 2023?

Whilst there are a variety of emerging trends in 2023, a few key ones to incorporate into your strategy are:

• Reels & stories with increasingly more features (YouTube, Facebook & Instagram)

• Interactive video, new technology is making it easier for audiences to interact directly with your video, from ‘chose your own adventure’ style menus to buttons and buy now links overlaid on the video.  These exciting new trends offer richer viewer experiences along with increased engagement and conversion opportunities for brands.

• The silent video. A whopping 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound. If you want people to stick around and watch your content, you need to optimise it for silent viewing. The good news is that most of the time, all it takes is the addition of closed captions to keep people engaged. 

• Educational & Informative Videos. Think with Google shared that “how to” is one of the most popular categories on YouTube, which gives your business a significant opportunity to share educational video content with people who want to learn more. 

To sum up, if there’s one thing to take away from this article, social media video is a powerful tool that can drive real ROI on your video production investment. The basics of corporate video production still apply, but doing them well can easily set you apart.

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, volume pricing options for social media video and an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ.

If you would like to find out more about an affordable, scalable, professional video production solution to fit your social media strategy contact the team at YourFilm.  

Interactive Video: The next generation of property video

Turn passive viewers into active users. The next generation of commercial property video is here. 

Video has long been a mainstay in the commercial property marketing tool kit to inform, educate and engage audiences as well as showcase, highlight and sell property like no other medium can.  

Take that power and dial it up even further. Transform watching videos from a passive moment into an active experience. It's time to cut through the noise using intelligent video content that works for you and your audience.

Interactive property video. Engage and convert on a whole new level.

It’s the same commercial property video production process you may already be familiar with; script development, filming, editing and graphics. These elements are then assembled in a slightly different way to give the viewer a richer experience. You want your video production company to be experienced in producing interactive property video so they can help you design your video with interactivity in mind right from the start. 

For example, for a leasing video you may want to consider specific floors or features such as end of trip facilities or local amenities you want viewers to be able to explore. For a sales video it may be a click to view technical or financial information on the property, download the IM directly from the video or branch off to a section of the video with CGI’s on planned transport or infrastructure projects.

Once video production is complete, your video is hosted on an interactive video platform such as Vudoo’s and the interactivity elements are overlaid.

How the interactive platform works

• Add clickable content and interactions, direct your audience to where you want them to go with clickable pulses, buttons, and hotspots. Interactions are customizable, meaning you can transform content whilst staying on-brand.

• Create personalised user journeys, also known as branching technology, to create interactive stories that enable users to choose the content that truly matters to them and delve deeper into it providing a richer experience.

• Include Custom overlays. Get creative and use overlays to prompt users to learn more about your business, boost lead generation, provide further information or get in touch with you directly, at the click of a button.

• Built-in forms, brochures or IM’s. Capture data and convert views into leads with dynamic in-video forms. Provide your audience with more detailed or technical information in the form of brochures and IM’s that are downloadable directly from the video.

Interactive property videos allow you to make your video content work harder, achieve better results and provide an increased ROI.

Boost engagement and get more eyeballs on your property with compelling video content. Interactive features demand attention and create more memorable experiences. Get your audience involved in your property and hold their attention for longer.

Convert video views into your desired business outcome, whether that’s capturing leads, driving traffic or making sales. Clickable prompts and regular CTAs within your video shout louder than static content. 

Personalized storylines and branching videos mean you can showcase your property, local area and key infrastructure whilst allowing viewers to create their own personalized journey by clicking on different interactions throughout the video. This also allows you to explain multiple concepts, products or features in depth in the one video. Branching allows you to take your video down different paths so that your audience can choose where they want to go and what information they want to go deeper into.

Seamless integration means that your interactive property video works across all standard mobile, tablet and desktop devices, plus major CRM and video hosting platforms, no need for any specialised equipment to watch them.

Amplify your interactive property video via social media channels, drive traffic to your website or landing pages, transform Facebook video viewers into engaged users of your interactive video. Link your video to share with your professional network via LinkedIn to elevate the reach of your video or send email campaigns that truly stand out and cut through.

YourFilm have property video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced interactive and commercial property video production teams and a wide network of over 1,000 film crew across Australia & NZ providing you with a complete video solution.

If you would like to find out more about interactive property video production contact the team at YourFilm.  

The New Prime Time: Australia’s Obsession with Online How-To Videos

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know pretty much everyone is watching online video. Not that it’s any small deal either - it’s been reported that online videos have an audience reach of 92% globally.  That’s huge.

But what about here in Australia?  What exactly are we watching?

To shine a light on the way Australians consume video content YourFilm partnered with the market research experts at Insights Exchange & Pure Profile. These people know their stuff. The research provides key insights for those us with businesses looking to leverage video to grow revenue. And it turns out that what we are watching is only part of the picture. The other half is when we watch.

This may seem counter intuitive. With no scheduled “on-air” times in the digital world, does when really matter?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Once the results of our research became clear, we immediately recognised these viewing patterns in our own personal day to day lives, and chances are you will too.

When “what" meets when

One of the things we discovered, not surprisingly, was that video plays an important part in people's purchase decisions. However, dig a little deeper and it soon becomes clear that people watch videos relating to different stages of the path to purchase at different times throughout the day.  This cannot be understated and bears repeating: There are specific times of day when your target market is searching for video content that could eventually lead to a sale. They are doing this voluntarily, by themselves. Once identified, that’s a massive opportunity.

11 and 8: The new "Prime Time"

We identified 2 key times of day when people actively search for and watch marketing and brand videos.

Around 11am (perhaps needing a bit of a break from work!) and through to lunchtime people tend to be researching their next purchase.  One in four Aussies (24%) watch product demonstrations and reviews, search for client testimonial videos or go to the About Us page on websites.  People want to know if they like and connect with a business, are looking for bit of validation from others that have used a product or service - does it solve a problem they have?  Basically they’re sussing you out.

But one of the most interesting discoveries we made was around what was happening later in the day. (Spoiler alert - they aren’t watching the 6 o’clock news!)

At 8pm 72% - that’s 3 out of 4 Australians - watch How To, Personal Development and Entertainment videos. The "how to" video category should be of particular interest to businesses looking to create content that viewers want because it is the very content you know the most about. In a nutshell - your audience wants you to tell them what you know best. The only question is are you providing this knowledge? Or is your competition providing it instead?

This new Prime Time is not dictated by the content provider, but by the viewers themselves. The eyeballs are driving this, not some executive.

Think about the when, not just the what

Yes, video is an increasingly important part of your content strategy, but to get the best ROI, make sure you’re giving people what they want, when they want it.  

To get the best value from your video production budget, plan and produce videos in a series. Think of video as an on-going conversation with your customers and target market rather than a one-off set and forget and you’ll very quickly start gaining traction and increasing revenue. Video is a great opportunity for businesses to communicate directly with audiences on social media, with Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook Reels and YouTube shorts being trends predicted to continue in 2023.  Of course, The usual rules with corporate video production apply -  keep it short & to the point, and prioritise quality of content over polished (and expensive) production techniques.

You don’t have to spend mega-bucks on production to catch the attention of your viewers - but you must have what they are searching for. The good news, is that what they are searching for is your expertise.

The new Prime Time is great news for businesses with a lot of channels to pump video content through.

11am and 8pm. That’s when viewers are searching for you. Do you have something for them to find?

If you would like to find out more about an affordable, professional video production solution to fit your video marketing strategy contact the team at YourFilm.  

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ, our experienced team are happy to help.

8 Tips for Writing an Effective Video Production Brief

Writing a good video production brief is the number one way to get the most out of your production spend. Communicating your objectives with your video production company and starting with the end in mind will ensure the process is an efficient, cost effective and stress free one. Here are our top 8 things to consider when writing your video production brief.

1. What type of video is it, who do you want to watch it, where will they watch it and what do you want them to take away from it.  

Is it a Brand Video, Customer Testimonial or Explainer video that needs to tell a story giving viewers an understanding of who you are and what problem your business solves.  Is it more functional video content such as a How To or Product Demonstration that will help convert viewers into customers, or is it a Training or Education video to be used internally. 

2. Key messaging. What are the top 3 key points you want the viewer to remember?

Don’t worry about this being in a formal video script format, get the main points down, your video production company will turn it into a script then work with you to hone it. The important thing is to clearly communicate what message you want to get across; the problem your solution solves, how your product works, your brand's vision and values or simply teach someone a workflow or process.

3. Deliverables - work out what final video deliverables you need early, this will enable you to maximise the video content you get from your shoot days and production budget. Be specific and link them back to your initial objectives - who (will watch), where (will they watch), what (do you want them to remember). Consider the number of videos, duration and the ratio depending on what your distribution channels are.

You can get a lot more out of your shoot days than you think by working out the deliverables early. Rather than thinking in terms of one video, think in terms of a suite of video content around a particular topic, this gives you flexibility to use your corporate videos across multiple marketing channels.

For example, from a half day corporate video shoot, your suite of videos could include:

• 1 x 2-3 minute full length video

• 2 x 1 minute durations (focusing on one topic or key message each)

• 2 x 30 sec social media cutdowns

• 3 x 15 sec social media cutdowns (with different CTA’s at end)

Make sure you consider ratio variations, depending on where they will be distributed include 16:9 (Horizontal for your Website, YouTube & LinkedIn), 19:6 (Vertical for FB Stories & TikTok) and 1:1 (Square for Instagram) and versions with and without captions.

Social media is a critical part of a marketing strategy these days, the rise of short form vertical videos (19:6), with Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook Reels and YouTube shorts is a trend that’s predicted to continue in 2023, so it’s more important than ever to consider ratio variations and captions or graphics for ‘silent videos’.

4. Brand Assets It helps if your video production company has your brand assets early on in the process. Ideally you want to provide high resolution logos, style guide and your fonts. If you want to include still imagery, or animation of a workflow or product include these too as it all helps them get familiar with your brand and style.

5. Logistics.  This doesn’t have to be done at the early stage, but it’s worth considering potential filming locations you want to use; your office, warehouse, client facility, studio or outdoor location. Do you have locations available to use or do you want your video production company to source them for you, this may impact your production budget and for outdoor locations you may need council approvals (which is a simple process that your video production company can manage for you, just allow time in the schedule)

6. Stakeholders, for script sign off and revisions during editing. How many stakeholders will be providing feedback during script development and the editing process?  Are they colleagues, clients or just you. Allowing people enough time to review and provide feedback needs to be factored into your production schedule, and the more effectively you can collate feedback for your video production company, the more time (and potentially money) you’ll save.

7. Scheduling

Allow enough time for pre-production, doing this will make the rest of the process efficient, cost effective and get you the best results. Pre-production includes concept, design and script development along with booking and briefing all the necessary crew and stakeholders.

It’s worth keeping in mind that once you sign off on the script and move into the filming and editing part of the process, changes to the script have a bigger impact on the timeline and possibly budget. Plan for around 3-4 rounds of revisions during the editing process, the more efficient and centralised your revision process can be the more efficient (and cost effective) your project will be.

8. Deadline for final video delivery. Corporate video production typically takes 1-3 weeks from the date of the shoot, depending on complexity and number of deliverables.  Clearly set deadlines for final delivery and any milestones you need to meet (ie: shoot date if there is no flexibility)

So, to sum up it’s worth taking the time to write a comprehensive brief for your next video production process. Not only will it focus you on exactly what you want to achieve, it will help your video production company deliver it on time and on budget.

If you would like to find out more about an affordable, professional video production solution to fit your video marketing strategy contact the team at YourFilm.  

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ, our experienced team are happy to help.

The Role Video Plays in the Australian Consumer's Path to Purchase

It’s no secret that video plays an important role in the consumers' decision making process.  For a vast majority of people, video is the first port of call when they want to learn how to do something, solve a problem or research a product they want to buy.  

Does your video marketing strategy make the most of the opportunity this consumer behavior presents?  Are you providing customers and potential customers with the video content they are looking for to help them make the decision to purchase, and importantly purchase from you.

In this article, we’re going to look at the videos that are being produced by brands & marketers, and the videos that are being consumed by customers, compare the two and perhaps see where potential opportunity sits.

The consumer path to purchase is segmented into 4 areas:
Awareness, where the customer becomes aware of the brand or solution.
Consideration, where the consumer knows what they want and are evaluating multiple options.
Conversion, the finalistion and closure of the decision making process, consumers also decide where and when to make the purchase during this stage.
Retention where a positive customer experience drives repeat purchases and brand loyalty.

The type of video content relating to each of these stages, generally speaking breaks down as:

Awareness:  Advertising and commercials, big budget content to produce and place, SEO and search driven along with explainers and promotional videos.

Consideration: Product demo’s, how-to videos, tutorials, case studies, webinar series explaining your products services and use cases and product reviews.

Conversion: About us, testimonials, brand and company stories, customer stories 

Retention: On boarding videos, video FAQ’s, Thank You message from the founder.

So…where are brands spending their money?

Brand is a key priority for marketers as you can see below, in these findings from Brightcove’s survey of top tier marketers across AU & NZ, brand awareness is the number one priority for marketers.  They doing a great job using video for this too - at the very start of the consumer journey, during the awareness stage, with big budget advertising, brand and promotional videos, and this is largely where they are spending the bulk of their budgets.

And again from the same Brightcove research - Advertising and brand promotions are the Top 2 ways video is being used by marketers. 

Brand awareness  is a critical part of a brand’s overall marketing strategy, and we’re not suggesting that should change, however, there is huge consumer appetite for video further along in the next 2 stages of the Path to Purchase: Consideration & Conversion. These are the stages of the path where consumers are actively making their purchase decision. Using video well here will help drive consumers to make the decision to buy, and to buy from you.

YourFilm recently ran research with the market research experts at Insights Exchange & Pure Profile, to understand how consumers are using video when it comes to making purchase decisions. Rather unsurprisingly, consumers, and people in general watch a lot of video - 85% of them are regularly consuming video, across a lot of platforms & devices every day. It’s having a substantial impact on their purchase decisions, with 3 out 4 people saying that video impacted their buying decisions.

At what point in the purchase pathway are consumers turning to video? As you can see from the chart below, it’s during the Consideration & Conversion stages, when consumers are researching, comparing, shortlisting and purchasing. This is where we see the largest appetite for video content. Interestingly, whilst not as much video still has an impact in the retention stage with 15-20% of people watching content post purchase.

What exactly are consumers searching for and watching? You can see in the graph below, it’s how to’s, product reviews, tutorials, explainers, product demos - all the ‘functional’ video content of the Consideration stage make up the top 5 categories, with the follow on Conversion stage video content of brand or customer stories, about us and testimonials, being the next most viewed group.

Consumers start their purchase journey, where all the big budget awareness activity is happening - and we know there’s a lot of that available as that’s where brands are spending and making an impact - spreading the net wide, creating loads of awareness. That’s working well.

As the consumer moves on from there and starts actively researching products and services they are looking for content and tools to support their purchase decisions and a big part of what they are looking for  is video.  As a side note, generally speaking video is more affordable to produce at this stage with a far more engaged viewership who are primed to purchase. Get it right, and by that we simply mean do the basics well, and you can dominate. 

Let’s look a bit deeper into videos in the Consideration stage (How To’s, Tutorials, Product Demos & Reviews - ‘functional’ video), at some examples.

Slack have a fantastic software tour video (product demo) used widely on their website and socials. Closer to home, here in Australia, Bunnings have an entire YouTube channel dedicated to How To’s videos - I doubt there’s a person in the country who isn’t familiar with these in one way or another.

Studies show that audiences retain 90% of a message from video versus 10% in text. This is why video product demos, webinars & even simple video FAQs can be powerful tools for ensuring people remember who you are and what you’re offering and how it helps them.

Let’s have a quick look at Conversion video examples. It’s during this stage you want to add a bit more emotion - and video is by far the easiest and fastest way to hit home with an emotional message. 

Brand & company stories; who you are, where you’ve come from, why you do what you do, your customer’s stories.  We’ve all got them, both personally and as businesses. And we all relate to them, they’re extremely powerful. They make customers and potential customers like you, support you, believe in you and buy from you.

An incredible example of this is the Apple Watch Real Stories, these are simple pice to camera videos with everyday people telling their stories, admittedly life saving ones about how their Apple watch saved their lives, they are, however, customer stories, and very powerful testimonials for their brand and product.

To sum up, if there’s one thing to take away from this article, video is a powerful tool. It’s being used really well at the start of the purchase pathway, however our customers are telling us that they are hungry for video further along in Consideration & Conversion. The sort of video we are talking about here at this point in the purchase pathway doesn’t need to be a big budget affair.  The basics done well can easily set you apart. 

If you would like to find out more about an affordable, professional video production solution to fit your video marketing strategy contact the team at YourFilm.  

YourFilm have video production packages to suit your requirements, an experienced team with a wide network of over 1,000 crew across Australia & NZ and partnerships with hosting and analytics providers such as Brightcove to help you with a complete video solution.

Getting Your Business Video Literate: 6 Tips for a Social Media Video Strategy

Creating a video content strategy for social media may seem like a bit of an overwhelming task, and a lot of businesses give up at this point. But just like a business itself the strategy isn’t simply “created” overnight it’s grown over time.

Here are the top 6 tips from YourFilm to help get you going.

1. There is little long term benefit thinking in terms of “a video” anymore.  Video is now the way businesses and their customers talk to each other. Your ability to communicate in this format is now a measure of your business’ basic literacy in an increasingly visual marketplace.  At YourFilm we think in terms of “Videoness”. Don’t think of your next video product, think about your next video format. Social media by it’s very nature is fast moving and responsive, so your video content needs to be too.  It’s the language your target demographic speaks.

2. Don’t make videos, create systems that make videos. We’re not talking about “sausage factories” here, but we are talking infrastructure. You have systems and processes for every other aspect of your business and your video content strategy should be no different. Any successful business realises that the right systems and process facilitate creativity and productivity. What does that mean for production? It means Creating multiple categories of video, each with their own production template and style so you have somewhere for your great idea to go without having to re-invent the wheel each time.  You may have categories such as; Product Demo, Customer Testimonial, Statistics or Market Updates.  Under each of these is a list of topics or quotes that can be turned into video.  Once you have that it’s far more efficient and cost effective to set up the production processes once, then keep pumping new content through when inspiration strikes. Good video infrastructure doesn’t stifle your creative output - it enables it.

3. 1 video, 1 topic.  Keep your message short & sweet.  All you want is a quick sound-bite, one thing for the viewer to remember.  Anything else is over-complicating things.  Videos for social media don’t need to be any longer than 30 seconds - less if you can get away with it!  Depending on your message, you can sometimes push it to 60 seconds, but research shows that generally most people have clicked off after 30 seconds.  This business gets it.

4. How-To videos are massively popular. Good thing you already know “how-to”!  So what better way to start than to share your knowledge with your audience. People use How To videos to make buying decisions so it’s a good way to really make an impact. Demonstrate a particular feature of your product, show it being used in the real-world by real people, are there any hacks or tips for using it? These are also a wonderful chance to be yourself. To get your brand personality in there. To bring your service to life.

5. Build a library of your own stock footage as you go.  We call this “video equity”. Footage compounds like interest. Keep it handy and keep it organized. Capture shots using your phone, if you have a professional camera operator for a shoot have them capture some extra b-roll.  Over time, you’ll have a library of footage on hand to repurpose & re-edit when you need it. In 12 months you’ll be that much further ahead of the competition not just in terms of the amount of videos you have under your belt, but in the richness and variety of your content that you can draw from on demand.

6. Use a scheduling platform (like Buffer). once you’ve got your system built and your library of content being created, it’s very easy to schedule posts weekly, monthly or whatever works for you.  Think of the scheduled posts as a foundation, you can throw in anything else over the top - clips from an event, images, current articles of interest…but if that doesn’t happen, you’ve still got your scheduled content going out consistently to keep you front of mind.

If you want more information about creating the video production processes to power your content strategy, get in touch with the team at YourFilm - we’re happy to help!

What videos are YOUR customers watching to help them make a purchase decision?

Online video plays a critical role in the customer’s path to purchase, even more so in a post-COVID world dominated by online shopping. Exactly what types of videos do consumers watch, and where do they go to find them? YourFilm commissioned a market research campaign across Australia & New Zealand to find out. The objective of the campaign is to help brands and retailers improve their customer purchase experience, putting them ahead of the pack when making a sale.

Keen to find out more? Book a time to talk to a YourFilm team member, or catch us at the upcoming iMedia Online Retail Summit NZ in Taupo in May.

Online Video in the Customer Journey • iMedia On Demand

ONLINE VIDEO IN THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Confidence is a currency in online shopping, and the use of short-form video by brands helps to strengthen relationships with buyers.

The latest webcast looks at online video from all angles, with panel representatives from B2B and direct to consumer companies discussing how they use video to drive awareness and repurchase, and how Insight Exchange’s research into the role online video plays in the customer journey.

Video & The Australian Consumer

There’s a lot of general data out there about what a powerful medium video is, and that it’s been growing year on year.  But what does that mean in terms of Australia?  At YourFilm, we wanted to specifically look at the role of video in the purchasing pathway of the Australian consumer so we partnered with Pure Profile & Fresh Focus to run an online survey into the short form video (that’s anything under 5 mins) viewing habits of Australian consumers.  

 We compared this to similar research run in 2017 and can see a few trends emerging too.

 We surveyed a wide range of people between the ages of 18-70, male/female, different ethnic backgrounds from all major Australian cities. Firstly, we found that more than half of them watch videos once a day or more.

 Perhaps not so surprisingly, mobile is how most people are view their video content, however interestingly, when compared to the 2017 data, mobile is down whilst smart TV video viewing is on the rise.  This could be due to the cost of data or that when given a viewing choice, the big screen wins out.  What it means though is that people aren’t on the move and not interacting with video when it’s on smart TV, however it’s high quality and they are less distracted.

 YouTube and FB are by far the dominant platforms – and have continued to grow over the past 2 years.  Ask your kids or a Gen Z who their favourite celeb is and they can’t tell you…ask who their favourite YouTuber is and they’ll list of 6 of them.  This presents a real opportunity for brands.

 Insta video viewing is on the move too with Insta stories becoming increasingly popular – again a great promo or sales channel for brands.

What are people watching? The big surprise for us was just how popular How To videos are with over half of those surveyed watching them to help them make purchasing decisions. 1 in 4 also watch product demos and 1 in 5 product reviews.  This type of content is clearly a every day part of people’s lives.

Viewing habits shift through the day too, mornings are spent catching up on what happened in the world overnight, news and the like.  1 in 3 research their next purchase when bored at work around mid-morning.  Then lunch time tends to be about branded content and sports.  Finally, 1 in 3 people watch how to videos in the evening, potentially related to the products they were researching during the day.  

Half of those surveyed watch sponsored posts on social media. Branded content is becoming more acceptable to viewers, there’s been a 10% shift since 2017, presenting an opportunity for brands to tell their stories in an engaging way.  

 So while the How To’s, Product Demos & Reviews are the functional content, branded content can be the more emotional story telling about a brand.

 What is clearly obvious is online video is a key part of the purchasing journey. With 60% watching pre-purchase and another 25% watching something post purchase.  You don’t want to be left off the consideration list with that number of people using video to help them make a purchasing decision.

 What exactly are they watching during this process?  Well…people rely heavily on peer-to-peer reviewing, it builds trust.  But equally – product demos and how to’s are used in their decision making process.  Branded or sponsored content – whilst not at the same levels, still makes it’s mark.

 Key Takeaways

• Short form content has arrived and presents significant opportunities for brand marketers

• It plays a significant role in the path to purchase – even if you can’t always directly attribute it to a sale

• Our ever-evolving relationship with video continues to impact how brands communicate with customers

• Make every brand experience significant, make it easy to find your products or services with video and tell your story and your customers story through this powerful medium

Video Is Part of the Consumer Purchasing Journey

Instagram Video Viewing is Skyrocketing

Mobile is the Dominant Video Viewing Platform

A Day in the Life of Video