The broadcasting industry has much to teach B2B marketers looking to leverage video marketing, says Nick Lawrence, head of editorial and broadcast strategies at Waggener Edstrom
You can’t go into your Google Reader these days without tripping over articles about the explosion of video content and its increasing importance in the marketer’s armoury. For decades the written word has enjoyed a symbiotic, nay institutional, relationship with B2B marcomms. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, therefore, that the explosion of video content over the past couple of years has seen the industry bum-shuffling uncomfortably in its collective chairs.
But in much the same way marketers have learned written discipline from print journalism, the same marketers can now learn video discipline from the broadcasting industry.
If you are planning to use video as part of your next campaign, here’s a few pointers that any television editor worth their salt would think about when producing a piece.
1. Be definitive
Most good documentaries will ask and then answer a single question. Going through an editorial process of tightly defining exactly what question your video is answering will do two things: it will act as a powerful editorial cornerstone guarding against extraneous information; and it will ensure you don’t waste valuable filming time shooting contributions you are simply never going to use.
If you want to deliver a message about your cloud-based solution, defining a question such as: ‘Why should you use our cloud-based solutions?’ gives you an immediate focus. Making a video about cloud-based solutions could lead you down a very unfocused path.
2. Plot, place, person
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of corporate video production. These elements form the core of any of the most engaging television or film productions.
Plot: Think about how can you turn your film into an engaging story that unfolds step-by-step. How can you use your script to deliver a compelling narrative? How are you going to hook your audience and keep them hooked?
Place: A general rule of thumb is that the meeting room down the end of the corridor is not one of the most dramatic or engaging environments. Think carefully about locations for interviews. One trick to audience engagement is finding the balance that keeps both the eye and the ear active. If it’s boring to look at… they will click away.
Person: Here is the political hot potato. Not all CEOs have the affable, self-deprecating demeanour of Richard Branson. Television editors recognise that people who look and feel uncomfortable in front of the camera are a turn-off for the audience. Huge amounts of time and effort go into choosing the right contributors in the broadcast setting. Applying this simple rule will improve your chances of audience engagement exponentially.
3. Production plan
In a value-driven environment (a truism for both broadcasting and B2B) planning a shoot with broadcast discipline is critical.
Having established your ‘question’ and decided on your story treatment, planning the shoot is the next most critical activity. The basis of all your planning is a good shooting script. You should know exactly what you want all your contributors to say. This will have been achieved through effective research. There should be no surprises. Even experienced television producers sometimes fail in this exercise.
If you are making a two and a half-minute video with two or three contributors, the last thing you need is two hours of interviews to wade through. Typically, an interview with a contributor taking part in an eight-minute current affairs film for the BBC, for example, should take no longer than five to 10 minutes on tape.
This translates into cost savings. In the broadcast industry, time is money, perhaps even more so than in the corporate environment. Expeditious use of expensive cameramen is critical. The more you plan, the less you pay. And when you arrive at the edit suite, you’ll spend less time there too. If you know exactly how your piece is going to be structured and which material you are going to use, the process is much faster.
4. Use the experts
I would always use a working television cameraman and a working television picture editor. They are fully conversant with the latest television techniques and understand, instinctively, how engaging television is made. Not only will they deliver you a great product, they will also do it quickly. A two and a half-minute video should take no longer than one day in the edit suite. There are many production companies that will offer to cut you a video using cameramen and editors with little or no broadcast experience. Under some circumstances that will be fine. But if you are looking to maximise your audience engagement, then using the right people with the right skills and the right experience is, as in all industries, the nirvana.
Entire books have been written on this subject. However, these are some straightforward rules that you can at least use as a handrail.