The other day my wife was about to sign our son up for a summer week long camp. Having heard amazing things about this camp, she went to their website and hit play on the ‘promo’ video. It was so bad in quality and in what it was showing that she immediately had second thoughts about sending him. My son then came in and felt the same thing (at a young age of 9!). Regardless, after we discussed it a bit they still thought he should give it a chance as his friends had recommended it. Upon the first day at camp he found it so much better than he’d thought. Glad my wife and he persevered!
I share that to show how counterproductive our work can be at times when not done correctly or well. In a sense that should speak for itself but this type of thing happens so, so, so very often that it’s almost a plague. And videos specifically can be so well done that they make your brand/event/whatever look even better than it actually is!
So in short: don’t turn your customers away with the first thing they will actually take in: your video!
Shameless plug: here’s a camp video we made.
Drobots Camp from Waves Media on Vimeo.
Almost every start-up company emphasizes one thing. And rightfully so. Their website. Its in a sense your brands face and first impression. But the content, images, social media, and of course videos and photos should also match your site in their vibe, message, style, and ideally quality as well.
Video, for good or bad, shows so much and emotes your brand with sight, sound, and feeling. If you cut corners in something as important as video people will subconsciously consider your brand in that light. I am not saying you have to always put professional quality videos out – by no means. But if you are putting out a key video on your site/home page/etc I would suggest you do. And for other videos like social media, etc content that engages is king, but even there ideally is quality in picture and sound.
As we like to say a lot video is on the rise. This is obvious on a level but should be stressed as more and more the content people take in will be video. And that is actually great news! Not just for us who make our career in it (ha!) but for everyone marketing. Video is a more engaging and potentially powerful medium than most other forms of messaging. You can fit in so much in a minute with video: a quick virtual tour of your facilities for example. A montage of customer testimonials in 3 minutes that would have taken hours (even days) to go around and do in person. A multi-angle tutorial video on how to make something DIY style. Putting humor and fun in your culture or recruiting video in a way that would never happen at a job fair.