Local video production

Local Video Production

Hear how Video Artisan is demonstrating the power of local video production as an effective marketing tool.

What is the benefit of using a local video production company?  The answer, pre-COVID, was, “not a lot, really!”.  We were all used to travelling, casting our marketing nets further and looking beyond our local business community for business and services.  I dare say some of this was price driven.  We all believed we could, “get it cheaper elsewhere”, and that “elsewhere” could be many miles away. 

I think it was deeper than that though.  We had all broadened our horizons and travelling habits.  We had become entrepreneurial globetrotters – and loved it! Then COVID lockdown hit and our world collapsed. Many companies in our industry were, and still are, extremely nervous and could not see a future for local video production.  Now we must.

No hiding away – Local Video Production is here to stay!

I will mention this now as it must be mentioned. There are many businesspeople that see it as poor publicity to even mention the word ‘COVID’ in any marketing material or conversation.  It is a bit like Harry Potter’s Voldemort – ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’.  Well, here you go… COVID, COVID, COVID!  Writing about it and talking about it is not going to make you get it. It is a fact of life that we must deal with.  The alternative is to roll over and play dead – and we are not going to do that.

I too was a bit in shock for a while after seeing about 80% of our business disappear almost overnight.  Our two main areas of income were derived from the corporate events industry and large-scale military exercises.  Both gone – in the stroke of a pen.  We soon realised it was time to go back to our roots and serve the demand for local video production services. It is there; you just have shorten your sights.

Local video production in Kenya
Filming in Kenya – A while off yet!

Moving back home

When we started Video Artisan back in 2012, I spent some time looking at what businesses were in my local town – Loughton in Essex.  I trawled through local business directories, drove around all the local business parks and commercial zones noting down address and company names (both physically and virtually using Google street view) and built up a database of local marketing targets.  I drafted a letter, addressed to ‘The Busiest Person in the Company’, because I didn’t have an actual name, and posted out about 250 letters announcing the offerings of my new local video production company. 

Within a couple of days, I had picked up a handful of clients that kept the business going through the first three years.  I am not claiming to be any kind of marketing guru, but that one single activity got me through what are often the most challenging years for any new business.  It was my ‘zero-to-hero’ moment and the COVID crisis has brought my focus back to my local community today.

Local films for local firms

Within a few weeks of lockdown we was starting to plan our return into the local business community.  Of course, we had never really left it but all our marketing efforts up until then been on a much wider scale.  That made sense pre-COVID, but like any marketing the wider you spread your message the thinner it becomes.  Local video production marketing is a lot more intimate and directed – and relatable to your intended targets on an otherwise difficult to achieve level.

Our first task was to make sure all our online efforts had a strong element of “local” about them.  In practice this means you’ve got to make sure your website content is location centric.  In the longer term, when we are all dashing about the globe again, this will not be wasted effort as your location is still an important part of your business make up. 

We also made sure our Social Media content and connections were inline with our local targeting. If you are selling local video production services, you want to make sure any search engine results include you when the term “near me” is typed in by a user (a very common thing users type into Google… “XYZ near me”).  Google My Business settings, the Facebook and LinkedIn Groups you belong to etc all should reflect your local ambitions and interests.

Local Video Production Show and tell

We then needed a piece of marketing collateral to hang our ‘local video production’ message on and the only logical medium we could use was a short video entitled ‘Local films for local firms’.  We had to put our money where our mouth was, and it was less than 24-hrs after releasing this through Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter that we had three strong enquiries. 

At the time of writing this blog two of those enquiries have been converted into completed films (turned around in a week).  The first was for a local retailer, and the second a local structured cabling company (see two videos below).  The third (a prospectus for a local school) starts in production at the beginning of July.

And this success has not stopped there.  We are now talking to a further three companies about their local video production requirements. 

Your turn to look more closely at Local Video Production

If your business is local to Loughton – or anywhere within Epping Forest and the surrounding areas – and want to explore ways we can help you to raise your profile through video, please get in touch.  We are sure we can introduce ideas into your marketing that will help you do more business locally too.  See our showreel here.

Please contact Kevin Cook on 020 3602 3356 – or email kevin@video-artisan.com

Key benefits to doing business locally

1 – Supporting local business helps the local economy, creating healthier financial surroundings for your own business to trade in.  What goes round, comes round!

2 – Supporting local business means less travel pollution and is kinder to the environment. Full stop!

3 – Local businesses will understand many of your business challenges more intimately.

4 – Local businesses form networks with other local businesses are more likely to trade with their connections. Get yourself connected too!

5 – Working with local businesses promotes and develops business intelligence for future employment.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live for business

Facebook Live – the benefits of broadcasting your business

The most recent development on Facebook, ‘Facebook Live’, is opening a whole new world of opportunities for businesses to engage with their followers. If you’ve got no idea what Facebook Live is think of it as a live video broadcast. These videos are posted directly to your Facebook page in real-time (almost) – be that your private page or your business page. Like any other Facebook posting, these can be liked and shared by your page followers – and as the administrator you can add tags and adjust privacies to help you get your broadcast to those you want it seen by.

Live, and not so Live

Obviously, your followers aren’t all just sitting on your Facebook page waiting for stuff to be posted – as nice at that would be! To cater for these absentees, once your live event has ended the video is then shown along with your other postings for people to view as and when. Over time your viewing number will rise as more people watch it, like it, comment and share it on their own Facebook wall.

Hopefully you can start to see how this kind of marketing tool could benefit your business and help you to generate social media followers. But what kind of things to people want to see? The answer seems to be pretty much anything! The most viewed Facebook Live is currently “Chewbacca Mom”. (CLICK HERE – and try not to laugh) To date, this has had 166 million views since it first appeared as a Facebook Live. At the time of going live it maybe had only one or two (or none more likely) viewers – but the Facebook Live experience is about sharing things as they happen.

This is obviously not an example of a business using Facebook Live. But what this example should do for you is to demonstrate the potential of Facebook Live. I’m sure you can also imagine the effect this had on the sales of Chewbacca-type masks!

Think business!

Shrewd businesses are now tapping into this by using Facebook Live to share all kinds of real-time events. The obvious ones are things such as product launches, conferences, exhibition stand tours, product training sessions… or any other event where you would naturally have a live audience. Facebook Live will enable more people to experience these and, more importantly, share their experience with others who might find your content of interest.

Whilst spontaneity is at the heart and soul of this technology, pre-publicising your event will enable you to increase real-time viewers who can engage with you at the time of broadcast. You can actively encourage questions from your viewers at the time and gain valuable feedback – as well as spreading the word about your broadcast and generally scattering your brand amongst their friends and followers too. The only real limitation is that your event can’t be more than 4-hrs long as a single stream.

How to Facebook Live – The basics

In its simplest form, a Facebook Live event can be created using just your mobile phone and the Facebook App. The only other requisite is an uninterrupted and reasonably broad-bandwidth mobile or Wifi connection.

If you want to post something to your private page, simply click the Live button and add the event details as requested. Within a few moments your phone will start sharing its Facebook Live buttonpictures and sound to your Facebook wall. (as demonstrated by Chewbacca). It’s a little less obvious on a business page, but still possible. In this instance, go to your business page, click the ‘Post’ button, and then select the ‘Live’ option.

The drawbacks of using your phone for a Facebook Live event are mainly down to the limitations your phone’s camera. Whilst the picture quality on most modern phones is perfectly adequate, the sound from the internal microphone is generally poor. This can be easily overcome with the addition of an external microphone.  But you’ll still be limited to the basic camera controls offered on your phone. This might be fine for a talking-head type situation, but if your ambitions are greater then you’re going to have to look at more advanced options.

As a business you might want to broadcast something a little more akin to a real TV broadcast.  This could include nice lighting, proper audio, autocue and possibly multi-camera coverage of your event. This is where you’ll need the services of a company such as Video Artisan.  You’ll also need some additional hardware to connect the output from a video camera or mixer and spit this out to Facebook.

How to Facebook Live – Advanced

For a single-camera broadcast our JVC cameras have the ability to send their output to the Internet through a WIFI, 3/4G or LAN dongle. They also enable us to assign the required values that will let Facebook see the camera’s output and broadcast it.

These settings are accessed within your Facebook business page. Within ‘Publishing Tools’ you’ll find ‘Video Library’ and the facility to set up a ‘Live’ event. This is where you give Facebook your camera’s location details as well as setting up other parameters to help you reach your audience. Our initial testing here at Video Artisan resulted in this little masterpiece – click here.

Another box of tricks is needed for multi-camera events.  This mixes the camera feeds and then encodes the signal into something Facebook-friendly. Using this configuration, the only limits to your Facebook Live event are your imagination and your budget!

Let’s go live!

If you’d like to talk about your Facebook broadcasting ambitions, please give us a call now. Before you know it, you could be the very next Facebook Live sensation! Call Kevin Cook on +44 (0) 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com

Great Video Marketing

How to create great video marketing content

Once upon a time with Video Marketing

The rapid rise of Video Marketing has been good for Video Artisan – but this also presents its challenges. To create content for a truly-effective video marketing campaign it’s no longer sufficient just to create any old video. The novelty of video has, almost, worn off; the stakes have increased.

You’ve now got to be able to tell an amazing story in order to make your video marketing shine through. Thankfully, there’s an amazing story within any business or marketing task. Video Artisan’s role is to help you find it, wrap it in video and tell it.

A video marketing story worth telling

Quite often, finding the story is the biggest part of our challenge. But every now and then a commission comes through where there’s a really good story to tell and a client who knows that a video marketing film is the best way to tell it. The Chris Fletcher ‘Stretcher’ commission was an excellent example.

The purpose of this marketing video is to tell the story of former Royal Marine, Chris Fletcher – and how this Afghan/Iraq conflict veteran came about inventing an in-uniform stretcher system to help speed up casualty extraction and save lives. Its potential audience is wide and varied – and hopefully the film carries enough interest to captivate anyone. This includes those who are never likely to need to be extracted from a battle zone. Whilst the roots of the system are in the military field, it could be just as beneficial to those involved in any kind of rescue or emergency service.

But more importantly this marketing video’s role is to help Chris, and his investor, Jon Hunter, to tell a consistent and compelling story when presenting the system to those who are likely to adopt it.  This could be during a formal presentation or simply shared online.

A timely story

One of the challenges, especially for online video, is to compact your video marketing story into the shortest possible time. But sometimes you need to break through that magic 120-second time limit (the maximum duration Google advise for video marketing). At 5 ½ minutes the film is probably too long to be called an ‘Elevator Pitch’.  It’s actually better described as a ‘Pilot’. It sets the scene and tells their story so far, but there’s much more to come from Chris and Jon and they plan to use video marketing to tell the ongoing story too. Keep an eye on it!

The cover price of Video Marketing

Video marketing needn’t be an expensive option. This film took just four days to produce – including setting up a very basic website for the video to sit on. You’ll be able to workout the rough costs for this kind of commission by looking at our Rate Card.

If you’re ready to tell your video marketing story now – please get it touch for a no-obligation consultation and discover how little you might need to invest. Call +44 (0) 20 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com

A Guide to using a company film within your Marketing Mix

company film
How can a company film fit into your Marketing Mix?

In recent months there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of companies seeking quotes for a company film to use within their marketing mix. These have been extremely varied – and reflect the many ways in which video can play a key role in a wide range of marketing activities.

Most successful businesses do not reply on just one marketing method but rather spread their resources over a number of activities – what is referred to as a ‘marketing mix’.  This mix will be different from business to business – and it’s very rare to find two businesses using exactly the same marketing mix of ingredients in the same proportions.

What can go into a Marketing Mix?

There are many different and distinct marketing activities (the marketing mix ingredients).  Not all lend themselves to film production but many of them do.  This article will examine some of the common marketing activities in which a company film can feature – or become the main vessel for delivering your marketing message.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing is all about educating your target market about a specific subject and, at the same time, linking the subject to your business/brand and the services/products you offer.  Presenting your business as a reliable source of information will build trust in your brand and influence your audience without using hard-sell sales techniques.

Example: An estate agent might commission a company film about a specific town or location which informs the viewer about local resources and features – to be of interest to anyone thinking of buying or renting a property in that area. Sharing information on local schools, shopping, transport and other community facilities would demonstrate the estate agent’s local knowledgeable and understanding of the needs of the community – and develop their reputation as a trusted source of information. See another example below of a Content Marketing film produced for Air Products.

Undercover Marketing

Undercover Marketing is about creating “teaser” content about forthcoming products and services to generate buzz and market interest.   A bit like a movie trailer, the aim is to give your audience a privileged insight into what’s coming up.  Not only will it help develop interest in your product/service, it can also help you to refine products/services and your final sales pitch prior to launch through customer feedback.

Example:  An event organiser might commission an event documentary highlighting its success through the eyes of attendees and exhibitors.  The aim would be to attract interest amongst attendees and also exhibitors in future events – without actually presenting any firm propositions.  See teaser film edited for Cash from your Camcorder.   

Product Placement

This is very similar to Content Marketing, but the marketing message is delivered more subtly through the placement of your product or service within the content.   Also referred to as Brand Integration, the content can often purely be a lifestyle piece which is geared towards your target market and the connection to your brand made through use of your products or services within it.  By exclusively hosting or promoting the content through a dedicated online video channel you can develop a community of potential customers and create a valuable root to market.

Example:  An outdoor clothing manufacturer might commission a travelogue documentary to an interesting and challenging destination – with the participants all wearing their apparel.  This could also be created as a collaborative piece with other organisations such as airlines, destination tourist boards and other non-competitive sponsors.  This collaborative approach is also known as Alliance Marketing or Affinity Marketing.

Seasonal & Event Marketing

An obvious one really, this includes any marketing activity that takes advantage of the key seasonal milestones or their pending arrival (Christmas/Summer/Easter/New Year…).  In addition, this includes any marketing activity which is triggered by other date-specific events – such as the passing of a decade or century – or dates and events specific to the industry or market you are promoting to.  For instance, this could include milestones of the invention of technology such as the Internet. The benefit of this type of marketing activity is that your target audience will already have the event in mind – enabling your marketing activity to gain additional traction.

Example: A kitchenware manufacturer might commission an infomercial with a chef giving their top tips for saving time and creating the perfect Christmas dinner – showcasing the latest cookware and accessories.  Again, this could be co-sponsored by a food supplier or other non-competitive companies.  

Relationship, Evangelism & Viral Marketing

Customers do not always want to feel like you are trying to sell them something, so many businesses try to invest in future sales with marketing activities which set out to create a relationship with customers.  Remember, a large part of the aim of marketing is making potential customers aware of your existence – and any future business is easier once a relationship has been established.

Once the relationship is established you are far more likely to move into the areas of evangelism and viral marketing whereby your customers will start to spread your brand messages for you.

Example: A marque car dealership commissions a company film about the top ten used-car investments – sharing information on the best cars to purchase for investment purposes, how to store and look after them and include some customer stories about cars they’ve owned and sold.  This could be broken down into price categories – enabling the dealer to develop targeted databases for their future sales from subscribers to the video content.  It could also be updated on a regular or annual basis – creating a sense of anticipation amongst their target audience.  See below film sponsored by Supadance on a very special dance festival – viewed more than 100,000 times!    

Newsletter Marketing

Whilst Newsletter Marketing is more appropriate to businesses with a mature database of customers, it’s a marketing method which can be useful to both B2B and B2C marketers. A newsletter with various sections and news stories can be a great way to give customers greater detail about products or services than can be covered in an advert or flyer – enabling the customer to pick and choose what they read into from well-structured layout.  This can include multiple sections – including company news, product information, competitions, diary events, special offers, new appointments and any other section that one might find in a mainstream publication. Using digital flip-book creation tools and distribution platforms, these newsletters can now include rich media content – including video.

Example: A manufacturer of plumbing products could produce a newsletter monthly or quarterly, with clearly defined sections for professional plumbers and DIY users – plus additional sections on corporate news about the business.  The video content could include a general foreword-type introduction by its editor highlighting this issue’s contents.  Additional video content could contain how-to type content providing visual demonstrations of the company’s products in use – with beginner and advanced levels for the range of readership.  The newsletter could also include 3rd party content from plumbing product manufacturers.    

Tradeshow & Exhibition Marketing

Using a company film as part of your tradeshow marketing is probably one of the longest established forms of video marketing.  Whilst many businesses these days purely trade off internet pages, there are many who cannot replace that face-to-face customer experience.  In fact, there are many products that customers simply would not invest in without actually seeing and testing the product out first hand.  A video can play an important part in tradeshow marketing in ensuring the company’s stand is visually attractive and helps to pre-qualify stand visitors by showing relevant and eye-catching content.  Indeed, with the advances in video projection and large screen technology, video could be used to create almost all visual design aspects of an exhibition stand design.

marketing-mix-exhibition-stand

Example: A firm of architects designs a tradeshow stand which includes a floor to ceiling video wall as its backdrop – showcasing the many large residential and commercial developments it has designed around the world.  The video will be created using animated photography of their developments, architect drawings and combined with archive footage from the locations to demonstrate the breadth of their experience and innovations in design.

Complete your Marketing Mix with a company film

Of course, many companies are just looking for a straightforward company film or promotional video to fulfill the transactional marketing element of their marketing mix. Any why not?  Adding video to your website will dramatically improve your search engine visibility (YouTube is now the second most popular search engine!).  Not only will video help with your search engine visibility, it will also help you improve your bounce and click-through rates.

I’ve also intentionally not given Social Media Marketing its own heading in this article.  The reason for this is that it will be a core means of delivering the marketing mix methods above.  In fact, all of the above activities can be solely delivered or promoted through Social Media channels.  And as we all know through our own use of Social Media, video content very much floats to the top of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.  Without video it’s just not going to shine – and much less likely to be shared.

Contact us

I hope this article gives you a much clearer idea of how a company film can fit into your marketing mix – and the inspiration of how you can start to take advantage of it.  If you’d like to talk your ideas through with someone who can add greater depth to your ideas, please give Video Artisan a call on +44 (0) 20 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com