Referral Marketing Film case study

referral marketing film by Video Artisan

Referral marketing film case study – Cimar

Commissioning a referral marketing film is a no-brainer – period!  When looking to buy a new product nothing is more persuasive than a recommendation from a trusted source. Personal endorsements give us confidence – which is why referral marketing film production is on a meteoric rise.

We have recently completed a referral marketing film for Cimar, a very clever and efficient cloud-based medical image exchange system.  The client subject for this film is Chartwell Private Hospital of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex – a specialist facility which provides various medical scanning services to hospitals, GPs and physicians.  Chartwell is prefect subject material for Cimar to use on a referral marketing film as their system has made a very positive change to their working practice and efficiency.  They are exactly the type of new business Cimar are trying to attract.

Tell a story with your Referral Marketing Film

The first tip in creating a referral marketing film is not to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of the product, but rather the customer experience and how it benefits their lives.  Most of all, it must tell a story. It’s an often-overused phrase but with referral marketing it really is about selling the sizzle, not the sausage!  The technical stuff is obviously important but at this stage your goal is to connect with, inspire and motivate your prospect to find out more. In fact, you need to leave them wanting more.

The second tip is to pick the right people – and to keep things as natural and conversational as possible.   A good referral marketing film is just a conversation with a client during which you capture their story and true feelings about your product or service.  If they come across as trying to perform for the camera, or trying to deliver someone else’s words or experiences – it will not be believable.  If this happens your referral marketing film will have the opposite effect.  Your audience will not expect to see a polished performance.  The occasional stutter, um or err is natural.  We do this in everyday conversation – which is what you are trying to capture.

Saying it as it is

It is important that your interviewee/s use their own language and terminology. This will almost certainly be the same language and terminology used by your potential customers. You might well call your widget or feature ‘XYZ’, but if your customers refer to it as ‘ABC’ then that is what other customers will understand.

In addition you should allow plenty of time to record your interviews. Make sure your interviewees do not feel rushed nor pressured.  Allow enough time to take two or three versions of the same statement or answer. Even if you think you’ve got the perfect take, first time. Try phrasing the same question differently.  This will often result in the interviewee giving a slightly different emphasis in their answer.

Icing on your referral marketing film cake

Make sure you film plenty of what are referred to as b-roll or cutaway shots.  These could be general shots of your customer’s premises, the products/services they provide, and shots of them going about their normal activities.  These images are used to cover edits within their replies and to help you tell the story.

To ensure you are covering the key points in the shortest time possible, it is good practice to transcribe the interviews and create a ‘paper edit’.  This should result in your client saying exactly what you want them to say in – in a logical and natural order.  However, this might mean quite drastic cutting and re-ordering of the original interview footage.  This is where that all-important b-roll or cutaway footage is used to cover up jump cuts in the visuals. (watch the Cimar film again and see if you can spot where this has been done)

Your next referral marketing film

Producing a referral marketing film should result in you having an extremely powerful marketing tool for your business.  It’s like having your favourite happy customer with you at every sales meeting extolling your virtues.  Hosting this video on your website will mean they’ll be doing it 24/7, 354-days a year.  A great referral marketing film will take the selling out of sales, completely.

Ready to start planning your referral marketing film?  Please give Video Artisan a call today on 020 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com.

Video Production Services Showreel

Video Production Services Showreel Title
Watch our latest Video Production Services Showreel

And, relax!  Having just got to the end of a very busy run I’ve finally had time to put together a short video production services showreel – and to write another blog! To be honest, I even surprised myself with the range of video production works we’ve completed in recent years.

It is very rare that we get two jobs exactly the same – so when a client says, “Could you show me something similar you’ve done to what we are looking for?”, it can be quite a challenge to demonstrate this in a video production services showreel.  However, we feel that it is much more important to be able to demonstrate that we understand what our clients are trying to achieve – and to be able to offer creative solutions that enable us to exceed their expectations.

Video Artisan – a ‘can-do’ company

So far we’ve never had to say no when a client has asked, “Can you do XYZ?”.  Apart from our own in-house resources and expertise we have an extensive range of industry contacts and specialists who we can call upon to deliver any video-related product or service for our clients.  This also means we can cope with multiple assignments at the same time – yet still manage the process and output to ensure every client receives the level of service they’ve come to expect from Video Artisan.  No project is too big – and nothing is considered too small.

We’re about to head into another busy spell – with the production of training films for a major US-based manufacturer starting in a couple of weeks.  Filming will be carried out in Essex for this, but we’ll also be heading overseas shortly after for assignments in Canada, France and Italy.  I’ll keep you posted on these.

How to feature on our next Video Production Services Showreel

I hope you enjoy our video production services showreel.  If you are looking for a different kind of video production service that’s not featured – please ask as we’d love to be able to add it to our next video production services showreel.

For more information on our corporate video services click here – or call us on +44 (0)20 3602 3356.

A guide to Filming Masterclasses

Filming Masterclasses for M&IT…
Over the next couple of months we’re filming masterclasses for CAT Publications at The Mermaid on the banks of the Thames at London Blackfriars. These M&IT (Meetings & Incentive Travel) Masterclasses cover various subjects aimed at the event industry as part of their continual professional development – and our video production services are now helping to bring them to a much wider audience.

Filming Masterclass - a guide

Filming masterclasses… what’s the point?

Due to their popularity and high level of interaction, spaces on the M&IT Masterclasses are limited to ensure that each delegate comes away better informed and more capable in their role. Filming masterclasses not only provides CAT Publications with a permanent record of these events but, more importantly, also enables them to distribute the segmented films throughout the year on a pay-per-view basis for those unable to attend in person.

Of the many other benefits to filming masterclasses, the two which are most highly valued by Video Artisan’s clients are video’s consistency and ease of use. Once recorded and edited, a video will deliver exactly the same content, and impart the same knowledge, every time it is watched – regardless of the performance of the trainers. This leaves little room for misinterpretation and ensures viewers are only receiving correct and valuable information.

The wide acceptance of video as a communication medium, and the variety of platforms on which it can be delivered, also make it ideal for any business or organisation to incorporate video into their training material output. This includes CAT Publication’s pay-per-view model – but is equally suitable for delivery over private intranets, open platforms such as YouTube (paid or free) or by direct release on physical media such as DVD or USB drives.

Filming Masterclasses – DIY or Hire-in?

Creating a video recording of your training event can be very straightforward and virtually cost-free if you choose to go down the DIY route. However, producing highly-valued content which is easy for your audience to watch and hear is a lot more challenging – and if it fails in these respects then it’s effectiveness as a training tool is very much depleted.

At the very least your presenters will need to be properly mic’d up – with additional microphones used to capture audience interaction and feedback. Whilst one main camera is fine for single-presenter seminars, using additional cameras will help to show audience reaction, achieve continuity when editing and ultimately make your content a more professional and easy to watch.

Filming Masterclasses - a safe wide
Two cameras are better than on when filming masterclasses

Your audience will also expect to see any slides, charts, illustrations or PowerPoint presentations full-screen, so any DIY effort will have to include the ability to insert these into the live video content, add captions and finally output the programme to a format which can easily be delivered to your audience.

The challenges of filming masterclasses are various but by using an experienced video production company you can create compelling learning material with the minimal amount of investment and virtually no special adaptations to your training materials. In this instance, Video Artisan have been able to offer a very competitive solution using a ‘two-camera single-operator’ set-up coupled with a fast post production turnaround – enabling CAT Publications to release their films to market in the most profitable and efficient way.

Could you benefit from filming masterclasses?

Filming masterclasses can be highly profitable for their producers. If you think your masterclasses, seminars or workshops would benefit from being filmed and released on video, please contact us today on 020 3602 3356 or by emial to kevin@video-artisan.com 

A bit more about M&IT Masterclasses

CAT Publications are renowned for putting on highly-focussed seminars and workshops aimed at Corporate, Association, Agency Event Organisers and Event Suppliers and on key subjects including Data Protection, Health & Safety, Venue Contracts and Social Media. The M&IT Masterclasses are delivered by a team of specialist presenters who share their knowledge of relevant legislation and best-practices within the event industry.  See a list of their upcoming events here.

Video Artisan work with CAT Publications on a number of events throughout the year including producing the highlights films for the M&IT Awards and the M&IT Agency Challenge.

Premium Video Content Guide

Premium Video Content
Looking to make money from your videos?

If you are looking at making capital from your premium video content? This detailed blog should cover all the basic information you will need.

What is Premium Video Content?

Every now and then a client asks us how they can monetise their video content. This is generally because they believe they’ve got an idea for a film which they think there’s a paying audience for. This is a perfectly understandable desire as video is a great way to share valuable information – but ‘Premium Video Content’ has to have certain aspects about it before it can generate income and profit.

Content is King

It’s an old saying but vitally important – “Content is King” when it comes to creating truly profitable premium video content. An audience is only going to pay to watch or own a film which has value to them. Two great examples include:

  • Professional Development – content that will enable a professional or craftsman to do their work better, quicker and/or more economically. The viewer must believe that by watching your premium video content they will be more successful professionally.
  • Personal Development – content that will enable a hobbyist, artisan, sports person or novice to carry out their activities to a higher level of achievement and/or enjoyment. Your premium video content must be inspirational and empowering.

Do you have a Viable Market?

You might have the best possible premium video content idea, and the expertise to deliver a valuable video, but it is equally important to know who and what your target audience size is. These are not things you can guess at – they must be researched!

Profiting from Premium Video Content - MoneyYou must know how many potential viewers there are and how much they would pay to watch, or own, your video. You must also have routes to this market to enable you to communicate and market your premium video content to them. It is only when you know the cost of producing, distributing and marketing your premium video content that you will understand its viability.

If your content is of general interest and purely for personal development then it is unlikely going to attract a substantial amount of revenue per customer. You’ll therefore need a substantial audience – maybe in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Conversely, a premium video content video that contains top-tips and industry secrets aimed at a highly-paid profession might well attract substantial revenue per customer. To make these profitable might only require a handful of customers.

Controlling Distribution

You have basically two ways in which to distribute your premium video content to your audience – either on physical media (i.e. DVD or USB stick) or online (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo or your own servers). Each has its strong points – and each can be offered in combination with the other – which will be expanded upon later.

One of the greatest risks to your profitability, whether releasing on physical media or online, is copy protection. It is a major concern for all creators of premium video content and you should adopt every practical measure to ensure your content is only consumed by paying customers. Even the biggest media corporations struggle to achieve this, so the very least you can do is follow their example and account for this shrinkage within your pricing structure.

All digital content is relatively easy to copy – even for the novice. Whilst there are copy-protection technologies and systems out there an experienced media-copying specialist (a Pirate), with a modicum of investment in technology, will be able to defeat them. Piracy is still theft though, so you need to make it as difficult as possible to guard your premium video content – or at the very least make it unattractive for the pirate to steal by pricing it attractively so they do not bother to try an undercut you.

Let’s look at the benefits, drawbacks and features of the two main distribution methods.

Physical Distribution
Whilst there is a move away from disc-based media (DVDs and Blu-Ray), the saturation of disc players (set-top boxes, computers, games consoles…) means that it will be with us for quite some time and provide you with a widely acceptable means of distributing your premium video content.

DVD players are far more widely available, but limited to standard definition content. Blu-Ray discs are capable of delivering high definition content, but players are far, far less prevalent. Though you should always consider quality when selling premium video content, the fact that it is not high definition might not matter to your customers – as long as you’ve remembered that ‘Content is King’.

If you believe your customers will want high definition (or beyond!) the alternative would be to supply your premium video content on USB sticks. File-based delivery is growing very fast and most modern TV sets will play video straight from a USB stick – as will nearly every computer. The other added benefit of USB sticks is that you can easily include other digital files and assets on them. For instance, an instructional video might also benefit from having some additional printed notes or diagrams to aid the customer.

Profiting from Premium Video Content - Disks and Sticks
Something to put in your customer’s hands

Whilst it is still easy to copy a disc, and somewhat easier to copy a USB stick, the main benefit of supplying your content on physical media is that it gives a greater sense of value and ownership to your customer. It also gives you additional means of branding your product within packaging. Furthermore, customers who have purchased your premium video content are less likely to copy and share it.

Though a physical product will attract a higher price, there’s also additional costs and time involved in production and distribution. The cost of blank media is generally going down (a recordable DVD is pennies rather than pounds), but you also have to consider cases, postage and the manpower involved in processing orders and maintaining stock levels. That being said, the payment mechanism is reasonably straight forward… They pay you – you send them the product!

Online Distribution
The biggest advantage of distributing your premium video content online is virtually zero costs in distribution per unit. Once you have created your video and uploaded it to a server each viewing or download will be almost cost free – depending on the payment mechanism or platform you’ve chosen to host it on.

The biggest drawback is that once your content is ‘online’ it is extremely easy to copy and share. DVDs and USB could also easily be uploaded and exploited the same way, but with online content you are only a couple of clicks away from your content being copied, shared and duplicated everywhere. Projecting margins and profits therefore must take into consideration a much higher level of shrinkage. Maybe only 1/1000 people who get to watch your content might have actually paid to do so – but on high-volume, mass-market premium video content this might still be enough to generate profit.

There are a number of online facilities which will enable you to host your premium video content, take payments for plays and downloads, create audiences and enable you to communicate with them. The two most notable are YouTube’s ‘Paid Channels’ and Vimeo’s ‘Pro’ accounts. Each has its own payment and charging model and restrictions but either could suit both mass-market and specialist market premium video content.

Profiting from Premium Video Content - YouTube Channel
Setting up your own paid-for YouTube channel

You could of course use your own website to distribute your content – with your media located in password protected areas which paying customers can only access. The videos themselves could be hosted on Vimeo Pro and Plus accounts which can restrict the video from being embedded on anything other than your designated URL. You can also elect to enable or disable downloads – or even add password protection so that your premium video content can only be played by those in possession of a password.

The best of all worlds

There’s one thing that every customer appreciates today, regardless of the product or service, and that’s ‘choice’. Once you have gone to the time, effort and investment of creating your premium video content then you should release it using all distribution methods available to you. Give your customers choice – and fewer reasons not to buy!

Giving away ‘teaser’ content online is also a great way to drive sales of complete programmes. Short extracts can be edited to freely distribute online which give viewers an insight into the value of information your films contain. If you make this free content available by request (maybe by subscribing to your website) you will gradually build up a database of potential customers for you to market. This is even more important for those who believe they have material for an ongoing series of premium video content. Customers who buy part I in a series are much more likely to buy series II, III, IV & V!

The cost of producing premium video content

So… you’ve got the idea, know your market and understand about distribution – now all that’s left is to work out how much it is going to cost to get your premium video content created! This is where Video Artisan comes in.

The tricky bit is that there is no such thing as an off-the-shelf cost for video production – no matter who tells you otherwise. There are standard packages broken down into number of days to film and edit – but the all-in costs can range dramatically depending on what you are trying to create and how much work and involvement you are looking for from your video production company.

We have produced another guide which should, hopefully, give you a better idea of how video production costs can vary (see here) but your next step is to contact us for a no-obligation consultation to see how Video Artisan can help you to start profiting from your premium video content.

Call 020 3602 3356 today – or email kevin@video-artisan.com

Team Building with Video

Team building with video
Discover the benefits of using video for team building

Video Team Building for M&IT

We’ve just completed another M&IT Agency Challenge event, this time held at The Lensbury in Teddington. This is the fourth Agency Challenge event we have covered for M&IT (Meetings and Incentive Travel) but our remit goes way beyond just producing a short documentary on the event. M&IT are well and truly sold on the value of using video as a team building activity for their delegates and it is often quoted by them as the most memorable and fun part of the event.

Team building events and activities come in all shapes and sizes. Some are purely a means of getting people within an organisation together in one place to network, share ideas or simply get to know each other better. However, the more effective ones are those that get groups of people thinking and working towards a common goal or achievement – and often taking part in a challenge which is way outside their usual area of work and expertise. A good team building activity will also challenge their creativity, develop leadership and demonstrate the true benefits of collaborative effort.

Why Video Team Building works

Using video for team building, where teams are assigned a task to create a short film or sequence as their exercise, has many benefits. First of all it can be a whole load of fun. We find that many delegates relish the opportunity to get in front of, and behind of, the camera and “make movies”. The filmmaking process is, after all, a very collaborative process which involves technical and creative skills in bringing a story together on the screen. It has the potential to serve all types of characters – from those who have a longing to perform and act, to those who enjoy hands-on activities (camerawork, sound recording or lighting) through to those who want to lead the creative process through script writing and directing. We also provide delegates with coaching on the filmmaking process too, so they’ll also come away a little better informed about framing, composition, sound recording and how to tell a story using video.

Teams on team building
Having fun – building teams

M&IT use video team building very effectively with teams assigned to make a short commercial about one of the presentations made to them during the main body of the event. It is the team’s choice, but it has to be based on one of those subjects. In M&IT’s case these presentations are made by suppliers to the meetings and incentives industry (airlines, hotel groups, national tourist boards etc.) and the delegates are made up of representatives from agencies who are likely to book their services. This results in the delegates paying particular attention to their presentations as they might have to make a short film about them when the video team building part of the day starts. They also combine this with ongoing quizzes throughout the day, again based on the content of the presentations, so by the time the event finishes they are extremely well informed about various suppliers, locations and facilities available to them.

Team Building for any occassion

This formula can be easily adapted to any business event or conference where you want delegates to come away better informed; for example, when running a sales event at which you are introducing new products or services to your sales force. Pre-warning your delegates of the forthcoming video challenge will guarantee they listen during briefing sessions where the new products and services are introduced. The other benefit of using video for team building is that it can also give a focus to the end of an event, using it to screen the edited films and announce the winning entry. This is generally very entertaining but, more importantly, gives yet another opportunity to share the message.

There are also further benefits to using Video Artisan to provide this activity for you. At little additional cost we can also produce a short film about the event. In the case of M&IT the following short documentary is used to promote future events to delegate attendees and sponsoring companies wishing to put on presentations.

If you think your next team building event could benefit from incorporating a video production exercise then please get in touch. Whilst this can be extremely beneficial, and lots of fun too, it does require a fair amount of planning and experience in order to get the most out of it. Please call 020 3602 3356 to talk though the possibilities – and see how you can use video to bring your teams together.

See the 2016 Agency Challenge here.