A complete 5-Step Guide to Creating an effective marketing video

With each passing year, video content becomes increasingly popular and consumed. 93% of internet users watch online videos. On top of that, users report a greater preference towards consuming video content, including online classes or educational content.

In terms of the ways in which marketers and businesses use video, 87% of them use it as a marketing tool. Video also has a high success rate, with 40% of marketers ranking it as having the best ROI compared to photos, blog posts, and so on.

Take a moment to reflect on your own video consumption habits. When was the last time you watched a video? Most likely, today at some point. Was it on a mobile device or a computer? Research shows that nowadays a surprising 90% of consumers watch videos on their mobile devices. Did you watch it until the end or stop after a few seconds? 

The overwhelming data points to a single answer: video remains the content king. However, as the royal it is, it can also be quite intimidating. People believe that to have viral-worthy, relevant, and attractive videos you need many resources and to put in a lot of effort. 

We want to prove to you that creating top video content with great success rates is not hard at all!

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Step 1: Generating Creative Video Ideas

Ideas are easy to come by for some and difficult for others. Truth is, creating a video does not even require much creative effort. The challenge is narrowing down the topic and deciding on an action plan.

Here’s a few questions that could help you get started:

• What’s a common question you get from your customers? How can you answer it?
• Is there any way you may better explain the benefits of your business?
• How could you be more transparent with your customers? 
• How could you best provide educational content to your followers? Do they even want such content?
• Where should you publish your videos? Social medias, your website, YouTube, etc?

Once you’ve found your topic, you may even run a poll amongst your co-workers to see if they find it compelling. 

Finally, before moving forward with putting the idea into script form, you should jot down some specifics:

• Where will you post this video and what are the requirements for the platform?
• Do you have all the necessary equipment? 
• Do you need any props? 
• Do you require people or actors to be filmed, or just objects?
• If you’re using music, is it copyrighted?
• Or you might even want to create this video as an animation! In that case, do you have an in-house designer?

You don’t need to feel pressured into finding an immediate answer. This is where the brainstorming and jotting down of ideas comes in - the fun part!

“Think where to display videos amid your customer journey”

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Step 2: Writing a Script for your product or service video

When you have more clarity on your topic and necessary props, it’s time to allow your inner writer to come to the surface!

Start with a few bullet points around your main message. Expand on the short ideas and form actual sentences. Then, you can organise everything into a coherent order and create a script.

Regardless of the type of video you’re creating, you should take a few seconds at the beginning to introduce yourself, the topic, or the company. Finally, add any stage directions (in case you are using props or multiple people). 

Keep in mind that the written word doesn’t necessarily come off the same as on paper. Ensure that your language is easy to understand and sounds natural. Read out your script a few times and make the final adjustments, such as breaking the paragraphs down in multiple lines so it’s easier to read or memorize.

This article from Inbound Video Marketing offers great advice on how to best structure your video script - with visual examples as well! 

Once your scripts are ready, you will have to record associated videos. Particularly advantageous for tutorial-like content to be published at scale (ex: on numerous product pages), text-to-video technologies present a groundbreaking solution. These technologies seamlessly translate textual information into engaging visual narratives, making complex concepts more accessible. In the context of marketing video creation, leveraging such tools can significantly enhance the educational aspect of tutorials.

Step 3: Recording your Marketing Video

You have your idea and your script… and now it’s time to get down to (video) business! 

Whether you want to make a 2-min-long blockbuster or publish an Instagram ad, you don’t need an expensive or fancy camera that would take days to get the hang of. To create a short video of 30-40 seconds (our recommendation), any smartphone can do wonders for you. Even a laptop with a HD camera works - just make sure you raise the camera at eye level by propping some books under it! 

If you use your phone camera, we would suggest investing in a tripod (you can find models even as cheap as $20). It will take the stress off your hands and enable you to focus on the script. And, when you’re filming an object, the tripod will help with stabilizing the image.

Once you have your gear ready, find a place with good natural light. If you’re filming indoors, having some extra artificial lights would be helpful. You may also position yourself in front of a window and have the sun warm up your face (but calculate a time where it doesn’t blind you 🙈). 

Consider your background or location. Are there any elements you need taken out or brought in? There’s few moments as annoying as being halfway through your video, noticing that something in the background shouldn’t be there, and having to start all over again!

If you’re filming yourself, place a printout of the script facing you, but behind the camera. This way, you can refer to it in case you forget something. If you’re filming something else or you’re working with other people, don’t be afraid to improvise as long as the context remains the same. You can edit it later or even leave it as it is - authenticity goes a long way! 

Have a look over the shot you’ve filmed so far to ensure they’re relevant. Pay attention to shots that help illustrate your point - if they can’t be filmed, you can even add pictures in the editing stage!

Finally, listen to the videos carefully to see if the audio is clear and the speech is easy to understand. Built-in microphones are pretty good with catching sounds (as long as there aren’t many others than your voice), especially if they’re close to the person who is speaking. If you know you’ll be recording in a loud place, you should consider investing in a microphone.

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Step 4: Edit your Marketing product or service Video

Contrary to popular belief, the best performing videos aren’t the ones that you film with an ultra HD camera and spend hours upon hours editing. 

We found that, on-site, the videos with the highest success rates are short-form (no longer than 40 seconds), authentic videos with limited edits and filters. The only essential skills and tools you need are for trimming, cropping, and maybe adding subtitles. 

You have nothing to worry about when it comes to this step - you should be able to do some raw cropping in no time, making space to focus more on ideation and promotion. 

Usually, the native camera app of most smartphones offer the possibility to trim videos. If you want to go the extra mile, for iOS devices, like a Mac or an iPhone, iMovie is a good free option. You can find versions of the app both for your laptop and phone.

For those who prefer to work with browser-based software, Kapwing, Type Studio or Descript are excellent free tools to edit your videos. 

Point is, you don’t actually need highly edited videos. People look for authenticity. Videos recorded on-the-go, similar to Snapchat or Instagram stories, are highly successful on any platform. You may even use a video that’s recorded in one frame, without the need for editing (bear in mind that if it’s longer than 1 min you might lose your audience if there’s only one constant frame).

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Step 5: Publish your Marketing product or service Video

Congratulations, you did it! You’ve created, scripted, recorded, and edited your video! Now, the most scary (or exciting) part: publishing it!

By now, you probably have an idea of where you want to publish and promote your video. Here’s some advice to keep in mind depending on your preferred platform:

Publishing eCommerce product videos on your website (Product page)

You should publish your video according to the journey of your visitors and the actions they take on your website. When you segment your audience and trigger the video based on your customers’ actions, you will increase KPI’s such as play rate and average time people spend watching your video!

For example, if you want to upload a product video, trigger it when a visitor expresses a purchase intent. This usually happens when the visitor starts to scroll down the page to find out more about the product. 

You should also consider the positioning of your video on the website. Having an embedded video on a page doesn’t allow for visitors to keep browsing that page. Pop-up videos, on the other hand, enable visitors to watch the video while still browsing the page.

What’s more, ‘picture-in-picture’ video formats enable visitors to keep browsing and even visit other website pages at the same time, with no video interruption. Youtube and Facebook do this already - users can minimize the video player in a corner, continue watching or listening to it, while at the same time scrolling through their feed or browsing for other videos. This automatically increases the average view time and engagement of your videos, and makes your efforts worthwhile! 

If you’re looking for a tool that boosts your revenue by enabling you to use pop-up videos on your website, Vidjet is the answer! The best part is that it’s the only video player that doesn't require code to publish videos anywhere on a website, saving you time and money in the process.

Publishing E-commerce videos on your social media

After having published the video on your website, you should make the most of it and share it on your social media platforms!

Regardless of whether you want to publish your video as a story, post, or on a video hosting platform, knowing your audience will once again put you one step ahead. 

Look at the data you have so far - and if you don’t, start experimenting and find the best days and times to post on your chosen platform. You can do this manually or use one of the many social media management tools out there. Our favorites are PromoRepublic and Loomly. 

You may even share the video with your friends or ask your co-workers to spread the word. 

Finally, consider that social media is not the only place to upload videos - don’t let your masterpieces go to waste by only promoting them once on one platform! Your video’s journey doesn’t have to end once it’s published. You can repurpose it as gifs and share them at another time, keeping your customers engaged!

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Examples Of Different Engaging Product Videos

We've put together a list of amazing examples from our customers. Have a look here for inspiration!

We hope you’re more confident in your video creating capabilities! Share your videos with us and let us know if you have more curiosities about video!

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