Short videos about technology are great for sales and marketing. However, they can be tricky to produce, especially when you have a technical subject matter and multiple stakeholders who hold competing views of what customers really want to know.
Last month, I wrote about some best practices that help to smooth the upfront work that leads to better productions. The following tips relate to the actual production work
1. Keep stakeholders involved as the production moves along
If you wait until the last minute to get higher-ups’ approvals, you may hear something like “Well, that’s not exactly how we’re explaining it these days.” The longer it takes to produce the video, the more it’s likely to be thrown off course by new brainstorms.
2. Work with a temporary narration
If you think you might need to make significant revisions (e.g., adding a scene) work with a temporary narration. Good professional narrators have a minimum rate, so a second recording session could double the cost.
3. Participate in the voiceover recording
Professional voice actors are accustomed to submitting auditions. Hearing a few lines of your script voiced by different professionals can be ear-opening. You may want to sit on the recording session, too.
4. Don’t let the subject matter expert drive the demo.
For a screencast that lets the viewer know you value their attention, you need to pay attention to the screen resolution, microphone, visible menus and tabs — and several other demo production issues you don’t normally think about. Here’s a comprehensive guide on How to create screencasts by WordPress guru Shawn Hesketh.
5. Don’t host your own video
This comes up sometimes with companies launching their first B2B marketing videos, because it’s so easy to upload an mp4 file and put an HTML5 <video> tag around it. Don’t. Here are 10 Reasons Why You Should Never Host Your Own Videos.
6. Think about re-use.
Don’t just upload your video to YouTube and wait for viewers to show up. Share excerpts in social media. Chop it up into answers to “frequently asked questions.” Include links to relevant segments in your blogs and white papers. Think of your viewers as seekers of wisdom, not couch potatoes.
