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When not to make a video

Posted by uStudio

Video is becom­ing an increas­ingly impor­tant part of every busi­ness’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Whether you’re a media com­pany grow­ing an audi­ence, or a busi­ness try­ing to grow its cus­tomer base, video is a great tool to help you achieve your goals.

Video can be amaz­ingly effi­cient in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. When prop­erly done, it is deci­sively the best way to con­vey a mes­sage today.

How­ever, there are times when you should NOT make a video.

Ask your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions. If you don’t have clear and fairly deci­sive answers, hold off on writ­ing that script or hir­ing a videographer.

–Do you have a story? What are you try­ing  to con­vey to your audi­ence and what’s the angle or frame­work you are start­ing from? (I.e. If you’re hun­gry, go to my restau­rant. If you want to laugh, watch my show, etc.)

–Do you have an audi­ence in mind? Even if you end up being wrong, hav­ing an audi­ence in mind for you mes­sage will help you craft and hone it

–Do you know where you’ll put the video when you’re done? If you say “just my web­site” you should have a really good rea­son as wh you would limit the expo­sure to just one dis­tri­b­u­tion point. Hav­ing a larger dis­tri­b­u­tion plan that you can mon­i­tor and gauge suc­cess with will help you reach your goals and learn more about where your tar­get audi­ence lives and con­sumes content

So your business needs a video…

Posted by uStudio

Recently, I have heard over and over again that video is the “must-have” mar­ket­ing com­po­nent that all busi­nesses need or should have. Of course, I agree. Video is highly engag­ing and has been shown to con­vert leads into cus­tomers and new audi­ences into loyal viewers.

How­ever, rush­ing to make a video can be a huge mis­take. You need to think through the pur­pose and mes­sage of the video and decide to ded­i­cate the appro­pri­ate bud­get to the project.

The funny thing is that while the tools to make video have become cheaper and more acces­si­ble, it still doesn’t change the fact that the actual process of mak­ing a video is a craft that must be learned by experience.

If you  want a mes­sage from some­one in your office then using an iPhone or a cheap cam­era can work, but it can eas­ily come out poorly pro­duced. A bad video is worse than hav­ing no video at all.

The point? Seek­ing pro­fes­sional help can never hurt.

Putting the right message in the right place

Posted by uStudio

In the past, we worked with some­one that wanted some help cre­at­ing a video dis­tri­b­u­tion strat­egy for a new product.

We thought we could def­i­nitely help.

Then we got to see the video.

While it was extremely well pro­duced, its focus was on sell­ing the viewer on a prod­uct. Actu­ally, it was a hard sale for the product.

The video wasn’t the prob­lem though. Con­tent like that can be nec­es­sary and effec­tive to close gaps in infor­ma­tion for a poten­tial buyer and lead them to a purchase.

The prob­lem was what the client ini­tially wanted, a dis­tri­b­u­tion game plan.

This video was so focused on the last stage of the sales cycle that its only nat­ural home was on the product’s pur­chase page. Putting it “in the wild” on video por­tals (like YouTube) felt very forced and the mes­sage was flat, if not abra­sive to the viewer.

What was needed was a video that spoke to the pains that the prod­uct solved, thus cre­at­ing a dia­log with a poten­tial buyer. From there, the viewer of the video could opt into the next step: vis­it­ing a site with a more focused mes­sage on how prod­uct X could solve the problem.

Some­where on that site is where this video belonged. When we did dis­trib­ute it out­side of their site, the view counts were low and the con­ver­sion to a a sale was non-existent.

The two take-aways here:

1) Think about who you want to talk to and what part of the sales cycle they are at. Then tai­lor your video (if not mul­ti­ple videos) to them.

2) Think about where that mes­sage lives and how your poten­tial cus­tomers will react to it.

It’s easy to come up with a great pitch, and get­ting superb pro­duc­tion value at an afford­able cost is read­ily avail­able, but those two things won’t add up to a sale unless you’re putting the right mes­sage in the right place.

De-mystifying the mystical

Posted by uStudio

Over the years, I have met some incred­i­bly tal­ented people.

How­ever, what they don’t do is “every­thing.” They have a niche, a focus, a strength.

What’s fas­ci­nat­ing to me is under­stand­ing, even in sim­ple con­cepts, what they do. Even more inter­est­ing is then try­ing to explain that to the next per­son who doesn’t get it at all (teach­ing is learn­ing after all, right?.)

Often, they don’t want to get it. Why? Because, they’re great at what they do and they just want to get bet­ter at that thing… and that is totally OK.

To me, it is fas­ci­nat­ing to learn new things. I feel I can say that for myself and every­one here at uStudio.

When I real­ized that, I real­ized that is uStudio’s niche, our focus and our strength. In all things video, we want to learn and strive to under­stand. Next, we’ll build awe­some tools to turn knowl­edge into action.

Finally, we want to teach it to you — as much or as lit­tle as you’d like to know.