When it comes to your business, brand truly is everything – it’s how you’re depicted in the public eye. And what’s further and even more interesting is that you don’t even get to choose your brand – the market decides.
How important marketing can be, then! You see, the market may decide what your brand is, but you get to present them with information to help them see you how you want to be interpreted.
One great way to share your message is to create a brand video. A brand video is exactly what it sounds like – it shares your company’s culture, work ethic, process, SOPs and sense of direction with consumers.
A good brand video will include the following:
1. Talking head segments, where the employees or owners are speaking
2. B roll footage of any establishments that are important
3. B roll footage of employees doing their work
4. Branding + text assistants including your logo, important names and titles
5. A specific message to attract a specific client and a call to action
Let’s go ahead and break all of these down into a little more detail. While each and every industry is a little bit different, these 5 rules for brand video success are applicable all across the board.
1. Talking Head Segments. The owners and employees of the business should be interviewed. The answers given are going to act as the narration of the video, providing an overarching story. Some questions will include “What is the company called and how long has it been around?”, “What kind of work does the company do?”, “What are some of the company’s greatest accomplishments?”, “What kinds of clients or customers does the company sell to?”, “What should someone do if they want to work with/make a purchase from the company?”
2. Now, to sit overtop of the narration we’ll want to insert some b roll of important establishments. This can include the office, shop, or store front of the physical business, or the establishments of current projects being worked on. By sharing these spaces with potential customers, it paints a clearer picture of who you are as a company.
3. We’ll then want to include b roll of employees doing their work. Potential clients or customers want to see what you do best. This is also going to sit overtop of some of the narration we’ve acquired in the interview section of the video.
4. Branding + text assistants are a must for viewers to be able to understand who and what they’re seeing. A lot of the time, you’ll want to enter the video with a quick flash of your logo, and you’ll also want to share the speakers name as well as position within the company the first time they’re seen talking.
Doing so gives the viewer context and helps them to better understand the importance of what the individuals are saying. Finally, exit the video with an animated logo bumper.
5. Within the body of the narration, include a specific message as well as a call to action to whoever the video is directed at. If you’re selling to middle aged women, make that abundantly clear, and then include a call to action that will make it easy for them to make a purchase or first point of contact with you after the video. Make the call to action simple and concise.
Always ask yourself “what do I want from them?” If you sell an online product, you’ll want them to “click here to buy now”. Or maybe you’re a service based business and need them to fill out a form to start that initial conversation.
Whichever the case may be – let the viewer know what to do now! If you don’t, they’ll likely do nothing.
Once the branding video is done, it should be made into the vertical orientation, shortened or split up if need be and shared on social media. It should also live on the home page of your website!
Brand videos are one of the best ways to give yourself a fighting chance when the market is deciding what it thinks of you. Put your best foot forward and share your message!
As always, four32 MEDIA can help with that. We work with businesses in Toronto, Barrie, Orillia, Muskoka and the surrounding areas to help share their messages. We get to know business owners on a personal level so that we can share their vision with the public. Reach out for a chat!
To Your Success,
Jay Ashcroft
four32 MEDIA