Making a Brand Video

How to Choose the Right Videographer and Video-Style To Tell Your Brand Story

Starting A Brand Video

You know video marketing is important for growing your business. Maybe you’ve tried your hand at making Instagram Reels or TikTok on your phone; this is a good way of making video marketing a daily part of your social media marketing strategy. But if you’re feeling like you need some more elevated content to share on your website or other marketing platforms, that’s a good instinct. When it comes to your overall brand strategy, that video content has an important job to do and needs to look the part; that’s why we recommend adding professional brand video to your website, and creating video content sequences you can share online.

And there are two choices to make during this process:

Which videographer to choose
Which style of brand video to choose

To help make both these decisions easy, we’ve shared our advice in this blog.

But first, a quick refresher…

Why Make a Brand Video?

Because:

It drives more traffic to your website and improves SEO
It tells your brand story in a clear, easy-to-understand way
It adds a level of professionalism and authority to your brand when you have professional brand video content on your website

The Benefits of Video Content:

There is a lot of data to backup video’s VIP status in your marketing strategy. It’s worth remembering a few important points:

Video is Now a Best Practice: According to a wyzowl study, an overwhelming majority of businesses (86%) are using video as a marketing tool – and 92% of businesses say it’s an “important part” of their marketing strategy. What this tells us, is that video is no longer just a luxury item to have for your business. It’s becoming a regular, expected part of your marketing strategy when customers visit your website and social media platforms.
Increasing Conversion Rates: Adding a video to your landing can increase your conversion rate by 80% (and even simply mentioning the word “video” in an email subject line can increase open rates by 19%). Video content is reportedly what over half of consumers desire to see from the brands they interact with. And as marketers, we know that we need to deliver valuable content to our customers in the format that will be most accessible and useful to them.
Improving Your Bottom Line: 81% of businesses report that including video in their marketing strategy has increased their bottom line. This means video has a financial ROI in addition to just increased engagement with your brand.

Additional Benefits of Video Marketing Include:

Increasing your audience’s understanding with the benefits of video (visual, auditory, discussion-based)
Driving more traffic to your website from your social media platforms
Diversifying your content strategy
Being able to humanize your brand and personalize your relationship with your audience

Video content can provide some of the most enriching brand experiences to your customers when it’s done well. And two major ways of providing that valuable content is by: 1) making sure you have a videographer who is an expert in marketing and 2) a video style that reflects your brand story and marketing goals.

Choosing a Videographer to Shoot Your Brand Video

Whether you have an exact vision of what you want your brand video to look and feel like, or if you have no idea where to begin, you’re going to want to reach out to a professional videographer early on. The right videographer will be able to support you with expertise through the video preparation process just as much as the video production.

Now how do you know when you’ve found the right one?

The right videographer will be able to:

Naturally pull the elements of your brand story out of your dialogue by asking the right questions or creating a script for you ahead of time
Provide a strategic marketing mindset to the project
Make your experience on video feel comfortable and stress-free
Curate the perfect visual environment to reflect a clean, professional brand tone
Help you with wardrobe and any aesthetic decisions

Here’s our checklist for finding the right brand videographer:

Excellent Communication: They should make you feel comfortable and excited about the project during your first meeting (because it will also be their job to make you feel comfortable and confident in front of the camera later on). If you’re worried about the experience of talking on video or hearing your own voice, let them know early on so they can support you through that with advice, prompts and confidence!
Pro Interview Skills: They should be asking you a lot of questions about your business, your brand and how you plan on using the video (don’t be overwhelmed! They’re trying to gather all the information so they can help you make a video with an effective strategy that will actually meet your goals)
Marketing Expertise: They should be able to help you expertly shape the video (format, style, length) based on the purpose and goals you have for it (a good videographer will know what videos work best with certain online platforms and businesses and speakers). This is so that you don’t just end up with a video – you need a video that is part of a larger brand strategy and has a role to play in your sales funnel, campaign strategy, onboarding process, or whatever initiative you’re working on!
A Portfolio: They should be able to provide at least a couple samples of their work (if you haven’t been able to access examples already on their website). Make sure you like their style, and that you can see that someone else has had a successful experience with them. You can see our Unger Studios portfolio on our website.

Our Number One Tip For Finding a Brand Videographer:

(This one often gets overlooked in the search for a videography)

Our number one sign of a good brand videographer is that they will be able to tease out your brand story and present it clearly and concisely within your video. This is what sets apart a videographer who is technically skilled, and a videographer who knows how to apply those skills to a marketing context and create content that can grow your business. They should know the pivotal moments of a brand story, and how to communicate that most effectively over a video message in order to accomplish the marketing goals you’ve outlined.

Your brand videographer will be your guide through the process of planning, script-writing, and video production, so it’s worth setting up a call with them first to make sure it’s a good fit for your personality and the project.

Choosing Your Brand Video Style:

There are many different styles of video you can use to diversify your content. At Unger Studios, we can work with all of them, but we always recommend starting with an up to date brand video.

Like this:

What is a Brand Video?

We define a brand video as a short introductory video to your brand that highlights the most important aspects of your brand story: what you do, why you do it, and how it helps someone. These videos can range in length from two to five minutes depending on the purpose you have for the video.

Your brand video could follow two main styles:

The Interview Brand Video:

A more natural, conversational style of video where your brand message unfolds as a casual (but clear) conversation with your viewer. This is a style we often recommend for someone who:

Wants to appear welcoming and approachable and reduce any sense of intimidation or stigma
Doesn’t want to memorize or read off a script
Is nervous about being in front of a camera
Wants to introduce multiple team members or multiple speakers

For these reasons, the “interview” style is popular because of its authentic, conversational tone that can create personal connections with viewers.

How to Prepare: We’ll sit down and gather all the information we need to know about your brand. Once we have a clear sense of your brand’s key messages, we’ll create a lightly scripted story board. Then, we’ll organize the interview conversation with question-answer prompts to ensure key messages are incorporated into the flow of the dialogue. We’ll also plan additional footage to include, to make sure the B-roll can take on some of the heavy lifting in the video. It’s great to have background visuals so that you don’t have to overload the video with speech and extra detail that draws a video out too long! B-Roll footage could include:

Demonstrating how to use a product or service
Touring an office space so first-time visitors know what to look for
Showing the care and attention you put into your work
Reflecting the friendly, approachable interactions you have with clients
Imagery of happy customers experiencing success with your product/service

The goal of the preparation process is to make sure we go into your video shoot with a plan that is structured enough to guide us, and flexible enough to keep things natural and adaptable to the environment.

The Traditional Brand Video:

A short brand video that features a single narrator telling your brand’s story as a cohesive, polished speech. These videos tend to be more promotional in nature and clearly lays out the path to working with you. The benefit of this type of video is that it provides a clear and concise brand story that quickly clarifies important information for your audience, like how you can help them, how they can work with you and where to get started. We find this style of video popular with clients who are looking to prioritize a sense of authority, clarity and traditional-professionalism for their audience.

How to Prepare: It starts the same way – we’ll sit down and ask a lot of questions to root out the main messages of your brand story. From there, we’ll create a formal script and storyboard that will be followed during our video shoot to keep things structured and polished. We’ll also arrange the setting, video pose and wardrobe ahead of time as well so there’s a consistent appearance throughout the video.

When you’re looking to make a brand video, talk to your videographer about what style, or combination of styles would work best for you and your brand! They’ll be able to help you find the perfect solution. And when your first brand video is done, you can experiment with a variety of different video styles to talk about other aspects of your brand.

For example, you could build up a video collection that includes:

A client testimonial video
A product demonstration video
A behind-the-scenes tour
An educational/explainer video for more complex concepts
An employee portrait video

A Video Content Strategy For The Long Term:

There are countless different video-styles you can use to create ongoing content for your brand. Each new type might allow you to explore a new area of your business in an exciting new way for your clients, so talk to your videographer about developing a video content marketing strategy over the long-term.

Conclusion:

So many talented business owners stop themselves from making video content because they’re worried about how they’ll feel in front of a camera, or they think it will be a time-consuming project. But when you have the right videographer guiding you through the process, you’ll feel confident in front of the camera, proud to share your brand story and surprised at how fast and easy the process is for you! Most importantly, it will help you connect with your customers in a more personalized way and grow your business.