The Golden Rule of Corporate Video Production
As the title suggests, there’s one thing you absolutely cannot ignore when jumping into the broad and colorful world of corporate video production, and that’s defining your target audience. Yes, production aspects are just as important—you should never neglect your script, and God forbid you choose to go without an editor. Unfortunately, all the glitz and glamor in the world means nothing if your message is getting sent to the wrong people.
It’s simple: your video needs to target a specific group of people. Sports videos will do well for a sports audience just as strictly kids videos of different kid ages and grades should be targeted at kids. This is an especially necessary element to consider in video production. A “general audience” only works for full-length films (and even those are released to targeted demographics). You need to know, in excruciating detail, the kind of person you want watching your video, otherwise your effort is moot. Even if you spend a fortune in corporate video production, you won’t get nearly half the results you want if you keep showing your video to the wrong people.
People want to watch what’s relevant to them, otherwise they’re not going to pay attention.
DEFINE AND REFINE YOUR AUDIENCE
According to One Market Media, you have to define—and then refine—your audience first. That means serious thought needs to be put into who exactly you’re directing your video at. Deciding on a demographic and producing the actual video cannot be separate entities. Define your demographic and then refine your presentation by tailoring your video specifically for them.
Video producer Sukhjendersingh “Sukhi” lists the different types of corporate video you can produce, and the specific sort of people they’re for. For instance, a recruitment video would work best for Human Resource in terms of telling hopeful applicants the kind of person your company is looking for.
If someone wants to know more about your company’s work ethic and professional standards, they would look for a corporate promotional video or a company culture video. On the other hand, these videos would be useless for someone already hired by your company and is just looking to learn the ropes. They would benefit more from an introductory video or a training video. If you try to get these different groups of people through one video, you’re going to end up losing a lot of them a minute in.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGAGING
Every video—even a corporate video—needs to hit the three E’s, which are engage, entertain, and educate. Entertain can be managed with the right talent, good editing, and a great script. Educate is also dependent on the script, but you’ll need to incorporate good pacing and the right amount of information. Too little and you’ve failed to educate. Too much and you run the risk of overwhelming.
But you can’t hit those E’s unless you manage to engage the viewer first. This means capturing their attention—much easier said than done, considering the fact that the average user consumes the equivalent of 174 newspapers a day—and holding it long enough for them to hear your message. It’s not a hit-or-miss so much as it is a strategy; there are ways to guarantee people will watch your video, regardless of the demographic they belong to. However, getting people who are actually interested in what you have to say or actually want what you offer can make a world of difference.
DON’T INCLUDE EVERYONE
In a nutshell, specification is good and generalization is bad. Every video—from advertisements to explainer videos to ecommerce videos—is meant to be seen by anunambiguousgroup of people. Corporate video production can only do so much on its own. When combined with meticulous planning and a very detailed target demographic, results and ROI’s can easily be doubled.
