Three elements of an affordable video content marketing strategy

Video tool provider Knowledge Vision (www.knowledgevision.com) recently put out a paper about how companies should be using video as a key part of their marketing collateral asset collection. Their purpose is to sell tools, but their message is applicable to any marketing group. The main point is that video does not have to be scary expensive- you can do quite a lot on the cheap. The idea is to break your video production energy and budget into three categories.

The Corporate video: $$$

The first category is your showpiece or “corporate” video; typically, these are flashy, and expensive; here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJJCYiKUiaQ. Videos like this show the face of the company- they’re high-level, should be easily visible on the website, and should not be made obsolete by a new product release or a new partnership. They grab your attention, and might typically be used in high-level sales meetings and shareholder meetings. They are costly, take a long time to produce, so you don’t want to make many of them; you should really only need one or two. They need to be produced by a professional video production company. With a price tag of perhaps $20K per pop, smaller companies may not even be able to afford this type of video. But it doesn’t end with high-end videos – there are two other categories to consider.

High-usage videos: $

The second category is the workhorse, or high usage video. This type of video is still a professional piece, but does not require the flash or pomp of a corporate video. Here is a good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LojtFGGSGYo. They need to be engaging and watchable. These videos should cost less than $5K, but need to be produced by video production professionals, either inhouse or an external video production agency. They typically describe a product’s (or multiple products’) value proposition, but at a high level. They can be used anywhere and everywhere, should be easy to find on the website, and are well suited to social media promotion. They would also be used in your more technical sales meetings, and are perfect for redistribution within your client’s organization.

Inexpensive video: ¢

The final category is the long-train, or “cheapo” video. They can be very inexpensive to produce, created using low-end video equipment, or using inexpensive products like Camtasia or prezi.com. The form of these videos can range from on-demand webinars, to carefully crafted video presentations, to videos of a Product Manager, lead developer, CEO, CFO or tech support guru talking and sharing ideas. Techniques are almost limitless, and can include drawings and screen captures, talking heads, composite video presentations and more. Here is an example of an inexpensive talking head video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGOA7-dNSmo, and an example of an on-demand webinar video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVTDnc30K1I. Leveraging this category, you can quickly build up a video content library, without spending much out-of-pocket money, that can be used in your marketing, tech support and sales efforts.

Video content: do it all…

The best plan is to use all three of these video categories. Your high-usage and inexpensive category videos can also be used in social media, and any of them could suddenly go viral.
So, get out there and start building (and using) your video library!

You can get the Knowledge Vision paper here:
http://info.knowledgevision.com/CMINewsletterAdApril2014_CMIAdScaryVideo.html.