Essential Stages of Creating a Marketing Video

Being a powerful medium for storytelling video content is important, especially when it comes to matters content marketing or promotional campaign. If you are looking to engage with your audience and build deeper relationships, then it is vital for you as a corporate or small business entrepreneur to use video content.

The video marketing process consists of the following three stages.

• Consulting with clients on brand, target audience, and key messages (pre-production stage)
• Script development in consultation with client (production stage)
• Editing audio to the required size, incorporating music and sound as required, mixing the finished product and converting to the required format and delivering to client for posting and distribution (post-production) 

Production process

Apart from identifying the kind of video you want to produce, specifying your aspirations, understanding the focus message, and choosing the platform to which your content will be published, you must include some vital steps for a rewarding production.

Pre-production stage

It is where you gather all the necessary tools you’ll need to carry on with the production process. You can understand this stage better by reading through the next steps.

Source equipment and props

The complexity of your video will determine the type of equipment to use. A video can be shot on a smartphone and still give desired results, but not all videos shot on the phone are successful. Some videos have higher demands that surpass the specifications of a phone camera.

With props, the same thing applies. If your video is a combination of stop motion animation, you might not need as many props as when you are doing a video that has different scenes.

Identify talent

If you are doing a big production you’ll need to choose a location, employ models or actors. When selecting the site, you might need also need permission depending on the area you want. A small production, on the other hand, requires less, and you can use whatever you have; for example, you can turn a space in your home into a studio and have a successful production.

Select team

You need a team that is responsible for the creation of your video like a director, sound recorder, videographer and editor. Depending on the type of video you intend to create you might need additional team that will take care of the makeup and wardrobe. At times it can be hard to afford a large team and the reason why you should keep the video concept simple. Keeping it simple makes it easier to execute and carry out production with one or lesser team.

Establish timeline

It is necessary to track and deliver your video on time. For this to be successful it is important you set deadlines for each step of production, that is, editing, scripting, shooting of the video and draft delivery. To ensure timely delivery mark the dates and people responsible for each stage on your calendar. For shoots that are complex, it can help to have a run sheet that shows contacts of people involved and how the shoot should be at the end.

Set budget

You might think there’s no need to set a budget since your production is small, but no. Whether you are producing big or small, it is crucial to place a price tag on every step of your output; that way, you can know what your expenses are and plan for the entire production.

Write script

A good script should have a compelling storyline that engages the audience and gives them a solution at the end (call to action). Scriptwriting is essential can never be omitted during the pre-production stage, and that is why you should learn how to do it in depth. There are resources to guide you through scriptwriting.

Now that you have every tool in place, it is time to execute the intended plan. It is time to capture images and audio in the preferred location you had selected in the pre-production stage.

Production stage

Capture image

The type of image will depend on the kind of video you are planning to shoot. For example if you are telling a story about how your hair has grown over 3 years you are going to use a lot of still photos, but if you are doing a baking tutorial you’ll need good lighting to capture clear videos, the position should be on point that’s the audience can see whatever you are doing and so on.

Capture sound

You can decide depending on the type of video you are producing the kind of sound you want to capture. If you are doing an interview or a testimonial, you’ll have to record the audio together with the image. Still, if it is a tutorial, for example, you can capture the image and later on do a voice-over.

Now that you have captured the image and sound, it is time to give your video file some oomph by editing and adding in sound effects, graphics, and other elements.

Post-production stage

Create video

Yes, you have finished capturing the video and audio required, but you still feel you need to add some more to make the video complete. It is in this stage of video production that you get to edit and add graphics, change the theme, add music, and more. To achieve this step, you’ll need video editing tools.

Deliver and publish

In this step, you’ll review the finished product, and once it is approved, you can post it on the platform of choices such as YouTube, Instagram, Wistia, or other platforms.