The corporate video: your company in the spotlight

What do you actually do? Can you explain what your work involves? But how exactly do you work? Just a few questions you’ve no doubt been asked at a birthday party or in the pub. You hear the question, think for a moment and reluctantly tell a story that would almost put you to sleep. How can you effectively visualise what your company does and ensure this message gets across to your target audience? A corporate video offers the solution and is often far more entertaining than a dull story.

Why make videos about your business?

It’s all very well knowing you need to make a video about your business, but why exactly should you choose to make one? We’ve listed a number of benefits for you below:

Simplified explanation
Not only is a video easy to watch, but the images and sound also reinforce the message you wish to convey. This makes it easier to highlight your strengths and counteract your weaknesses. After all, you can only really explain clearly what exactly you do by showing it. What’s more, the human brain processes videos much faster than it processes text.

Boost your sales
YouTube is one of the largest search engines after Google, and the videos that attract the most views are product videos. This is because products become tangible when we see them in use, which creates a desire to use them ourselves. Kissmetrics, an analytics blog, has conducted research into this. People’s willingness to buy was as much as 85 per cent higher after watching a video!

Expanding your audience
Preferences when it comes to content vary, and that’s a good thing. Some people listen to podcasts, others prefer to read an engaging piece of text, but by far the majority of people prefer to watch a video. By integrating corporate videos into your content, you can therefore appeal to a wider audience. An additional advantage is that on social media, videos are shared much more quickly than text posts. When you use a video in your social posts, you’re up to 10 times more likely to be shared or liked. This also helps to increase your reach.

Engage rather than bounce
Offering content in the form of a video is a good way to ensure that people stay on your website for longer. This helps you build a connection with your website visitors and, in turn, reduces your bounce rate.

Branding
By posting a corporate video, you give visitors a glimpse behind the scenes at your company. You can build brand recognition by featuring the same people or repeatedly using specific locations within the company. You can also use a corporate video to refine your company’s image. For instance, a video about your staff offers a personal insight into your business – the ultimate form of branding.

Advertising in new places
Have you never made a video before? Then you’ve most likely never promoted one either. This is because promoting a video involves very different approaches to promoting text or a traditional advert. For example, advertising via YouTube is a particularly interesting option, but there are many more networks that offer video advertising. Video advertising has been growing in popularity recently, which means that more and more platforms are offering it.

Tap into emotions
Text evokes far fewer emotions than images and sound do. And you know what? Emotions are what drive sales! The combination of evoking emotions and addressing the rational aspects of the product is what makes people buy your product.

Getting started with creating a corporate video

Now that you know the benefits of producing a corporate video, it’s time to tell you a thing or two about making one. First of all, it’s important to ask yourself what the purpose is of producing the video (or having it produced). Do you want to give a general impression of the company? Do you want to highlight a service or a product? Or do you perhaps have another objective you wish to achieve with your video? Think carefully about this. It can sometimes also be a good idea to produce several videos.

Defining your target audience
Next, it is important to define your target audience. Who do you want to reach? Bear this in mind when editing your content and addressing the viewer. For example, you will often need to appeal to young people in a different way to older people.

Length
A viewer’s attention span is often not very long. You’ll probably want to show off a lot about your company, but be careful not to reveal too much. After all, you want to intrigue the viewer, and if you show too much, they’ll eventually lose interest. So keep it short, but powerful!

Script
Before you make a corporate video, it’s important to write a script. What do you want to showcase, and what message do you want to convey to the viewer? You can keep it simple by showing the business process in chronological order, but you can also think outside the box and take a more creative approach to your corporate film. It all depends on exactly what message you want to convey.

It is also important to consider whether you want to feature a voice-over in your video or include background music. Make sure to incorporate this into the script as well.

Filming
Even if you’ve come up with a brilliant story, if you have little or no experience with filming and editing, it can be tricky to produce a good corporate video. One option might be to outsource it to a specialist agency that’s well versed in this area. We have the necessary experience in producing corporate videos and would be happy to help you with this.

Would you prefer to film the corporate video yourself? If so, it’s important that you have the right equipment. A good-quality camera and a tripod will ensure you can capture great shots. Always pay close attention to the camera angle, perspective and lighting. As there are simply so many things to bear in mind, we recommend watching the relevant tutorials in advance, because good preparation is half the battle.

Editing
Have all the shots been filmed? Great! Then it’s time for editing. When we edit, we use Adobe Premiere Pro, but there are plenty of other programmes you can use to create the best videos.

Before you start editing the video, it can be useful to review the footage you’ve shot first. Select the shots you definitely want to include. You might want to create a separate folder for the shots you’re certain to use in your video. This will help you keep things organised.

As an editor, you have the important task of telling the story and setting the pace of the video. So, when editing, always bear the objective and the target audience in mind. This way, you’ll make the right choices when editing your corporate film. Furthermore, there are countless possibilities when it comes to editing. For example, you can add animations, experiment with effects, include subtitles in the film, and so on. In a corporate film, it is also important that the company is portrayed effectively. So, display the company logo in the corner throughout the video and think carefully about how you want to open and close the video. You’ll often see a screen at the end of the video showing the company’s address details and website. Make sure this fits in with your company’s corporate identity.

Publish
All wrapped up? Then it’s time to promote your corporate video. Be sure to share the video on YouTube, as it’s currently the second-largest search engine in the world. Don’t forget to give some thought to the video’s description and title. It’s also a good idea to share the video on other platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Furthermore, a corporate video always looks good on the ‘About Us’ page of a website.

Fancy having a corporate video made?

Do you have any questions, or would you like to commission us to produce your corporate video? Please feel free to get in touch. We’d be happy to discuss the options, so that your organisation’s identity is soon reflected visually as well.