When you make a corporate video, it’s important to bear in mind that your video will competing with an audience that is distracted and fickle. More than that, your video will be competing for the attention of your audience with the millions of other videos already on the internet. So it’s vital that, for your video to stand a chance of being seen, its interesting, engaging and useful.
By following the steps below you’ll give your next corporate video the best chance of winning and retaining an audience.
Put Yourself in the Audience’s Shoes
Your first challenge is thinking about what your audience will want to learn from you. It’s easy to get caught up in focussing on what you want them to know about your business. Rather than really tuning into what will be most interesting and valuable from their perspective.
They clicked on your video because they wanted the answer to a question: What can your business do for me? How can I do this? What’s it like to work with you?
Before you can start filming you should also ensure you have a clear purpose for your video. This is because when an audience is receiving a single clear message they will be more likely to act on it than when they get multiple messages woven together.
It might be attractive to create a video that grabs the attention of new clients and also shares knowledge to existing followers but it will increase the risk that you don’t achieve either. So think about what the number 1 thing you want your viewer to do after watching your video, based on your answer you can decide what kind of video will achieve this.
Check out this post for a breakdown of the kinds of videos to consider.
Be a Storyteller
Your audience will appreciate being told a story rather than being told information. Stories give us information by putting ideas into a context that we can relate to. If your audience is relating to your ideas then their attention will stay with you.
Opening and closing loops in a story is a great way to hook your audience till the end. The reason this is effective is that people naturally feel satisfied when they have closure, they’re willing to invest more time if it means their curiosity will be satisfied. So by introducing a question or a concept that needs closure you’ll be enticing peoples interest.
To do this you need to give them a taste of your story’s outcome but only enough to make them curious about how you got there.
An example of this is when somebody asks you if you can guess how they got an impressive scar. You know the outcome was a fantastic injury so you’re instantly curious to hear the story behind it.
Nobody Listens if They Can’t Hear
Having clear sound is crucial to keep an audience watching. This is because it requires focus and concentration when sound is muddy or unclear, asking your audience to put effort into understanding your video will likely see them tune out. A video with good sound is only a click away so you need to ensure yours is easy to hear and understand or people will go elsewhere.
You can spend surprisingly little to achieve good sound. If you plan to create your own videos then investing in a shotgun mic or lavalier is the way to go, the microphone on your camera won’t do the job. Amazon and eBay often have great deals but if you are’t sure what you need then Factory Sound in South Melbourne will be able to help you out.
Use Visuals to Demonstrate
If your audience is seeing the same person talking for more than a few seconds then they’ll tune out. This is because people need to see movement and variation to stay interested. The good news is that there are ways to avoid a static image that also improve your video.
B-roll is one option. This is footage that’s relevant to the topic of the video like shots of a product or of people doing their jobs.
Get creative with interesting footage that demonstrates what you’re talking about and your audience will stay focused. Even if your work is just based around computers you can show the office that you work in or screen capture the software that you use.
When you really can’t film a concept or idea that you’re talking about then you should consider animation and motion graphics. These are animations that you can find templates for on websites like Videohive or you can commission an animator to make them specifically for you from sites like Fiverr.
Motion Graphics add movement and vibrancy and are great if you’re referring to graphs or numbers that you can’t visually demonstrate otherwise.
Use Appropriate Music
Music plays a big part in making an engaging video. It subconsciously tells the audience something without you needing to spell it out and it guides them to the right emotion. Its a precursor, it’s the video equivalent of knowing your lunch will taste great because it smells great.
Hearing slow, downbeat music as you see somebody struggling with a problem then positive, optimistic music as they are introduced to a new product or service does two things: strengthens the emotion and gives the audience an idea of where the video is heading.
Keep it Short
When people want information they don’t want to spend much time getting an answer. Every day your audience is being overwhelmed with information from different sources so they don’t have the patience to invest 10 minutes to get an answer. If you can give people information in the most concise way possible then there’s less chance their minds will wander or that they’ll try somewhere else for answers.
If you have enough content for 10 minutes then consider breaking it down into 4 or 5 smaller videos. Your audience will be far happier to invest in multiple short videos than one big one.
I love talking about this stuff so if you want to start implementing the things I’ve talked about into your own corporate video, get in touch today.
Ryan Spanger is one of Melbourne’s most respected and sought-after video production professionals. Ryan founded Dream Engine in 2002, and specialises in helping medium to large corporates, government departments, and the non-profit sector to connect with their audience more effectively by using video.
