A Streamlined Process for Video Production to Video Distribution

Streamlining your video production is like streamlining your thought process. It takes time, imagination, and a little elbow grease to make it happen. In today’s blog, explore the following four phases that are key to a streamlined video production process and how you can use it for your business.

The Inspiration Phase

Finding inspiration for your videos happens through researching new concepts and trends that are currently happening in your industry right now, going through your old content, even seeing what other people are blogging about or sharing through social media. With the inspiration phase, it’s best to keep an open mind and an open notebook on hand to jot all your ideas down. Using an app like Evernote or your own built-in note taking software can help you visually see your ideas as they come to you.

Once you have all your ideas down, review them by pitching your list of ideas to your team and decide together on which one would meet the needs of your audience the best.

Key tip: Be open-minded to every idea. Even if you don’t use that idea in the end for your video, you can always revisit later. Because you never know what an original idea can evolve into with a little time and marination.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel; you just need to share your unique perspective on why the wheel is important.—Jon Ball

The Planning Phase

Now that you have the main idea for your video, start planning out everything that you’ll need to make it happen. In fact, consider using these following questions during your next video planning phase:

• Why are you creating this video?
• Who is your video for?
• What is your video marketing budget?
• What pain point are you addressing in this video?
• What solution are you offering to alleviate the pain point?
• What is the key takeaway from your video?
  • What is your call-to-action?
• What type of video are you making?
  • Is it an educational video, an entertaining video, an engagement video, etc?
  • Will your video be a parody, an animation, a webinar, a live stream, a product tutorial, etc.?
• What equipment will you need to make this video?
  • For example, “Will you need a DSLR camera or are you shooting from a mobile device? or “Do you need or have a tripod for the equipment you plan to use?”
• Who is going to star in your video?
  • For instance, will you be starring in your video, will your team or will you need to hire someone in order to get your message across?
• What type of script will you need for your video?
  • Do you need to write a full script ready for the teleprompter or memorization? Or do you just need to write a basic outline that lists all the major points that need to be addressed in the video?
• How long will your video be?
  • Is the time allotment needed for your video coincide with your audience’s attention span?
• What type of assets will you need in your video or during the editing process?
  • For example, “Are you doing a live demonstration and need a product to demonstrate with?” or “Will you be needing on-screen text to help list the tips you are providing in your videos?”
• Where will you host your video?
  • Will your videos mainly live on your website or on a social video platform like YouTube or Facebook?
• How will you distribute your videos?

Key tip: Be as thorough as you can in the planning phase. If you plan out ahead of time who your video is for, what your video is about, where it will live, and how your audience will be able to see it, you’ve laid out the groundwork for a successful video process—ultimately diminishing the time and hassle of having to answer these questions during post-production.

Also, don’t linger in the planning phase for too long. The longer you take to plan out your video, the less relevant your topic may be to your audience or even to your team—causing it to feel like a chore than a fun process for all involved. The goal is to answer these major questions as best as you can and then just start creating.

How can you build a house without a blueprint? The answer is: you can’t. In the same way, a video without a storyboard is like a house without a foundation.—Han Lung

The Creation Phase

This phase is pretty straight forward. Once you have everything planned out, it’s time to start creating. This phase is the fun part, but here’s a few things to consider during and after your film shoot.

During the film shoot, you should:

• Be sure that your area and subject is well lit.
• Avoid clutter both in conflicting sounds, i.e., office fans or construction and in conflicting backgrounds, i.e., messy desks or high traffic areas.
• Know what you’re saying either by memorizing the script, using a teleprompter, or reading off a few points from an outline.
• Have fun. Whatever your topic is, take this time to have fun with this medium. The more genuine you can be in your videos, the more naturally it will resonate with your audience.

If you are doing live video or a webinar, you should:

• Practice before you go live. Practice your message with your team or at home. You can’t edit live video. Practice as much as you can to make sure your message is clear, concise, entertaining and educational.
• Create practice videos to get you comfortable with going live. The only way to get comfortable with something is to continuously put into practice. So take the time to get used to the camera or the app that you are using in order for you to feel more comfortable on screen.

After the film shoot, you should:

• Review your clips before you go into editing just in case you and your team have to do reshoots.
• Create an editing and review process with your team.
  • Create a draft that mainly focuses on the flow of the content.
  • Review this video with the Producer.
  • After it’s approved, create the final draft with the necessary on-screen assets, i.e., text, music, website, animation, etc.
  • Review the final video with both the Producer and the Art Director.
• Make sure your video is accommodating. Consider including transcriptions for your video especially to accommodate for those who are hearing impaired or who just want to read along with what you are saying.
• Don’t forget your call-to-action.

The Distribution Phase

Your final video is cued up and ready to go. It’s time to get it out there and into the hands of your audience. Upload your video onto where you would like it to be hosted. For example, YouTube is a social video platform that a majority of businesses use to host their videos. But you could also consider hosting on your website with a platform like Wistia. Either way, don’t feel limited to hosting on just one site. For instance, if you decide on using YouTube, you can still embed your videos onto your website and create multimedia posts with both video and text.

Key tip: Get your stuff out there and bring them back to your website through strong call-to-actions or references to additional blog posts or videos that are hosted on your site. A great insight of this in action is showcased in the following video:

It’s All in the Repetition

Once your video is out in the Internet space, measure it, learn from it, and repeat the process. Based on the results of your video before, during, and after the production process, you may have to tweak some things, i.e., maybe creating an in-depth video script or switching out types of content. But no matter what those tweaks are, focus on the positive results, implement them with the additional tweaks, and start again. Video should be a fun process for both your audience but mainly you and your team. So have fun out there creating and hopefully this process just made a little bit easier.

Video Marketing solidifies your online presence whilst building deep and meaningful relationships with your customers. It adds a personal touch to your brand whilst increasing your conversions!—Lilach Bullock