A corporate video is any type of video communication that a business uses to engage, inform, or persuade a particular audience. Corporate videos may be directed at internal staff, potential stakeholders, or everyday consumers, but they all have one thing in common—they need to be engaging to have an impact.
But the golden question is… how? How do you make your corporate videos engaging and informative? Entertaining, but still on-brand? It sounds like a tall order—but it’s possible for even small companies looking to make a video.
To help you out, here are six tips to help you make your next corporate video more like an Apple keynote presentation and less like an ‘80s fast-food employee training tape.
Tip #1. Find your purpose
A lot of businesses know they should be doing video. But do you know why you’re doing it?
Before you even begin the planning process, you and your team have to ask yourselves: “What are we trying to accomplish by making this video?”
Are you trying to draw in new customers? Are you promoting a new product or service? Attract new talent to apply for your company? Impress stakeholders with an annual earnings report? Train new employees or educate them with an internal corporate mission statement?
Having a sense of purpose and goal to focus on will keep you on track during production, help you create a more cohesive video, and save you time and money. Don’t just film randomly around your office and fall prey to the “we’ll fix it in post” mentality; find your purpose first.
Tip #2. Keep it brief
The exact length of your video will depend on where you’re going to show it and what you’re trying to accomplish. But, in general, it’s best to keep your video as short as possible.
In this rapidly changing era of technology, our attention spans are getting shorter. You don’t want people to feel like their time is being wasted, so every moment needs to have a purpose. Every second, every shot, and every spoken line needs to count.
That may sound like a lot of pressure, but it’ll help you distill your message down and remove extraneous details that don’t contribute to the overall story.
Tip #3. Tell a story
If you know us, you know how important we believe it is to tell a story. We emphasize storytelling so much because people understand and remember messages better when they’re told visually with a story.
Having a story in your corporate video doesn’t mean you have to make it feel like an episode of a TV show or include fictional elements. You already have a story to tell, whether that’s the history of your brand, a case study, or an interview with an employee sharing what motivates them to do a great job.
Finally, storytelling can help make your product or service more real to your audience. Technical specs are important, but people connect more when they understand how a brand can fit into their lives.
Tip #4. Use plain language
You know your industry—and maybe you want to show your expertise through complex market analyses, intricate technical descriptions, and lots of numbers and facts. Or maybe you want to disrupt the market by pivoting your corporate strategy and utilizing your value-add proposition to move the needle… or some other combination of fancy-sounding marketing buzzwords.
Unless your audience is as entrenched in the industry as you are, they probably won’t be able to parse a lot of technical speak or buzzword-y jargon. Instead, use plain language when possible.
Plain language and simple vocabulary terms are accessible to a lot more people. In fact, experts recommend writing at a level an 11-year-old can easily understand. Keeping things simple means you can instantly broaden your audience to include those who may not understand more complex or obscure language.
Tip #5. Encourage action
The most effective and engaging corporate videos include a call-to-action (CTA). Your specific CTA should tie into the purpose you identified in Tip #1.
If your viewers enjoy your video and want to learn more, you don’t want to put the onus on them to seek out next steps. Instead, you want to make it easy for them to engage more with your brand.
For example, if you’re announcing a new product, tell people where they can buy it. If you’re sharing an interview with a subject matter expert on your team, tell people how they can reach out to learn more. Encourage them to sign up for your newsletter, follow you on Instagram, or fill out a contact form. If you can get people to follow you on social media or subscribe to your emails, you can keep them engaged with your brand for longer than the length of a single video.
Don’t pile on the CTAs, though. One or two simple instructions will be plenty.
Tip #6. Don’t do it yourself
It can be a hard truth to swallow, but it’s important to face the facts: unless you’re a professional video production company or have dedicated videographers on staff, you probably shouldn’t make your own video.
There’s so much that goes into corporate videos. From storyboarding to scripting, lighting to audio equipment, editing to sound mixing—it’s a lot harder than it looks. That’s why, if you want to make a truly engaging corporate video, you need help from professionals.
Videos are our bread and butter here at Slice. We know video production inside and out and we know what it takes to make videos that have an impact, that get noticed, and that engages viewers on a deeper level. We’re happy to help you with your next corporate video, too. Just contact us to learn more.
