Here is another list of technology marketing video best practices that comes out of our experience creating videos for enterprise technology marketing. It’s a list of things that are easily overlooked.
1. Did you take account of the word count?
For my company’s videos, I like to limit the word count in the script so the viewer only has to listen to about 125 words-per-minute. Most people talk faster than that, but we believe viewers absorb more when using the brain’s auditory and visual processing systems together. (They work differently.) We try to maximize the information conveyed in the visuals, allowing the narrator to take a much more easygoing approach.
2. Did you set the narration style and music early on?
The tone of the video is set when the script is being written. In most cases, you’re looking to set a conversational tone. This can make for difficulties in editorial reviews because what will sound good read aloud by a professional actor is not what most people hear as they read to themselves. This is especially so if the narration is written to sync with on-screen visuals. Viewers won’t need descriptive adjectives and adverbs when they’re watching the action.
As to music, technology explainer videos may benefit from music, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the explanation or sound like a commercial. A search for “corporate” and “technology” in a large music library will produce many tracks with an appealing techno sound that won’t call attention to themselves.
3. Do you know who your reviewers and other stakeholders are?
Figure out who they are up front and try to keep them involved. It’s your reviewers, not your video team, who are most likely to jeopardize your timeline. The production timeline is at risk during the development of the script, storyboards, and the video itself, any time people are waiting for feedback and approvals before they can do whatever comes next.
4. Did you apply the “skeptic test” to this technology marketing video?
Hank Barnes at Gartner, one of my favorite bloggers (and a early 2-Minute Explainer client), has been writing about buyers’ trust (or the lack of it) vis a vis solution providers, and how easy it is for sales, marketing, and web teams to mess it up. In The Skeptic Test – A Key Step to Messaging Improvement, Hank warns that claims like “we are the only solution that does X“ — left unsupported — are especially pernicious, because the likely response is “I just read info on five products that say they do the same thing.” This is not what you want as the takeaway from a technology marketing video.
5. Is there a plan for re-using the video?
Video assets aren’t cheap to develop, so they should be repurposed as much as possible. Obviously, you’re going to feature video content on your website, link to it in emails, and feature it in presentations and trade shows. But did you consider any of these? They can all work.
- Edit animations into other videos
- Host on more than one platform (YouTube and Vimeo are good; platforms like Vidyard and Wistia provide better analytics and support.)
- If your video can be segmented (by features, for example), send links to specific start times and end-times. Like this 30-second segment https://youtube.com/v/d1ZA-w5kpNA&start=51&end=83 highlighting key features of a storage network switch.
- Embed in PowerPoint, or other slideware, including SlideShare
- Embed in white papers and product literature
