In business, it’s easy to hide behind your brand. You write blogs, send emails, post to social, talk to prospects on the phone or over messenger – but once your face is out there on a video we suddenly feel exposed. But this exposure is exactly what your audience is looking for. It’s the first step in a process where developing trust is key. And with a little preparation and practice, creating videos will become second nature to you.
Magnfi’s mission is to help you succeed in business by creating videos that require minimal effort on your part. We want to make this as EASY for you as possible, which is why our platform does most of the heavy lifting for you. We take care of the video editing – packaging your logo, clips and music together in one professionally designed video.
But there are some parts of the process that only you can control, and we’d like to guide you on that.
Pre-Production: Planning Your Video
There are many different kinds of sales videos you can choose to start creating. Decide where in your sales cycle could use improvement, whether it’s your sales prospecting and nurturing, sales conversion and deal closing, or customer follow up and retention.
Next, decide whether your video will be a personalized, on-to-one video, or a video you can use to send to a bigger audience (especially in automated workflows). You should have a mix of both depending on where the contact(s) are at in their buyer journey. For instance, you wouldn’t send a demo or offer to someone who is just learning about your business.
Finally, decide who the best person is to speak in the video. Again, this depends on the type of video you’re creating and where the contact(s) are within your sales cycle. If contacts are in a general nurture campaign, it may be most effective to hear directly from the company’s owner, founder, and/or CEO who can speak passionately about the pain points and solutions that brought a contact to your business. If contacts are part of a prospect nurture campaign, it would be most effective to hear directly from the sales or business development rep who they will be speaking directly to. Lastly, when leads become customers, they may be passed on to an account executive responsible for customer management and relations.
Here’s what you’ll need in the planning stage:
- Video script – A list of talking points you’d like to remember to touch upon during your video. Don’t forget a call-to-action at the end!
- Visual props – You can use a whiteboard or piece of paper to write down a short message. This is perfect for your 3-second gif in the beginning of your message. Bonus if you write down your contact’s name for personalization!
- Screenshare preparation – If you’re planning to screenshare, prepare your browser tabs ahead of time by removing unnecessary tabs and opening important tabs you’ll be using. Make sure you’re able to log in and can access any tool you may need beforehand. And don’t forget to turn off notifications that could be distracting.
TIP: Practice, practice, practice what you plan to say so it sounds natural and fluid – and try to keep it under 60 seconds.
Video Production: Filming Your Video
The most important thing in your video is your message itself, but it’s possible to detract from the message with poor production quality. No one expects a Hollywood production, but some attention to detail can make all the difference.
Here’s what you’ll need in the planning stage:
- Good lighting: Make sure the space where you’re recording is well lit and there are no harsh shadows. If you have an area near a window where lots of natural light comes in, that’s ideal. If you have overhead fluorescent lights, you may want to turn those off and use desk lamps or floor lamps to light the area. You can always bring in extra lights and point them away from the speaker, bouncing off a nearby wall.
- Quiet environment: You want to reduce as much outside noise as possible. Find a quiet place to record, such as an office with a closed door. Some office ambience is ok, but if there’s music, a PA system, outside road traffic, loud footsteps, people talking loudly in the background, it’s going to be very distracting in the video. You may not notice these sounds when you’re recording because you naturally tune them out, but when you play the video back, they will be obvious!
- Neutral background: The background should enhance the speaker, and potentially help communicate your message. If you shoot in someone’s office, remove clutter and minimize items on and behind the desk. Sometimes, just a brick wall can make a nice simple background.
- Wardrobe: The general rule of thumb is no white or black shirts, no busy patterns, and no thin horizontal stripes on shirts or ties. Obviously, no shirts with logos unless it’s your own. White shirts can blow out too bright, black shirts can lose all definition, and busy patterns are just distracting. Thin horizontal strips can create a moiré pattern, or visual buzzing that’s very distracting.
- Optimal framing: Make sure the camera angle is flattering. No nostrils or foreheads. Not too close, not too far away. Ideally, frame up the person’s face from just above the top of the head to below the shoulders.
Post Production: Creating Your Video
Magnfi packages your video assets together into one professionally crafted video. All you need to do is add your business logo, upload your video or film within our platform, choose your music, and add a call-to-action.
That’s all you really need for success, but if you want to go the extra mile, we recommend the following video edits/additions:
- Add a video play overlay to your 3-second preview gif if you’re not using a prop with a CTA on it.
- Add captions for further readability
If you don’t like your gif, we recommend re-recording and putting thought into what those first 3-seconds of your no audio gif will be.
Promote Your Video
Once Magnfi delivers your professional quality video, you can start using your video within your email marketing and preferred video messaging platforms.
To ensure your email does not get lost in inboxes any longer, follow these email marketing video tips:
- Add the word “video” to your subject line to greatly increase open rates.
- Add a headline and short copy with some of the key video message points within the body of your email. And don’t forget a CTA!
- Include your gif and link that to the full video
Your video is going to either live on a video hosting service (like YouTube or Vimeo), or preferably on your website or landing page.
Remember, video isn’t only a sales tool. It can be used within your marketing as well! Share some of your evergreen videos with your marketing team for their promotions to further get your message out!
Get Started!
Creating great video email campaigns is easier than it seems. Magnfi makes it incredibly simple to do. This kind of quality production done the traditional way (with a videographer and editor) would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per video. With Magnfi you can do as many as you want for free with a 14-day free trial! Create your free account today and start improving your sales outreach immediately.