Affordable Video Production – The Fun Way to Attract More Customers

How can a small business afford to create quality marketing videos?

In this article, I’ll lay out an affordable video production strategy for creating cost-effective video marketing that gets ROI results.

I’ll also share a formula for how to make your company “ABOUT VIDEO” the foundation for an easy-to-implement engagement campaign.

Most of what I’ll share is common sense hidden behind an overly complicated process. But, once I simplify the process, you’ll realize that making great marketing videos can be easy and fun.

If you want a steady flow of new customers, you need a marketing plan that includes affordable video production.

Let’s get started.  👉🏻

Digital Production For Everyone 

Thanks to digital production, and the internet, you don’t need deep pockets to leverage the superpowers of video. Everybody with a cell phone can make a video.

Unfortunately, shooting video has become so easy it’s often overused and abused. Just because you can make a video doesn’t mean you should.

Creating videos without a clear, overarching strategy runs the risk of becoming marketing white noise. Do enough of this, and you’ll push prospects away. Alienate or confuse a prospect with mixed messaging and lose the opportunity for further engagement.

Don’t lose hope. I promised to simplify the process, and I will.

What Should a Small Business with Limited Funds Do? 

Marketing can be frustrating, I know. As a small business owner, I’m familiar with the overwhelm and anxiety around high-expectation ad campaigns. 

The problem with this approach is most small business people don’t track and measure. 

Boosting is an easy and fun way to collect likes and views, but boosting isn’t scalable; it’s gambling. Boosting is not a strategy you can measure, fine-tune and replicate. And, without a strategy, your efforts are a roll of the dice. 

 Gambling isn’t scalable. It doesn’t make sense to double down on an approach with a 50% waste factor. 

So, what can a small business do that’s not overcomplicated and not gambling? Yet provides powerful video content for your website, YouTube and Social Media, and paid advertising campaigns.

You can make sure your marketing and advertising decisions are driven by science and story. 

Make Your Customer the Hero 

The key to making video production cost-effective and fun is to talk about what you know, what you do, and why you do it. This is your story and the thread running through every aspect of your business. 

You’ve Made Sacrifices to Be the Best

• If you’re truly great at what you do, it’s because you and your team have taken the more difficult path to get there.
• If your products and services are exceptional, It’s because you’ve sacrificed short-term gain to create the best solution.

It’s time to tell your story.

This story is not an ego-driven proclamation about how great you are but a story comprised of sacrifices you’ve made for your customer. The difference may seem subtle, but the effect on your prospects will be huge. 

Your prospects will care because it’s a journey about a solution that will make them the hero. 

The lure of King Arthur’s swords is legendary, not because of the sword itself or who made it, but because it helped turn a squire into a king and a king into a hero. Excalibur is only a sword; its magical power is only realized in the hands of the hero King.

Let’s face it. Your customers don’t care about your solution, but they do care about solving their problems and being the hero.

They may not call themselves a hero, but being a hero is a fundamental motivator through their buying journey.

The Buyer’s Journey

The buyer’s journey is an important part of the engagement structure behind marketing science. As you’ll see, it’s also a strategic way to leverage your story.

As marketers, our job is to provide content that connects with the buyer at each stage throughout their journey.

The buyer’s journey starts with a problem. Here they are either fully aware and understand the problem, or they’re looking to better understand their situation.  Both scenarios offer opportunities to help them.

Once a prospect begins their search, we consider them to be in the awareness stage.

The marketer’s job is to catch the buyer’s attention by focusing on their problem. This is where helpful video content delivered by YouTube, social media, or paid advertising works well. The goal is to bring them to your website or landing page. 

Every buyer is different, but ultimately, each will go through the consideration and decision stages. The goal is to guide them through these stages within your ecosystem.

This is where the power of video creates a human-to-human connection and gives you real leverage.

Almost every buyer is interested in a better solution; even if they think they have a good understanding, they’re curious. Those who know they need more information are especially interested in learning more because it empowers them to make better choices.

This is why making a single “Features & Benefits” isn’t going to make a sale. Even if you’re selling a relatively low-cost solution, today’s buyers want easy-to-consume information. 

Thanks to YouTube, buyers expect to be guided by informational videos.

Next, I’ll share how twenty-five years of creating marketing videos and working for advertising agencies led me to create the simplest, most cost-effective marketing strategy for small and mid-size businesses. 

It all starts with creating your “ABOUT VIDEO.” 

Lessons From the Television and Ad Agency Days

The methods I share in this post came by way of frustration.

I started my career making quick turnaround cookie-cutter TV commercials and small business videos. These were mostly low-budget productions that followed a simple formula.

We shot fast and edited even faster. I was working for a local television station.

The formula used by the station’s biggest advertisers was simple, lazy, and effective enough.

• Be consistent
• Stay on message
• Buy a lot of the airtime on programs watched by their demographic

If the business stuck with that formula, it would attract new customers. New customers would become return customers, and eventually, they would tell a friend.

The cost of attracting new “word of mouth” customers was zero, which brought down the average cost of total acquisition. 

This formula rarely worked for new advertisers lacking a long-term engagement strategy. Most of these people were trying broadcast ads because they watched TV, and it seemed like a good thing to do.

They didn’t have a strategy, so they bailed out when the ads failed to live up to expectations. If you asked them what they were expecting, they couldn’t tell you. They just said it was too expensive. 

They should have followed up to see if the ads influenced existing customers. 

This was pure gambling.

Agencies Provide Strategy for Good Reason

Things changed when I started directing higher-budget agency ads.

Most people think “expensive and creative” when they think of ad agency ads. I suspect this is partially due to the Mad Men TV series. 

That said, compared to television station ads, agency ads are more expensive and creative. But, I quickly learned that their focus on research and strategy is what set the best agency ad campaigns apart.

Long before considering creative, these agencies lay out a comprehensive marketing strategy. This marketing plan includes engagement expectations, projected sales, and how they would measure progress. 

Local television stations make money by selling ad space; they don’t focus on strategy, tracking, or measuring results. That’s not their expertise. Even cable TV is a broadcast structure. This means the TV ads are being broadcast to a very large demographic, most of whom are not your audience. 

So, agencies use proven systems for developing campaigns, testing ad copy, measuring engagement, and tracking results. These results can be both very effective and very expensive.

Many agencies have done well helping businesses of all sizes grow their bottom line. But you need a business model and a certain amount of cash flow for this type of advertising to make sense. 

Everything changed when Facebook and YouTube made digital advertising easy and affordable. This was especially true for small businesses and ad managers that adopted affordable video production workflows.

The Video Ads Gold Rush 

Advertising changed when Google, YouTube, and Facebook turned marketing into the digital version of prospecting. Almost everyone running video ads found customers on the cheap. It almost didn’t matter how good or bad your video was. 

If you run video ads, you will get affordable leads and uncover an eager audience that wants your goods and services. 

Who Needs an Agency?

Finding new customers was cheap, especially when compared to running TV ads on broadcast and cable. Everybody wanted video, and many made it themselves. 

Digital advertising was so cheap you didn’t need a good strategy to get started.   A relatively smart and motivated small business owner could fumble their way into finding a profitable audience. You could waste money and still have a good return on investment.

This was a blessing for businesses that couldn’t afford ad agency guidance. And those who hired agencies specializing in digital marketing created funnels to handle large flows of new traffic.

It Was a Gold Rush 

Word got out, and eventually, everyone rushed to get in on the action.

And as time passed, demand for the ads increased, and so did the cost of prospecting for customers. The video gold rush that once produced a steady flow of affordable leads began drying up.

It was now costing real money, and the days of amateur prospectors making easy money with lazy campaigns came to an end. The average small business without a strategy began paying twice as much for a new customer.

Though not happy about the increased cost, advertisers running strategic campaigns continued to get a good return on their investment.

I Learned the Hard Way

Running lazy campaigns was something I was familiar with. I conducted in-person filmmaking workshops and sold digital training products to an online audience. Connecting to my audience was easy at first. 

But, like everyone else, my cost per lead and costs per sale went up. This was when I decided to up my game. I signed up for coaching from a few digital marketing gurus I’d been following online. 

It took a while, and I had to work through a few gurus. But after testing several methods, I eventually found my way. I’m sharing many of the fundamentals I learned throughout this post. 

It was during this time I read Donald Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand. Donald’s marketing platform is built on a storytelling structure I immediately related to and embraced wholeheartedly.  Building A Story Brand

From this experience, I created the structure I presently use for developing powerful marketing campaigns built around video engagement.

It’s also a fun and affordable video production plan for small and mid-size businesses.

Why Do Stories Work So Well? 

Business Documentaries

We don’t need to be told that human beings like stories. But it’s important to understand how important a story structure formula is for your business marketing strategy.  Story Structure marketing is a game-changer.  

I’d been making business documentaries since the late nineties, so I was familiar with storytelling, but I’d never seen framed within a marketing context before.

Story structure was a framework I recognized. It not only made sense, but it also filled me with excitement. Once presented, I saw how my campaigns lacked a narrative thread. I was also positioning myself as the hero. 

Hero or Guide?

I have a lot of experience, a high-quality portfolio, and numerous awards. I worked hard and thought my students should know of my accomplishments. What I lost sight of was I was overdoing it.  I wanted to be their guide, but I was positioning myself as their hero. I could explain more, but that would be self-indulgent. Your interest is in how my story pertains to your situation – right?😉

Donald Miller makes an excellent case for using the story formula to help customers make sense of your offer without having to work at it.

The difference may seem subtle the effect is not. 

“There’s a survival mechanism within our customer’s brain designed to tune us out should we ever start confusing them.”

“By talking about the problems our customers face, we deepen their interest in everything we offer.” 

“Stories are sense-making devices. When we define the elements of a story as it relates to our brand, we create a map customers can follow to engage our products and services.” – Donald Miller, Building a StoryBrand. 

People care about “what your company can do for them.” 

The best salespeople know this, but many business websites and marketing videos need a major overhaul. 

You’re the Guide in Your Story

The story thread throughout your website and all your marketing must be “What you can do for your customer.”

This starts with your “ABOUT VIDEO.” 

Your “ABOUT VIDEO” is your origin story, and the narrative thread is your quest to provide the best solution for your customer. The customer is the hero with a problem they need help with. You are the guide with tools and services that will help them.  

Yes, marketing would be easier if customers were interested in hearing stories about your company’s greatness. But you must weave your customer’s problem into your story. This must be priority #1

The stakes are high for your customer, large enough to send them searching for a solution. Speak to these stakes, and you’ll catch their attention. Help them understand, and you’ll earn their trust. 

Remember, you’re the knowledgeable and empathetic guide. Your customer needs your help to succeed.  Let’s take a closer look at how you might create this story weave with an “About Video.”

Every Business Needs an “About Video.”

When a “would-be” customer gets serious about purchasing a solution, they seek differentiating factors. At this stage, the buyer is auditioning candidates looking for a reason to pick you or drop you from the list. They’re inwardly begging for someone to stand out. 

If they haven’t already, This is when they’ll look for your “ABOUT VIDEO.” 

Up to now, the buyer has relied on their brain’s neocortex. They’ve been comparing features and benefits and crunching numbers. But they’re paralyzed by overthinking.

The Buyer Has Decision Fatigue

The logical part of the brain gets stuck when asked to make a final decision. The neocortex is done, and the limbic part of the brain is hungry. It’s looking for something it can “feel” something about.

The buyer needs content that speaks to the emotional side of the brain. They need to be inspired to leap. 

You can’t keep giving the prospect more data. They don’t want data. They want to feel something about your business, and they want to make a human-to-human connection. 

95% of final purchase decisions are made by the emotional part of our brains, known as the limbic system. This is especially true when they have a lot at stake. The bigger the problem, the more trust and other emotions are involved.

People might buy commodities based on price, but critical solution purchases need to be inspired by trust.

The first video you should make is your “About Video.” This can be done by using the affordable video production process I’ll outline next.

 

Your Video Must be Authentic

Your “ABOUT VIDEO” provides the perfect opportunity to build trust by focusing on the heart and humans behind your business.

This can’t be a corporate promo video with generic B-roll footage and a perfectly articulated mission statement voice-over.

Your video should be a truly authentic behind-the-scenes video that shares the heart behind why and how you do what you do. 

Your company “ABOUT VIDEO” can’t be designed for a B to B or B to C; it needs to be developed for an H to H connection. After all, we’re humans first. 🥸

Authenticity Gives Your Marketing an Essential Layer of Credibility 

Many businesses already have an “About Video,” but it must be replaced if it’s not an authentic, customer-centered story. I know it might have been expensive, but if it’s not working, it’s more costly to leave it up. 

Video is not expensive anymore. Let me show you how to jump-start your video marketing in an easy, fun, and less costly way. I’ve been doing this for over thirty years and have some great time and money-saving techniques. 

An Idea Whose Time Had Yet to Come

The first step for most advertising agencies taking on a new client is to conduct a series of discovery sessions. I’ve attended several of these, and most sessions were an exhausting series of meetings where people would sit in a conference and talk. 

We’d ask questions and more people would talk. We’d schedule another meeting for people who didn’t get a chance to speak, and they would talk. 

We took endless notes, and finally, with our heads swimming in information, we’d go back to the office and boil down the essence of what was said into a strategy-driven campaign and a proposal.

We would create storyboards, scripts, and mock-ups, schedule another meeting, and then pitch the concept to the client. It was time-consuming, to say the least. 

I know discovery is necessary. We need a lot of information before creating a strategy or an effective ad campaign. But, as a creative director in charge of video, I kept thinking there had to be a better, more cost-effective way. 

I was frustrated because I saw a lot of missed opportunities unfolding realtime in almost every meeting. This was especially true when front-line employees and middle managers were invited. 

The best opportunities were lost when we were given tours and met employees in their domain. Many of these people were passionate, proud, and animated about what they did. They were even happy to show us how they did it. 

As a young documentary filmmaker, I saw these exchanges as if through a camera lens.  What I saw were authenticity and missed opportunities.

I knew these moments were visual evidence that this company’s people care about their customers and are committed to helping them solve problems. 

These moments were magical. They were evidence behind otherwise empty marketing claims. I wanted to capture and incorporate some of this magic into the marketing. In the hands of a good editor, this behind-the-scenes “real talk” would provide an essential layer of credibility to any video product it became a part of. 

But we didn’t capture video footage. This was a discovery session. Our job was to take notes and create an ad campaign that would be carefully crafted and billed accordingly. 

The Right Time is Finally Here

Fortunately, creative agencies have come full circle and now embrace and promote behind-the-scenes and user-generated videos.

Cameras are smaller, and websites, YouTube, social media, and email campaigns have proven to be powerful distribution vehicles for this type of business storytelling. 

It took me years for me to put this idea into practice. But all the right elements finally came together. 

It began to take form when I got a call from a client launching a new product line. He wanted to shoot some video clips and a few photos for a digital press release package. 

It was a pretty straightforward job. But I packed some extra equipment in just in case the client’s needs expanded – they often do. And, sure enough, shortly after arriving, I found out that on top of the press package, the CEO wanted a full-fledged product launch video. 

He needed both for a theatrical-style announcement he was doing in seven days.

Sometimes Having to Work Fast Can be Good

It’s good when the CEO gets excited and prioritizes your project because you get priority access to everyone. Doors opened, and people dropped what they were doing to accommodate. We had a quick meeting and started shooting for the product launch video that same day. 

I spent the day shooting documentary-style. No one second-guessing every move or mucking up the impromptu onsite interviews. It was the perfect scenario for capturing authentic footage and soundbites.

Two shooting days and four edit days later, my client showed the video during a  big screen event.  The press got thumb drives with digital content, and the launch was a big success. 

The final launch video had more of a documentary feel than the stylized product videos I had previously done for them. But my client loved it, and I loved the process. This process also kept production costs down, which is always welcome.👍 

After the dust settled, I realized what had happened. I’d been forced to start recording before I got to know the people or understood the product and activity. This was a new product line, and I was shooting session one of discovery. This was what I had envisioned years earlier.  

Shooting Documentary Style

While I was shooting day one field footage, the in-house writer created formal interview questions for day two. This allowed me to keep things casual and shoot day one on documentary instinct. I was free to document the discovery process.

Knowing we were shooting formal interviews the following day provided the freedom to chat and warm people up to the camera. It’s more about helping them forget about the camera. I do this when I shoot documentaries, but I rarely get this kind of freedom on a corporate shoot.

There’s usually a marketing person on set making sure everything goes right. They’re responsible for the project; if the video product isn’t good or someone complains about the process, they hear about it. 

So when on set, this pressure makes some marketing people nervous. Unfortunately, their nervous energy infects everything, especially those appearing on camera.

People get tight-lipped and guarded when the atmosphere is heavy. They often sound fake because they’re self-conscious (thinking) about how they sound. Now, I’m generalizing here, but it happens a lot.

But in this case, by the time I started asking product-related questions, we had a relaxed, conversational rhythm. The operator was comfortable using the product, and as long as I didn’t get into “serious” interview mode, I knew he would stay relaxed.

His tone and his phrasing made his statements relaxed and very credible. When an interviewee tries to frame perfect answers, they come off as forced and inauthentic. This makes them and the video less credible. 

In this product launch case, it was just the operator using the product and myself asking questions as if I was simply curious about what he was doing. It helped that he had an activity to do and that I timed my questions to what he was doing at the moment. He stayed relaxed; we got great footage and fantastic soundbites.

Everyone enjoyed the process.  

The CEO Changed Everything

The next day we did formal sit-down interviews with department managers. The interview questions were good. They were designed to set up and compliment the b-roll we shot the day before.

Unfortunately, the CEO was on set for the formal interviews. The CEO is a likable guy, but his presence changes people. It made some of the interviewees nervous and slightly stiff and nervous. 

When there’s nervous energy onset, it’s absorbed in all directions. The director and the crew must exude proficiency in their skills and confidence in their presence. It may seem like I’m overthinking this, but I can assure you I’m not. 

Luckily the interviewees knew what they were talking about. You would think this is a given, but this has happened to me more than once. 

The b-roll footage and sound bites we shot the day before would be weaved into and on top of the talking head interviews. This would allow the editor to edit around the nervous flubs and artfully blend sentence fragments into complete thoughts.

The formal interviews were shot with one camera. It would have been an easier edit if we had two cameras, but we had great B-roll footage. In this case, it might be considered A-roll. The product being used footage and the impromptu interviews carried the narrative. The formal interviews were supportive and supplied logistical information.

This structure of shooting ensures the video has both concise soundbites and impromptu engagement. It’s a great method for capturing authentic footage while saving time and money.

So let’s do it. Let’s use this method to jump-start your video marketing campaign.

 

Key Points For Review

• Without a strategy, marketing is like gambling.
• Discovery sessions are essential to making an effective marketing plan.
• Long discovery meetings can be an inefficient use of time.
• Employees, management, and business owners often share (one-time) authentic moments during discovery meetings and show-and-tell tours.
• Bringing customers behind the scenes will create a sense of trust.
• Capturing these moments will make your marketing videos more credible and help you establish a human-to-human connection.

Why waste time just talking and taking notes? Let’s jump-start a strategic digital marketing campaign by shooting your discovery process documentary style.

This is your affordable video production roadmap and the best way to create an authentic window into what makes your solution special. 

Let’s dive in.

The best way to do this is to take a physical tour of your facilities and a virtual tour of your website and customer-facing digital operations. 

You can think of this as giving your best customer a tour. 

A form of this scenario is playing out more than you realize. Prospects and existing customers are searching for information and making decisions about you online.

This is the “Buyers Journey,”  and unless you’re managing and tracking it, you’re losing opportunities. You won’t even get the call.

Behind the Scenes 

When you go behind the scenes to shoot the discovery process, a primary goal is to find visual evidence supporting your marketing claims. 

Some evidence is obvious, some are almost invisible, and some are camouflaged as an everyday activity. Some of the best evidence will come in the form of employee comments.

This is the magic I saw years ago in those agency discovery meetings and tours. Describing them as magic may be a bit dramatic. But I called them magic because authenticity is the magic ingredient for establishing trust.

I know the effect trust will have on your audience.

 

Prove Your Marketing Claims

Anyone can write copy for cookie-cutter marketing videos, but like politicians, these videos come off as self-important, full of promise, and short on substance. 

But unfortunately, making empty claims has been a common marketing technique for years.

How many times have we read a business claiming to have the best customer service or the best-built product? So many times, we just ignore it. This is why they need to run so many broadcast ads. Buyers are skeptical and frankly sick of being bombarded.

“We have the best burger in town?” Sure you do. Maybe it is, and maybe it’s not. The technique is so overused we tune it out.

Your marketing messages aren’t likely to get traction if the buyer doesn’t believe you.

Now if the same burger joint showed a social media video that took me behind the scenes and showed me evidence, I’m more likely to believe them. Even if I just saw a few seconds, their claim is now supported by visual evidence. It’s gained credibility weight.

Suppose we’re taking some friends out to eat Friday night. Now we’re inspired to watch. The video shows the kitchen staff chopping produce, and we’re learning that everything is bought locally. We see shots of the owner at a local farm. What if, in the video, we learn that creating the best burger takes five steps, and the chef shares his process?

Now, you not only believe them, but you’re impressed and hungry.

If the burger joint adds a coupon offer, you save 15%, they have your email address, and everybody enjoys their Friday night meal.

Behind-the-scenes videos have made sharing details about how you do things a great way to provide evidence that you are unique and, therefore, the best.

This “Best Burger” video I just outlined could be part of a series shared on social media, or it could be the narrative thread for their “About Video. Most likely, it will be both.

Like a documentary, an “About Video” could be a journey into how you’ve overcome obstacles to achieve your goals. How many obstacles have you had to overcome to make your products and services the best choice for your customers? 

Customers need to know that you spend extra time and money sourcing materials, and they need to understand why you do it. 

Show and Tell

Talk about how you invested in research and development and the painstaking way you’ve created important systems. Not because you like spending money but because it was the only way you could ensure your solution would exceed the customer’s expectations.

All your stories won’t make the final cut in your about video, but why not put a collection on your website? People love stories, so share them on social media.

If you embrace this process, you’ll have an abundance of everyday stories that prove you are who you say you are.

Every discovery shoot will be different.

The goals of a discovery shoot are to:

• Learn about your business
• Scout locations
• Meet people
• Capture authentic and usable footage
• Uncover visual evidence

The discovery process can be tailored for any business, including; a Mom & Pop storefront, a software design company, an engineering firm, or a globetrotting solopreneur.

A recorded discovery tour will take slightly longer than real-time allowing extra time to time to stop and chat with selected people about what they do.

Website tours are best done in person and with a hardware screen recording device.

I prefer to shoot discovery tours with a souped-up iPhone camera package and two wireless microphones.

If you’re thinking an iPhone package doesn’t seem professional, you’re right, it doesn’t look like a PRO-SHOOT, and that’s the point. The goal is to keep it low-key. 

When people see a large camera, they get nervous and think, “This is something important; I better look good.” With a phone camera, people feel more relaxed and are more likely to speak naturally. 

Remember, we’re looking for a few sound bites to flavor the final video with a little authenticity magic.

Organize & Edit

Once discovery shooting is complete, it’s time to catalog footage and create an assembly edit from the footage acquired.

Had we been doing discovery the old way, we would be wrapping up discovery meetings, digesting meeting notes, and outlining a campaign. Video shooting would be in front of us. 

But instead, we shot the discovery process. The director/strategist and the editor are already deep into creating your “ABOUT VIDEO” and possibly an “ONBOARDING VIDEO” to attract new hires.

Once the footage is organized, it’s time for more formal sit-down interviews. Who’s interviewed and what topics get covered will be guided by the discovery footage collected. 

Sit-Down Interviews

In addition to discovery and b-roll shooting, sit-down interviews are essential to creating a narrative for your customer-centered stories.

This is the perfect opportunity for you and multiple team members to explore how, what, where, and when you created and built your business into what it is today. 

If you started your business with a partner, you might consider doing interviews both together and individually. 

It’s important not to be stingy with interviews. If you think you’ve got too many interviews, you probably have enough.

Hearing from a diverse group representing all facets of your business will give the story dimension and credibility. Everyone has a different perspective and different memories.

Ed might have great insight into how a problem arose. In comparison, Sandy may have an interesting perspective on how the team overcame a specific setback. 

Not every business has “sit on the edge of your seat” stories about how adversity led to a better product or how personal grit led to innovation.

But every business has made sacrifices, and if you truly paid the price to be the best solution, you’ve got the stories to prove it.

Customers want to hear the whole story, including, what your company does, how it does it better, and most importantly, how your solution will help them succeed.

What if I’m not Good On Camera

Almost everybody is good on camera. It’s true. Once someone forgets, the camera is staring them down; they relax. This is easier said than done, but creating the right conditions makes this doable. And that’s the director’s job. 

For most people doing on-camera interviews is an infrequent or even a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Some of these people have great people skills and can sell one-on-one or even to a room. They have a lot to say but put a lens in their face, and they get tongue-tied. 

Do you Believe what you’re Saying? 

If you, the person going on camera, genuinely believe that you have the customer’s interests at heart, all you need to do is be you. 

Don’t rehearse; never rehearse. Just walk and talk or sit and talk the way you would how you would if your best customer wanted to learn more about you and your business. Think of it as a conversation, a tour, or a version of “show and tell.”

You will eventually forget the camera is there.

I know it’s hard to believe, but it happens every time. This may not happen immediately, but the camera will fade into the background once you get into the show-and-tell flow. 

It will just be you and your best customer listening to your every word.

The people who insist on getting the questions and rehearsing their answers before the interview tend to have the most problems. These are intelligent, articulate people, so what gives?

At first, this defies logic. Experience has taught us that being prepared is vital to a good performance.

And, that’s where the problem is, you’re not “performing.” You’re being interviewed because you are already an expert. This is not a presentation, and this is not a “gotcha” interview. On-camera interviews work best when we treat them like we’re having a conversation. 

Relax and trust the director. It’s the director’s job to make sure you are credible and likable. 

Most people who insist on having questions submitted in advance fall into a rigid response. They predetermine what they want to say and how they want to say it. Some memorize a response, and others review the main points and rehearse a response. Both of these methods come off as stiff and manufactured. 

The exception to this are people who’ve had on-camera training and a lot of experience.

Interview with the director of a global non-profit. 

After he answered a question he said that seemed long-winded and asked, “Would you like me to give a thirty-second version of that.” 

We were shooting with two cameras, so I could have cut the answer down in the edit, but I was curious what he would do with it. 

His first answer sounded genuine, and I was skeptical that he could condense the bullet points he wanted to get across without making it sound like corporate speak. Most people can’t. 

Well, I was presently surprised when he did it with ease. 

It turned out that he had taken an on-camera training course and had just returned from a speaking tour.  This explained why his “performance” was so good. 

I tell that story as encouragement. If your job requires you to be on-camera, such a course can make a huge difference. 

How to Get Good Soundbites  

Going on camera tends to make people a little nervous.

Keep in mind you don’t have to be brilliant or charismatic. It’s the director’s job to help you feel comfortable. The burden is on the director to ask questions that solicit authentic answers. 

It takes some warming up before nervous people get grounded and find clarity.

If the director is a good listener, they can use independent clips to create clarity in the video edit room. This is relatively easy if the interview is shot with two cameras. Single-camera interviews don’t have a second angle to cut to and will create jump cuts or force the editor to find and use a B-roll shot. 

The Director’s Role

The director can play a significant role in helping the interviewee get grounded and eventually forget the cameras are there. This can be done by engaging the interviewee in conversation before they sit down and diverting the interviewee’s attention from the camera.

Once seated, the director seamlessly moves them from an unrelated topic to subject matter questions a relaxed atmosphere can be established. 

I know for those of you with “Camera Fright,” this sounds impossible, but it’s doable. Without exaggerating, I’ve done over a thousand interviews, and the process I’m about to explain works 98% of the time.

It works because the interviewee wants something to focus on, so they welcome the director’s diversion. This allows them and engage fully in the conversation and forget the camera. 

The director’s job is to be a good host, listener, and editor.

You need a director who’s not afraid to share light-hearted personal stories or ask what might seem like”stupid questions.”

I’ve worked with many people who believe interviewing is about getting the correct answer. They fail to understand that it’s not just what a person says; it’s how they say it. Cadence, tone, and body language flavor every answer.

Problems often occur when inexperienced in-house marketing or public relations people conduct the interviews. They are often slightly nervous, and even when they’re not, they don’t take the time to set a relaxed atmosphere. 

Over the years, I’ve found the biggest problem is they fail to get a complete thought from the interviewee. Or they say, “Can you repeat the question in your answer?” The interviewee repeats the question word for word and follows with an answer.

This has happened a lot when the in-house person insists on interviewing existing customers for testimonials. While editing, I screamed, “ahhhh…I need a complete thought.”

Unless you’ve spent time trying to stitch fragmented sound bites into complete thoughts, I’ts hard to appreciate just how important this is.

Unless coached properly, most interviewees will answer as if the final viewer will hear the question.

Here’s an oversimplification of this:

Question – “What’s your favorite color?”  

Answer – “Blue”

If the viewer doesn’t hear the question, “Blue” means nothing. As I said, this is an oversimplification. Most questions are more complex and nuanced.

An inexperienced interviewer hears the words they’re looking for, and they move on to the next question. The interviewee never articulated a complete thought. If this happens and it’s not caught during the interview, it will create a significant headache in the editing session. It could even ruin the video. 

A good director is also an editor and listens for all the components of a complete thought. If they don’t get what they need by asking the question one way, they ask it a different way. 

It’s essential to dig deeper into an answer and get the interviewee to unpack the details behind the answer. This can help make a point in a more exciting and persuading way.

There are many techniques for getting great interview footage. 

Video Editing is Like Magic

A good director can take what you might consider a less-than-interesting event and make it into a concise and compelling segment in a story. Video editing is a magic process that can take disjointed, unglamorous stories and turn them into inspiration.

A marketing video is designed to primarily entertain a general audience. Tho, humor and razzle-dazzle have their place. Your audience has a very specific problem you know a lot about. You can guide them, and with your help, they become the hero of the story. 

When you make every story about helping your customer, you have the advantage of self-interest.

Why Shoot Two Camera Interviews?

We use two full-size cameras and video lighting for sit-down interviews and sometimes for important b-roll shooting. 

With two cameras, the editor always has a shot they can cut to.  This becomes essential for condensing long responses and editing out awkward stammers, pauses, and flubs. 

Without a second camera angle to cut to, the editor is forced to find appropriate b-roll footage. The amount of B-roll footage needed is directly proportionate to how much condensing and fixing needs to be done.

Almost every interview needs condensing and polishing. With the right footage, an editor can take out stuttering and awkward pauses, making every subject sound more polished.

A second camera can save an interview and make everyone a better speaker.

Drive by Interviews

A drive-by interview is a short conversation when someone is at their workstation or work environment. Always done under safe conditions, we ask questions about their work. Even short answers give the viewer a human to connect with.  

If the conversation goes well, I’ll ask additional questions. More than once, I’ve captured a magical soundbite from someone in the mood to talk. 

I also love the visual connection of seeing people in their working environment.

I’ve also used this technique to interview people important to the video but too nervous for a sit-down interview. I call these drive-by interviews. They work well for short clips and sound bites. The subject is in their domain, and this helps them feel less vulnerable. 

Affordable Video Production can be Fun and Easy.

Easy –  Talking about your business is easy; you know the stories inside and out because you lived them. This structure introduces your company to both prospects and existing customers in a more personal way.

Fun – It’s also fun because, let’s face it, telling war stories about and with the people we’ve had challenging experiences with can be a lot of fun. 

Affordable – The process I’ve outlined in this article is a streamlined approach for a complete video engagement campaign. This approach will save significant agency fees usually associated with the discovery process, as well as the strategy and creative design process. It’s affordable because when you focus on telling your story documentary style you not only save money you establish a strategy.  

 

Using this model to shoot your “ABOUT VIDEO” allows you to fold the expense of multiple agency discovery meetings into a discovery shooting process. And, from that shoot, you capture up to 80% of your “ABOUT VIDEO” and your “ONBOARDING VIDEO.” 

When done professionally, the footage becomes the foundation for multiple projects.

The discovery shooting process creates a lane for humans to connect, and once the human connection lane is open, employee-generated posts feel natural and welcome.

We learn who does what, why, and how they do it during discovery. We learn about hardships, moments of doubt, moments of grit, and inspiration.

And, in the end, we know how and why all these things have come together to make your company and your offer the best solution.

Discovery shooting transfers why, how, what, when, and where into footage for videos, still frame posts, animated gifs, YouTube content, Instagram, Linkedin, and Facebook posts. 

Digital marketing requires a lot of media, and this process provides that.

Discovery won’t replace the need for awareness ads and features & benefits marketing. But, it will provide many more reasons to buy your products and services.