The number one corporate video production mistake. Isn’t hiring the wrong company to make your video or making a video that no one will ever watch. However, those are pretty big mistakes. The biggest mistake your company can make is to put tactics before strategy or, simply said, creating a video before you have a plan for how the video will succeed. Putting tactics before strategy is like trying to build a house before the blueprints have been created. Strategy is planning while tactics is carrying out the objectives that are in the strategy you have created. Video, social media, your company website, and print ads are all examples of tactics that you use for your marketing strategy. I would suggest that as part of your overall marketing strategy you should have a video strategy for how your company will set and measure the goals of your videos.
It’s unfortunate, but a lot of companies don’t take the time to create a real strategy before they create their video. Usually, this is because, while people often love to be part of the creative video process because it’s fun and different, they would rather not be a part of created the strategy because it is hard to figure out. It is made even more difficult with so many so called “video marketing experts” out there providing old information about the ‘magic of video SEO’ or telling people that ‘you can make a video yourself’.
So, how do you create your strategy for video? We call our video strategy process a ‘video blueprint’. The goal of the video blueprint is to guide companies through the planning process, with the goal to create a strategy that is attainable and measurable. When companies call to ask about creating a video we ask a question about strategy and 99% of the people that we talk to have no idea how to measure the success of their video.  It’s okay to not know the answer to that question. We can help you figure it out.  If your video strategy consists only of posting the video to YouTube, I hate to tell you but this isn’t a strategy. Keep in mind that Youtube has millions of videos uploaded every second and your computer has a better chance of being struck by lightning than your video getting seen.
Video is very measurable especially when compared to text.  People download white papers and never read them, but with video, you can track engagement of you video to see if it is resonating with your audience, seeing where they stop watching or if they ever watched at all.  Using certain video players on your company’s website will allow you to track to see who is watching your videos and what their needs are, helping you to provide qualified leads to your sales team.
Video is useful for more than just brand awareness. It can help with leading the buyer through the purchase process, help improve the customer experience, and lead generation.

If you are going to hire an agency, don’t chase after shiny objects. Make the first question you ask the following one: “What is the difference between strategy and tactics?” If you don’t get the right answer, no matter how pretty the videos they create are or how cheap their prices are, your video most likely will not help your company and ultimately be a waist of money.