The title of this article may sound ridiculous to you, but hear me out. I know that hiring a professional for anything business related is usually because you lack the knowledge, time, skill or a mix of all. But when it comes to marketing you are hiring a video production professional to help grow your business in some way. Often, they can help give you a clearer picture on how to accomplish this, but often it can spell disaster if you rely on them for 100% of your marketing.

Who Knows Your Business?

Marketing is an essential part of any business, no matter the size or how long it’s been around. Letting your demographic know you exist, what your product or service is, and enticing them to make a purchase is how a business is successful.

Most business owners have done market research while creating their business plan. It’s one of the most important parts of creating a business and helps show investors that you have a product or service that fulfills a need/want to a group of people.

When it comes time to hire a web designer, SEO company, or a videographer you may be tempted to let them pitch your ideas blindly. This can lead to unsuccessful marketing that misses its target or even worse hurts your company or brand.

The facts are that no matter how good a marketing professional is, they will never know your business as well as you do. You spent months or years creating your business and know all the important details. Arm them with this information so when they pitch you ideas, they already fall into the proper parameters. This is the first thing you should do after hiring a professional to market your company.

Part of the Picture Only Please

Providing details on what you’re trying to accomplish, who your demographic is, and some things you do and don’t want to accomplish is very important. But often companies’ micromanage their marketing. It can be difficult to give up some control to someone who isn’t part of your company, but it’s mandatory that you allow the idea to grow and foster outside thinking.

For instance, you may hire a videographer to shoot a 60 second promo for your website about a new product you’re launching. After you describe the product and details the videographer pitches some ideas to you. You feel none of them are the perfect fit, so you craft a detailed outline. The videographer tries to create the content within the outline, but all their ideas are shot down. The result is a content that may be what you proposed but lacks “something.” A videographer knows how to tell stories visually, so make sure a be open to ideas on how to accomplish the same goal. Remember that you both want the same thing: A great piece of content.

Some Examples

Below are two examples of successful video marketing content we created with different approaches but keeping in line with being provided with at least some basic ideas.

A group of ladies here in Denver Colorado created a board game called Haiku You. They had some small success in selling the game online but wanted a piece of content that showcased what the game was, and most importantly how FUN it was! They could share this video with retailers and even use it as a Kickstarter video to help get funds for higher volume production.

In our first meeting the showed us how to play them game. They described in detail who they were targeting for their game and how they wanted the video to express. They didn’t have a full idea but provided us with enough detail to create engaging content that fit with what they wanted.

We created something that was more of a broadcast commercial since most people are familiar with this format. We make is visually appealing while also showing how the game plays and all the diverse groups who could play the game! Feedback during all phases of production kept things focused.

The result was something that not only helped them gain more sales through their website, but also got them picked up for some retailers! If we went in blind and were not provided with the proper information we most certainly would have created content that was much less effective.

System76 is a Linux based computer company based in Denver. They were already large when we were hired to create some content, but they didn’t have the internal resources to dedicate to create the content they wanted.

Sysytem76 has a lot of creative folks working for them that have skills in video, photo and graphics that could help guide us. Since they already had a booming business it was more about creating more content in a shorter time. They not only knew their company and customers well, they already had a detailed storyboard for their video!

The goal was to create a multi part video series that would unlock a new section once a certain about of hashtags were used online. The final video would unlock their 4^th of July Sale.

Even though the video was storyboarded they were very open to innovative ideas. For example, they wanted the star of the video series to cross a freeway. We explained how difficult and expensive this was and pitched them on a stop animation sequence. They loved the idea and it worked well with in the final video. We continued to craft each sequence in shot armed with the storyboard but not married to it. This allowed for creative ideas to build on what they had already outlined.

The finished video was quite a success with many viewers loving the mix of action and comedy. Their 4^th of July Sale was a remarkable success and we continued to create more content following a similar approach ion future projects.

In both cases as the advertisers we were given ideas and details on how to create the perfect content. By knowing what the end result should be and the demographics of each companies’ customers we made their ideas a reality instead of creating a less than effective result.