This article was contributed to the TwentyThree blog by Lemonlight, a leading video production agency. 

You already know how powerful video marketing is for companies of all sizes. Eighty-seven percent of marketers use video as a part of their marketing strategies and video has been shown to increase conversion rates on landing pages by up to 80 percent.

Using your video the right way is essential to your marketing success. While services like TwentyThree can help you host and analyze your video’s performance, you need to start with a powerful video before anything else - one that tells your story and works toward accomplishing your video goals.

That’s where a company like Lemonlight comes in.

How Video Production Agencies Work With Their Clients

Most video production agencies will handle all the technical work when it comes to creating your video; they’ll be on set filming and will hopefully edit together something you can be proud of. But few video companies actually work with you when it comes to developing your video strategy from start to finish.

We pride ourselves on our commitment to helping our clients succeed. And that means not only filming a project but helping craft a narrative that’ll tell your story and help you meet your analytic goals.  

1. Strategy

We start by working with clients to help them develop their video strategy or their systematic plan to use branded video to drive more business. Outlining this will help you not only create and distribute the perfect video, but help you attract more customers, engage your viewers, nurture more sales, and delight your customers who’ve already bought from you.

Attract

Videos created to attract users should inform and raise awareness of your brand so you and your company stay top of mind. Here, you should avoid overselling and stick to using your authentic voice to communicate your brand’s unique benefits and features.

Videos that attract include commercials, how-to videos, educational videos, and more.

Engage

Videos used to engage your audience should show them the value of your brand and how you differ from your competition. Your goal here is ultimately converting leads, but at this stage, you’re still convincing these users they can trust you. Show them why they should by highlighting your product’s quality, unique attributes, and your commitment to satisfying their problem.

Videos that engage include brand videos, customer spotlights, product videos, social content videos, and more.

Nurture

This is probably the most important stage of the video marketing funnel and can make or break your sale. Nurturing the relationship you’ve built with your users is essential to closing a sale; building long-term trust and loyalty pays off big here.

Videos that nurture include case studies, testimonials, before and after videos, and more.

Delight

You’ve finally closed a sale and now, you have to bring added value so your customers remain happy and keep coming back for more. Happy customers not only continue buying from you, but they spread word of mouth and play a huge role in building your reputation, both online and off.

Videos that delight includes tutorials, welcome videos, thank you videos, and more.

2. Pre-Production

Once your strategy is fully outlined, we get to the pre-production stage, where we start planning your actual video content.

First, comes the creative brainstorm. Our expert producers talk to you to understand your needs and precisely what story you want to tell. They outline creative style and give you some feedback on what type of video would work best for you.

Then comes scripting. Your entire video is laid out with notes about graphic effects, voice-over, background scenes, and more, so you can start visualizing your video coming to life.

Next come the storyboards. Scene by scene, our creative team maps out what your video will look like, pairing art direction with the script to drive your narrative, interview, or lifestyle video forward.

Finally, comes all the pre-production prepping and planning! Our team books, schedules, hires, and purchases everything for the shoot. From rounding up the right voice actors, extras, hosts, locations, props, wardrobe, and more, we make sure we’ve got everything ready so the whole process is efficient from your very first shoot day. We also send out all appropriate call sheets, points of contact, and pertinent information so you know exactly who to contact if you have any questions.

3. Production

Now is production day! This is where the fun really begins. By now, we’ve given you a full production calendar and you might be on set watching the process come to life. Production is usually pretty short - usually, one full-day or one half-day shoot, depending on your video type and style. Either way, we work with our clients to make sure things go smoothly, the footage is high quality and high caliber, and that everyone knows exactly what they should be doing.

This helps set us up for post-production success.

4. Post-Production

Video production is over and now we’ve got hours and hours of footage we need to edit -

this is where post-production comes in. From color corrections to sound adjustments, from graphic effects to captioning, our post-production team gathers all the recorded footage, cuts and edits it together to tell the story you want to tell, and adds all the necessary elements that’ll make it shine.

We send the first cut of your video over to you for feedback, and give you three rounds of free editing, leaving you with a video that perfectly captures you and your brand.

5. Distribution

Now comes the biggest piece of the puzzle: video distribution. We help you strategize where and how to distribute your video, so it’s more likely to help you reach your goals. Though certain types of videos do better on certain distribution channels, it’s likely all major distribution methods can help your video drive results.

This is where TwentyThree can help you measure and analyze the success of your video. If you’re posting your video directly on your website, their platform can help you generate leads and build out customized video landing pages, measuring everything from landing page visits to time spent watching your video.

If you’re posting your video content on social media channels, TwentyThree can also help you measure engagement there. You can view video metrics by channel or on an individual viewer level, giving you fine-grain detail about where and how your video is performing.

TwentyThree also integrates with applications like Hubspot, Zapier, Marketo, and more, perfect for data-driven marketing teams who are looking for information that prove their video marketing efforts’ worth.

If you’ve made it this far, you know video is a powerful tool in your toolbox that can be used throughout the marketing funnel to attract, engage, convert, and delight your audience. You just need the perfect video that will inspire you and your users to action.

About Lemonlight: We’ve created over 5,500 videos for companies big and small and we can help you nail down your video strategy, content, and messaging.