In a recent episode of The Inspectations Podcast, CEO of The Aebli Group, Justin Starbird, sat down with TAG partner, Rebecca Read from Benchmark Multimedia, a Maine-based, second-generation, family-owned creative agency, to discuss video production.
Rebecca shares with us a few tips on finding the right video production partner for your business.
First, Rebecca highlights the importance of beginning with an understanding of what video production can offer your business and how to utilize it.
She says, "The unique thing about video is that it's a multi-sensory experience that really enables you to provide an emotional response to the content you're delivering."
What kind of message are you looking to get across?
Would you like to engage your audience, inspire your audience, educate your audience, or looking to recruit? What are your goals for the content that you're producing?
The right production partner will build a relationship and form a partnership with you so that they can really, truly understand what your business is about and help you communicate your message.
But how do you find the partner that is right for you?
A quick way to learn about a company is to take a peek at its portfolio. Rebecca says "Fortunately, because of the nature of what we do, we have that portfolio, we do have something that you can show to people. On the back-end of it, did this strategy work? What were the results? If it's a recruitment video, how many people did that company hire? If it's a sales video, what were the actual results? What was that return on the investment?"
She also says to look deeper, go beyond the portfolio, and really understand what services they offer. Are those services in-house? What are they outsourcing?
The ideation and the concept are happening in-house, in the now. What happens next? Who is doing the scriptwriting, the casting, and everything else that goes along with it all the way through to the end of production? Is the same person going to be in charge of that content, strategy, and voice from beginning to end?
The real craft of video production and a true sign of a great video production company, Rebecca adds, is the ability to edit!
Are they able to transform your unscripted footage? Can they turn it into a narrative, and then back it up with images that are going to support that storytelling? Are they able to do this all while speaking in your voice? That's what takes the time, and that's what takes the skill. That's what is really, really important.
And then there’s the "extra mile"!
The little steps that they take to really make your video stand out. Are they able to find those little, indefinable things about your company and portray them through your video? Rebecca shares "For example, we recently did a project where the company's logo was the sun. All throughout the filming, we made sure to capture images of the sun. Nobody had said that to us, but that's part of the research we had done. We understood what the paradigm was. All throughout the finished piece, you see little moments where the sun is shining through a window or through some leaves in the trees."
Every single company has a fantastic story to tell.
It's about listening. That's what it really comes down to. You listen from the very minute that the client picks up the phone and truly try to understand what their story is and what is the best way to tell that story so that you reach the right audience, engage that audience, and inspire that audience.
To hear more, check out the episode "Choosing the Right Video Production Partner" on The Inspectations Podcast, live now!
The Inspectations Podcast brings together business leaders from all industries to talk about best practices, innovation, leadership, and business development. The concept was born from an internal conversation within the TAG team, which resulted in the realization that processes and systems could be improved.
Make sure to inspect what you expect!
