How to Start Video Marketing Production

The starting point for video marketing production is as simple as taking photos with a digital camera.

A “movie” is a continuous series of images. When most people think of the word movie, they think of  what they see in a movie theater or on a TV screen. Each individual image appears for a fraction of a second as creates a continuous flow.

But a movie in the online world also can be a series of eight or 10 images in a row that display one at a time as slowly or quickly as the producer wants.

This “slideshow” video concept is the easiest, quickest and least expensive way to get started in production for video marketing.

It is popular with quite a few different types of business, especially any business that sells products.

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing is the use of videos to distribute a message to the target audience. The publisher may distribute several types of messages:

1. Pure content with a goal of earning advertising revenue.
2. A product with a goal of selling that product.
3. A brand with the goal of increasing brand awareness and consumption.

The dominant distribution channel for video marketing is Google’s YouTube, which is the second largest search engine in the world after Google.com itself.

Hosting videos is an important part of YouTube’s dominance because video bandwidth is demanding and expensive. Another well-known hosting company is Vimeo.

Although a publisher can host video on his or her own website hosting account, millions of publishers host their videos at YouTube. They then embed the video on their own sites using a YouTube iframe.

The number of videos and their organization on that site also make YouTube a natural platform for video marketing.

Software for Video Production

Most high-quality digital cameras can shoot either movies or still shots. They also can capture audio.

Someone who wants to publish a movie can just shoot something with a camera in movie mode, download it to a computer and upload it from there to a video hosting site.

Quite a few people actually do it with their cell phones, upload them to YouTube and overlay some free music or sound effects that YouTube offers.

But the result is often rough, unpolished and sometimes even embarrassing. They also aren’t an effective use of the viewers’ time because they have sections of content with little to no benefit.

Video production software is a better answer.

Producers with video software download the movie or still images from a camera, load them into video software and edit out the rough spots. The end result often is tighter, more polished and more professional.

Windows Movie Maker was the dominant video software for years because it shipped in all versions of Windows. Although Microsoft no longer includes it with Windows, the software is still available for free download on some websites.

Movie Maker is one of the best softwares for beginners in video production. It also has a great deal of support documentation from users around the world.

High-quality digital cameras will sometimes come with video editing software. A handful of other software packages are available for free online such as the graphical OpenShot and the more advanced, text-heavy Avidemux.

Other programs offer free trials followed by a fee.

This screenshot shows a sample of the Movie Maker editing page.

Simple Video Production Goals

Movie editing is a time-consuming task. It takes me four to five hours on average to produce a two-minute video versus one hour to produce a 750-word article.

A good informational video doesn’t just have images. It also has music and voice overs, which often require separate audio software such as Audacity that produce high quality sound.

The time investment leads to a better return on investment if the producer keeps a few goals in mind.

Looking back, my first video was not good at all. My tenth video was much better because of how much I learned from the previous nine.

I strongly suggest having simple goals for the first video. They might include:

1. Using only still images.
2. Having a length limit such as two minutes.
3. Using music rather than voice overs.

Each of the above steps will minimize the amount of time it takes to produce the video while also offering lessons on how to do it right.

Beyond the First Video

Video publishing skills grow with continuous experience and decline with the lack of it. Consistency is critically important with video production.

Aggressive producers on YouTube will publish a new video every day. Many expert users believe that publishing at least once a week is a minimum.

For the sake of maintaining and growing skills, it’s best to produce at least one new video every month.