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Instant Videos vs. Produced Videos: How To Scale Your Business

Ruben

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Understanding the differences between instant videos and produced videos can go a long way in reaching your business goals. Read on to learn some tips and strategies on how both instant videos and produced videos can help you scale your business.    The Power of Video As a salesperson, marketer, or founder of your company, you’re likely communicating with your prospects through a variety of channels. You’re certainly pitching prospects face-to-face and making your fair share of sales calls. You may even be relying on digital strategies like email marketing or social media ads to spread the word about your product. These strategies certainly have their place. That said, we at Dubb believe that video is an extremely effective channel that you should explore. Video can help you better connect with your current customers, convert warm prospects, and establish brand equity within your sector or industry. We are huge proponents of the power of video and are confident that it can help you scale your business. When talking about video, however, it is easy to brush over some important nuances. In this post, I want to talk about one of them. That distinction is between instant videos and produced videos. In the B2B world, it’s all too easy to equate video with produced videos. The simple fact of the matter is that an instant video can be a better choice than that slick video you produced in your office.  In this post, I want to further explore the differences between instant videos and produced videos. Knowing these differences, you can be more strategic and select the best video format to accomplish your marketing or sales objectives.   Editing One of the major differences between instant videos and produced videos centers on editing. Instant videos typically don’t have editing. They are one-click record and send videos. Simple enough, right? One of the main benefits of a one-click record and distribution is that you can get them to your audience faster. You don’t need to spend hours editing your video so that it is perfect. Instead, you simply record the video and send it out. This can be especially useful if you are recording a video outside your office. As an example, if you’re at an industry conference and recorded a quick interview with one of the keynote speakers, you can distribute that interview with just one click. By contrast, produced videos typically involve more editing. Whether you or a colleague is completing the editing, you’ll need to invest some time into the editing process. The flip side, however, is that your videos look more polished. While they are not mutually exclusive, you’ll want to consider these features when choosing an instant video or produced video.    Sending Videos at Scale Next, there is a difference between instant and produced videos when talking about scale. Don’t get me wrong: it is certainly possible to take a no-edit instant video and send it to many people. As just one example, you may send that instant video as a newsletter to your audience at scale. In doing so, you may be able to get some significant traction and viewership numbers. If you have a large enough social media following, there’s also nothing stopping you from posting a quick video to your many followers.  With that said, if you are sending a video to an extremely large audience, you may want to strongly consider putting some production work into it. As just one example, think about removing some of the awkward pauses in your videos. Add some transitions or music if you think it fits with your message and theme. Finally, don’t forget to add a call-to-action, as this can be a terrific way to coax your audience down your sales pipeline. While you don’t need to spend hours upon hours in the editing studio, taking some time to clean up your video can massively pay off when distributing your video to a large audience.    Branding Any video can be branded. Arguably, you should brand every video. Branding can include everything from using some common music in your intro (as we do in the Daily Dubb) to simply including your logo on the bottom part of each video. You can use branded background colors, distinctive T-shirts or outfits that you wear in your videos, or specific words or phrases that you are using in your videos. Because there is so much video content out there, it’s essential to think about ways that you can separate yourself from the crowd. Often, produced videos have more opportunities to include your branding. From your editor’s chair, you can add images, text, and other things to your video content. As a basic example, you can include your logo at the beginning of the video and B-roll clips of your product or service. You can even include a quick testimonial from a satisfied customer to show your audience that your product or service can change their lives.   You can certainly include branding in instant videos. Having said this, you will need to be more creative. Because the editing process is minimal at best, you’ll need to include your branding in the video itself. Again, this can be everything from your apparel to the words that you use. If branding is an extremely important part of your video content, however, you may want to have a bias toward produced videos over instant videos.    Rawness Rawness may not be the most obvious thing when considering instant videos or produced videos. Nevertheless, it should be a factor that you think about before making your choice. In terms of instant videos, you are empowered to record an extremely raw video. Raw can be a great thing. It lets you build extremely close connections with your audience. Whether you are recording your video from your phone, your webcam, or directly from Gmail, raw videos show that you are being honest. You’re putting yourself out there and are essentially holding nothing back. While the video may be “unaesthetic,” it drives connection. Obtaining this raw sensation is harder in a produced video. If you look at the term itself, “produced video” seems to be antithetical to rawness. You are eliminating the spontaneity of instant videos and making edits—no matter how small they are. So if rawness is an important attribute to your video content, make sure that you are focusing on instant videos.     Volume By volume, I am talking about the sheer number of videos that you can make in a certain period. As you can guess, you’re able to create far more instant videos within a certain time than produced videos. If you’re feeling especially passionate about instant videos, you can create 50 or even 100 instant videos per day. With one-click recording and distribution, this is certainly possible. While we may not produce 100 videos per day, all of us at Dubb record dozens of instant videos per day. On the other hand, you may find it difficult to edit and distribute many produced videos. Naturally, this is because it takes some time to edit and produce this type of video content. This is true even if you are delegating these videos to producers, editors, and other colleagues. Because of this, think about having a bias toward instant videos if you need to produce many videos per day. If this doesn’t matter as much to you, you may give the edge to produced videos here.    Speed Instant videos tend to have an edge with speed as well. With speed, I’m talking about the recording time for your specific video. Instant videos can be between 30 and 60 seconds. After recording, you can move on to the next quick video. Before you know it, you’ll start to get into a flow. You’ll notice that you are moving more quickly. If you’re so inclined, you can even choose to send personalized videos to all prospects who call or email your business on a specific day. That is the beauty of instant videos. With produced videos, you will find that they tend to be longer. While they can be in the 30 to 60-second range, they are often one minute or above. There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about this. If you are choosing a produced video for one (or several) of the reasons listed above, you’ll discover that the actual length of the video will tend to be longer. Whichever route you choose, make sure that you are being conscious about the speed trade-offs that you’re accepting.   Budget Finally, one of the main differences between instant videos and produced videos centers on budget. Produced videos tend to cost significantly more than instant videos. Instant videos are virtually free to make. All they require is your time. On the other hand, produced videos can cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. This can include costs related to a set, actors, editing, and more. With that being said, you get what you pay for. Investing in a produced video can result in a highly polished, sleek video. Instant videos look less professional but their rawness and authenticity can pay off in the long run. You and your colleagues will have to decide which option makes the most sense for your marketing needs.   Making Your Choice You and your colleagues have spent years building up expertise and perfecting your craft. Regardless of the size or sector of your business, video can help bring your expertise to life. It can help you build a genuine connection with your audience and can possibly generate future sales for your company. Whether you choose an instant or produced video, be deliberate about it. Consider the pros and cons and aggressively execute your plan. As always, don’t forget to track the data and feel free to iterate as necessary.  If you have any questions about the points and insights discussed above, don’t hesitate to contact me! I live and breathe video marketing, so click here to get in touch. Wishing you all the best on your video marketing journey!
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