Sparksight has created hundreds of pieces of marketing content over the course of its recent history. This content has included a bit of everything—testimonials, commercials, animations, demos, overviews, and photography.
Many clients are familiar with these types of content and know the value they can bring to a campaign. The problem is that we live in an oversaturated “ad world.” If the quality of your content is poor or if the style is outdated, you’ll never build traction with an audience. To combat this issue, check out these 5 ways to create next level marketing content to attract and inspire your audience.
Add Set Design to your Testimonials
Any crew with a basic understanding of 3-point-lighting can make a video testimonial look nice. But when operating in the currently saturated market of next level marketing content, you want your testimonials to look stunning. We get a lot of requests for the Apple testimonial look with a clean white background. This was great for Apple, as it was unique to them at the time, but now everyone is doing it. Consider investing in a little set design and art direction. Often, by simply adding a colorful piece of furniture you can drastically raise the production value of your video. Here’s an example we did for our client, Luminex.
Set design doesn’t have to break the bank, but could simply involve using a unique backdrop, lighting setup, and key piece of furniture, all of which brought together this video we did for our client, Zenoss. Or you can go all out and build an entire set like we did for HomeAway. (HomeAway – Vacation Equation) If you invest a little effort into the set design of your testimonials, you’ll have a series of videos that look unique to your brand and will leave a lasting impression.
Add Humor and Entertainment to your Demo Videos
Making a demo video engaging for your audience can be a difficult task. Many products and services involve technical information and when put to video, can come across as dull and dry. In this instance, it is important to find a way to present the information in an entertaining way. While this may be more expensive than a simple screen capture video, it will make the viewing experience more memorable and engaging. We did something like this for our client, Influitive, adding humor, and a mix of both live action video and animation.
Another option may be creating some fun, dynamic animations to show off how your product works. Check out an example of that in this video we created for ShortTel.
Take Your Kinetic Typography Further by Adding Animations
Text flying on and off of screen can be an effective tool to enhance an animated video but rarely should this BE the video. By adding creatively designed animations you’ll be able to enhance the kinetic typography. Both elements will complement each other, resulting in a much more engaging video than if you had only used kinetic typography. A good example of this hybrid was achieved with our client, Ixia.
Ixia HetNets from Sparksight, Inc on Vimeo.
Go More Commercial and Less Corporate in your Overview Videos
Overview videos are a must have if you’re going to effectively communicate what your company does in an engaging and effective way. When brainstorming a concept, move away from a traditional, corporate tone and explore more commercial ideas. Even if you’re selling B2B, viewers will enjoy the high production value, creativity, and entertainment – and often the price difference – between corporate and commercial, which doesn’t have to break the bank. Check out these great pieces we produced for our clients DocuSign and Khorus.
Break Away From the Traditional Head Shot
When attracting high caliber talent to your company, or drawing attention to your company culture, staff photos can really help set the tone. Traditional head shots are always a trusted standby, however you can kick them up a notch by staging a fun team photo or stylizing individual portraits. These ideas don’t have to break your marketing budget, most of them need only be addressed early on in the production process.
Ready to get started on your next project? Let us help! We’d love to help you bring your vision to life.
Have other great tips to share for creating next level marketing content? Let us know in the comments below!