Video marketing works. Whether it be an explainer video or whiteboard animation, you can easily track your results. There’s an increasing demand for video because it provides effortless engagement and is great for every occasion.
Digital video post production is a vital part of your entire video marketing strategy. For brands that aren’t video production gurus, the post production process can seem overwhelming at first. This especially rings true for brands that haven’t partnered with a professional video production agency. The pre production, production, and post-production video processes can seem so complicated that they make you want to throw your hands up in the air and give up. Here at IGW, we know a thing or two about effective video production. We understand how essential video marketing is to brand visibility. More importantly, how important it is to providing a superior customer experience. We’ve put together a helpful go-to video post production checklist you can lean on to ensure your video content is achieving a strong ROI.
Simply posting a video clip online and hoping it reaches your intended audience isn’t going to cut it. Remember in the pre production video planning process when you created a distribution plan? You will turn to this distribution plan many times during the post production phase.
Running our post production checklist will help ensure the quality of your video is above and beyond your own native impression expectations. You may think the following video post production checklist is extensive, but it’s meant to be. There’s a lot of time and money that goes into creating quality video content that engages your audience, making it important to follow each step on the checklist.
Check Video Sound
When you listen to the video, how does it sound? Is everything clear? The best way to test its sound quality is to listen to it without watching it. Can you make out all words without having to watch it? Also, is the music too loud? Does it obscure the voice of the people talking or the narrator? Perhaps the music is too soft and needs to be turned up a bit. Are there moments of silence? Do those moments make sense? Are they even supposed to be there? Periods of silence that aren’t intentional make it sound and look as if an amateur created the video. This is something you definitely want to steer clear of.
It’s also good to critique the actual music. Does it fit appropriately with the message you are wanting to convey? Lastly, does the audio appropriately emphasize the parts of the message that are the most important? If there are certain parts of certain sentences that you want to be emphasized, you need to ensure that the narrator did a good job of changing his or her tone on those words.
Choose an Editing Format
Do you want to edit on the filming equipment or edit digitally? This is completely up to you. If you have partnered with a professional video production company, this agency will have its own preference for editing. If the footage shot for the video was shot on film, then before you can do any digital editing, it will need to be telecined. You could also take the route of scanning it into a digital format. The ultimate goal during the editing process is to ensure it flows well from one scene to the next and that all audio matches with the visual content. You also need to ensure the scenes move from one to the next in a timely manner but not too fast. You don’t want to obscure the message you are trying to share.
Most importantly, the editing process needs to focus on making sure the message is clear. You can show the video to someone who is not a part of the video production process and ask them what they think the main message of the video is. If they don’t give you the right answer, you’ll need to continue editing.
Creation of EDL
During the editing process, your editor will create an Edit Decision List, which is commonly referred to as an EDL. This list details the changes the editor is going to make relating to the script and the rushes. It will also outline which cuts the editor wants to make. It’s usually best to have the editor deeply involved in the video pre production and production processes. The editor can advise you along the way of what types of shots to use; this streamlines the entire post production process and minimizes editing.
Shoot ADRs
It’s also during the editing process of your video marketing strategy that you’ll carry out any Automatic Dialogue Replacements. This occurs when there were certain parts of the audio that didn’t turn out sharp and clear. The actors will come back and do those parts over. Most times, it can be completed in a hollow room and with the use of a projector. The most recent version of the video is projected onto a wall and the actor can then redo the audio, which can then be looped back into the actual video footage.
Create Sound Effects
The editing part of the post production process is lengthy. This is when you will hire Foley Artists to come into your ADR room and create the noise of footsteps and other sound effects that you want to include in the video.
If you’re partnering with a professional video production agency, there’s a good chance it will have a long list of sound effects that can be automatically integrated into the video, meaning there’s no need to create them with Foley Artists.
Check Video Color and Graphics
Next, you’ll want to check the video color grading and any graphics. Are the graphics attractive and vivid? Do they look professional or amateur? Do you notice any dark shots in some of the scenes? If so, those need to be fixed if they were not intended. It’s incredibly important to check the entire video scene by scene. You don’t want the video appearing jumpy.
Looking over video graphics also involves taking into account any text that appears, including captions. Are they easy to read? Is the font big enough and does it appear in a color that is easy on the eyes? Do your 3D animations included in the video look professional? Do those animations and any text look like they integrate well with the video or do they look like they have simply been overlaid like a sticker?
Verify All Distribution Channels
Hopefully, you have already put a lot of time into your video distribution plan regardless of the types of video marketing you’re using. Ideally, you will have come up with at least three distribution avenues that you plan to take advantage of, like your website, social media, and perhaps via a guest post on a different platform.
Marketing the video needs to start well before you ever create it. It can be something as simple as sending out an email telling your subscribers/customers to be on the lookout for the video. Depending on the video you are creating, it will likely take anywhere from one to six months to receive the final product. Still yet, you’ll want to start marketing it as soon as possible.
Take for example you are creating an explainer video that outlines answers to your customers’ most important questions. You can send them an email six weeks before the video is scheduled to be published letting them know you are in the process of making the purchasing process easier and you’ll soon publish a video that details answers to their most frequently asked questions. This shows your customers that you are actively concerned with their needs and you are taking steps to be the best brand you can be.
If you plan to post the video on social media, you need to have a promotional plan in place that markets the video via your various profiles several weeks in an advance. You can make status updates letting your followers know that you will soon be posting a video on a certain topic. This strategy tends to work very well for product launches. You’ve already got your customers hyped about a new product that is soon to be released. Throw in a video and you’ll have them waiting on the edge to learn more.
Measure Your Results
The last part of our digital video post production checklist doesn’t have anything to do with the actual production of the video, but it is nonetheless extremely important to achieving a strong ROI and ROE on all of your video marketing efforts. You have to measure the success of your videos in order to determine which ones are worth investing more time, resources, and money into.
Using the StorySCAPE methodology is extremely recommended to help ensure even the most complex concepts and messages are effectively translated through visual stories in your videos. In addition, you’ll need to measure your video marketing success by tracking the following metrics:
View Count
Commonly referred to as a vanity metric, your view count gives you a clear picture of how many times people have watched your video. This is especially important for understanding whether or not the video provides value to the audience.
Most platforms don’t register a view count unless a person watches at least three seconds of a video, meaning you must capture their attention in a very short period of time to even garner a single view count. On YouTube, this time range is 30 seconds.
According to research, roughly half of a video’s value is captured within the first three seconds. If you are able to capture the audience’s attention in those three seconds, you have a much better chance at effectively delivering your message. To increase view count, you’ll want to use attractive thumbnails and combine them with interesting and unique headlines.
Play Rate
To measure the play rate, you’ll take the number of plays a video gets and divide it by its impressions. The location of the video on a page and how many steps a person has to take to watch the video will both significantly impact its play rate. This metric provides a clear overview of how accessible the video is. If you have a low play rate, you know to do some tweaking to make it easier for the audience to watch the video. Promoting videos through paid or free ads and using video rich snippets can help boost play rates.
Engagement
The engagement rate shows you how much of the video people are watching. You’ll be able to see if they are skipping ahead or rewinding, as well. Metrics like this help determine which scenes are the most engaging. Average view duration and average completion rates are both used to determine engagement rates.
Other metrics to track include:
Social shares
Click-through rates
Conversions
Feedback
The engagement rate is definitely the most important. It allows you to see which parts of the video are providing the strongest ROI and ROE. You can then use your findings to alter your other videos and to create more video content of the same type. It serves as a thorough roadmap for your digital video marketing efforts.
The Takeaway
The post production process can seem overwhelming but it is crucial to your digital video marketing endeavors. Partner with IGW today and your business can offer first-class post-production video services.
