Developing a sound online corporate video and promotional video production is critical for almost any online marketing effort. Corporate web video productions have come a long way over the past few years from small grainy online business videos to high-quality digital Internet videos. The types of corporate videos and promotional videos vary significantly from custom video productions and commercials to trade show videos and presentation videos. Deciding on the right mix of promotional, marketing, educational, instructional or how-to videos can be a daunting task for both novice and seasoned new-media marketing managers. I didn’t even mention some of the subcategories for website videos such as motivational videos, video whitepapers, customer retention videos, or video blogs.

Where to begin with your corporate video production, corporate video promotion and marketing? With this blog post, I would like to outline five steps in developing your company’s video business communications strategy.

Generally, the first step when developing a business message for a marketing video for the Internet is a clarification of objectives and goals.

1. What is the objective of your webmercials, promotional videos, or online video messages? The most common goal of corporate video production is a sort of webmercial production or new media video which is quite similar to that of TV ad commercials. The subject matter is typically sales and marketing related, in other words, the goal is to advertise or highlight corporate promotions for products and services. The commercial message is then delivered via Internet video. Web delivery of your corporate video may be accomplished via several channels which include business or video podcasts, YouTube video channels, or a corporate video website. However, first and foremost, establish and develop your corporate video communication and video message.

2. Probably one of the most overlooked aspects of web video marketing is knowing the target audience you are hoping to reach with your web video message and online corporate communications. Let’s continue with the next step and the development of your video marketing and business communications strategy: Who is your corporate or promotional video audience you want to reach with your trade show video, training videos, or custom video production? One example of a customer communications video message is Groupon’s customer retention video production which is a funny take at what happens when an email subscriber decides to unsubscribe from their email list. The video actually became a popular viral video when it was first launched. This type of marketing video can be quite effective when the overall corporate video marketing campaign also contains adequate informational content. While the videography in this example may not meet minimum standards for professional video production, it was nevertheless effective in injecting some humor into corporate video communications. On a more local project, we worked with a Western Massachusetts heating oil company and during the concept development process for corporate video communications, a message was carefully established, and engaging promotional video production was the result. Feel free to review the corporate video case study in a recent post.

Corporate video podcasts have become quite important when a business needs to have a live event production recorded which will then be viewed at a later date by customers and investors. Live event videos, presentation videos, or exhibition videos are effective communications tools and should have a permanent place on a company’s website or corporate website videos page.

Trade show videos have also become a must-have for most businesses as these types of corporate video productions can be attention-grabbing marketing videos that invite trade show visitors into your booth. Trade show videos can be produced to include a teaser video marketing clip for online video advertisement that will entice clients and prospects to visit your business at an upcoming exhibition.

3. During the development of corporate marketing and promotional videos it is also wise to review potential problem areas such as selecting a video production company. In a previous post, I outlined eight-question a business should ask when choosing corporate video services. You may find the post helpful when interviewing a video production company. It would also be prudent to review whether or not your corporate and business communications message is synchronized across all departments, e.g. sales and marketing, web design and web content management systems, engineering and manufacturing as well as the corporate management team. You may also need to decide if the video communications will be delivered via the web or if you require DVD authoring and productions. While online corporate communications focus primarily on the web, when it comes to video messages, some forms of traditional video delivery such DVD might still be appropriate.

4. How do you deal with potential problem areas during the video production like miscommunication or viewer criticism incorporate video production communication? One method to deal with corporate marketing videos, miscommunication within your company, or criticism with the viewing audience is to go back and clarify video production objectives and goals to be sure there is continuity in the message. Business communication and promotional video productions need to be in line with the new media goals. Many times a review of corporate video goals is enough to redirect online marketing activities before the entire process gets too far beyond editing and post-production efforts. Some of the costliest mistakes can stem from these areas that cause time-consuming post-production tasks and are not easily reversed by post-production and editing.

5. Bringing the corporate and promotional video production process to a successful conclusion. Once it is time to deliver your corporate video production (training videos, customer retention videos, promotional videos, webmercials, or retail marketing videos) and you’ve decided that the most effective method is Internet video, then you may want to consider these points. Most videographers and video production companies would suggest YouTube or Google Video as the most important channels to host your videos. However, I would suggest that optimizing your corporate video website (video SEO) to rank well in search engines in addition to hosting your promotional videos on YouTube and Google Video. All platforms combined will enhance your promotional videos’ search engine ranking power. Video inbound marketing is driven by hosting your promotional videos on multiple websites and channels such as podcasts, social media, mobile web video hosting, and social bookmarking sites.

Professional corporate video production services are a critical part of your online marketing campaign as many web visitors’ preferences are shifting from text page websites to video websites. Technological advances in web video delivery and corporate web video make video an ideal tool for corporate communications, training, marketing, and customer service.