Many times online and on TV you will find inaccuracies, poor quality control, sloppy editing, and elements that do not relate to the video. All of these elements can affect the outcome of your video campaign and can even turn potential customers away.

If you allow a production company to create the ad for you without your input, you may be misrepresenting yourself and could hurt your chances of attracting new customers. We’ll take a look at some things to consider when promoting video marketing, and discuss questions you can ask to find the best producers for your campaign.

Don’t use ridiculous content unless it’s part of your company.

Years ago there was a car salesman named Cal Worthington. He produced ads that said if he couldn’t beat other offers, he would eat his hat. He would wear bigger and weirder hats. He then introduced himself to his dog “Spot”, but began substituting other animals for it. He once even he sat on the back of a rhinoceros. He was fun and creative and made it fun for families and it seemed like he would do anything to make a deal for you.

There is a local car dealership that started with the owner saying that other dealers claim “Nobody” can beat their prices, and then declared his business the “Home of Mr. Nobody” because he could beat their prices. He then introduced entertaining advertisements into the character and after he passed away his children now continue this entertaining advertisement with skits and comedy. Again, for a car dealership, it’s nice that people expect to have a good time. Would you go to a doctor who said he would eat his hat and ride a rhino to get your business?

Don’t play dumb if your business doesn’t need that kind of reputation. This also carries over to graphics and fonts. For example, there are two companies that provide representation before the IRS for people who are behind on their taxes. Both use cartoony moving GIFs in their TV ads. One uses a stack of money that appears and disappears and the other uses a running doctor GIF. These are unprofessional and not well done which reflects badly on businesses.

When planning your ads, request a storyboard before writing any scripts. A storyboard is simply a representation of what will appear in your ad, in a series of images or drawings. When you sit down with the company representative, you should be able to tell them exactly how you’ll accomplish each of these panels on the storyboard.

Ask questions about the sources of the materials (public domain, custom creation, archived images), the type of materials (video, motion graphics, cartoons), and the presentation of the materials (background, foreground, featured). Ask them what they imagine for the message, how the voiceover will go, and what music will be used. This will ensure that the presentation is suitable for your business.

Please check the content carefully for errors and inaccuracies.

There is a credit counseling service that begs you to trust them to recover your accounts and consolidate your payments. If you look at the public domain images that they use in the ad, for a business here in the United States, you’ll notice that the check that is written has the pound sterling symbol instead of the dollar sign. Is that an indication that this company does not pay attention to detail and that they may not do a complete job for you? That is another question to ask yourself for the reputation of your business.

You must include a sentence that allows you to redo any part of the video for inaccuracies or outright errors. This way, you will not be charged for any faulty work that needs to be corrected. You also need to look carefully, even frame by frame, to make sure all the elements are correct and in place. You don’t want a background subliminal message that you didn’t count on.

Use people in your video that relate to your demographic

If you run a senior care facility, are you marketing to the elderly or their sons and daughters? You’ll want to feature happy residents so your seniors appear to be having fun because their sons and daughters want to find a nice place for their parents to live. You also want to reassure the children that their concerns will be taken care of, so you can move on to a younger couple at a desk with a counselor with smiles and nods. This takes care of demographics and reassures everyone that your facility is a great place.

In this situation, you need to know who your customers are. As in the example here, you may need to include other people in your video due to your association, such as children and parents. Find out who uses your products and services, and who buys them for. This can be done with a marketing survey or just observation.

There is a local bar and arcade that advertises an event on Wednesday nights trying to get women to go there. This is the demographic they are trying to attract, but they have lost sight of what this demographic might want. Maybe they are looking for cute boys. Maybe they want to dance. Maybe they want to bet. This ad uses these two women at the beginning saying that they should go to the bar, and then at the end saying how much fun it is. They didn’t use these characters anywhere in the rest of the ad having fun. For all we know, they went to the wrong bar.

Make sure you use beautiful people too. The women in this bar video are not particularly attractive. This includes women sitting at the bar and playing cards. Guys may look at this and wonder if they should go here or go to a bar with hot women. The other side of the coin is that women can see that and wonder if they want to go somewhere with pretty competition. How do you make this work? A mix.

There is a laser and skin center that advertises itself with a video of a woman’s face that looks too old. If you’re serving a clientele that wants to look young, don’t wear a model that looks older than potential customers would like to look. I think a typical laser skin client might want younger, finer skin, but the model has a lot of blemishes and doesn’t look like she’s been through the service at all. Some time after watching the first version of this video, I found footage of that same woman who was obviously just a model for video footage.

Bad acting and music can make your video awesome.

The last thing I’ll cover is the script and acting. There is a local pharmacy where a woman comes in and says that her husband, George, needs a cane. Why should she stop herself and announce her husband’s name when he’s not there? Does it advance the story or increase the value of the product or service? She also wants some medicine, but the video focuses on self-care with the woman looking for her husband’s cane. I think they missed the mark due to the cheesy acting and poor script.

There are times when I hear the same production tracks in one ad that I heard in another. There are currently three businesses (one furniture, one sushi, and one jewelry) that use the same musical production in their ads. This can be confusing and cause identity issues.

Create and support your brand and identity

Your brand takes time to build, and association is important in everything you do. You should have your logo properly presented, not overlap where it covers something important, not copy others, and use original materials and music whenever possible. You want to make sure there is no chance of confusion with other videos. If you’re posting on YouTube, there are a lot of competitors you want to stand out against.

Make your videos the best they can be and ask questions

A perfect example of quality video for advertising is the Waifair.com ad. They address all demographics, match people and products, have quality editing, and excellent editing. You may think you can’t get this kind of quality without the budget of Target and Hershey, but these aren’t big budgets. It is about planning and knowing your processes.

Even without work samples (some companies may keep their client list secret); Sitting down for a consultation can help you determine if they can do the job. They must be willing to do this for free and start planning their work with no money up front. They may ask you for money to get started, but make sure your contract states that the last of the money will be paid only after your final approval and delivery of the video.

Here are questions you can ask to make sure your relationship is mutually beneficial. Use them as a guide:

Provide information about your products and services with a list of expectations. Introduce them and ask them if they think it is feasible.

Confirm the atmosphere of the ad, such as silly, serious, informative, productive, or entertaining.

What is included in the process; Consultation, storyboard, script, actors, stock video, video recording in your business, interviews, market research, lighting, sound, video equipment, editing, video copies, format, loading, television presentation, promotion and follow-up.

What will be the sources of the materials (public domain, custom creation, archival material)?

What type of materials will be used (video, motion graphics and cartoons)?

How will the materials be presented in the video (background, foreground, highlight)?

Make sure there is a meeting of minds for the message and write the point of the ad.

How will the voice-over go, what kind of voice, who will do it (you or an actor), and what will the tone be (serious lawyer, typical announcer, dramatic, funny, etc.)?

What music will be used? Will it be an original score or a hash over the production tracks?

These questions are a guide, not all inclusive, and should help you complete your first project or two.

Gerald Craig, a business consultant in San Luis Obispo, CA, has produced several videos for public access television, commercial use, a documentary, and music videos for a Grammy-nominated artist. His professionalism exceeds the prices he charges for production services and he has received rave reviews. You can learn more about his video services at http://www.geraldlcraigconsulting.com, where you can contact him with questions or comments about the right elements in video productions.