According to Cisco, video now accounts for 82% of consumer internet traffic. It’s now the preferred form of communication for many organizations, and for good reason: it’s a more compelling, fun and efficient way to get your message across.
But producing quality video content is a challenging task. When asked why marketers aren’t using video content:
It’s intimidating for newcomers, time-consuming, and with professional help, the numbers can rack up quickly.
Video Creation As Is
As with all things digital, video creation software is a (relatively) recent phenomenon. Like low-rise jeans and bleached blonde tips, it only blew up in the early 2000s, when multicore CPUs finally offered the necessary processing power. These early tools tended to be clunky and complex, and as the years rolled on they didn’t get much simpler.
The complex user interfaces of high-end freeform tools take time and effort to master. Unless they specialize in content creation, most businesses can’t justify an investment in a tool like Adobe Premiere Pro. It’s overkill!
With all B2B businesses leaning more heavily on video marketing, businesses don’t need to constantly create highly customized and super unique video content. Instead, they want short tidbits that are created daily or even on the spot.
Video Templates are the GOAT 🐐
However these days, modern video tools have a trick up their sleeve in these situations: templates. Thousands and thousands of templates.
Freeform video creation templates are collections of elements, pulled together by professionals, that are designed to give users a starting point. They don’t have to be used as they come and can be tweaked to your heart’s content.
However.. the flexibility of freeform video tools is also their Achilles heel. While templates can look great initially, you’ll need to constantly tweak the design to make it work and ensure consistency.
If you’re trying to create a video from still images, like a slideshow or basic presentation, freeform tools can be effective, though they don’t make things easy. It’s like when you move an image a millimetre to the left in Word. All text and images shift. Four new pages appear. In the distance, sirens.
But now, there are a number of other video creation tools that address the pain points of freeform creation above. By offloading some creativity and customization of free-form video tools, B2B brands take a more structured approach in production and creation. Thus, elevating their content strategy, by keeping it in-house and on brand.
The Need for Video Creation with Structure
Structured video creation tools are designed to streamline the process of video content creation. A simple user interface lets you play with a wealth of predesigned templates and elements, which in turn allow you to quickly create high-quality videos that would require so much more time and effort in a freeform tool.
Simply put, structured tools are to freeform tools what planes are to cars.
Instead of offering endless capability and flexibility, these tools offer specific, optimized video outputs. While you can’t create whatever you want – say a full-length stop motion remake of Titanic – you can quickly and easily create slick, high-quality on-brand videos in literal minutes! Like this one from Swiss Re Institute:
This mixture of quality and control has empowered many businesses to decentralize content creation, turning the efficiency dial up to 11. It was only supposed to go to 10!
By finding the right structured template (think like a video skeleton), the video creation experience is seriously simplified, streamlined, and enhanced. And once you have your template set, it’s just a mix of:
- using visually engaging scene designs like overlay texts, icons, or animations to keep audience’s engaged
- including a personalized touch with familiar faces, scenarios, or branded characters
- telling a story and making your customer the hero – whether it’s a pain point or achievement, there are many benefits to creating an emotional connection with the viewer.
- and of course, include branding elements for brand recognition. It’s not just about what they felt, but WHO made them feel what they felt.
To learn more about the structured video creation and its benefits, click below to download your copy:
Think about baking cookies. If you’re a new or an amateur baker, or even an expert in a hurry, you can use Pillsbury cookie dough – pre-made and rolled with fun designs – to easily bake some awesome cookies. More experienced bakers may choose to make cookies from scratch – they can experiment freely with flavours and designs, but it will usually be a more costly and time-consuming process. Not to mention, a higher financial investment for the baking tools needed!
Video creation with structure (structured video creation) is like baking with Pillsbury. Freeform video creation is like baking from scratch. Both are ultimately focused on the same goal, they just differ in their approach and the entry skill level.
But both have the potential to produce delicious and gooey results! (yum, now I want cookies..)
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