Everyone is under pressure to do things better, cheaper, faster these days. It’s no exception here in agency land and we continually look for ways to improve our processes and deliver more value for our client’s money. When it comes to video — customer stories in particular — this means getting the most out of each and every day of filming. After all, if you’ve invested to get a crew on site, it makes sense to capture everything that looks useful all in one go — or is that my thrifty northern upbringing at work?

If it adds a view, shoot it

When the crew is on site they are there to capture a story and it’s crucial that they get time with the main sponsor. To provide context for the interview they can also shoot footage of your customers’ operation: the busy shop floor, the checkouts, the contact centre or perhaps show the vicinity and the outside of the premises as employees arrive for work. This B-roll is useful to provide a change of pace to the mini movie you want to create and can be a valuable cutaway to hide zooms and cover any of the presenter’s verbal or physical tics that are distracting.

While on site, it would also be helpful to get other beneficiaries of your solution in front of the camera. You could consider interviewing users, line-of-business managers, finance, technology or the CEO. Anyone and everyone who has an opinion on how your solution has impacted their lives and their way of working.

Assemble and repurpose

Back in the editing suite, this footage can be turned into several assets: different styles of deliverable for different channels, for different messages and to support different points on the buying cycle.

For example, we could create a collection of short talking-head clips that address key issues, each perhaps no more than a minute in length. Sales guys love them as a way of livening up their standard PowerPoint and tailoring the presentation to their prospect’s needs by incorporating customer testimony in a subtle way.

From the same shoot we could assemble the solution story talking about the benefits your customer has seen; we can also create the delivery story and how integration and implementation challenges were overcome; we can build the support story and show how, by working with you, your customer now has one less thing to worry about. If we put the footage together in another configuration, you have the cost saving story, or the one that tells how growth was supported, productivity was enhanced or how customer service was improved.

For early stages of the sales cycle we might want to keep it short with snippets to whet your prospects’ appetite and get the conversation started; further down the line we may need to provide more detailed or candid studies of your capabilities.

By digging for insight with your customers at the shoot and exploring how the deal was won and their opinion of the sales approach, we could even develop video footage to coach your sales teams and that’s not designed for customers’ eyes at all.

Many from one

From one day’s shoot you can create all these stories, sliced and diced for different purposes. They are available to be sprinkled across your website and social media channels, and to support conversations with your customers and prospects — be that for lead generation or thought leadership.

That’s a lot of impact from one day’s shoot.

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