User engagement with video content is higher than ever and the statistics prove it. According to eMarketer, potential buyers are 40% more likely to proactively contact a company after watching their video. In fact, 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide cite video as the type of content with the best ROI (eMarketer). Between interactive websites, YouTube, and social media platforms, Toronto corporations that have been utilizing video content are seeing tremendous benefits in conversion rates .

Many companies in Oakville who haven’t yet joined the new digital world of video content marketing are now hitting the ground running trying to catch up. Unfortunately, due to ignorance or lack of proper budget, some non-video professionals believe they can produce their company’s video content themselves by using a home camcorder or even through their smart phone or tablet–scary stuff.

The idea of a do-it-yourself or user-generated video production can seem very alluring for the micro-managing entrepreneur as well as for the middle management exec whose looking to stand out in the office. Why go through the trouble and spend the money to hire a professional Oakville video production company to produce your content when you can just produce it all yourself, right? More often than not, what they’re left with in the end is substandard video content that no one will ever watch due to the following:

• Shaky footage

• Shots with poor lighting (sometimes to the extent that you can’t even see the person’s eyes in the video)

• Amateur choice of room backdrops

• Person in the shot with a “greenish tint ” on their skin, making him/her look sickly, because of the fluorescent lighting in the office (no knowledge of colour balance, lighting, and camera white balancing)

• Lousy framing – diminishing the person in the shot

• Inaudible lines spoken from the person onscreen due to low consumer grade camera microphones, loud rumbling room tone from central air, and background noise from the office

• Amateur editing abilities and cheap editing software resulting in cheesy transition effects, on-screen text and titles, reminiscent of some of the early 80’s music videos

• Videos are way too long . . . no knowledge of modern trends for video duration

• Lack of script writing ability, concept development, and directing abilities . . . so often we see people (likely employees of the company) trying their hand at comedy and acting and delivering poorly written lines . . . sad to say we’ve all probably seen examples of this at one time or another. You know when you’ve seen one when it causes you to roll your eyes and sigh in aggravation

Bottom line the results of do-it-yourself corporate videos can be painfully subpar, totally irritating videos that smack of amateur handy work and that totally fail to deliver the message about the company’s products, services, and profile in the market. And if you think that production value doesn’t matter (that any video content is better than nothing) . . . here are some statistics that will prove this theory wrong.

• According to Comscore, professionally produced video optimized for eCommerce outperforms do-it-yourself or user-generated video by 30%.

• And Visible Measures reports that 20% of your viewers will click away from a video in less than 10 seconds. By the 30-second mark, you’ll lose 1/3 of your viewers. By the 1-minute mark you’ll lose 45% of your viewers.

With statistics like this, companies should not risk the integrity of their brand by producing videos through do-it-yourself means. From concept to completion, a video must be properly produced to capture attention in under 10 seconds and this is best attained by hiring a professional video production company with a proven track record for producing engaging video content.

In our 11 years of producing corporate video content in Oakville, we’ve witnessed the near death experiences of many a corporate marketing campaign and have been called in to save the day a countless number of times. Too often, the “in-house” produced footage was not salvageable and we had to re-produce everything from scratch.

Remember, saving money for your business is all well and good wherever possible but as we all know- time is money and to waste your time trying to produce a subpar video to the detriment of your brand is a waste of your marketing dollar.

Always go with the pros!