At the start of last year, I began talks with local Tunbridge Wells and Southborough business Hardman & Hemming, a bespoke tailors, who were keen to use the advantage of video for business and create a short insight to their services. One of the most important steps in the process of video marketing is to create a plan and get organised before any shooting even begins. So we booked an appointment for me to visit Hardman and Hemmings shop in Southborough high street and have a chat about ideas and the content we both felt would be important to include. This was important in me understanding how a local high street business in Tunbridge Wells operates and helps give me an idea of the areas of service we wanted to highlight for their customers. After a good discussion, I came away with plenty of ideas and notes from which to create a suitable storyboard, making sure I take into consideration the clients areas of importance. We decided the video should include shots of the owner Stuart Hardman at work, with included interior and exterior views of the shop. These clips would then run alongside a talking head style interview, giving Stuart the chance to explain a little more about the business and how they work.
Before we began filming the interview it was important to create a list of questions and topics we both felt important to discuss, in order for Hardman and Hemming to cover the services and products they offer. Once I'd drafted up the questions I thought would work well I emailed them across to the client, giving Stuart a chance to read through them and make any adjustments he felt necessary before the actual day of record.
When trying to plan for the interview, we ended up having to postpone the date because unfortunately builders had just moved in next door to the shop and had started construction work which meant the noise was simply too loud for recording. Unfortunately, drilling and banging doesn't agree with audio levels so it took some time before we could finally get a slot when the builders weren't working, but finally, we got a day and spent the morning avidly recording and working through the questions.
Due to our diary timings and the builders next door, the filming of the shop and footage of Stuart at work had to be done on a separate day to the interview. So once our diaries were synched, we were able to block out a half day of which we spent filming in the shop, capturing environmental clips of Stuart working and providing a behind the scenes insight as to how he worked and the steps involved in creating such incredible garments. We also managed to get shots of the shops exterior along with the interior, helping to connect the viewer who may never have visited the location before. After several hours of filming, combined with the interview footage, I now had all my content ready to edit.
Many assume most of the work is done on the day of record, but as mentioned there are really three main stages to the whole video process, the pre-production, the shoot, and then the post-production. Depending on what is required and the type of video created will depend on the editing time involved, but to work through hours of footage, sync any audio, search for suitable music tracks, colour grading and adding graphics, can all take time to complete and finalise. So the editing time has to be factored into the whole work process, and after a few hours of editing work, Hardman & Hemmings business promo video was complete.
Once a 2-3 minute video for a small business is created, it will enable the client to start marketing their services or product by sharing the video in anything from email marketing, social media updates or even helping to improve their website traffic. Such marketing can even help the business attract new visitors by building awareness for up and coming events or promotions. Video is now here to stay, so it may be time to embrace it into your own marketing and discover the creative ways it can help increase revenue and help get you ahead of the competition. Feel free to get in touch if its something you'd like to discuss further.
Click here to see other videos created for business, and below you can watch the full video created for Hardman and Hemming Bespoke Tailors.