5 Major Problems Marketers Face When Making Video — And How Remote Video Solves for Each

1. The accelerated shift to digital has increased audiences’ appetite for video

With the accelerated shift to digital, audiences have zeroed in on the medium they crave most: video. Specifically, fresh, relevant, on-brand, polished, and engaging video. In fact, a recent Cisco report states that by 2022, 82% of all consumer web traffic will be generated from online video — an impressive 15x growth from 2017. 

End-to-end video tools empower marketing teams to effectively scale their video production and meet the voracious video appetite in the marketplace. Tools like OpenReel drastically reduce those restrictions, including the cost, time-requirements, and logistical complications, that traditionally keep teams from creating more video.

2. Traditional processes for producing quality video content are inefficient

Despite your audience’s love for video consumption, as a marketer, it’s easy to dread video shoots. The huge expense of traditional shoots can eat up your team’s budget, the cumbersome logistics leave little room for experimentation, and the lengthy timelines mean that, by the time the video finally rolls out, the topic is already old news: the time-to-market is simply too slow to be effective. 

On the flip-side, if you cut corners in your video production process in order to accommodate your budget and timelines, you might end up with an inferior result. While scrappy workflows and DIY recording methods may seem harmless on the surface, these low quality videos will result in lower engagement — ultimately, putting your brand’s perception at risk. According to a study by Brightcove, 23% who have ever had a poor-quality video experience with a brand will hesitate to purchase from the brand. Additionally, a whopping 62% of viewers are likely to have a negative perception of a brand following a poor-quality video experience. 

By employing an affordable and easy-to-use video creation solution that works with devices you already have on-hand to capture up to 4k resolution, you can easily turn your brilliant content ideas into a professional-quality video. Eliminate the inefficiencies, while creating plenty of eye-catching videos.

3. Video projects are typically challenging to pull off

Marketers are well aware that the last year taught us to throw out the playbook, pivot, and turn unpredictability into new opportunities to meaningfully connect with audiences at each stage of the funnel. As some parts of the world reopen, it’s important to maintain that creative mindset when taking stock of your current content gaps and video repository, as well as assess what’s currently holding you back from achieving your video goals.

Some common pain points we hear from marketers in the field:

• Unable to film multiple people, in multiple locations simultaneously due to budget, timing, and/or global travel limitations
• Need to film many videos quickly for a project — or even multiple departments — and don’t know how they’ll feasibly execute at scale
• Don’t want to send camera equipment and a hard drive to the subjects, placing the technical onus on them
• Desire to replicate the on-set collaboration and communication with multiple stakeholders in various locations, that’s currently impossible with their fragmented workflows and/or disparate technologies 
• Difficulty managing permissions, access, branding, and messaging of video at an organizational level
• Cobbling together content plans through Zoom recordings or recycling old video content thus losing creative and technical control, having inconsistent recording experiences, and forgoing higher quality recordings

If any of the above sound familiar, you’re not alone, and that’s exactly why we created OpenReel in 2016. Not too long ago, we were once in your shoes, experiencing the same frustrations and limitations around how to sustainably and efficiently film and collaborate on professional-quality video content at scale. But it doesn’t have to be this hard. OpenReel delivers a better way to film studio-quality video from anywhere, using the devices you already have on hand, regardless of your skill level.

4. Traditional shoots leave little room for creative experimentation

Marketing teams need bandwidth to be creative: this allows them to both find new ways to engage target audiences and expand awareness to new audiences. Unfortunately, traditional video shoots limit teams’ abilities to experiment. By the time a video has been scripted, cast is hired, logistics have been arranged with crew and talent, footage is filmed and transferred to editors, and a final video is created, the need for the video may have passed and the topic may not even be relevant. Additionally, these shoots are expensive, limiting how many can be created. When your team’s budget is tied to a small number of projects, and when the timeline for those projects is under a microscope, there’s little room for experimentation. 

Thankfully, when remote video solutions are adopted to empower teams to scale, they also reintroduce the ability for teams to be creative. By eliminating concerns around scheduling large crews to shoot on-location or transferring files to editors — OpenReel-shot files are available instantly in our secure cloud — restrictive logistics are eliminated from shoots. This gives teams the ability to create more video and also scrap footage they don’t like and start over — without impacting the scale of their production. The ability to shoot professional video is also put directly into marketing teams hands; by becoming self-sufficient, teams can think beyond their typical video use cases and explore new formats for day-to-day communication, including reports, emails, events, or slideshow presentations.

5. Marketers have needed to level up their content workflow game

While it’s easy to get stuck in content creation cycles that have historically worked, 2020’s abrupt switch to remote work was a much-needed opportunity for marketers to explore other methods beyond the status quo. Rather than scrambling to adapt old workflows to a distributed office, forward-thinking marketing teams turned to video creation platforms that allow streamlined collaboration. These platforms, like OpenReel, make video projects low-lift by bringing all stakeholders into the entire production process, from the project management level to participation in the virtual shoot. This way, each stakeholder’s needs — whether they’re on the communications, HR, creative, production, IT/security, or executive teams — are met and you always get the necessary shots. 

For marketers supporting cross-functional teams, carrying these new workflows into the future are increasingly important because they shave precious time and resources off a project plan, rather than bogging the project down with complicated content creation spread across multiple stakeholders. By using frictionless features like an in-platform teleprompter, your messaging is always on point and the Subject doesn’t need to memorize their lines, allowing them to focus entirely on nailing their delivery. And with two-way chat and conferencing functionality, distributed participants can communicate with each other or the Subject on the virtual set and provide immediate feedback where needed. Lastly, your post-production team will thank you for providing them finished video files in real time in the cloud, removing the need for overnighting storage devices to them wondering if the footage is any good.

Key takeaways for Marketing teams assessing their ‘new normal’ video strategy

While we continue to adapt marketing strategies and navigate the workplace evolution, some traditional business practices will inevitably return. However, it’s safe to say your audience’s newly fortified communication preferences will be forever altered. If you’re not already harnessing the power of video in your marketing efforts, it’s never been a better time to start. And given that the pandemic made video a necessary investment, you’re not alone. For the foreseeable future, we can expect a continued influx in video noise while vying for audience’s attention. In fact, a recent survey by Wyzowl reported that 92% of marketers share these sentiments. 

There is a huge opportunity for brands that keep pace with audience demand while overcoming the oversaturation challenge by producing consistent, high-quality content experiences. With OpenReel, marketers at organizations of any size — from scrappy startups to global enterprises — can easily incorporate a video creation platform into existing content workflows. 

By removing budget, logistical, and time constraints, businesses can democratize video creation within their team and open up a whole new world of creative possibilities. In an increasingly distributed and digital-first work environment, this enables marketing teams to more efficiently and sustainably produce professional-quality video at scale regardless of film experience. And while the majority of an organization’s video projects may originate in the marketing department, complete video creation and collaboration toolkits, like OpenReel, were purpose-built to benefit every team across the enterprise.

Would you like to discuss what your team could create if video budget and logistical constraints were removed? Schedule time with our video specialists today.