How to create great video content on a budget

It’s tempting to dive headfirst into a new video project before you’ve got all the necessary details ironed out. But it’s important to spend a lot of time in the planning stage so that you can establish a clear vision of what you’re trying to achieve. The planning stage is crucial in ensuring that you don’t waste time and money on the execution process.

A good place to start is to confirm the purpose of your video or animation. Think about who your target audience is – what do you want them to do as a result of seeing it? And how are you going to measure success? Whether you’re trying to explain one of your products or services to your audience or you’d simply like to expand your reach on social media, every marketing video needs a reason to exist. So make sure you’re crystal clear on this before you go any further.

Once you’ve done this, you can start to nail down the specifics of your content. Our process at Eleven is to then draft a script and put a storyboard together. These tools help us and our clients to visualise the content and make any necessary changes before we actually start creating the video or animation itself.

It’s tempting to think that the longer a video is, the more value it will provide to the audience. But in fact, short-form video content actually performs a lot better online than longer-form content – the optimum video length coming in at around 90 seconds.

Advising our clients of this and working with them to reduce script lengths is one of the most common ways we help them to make the most out of their video budget. The best video scripts are the ones that manage to say what they need to say in as few words as possible. A great example of this is the short and snappy animation we created to promote and explain Network Rail’s Routes of of Homelessness charity partnership with Shelter, Big Issue Foundation, Crisis, Railway Children and End Youth Homelessness. You can watch it in full below:

The beauty of animation is that it doesn’t have to have a complicated design to be effective in grabbing your audience’s attention. Typographic 2D animation styles can be a highly effective way of communicating your message in a clear and impactful way, and are also a great way to avoid high costs associated with complicated character design and 3D motion graphics.

Typographic animation is also a great way to make sure your message is clearly communicated to your audience. And this is exactly what we did for Samaritans and Network Rail for their Small Talk Saves Lives campaign. We knew that our campaign needed to make sure that people understood what to do when they saw someone in distress, and knew what to say, so we opted for a creative, typographic-led style. Check out the animation below:

Depending on the type of video you’re putting together, using video that’s been self-recorded on a smartphone can be a great way to keep your content feeling authentic.

The process of recording yourself on a smartphone can feel a bit daunting. But with the right guidance to follow, you can create video content that is a powerful tool for communicating your organisation’s message. We’ve pulled together a helpful guide for filming yourself on a smartphone here.

Creating content with a limited budget is always a challenge. But with a clear vision and a detailed plan in place, you can create videos that will captivate your audience without having to break the bank.

Interested to find out how we can work together to create impactful video for your organisation? Get in touch with a member of our team today.