From planning to delivery, follow our hints and tips to get the best out of your video marketing.

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Planning:

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• Key messages – what do you want to get across in the video?

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• Style – do you want something that is reportage style or a film that is more structured and pacey? Will you be having any narration to help tell a story?

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• Staff and student selection – if you are including vox pops (interviews) of students and staff, carefully select individuals who are passionate about the school and curriculum, who can speak clearly and confidently. Like photography, you should obtain relevant permissions from them prior to filming.

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Filming:

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• Setting – ensure any locations are clean, tidy and show off the best of your school. Consider natural light and acoustics as these will affect the final image and audio quality.

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• Briefing – brief any interviewees about the key messages of the video.

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• Warm up – when interviewing staff and students, give them time to warm up and feel comfortable in front of the camera. Avoid a fully scripted or autocue approach as this can sometimes feel unnatural or disingenuous.

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Editing:

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• Video length – on average 5% of users will stop watching a video after 1 minute and 60% by 2 minutes, so keep videos short and snappy.

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• Graphics – top and tail your video with animated graphics to reinforce your school brand and theme videos. Consider captions with names and titles for interviewees.

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• Safeguarding – like images published on a website, avoid full names of students alongside video footage of them.

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• Finishing touches – final details like transitions and music can add interest to your video. Avoid using editing techniques that could make your video look outdated. Also note that most music is copyrighted, so ensure you have relevant permissions.

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Delivery:

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• On your website – a video on the homepage is instantly engaging and also beneficial for SEO. If you will be posting regular video footage, set up a video gallery page on your site. When embedding video, turn off auto-play, as this can annoy regular visitors.

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• On a disk – a generic welcome video can support a digital prospectus burned onto a disk and given to parents, saving on print costs.

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• On social media – video can be shared through your social media channels, helping create awareness of the content and encouraging clicks through to your website.

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• On YouTube – YouTube is a power-house of video, so why not set up a branded channel for your school. Hosting videos on YouTube means that you don’t need to worry about large video files taking up space on your website server and slowing things down. 4 out of 5 users will click away if the video stalls while loading, so serving videos quickly is critical. You can also disable comments on videos if this is a particular concern.