What is "professional quality" video? (Graphed)

Most B2B Marketers generally want to be doing more with video but they have questions and concerns that hold them back from making decisions, some of which they may not even fully realize.?

One of the main barriers to doing more with video is the concern that the video you put out there will be “good enough”. In other words “ is it going to be high enough quality”? I mean, nobody wants to look BAD.?

So, let’s talk about video production quality. Specifically, how good is good enough?

Well, let’s start with the questions behind the question: “How would you know if it is good enough”? I mean, if you put anything on the internet not everyone will agree, right? Is it true that if one single person has any criticism that it should hold sway for the entire group? How much weight should you give an opinion? Perhaps the only opinions that really matter are the ones that are holding the purse strings.

Philosophy aside, let’s just agree there are real, justifiable concerns about “brand safety” such as your company’s reputation, your personal appearance, the implications of negative feedback, nasty, painful comments, embarrassment - or even its scarier cousin, shame.?

You work so hard on your company website, logo, infographics and photos, you wouldn’t want to drop the ball on video when there’s so much on the line.?

You spend time on your personal appearance, wearing nice clothes, appearing professional. But if you really look at it, what does that really mean? There are conventions, of course, like a man wearing a collared shirt for example, but we can’t say that is true in all cases. There are no absolutes, right? Things change. Things have changed and video quality is all over the place.?

So, yes, short answer, it’s reasonable to have concerns and my goal is to help you navigate the considerations and concerns so that you can get to the other side of the issues and reap the benefits of what an increase in the volume and frequency of video you are putting out there can do for you, if I can get you comfortable that we can reach an acceptable “professional level of quality”.?

The way I think about it, there’s a line you need to be above, I call it the “Professional Quality threshold”. Where that line is will vary by company, industry, use case, etc. but it’s typically somewhere less than an expensive, difficult sexy big Superbowl commercial and better than a “Facetime with Grandma” video experience.?

Check out the graph below. The big idea is that you want to end up with your content in the upper left, but at least above the threshold. It might be OK to be in the upper right, but the more time you spend there, the less time and budget you'll have and we're going for consistent release of content. That's how you win the content game!

The good news, is:

1) there are now so many new tools we can now use to make your video better AND

2)? the spectrum of what can be usable & acceptable as professional quality has widened AND

3) I’m here to help guide you to a great result that you can be happy with!?

But to do that you’re gonna have to trust me & hear me out.?

Why trust me? I'm a 30 year veteran of video production and have worked for big brands, start ups and everything in between. I've owned a video production company for 15 years. I know a thing or two about video. Wanna learn more? Click here. Convinced already? Read on, pilgrims!

First, let's acknowledge:

1. This is an understandable conundrum. There are so many different levels of quality out there, how would you know where you need to land? From TV commercials to iPhones, Zoom Calls, TikToks and everywhere in between.?
2. The term “Quality” means many things all at once, it’s a word that encompasses many aspects of video production: Lighting, camera, sound, framing, performance, backdrop, etc.?
3. Quality is also subjective. There is no “right” or “wrong”. Who exactly would have the final answer to the question: How good is good enough? Nobody. Because there are so many opinions that are all over the place. Opinions change.? Some people think it looks great, some people don’t.?
4. The marketplace has changed and is still changing, fast. Remote video, social media are new, the rules are still being written. Throw in AI and the term “Wild West” seems like an understatement.?
5. Authenticity is a good thing, if done right.
6. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not effective.
7. Stage fright can be part of the job: How much discomfort are you willing to endure to make progress?
8. There exists both “additive” AND “subtractive” Quality. Taking things away that are problematic (like distractions) can be just as important as adding things that are “enhancements”.?
9. We’re trying to strike a balance between good and great? - when great usually means more time and money.
10. Let us also acknowledge that there’s a lot of things you could do if you only decided ahead of time that they were worthwhile and …
11. You’d have to trust the advice or person giving it.
12. You may not know until afterwards whether the advice was right or not.
13. Classically, there are 3 phases of video production and “quality” comes into play in each of them. Preproduction, production and post. A decision made in pre production or production will have implications in post production, and some decisions cannot be undone. For example, if you shot footage in black and white, you can make it color later (well not cheaply!)

OK, still with me? If you don’t agree with all of those, please let me know.?

Making a Plan that Ensures Good Quality

If you do agree with all those points, let's look at what a good plan should look like, given all those assumptions.?

I believe a good plan should start with “WHY”. Let’s start with some big and basic questions to help identify what a good plan would look like.?

• Why are you even considering making video content??
• What is the business purpose??
• Who is the audience??
• Where does it fit in the marketing funnel??
• What is the platform??
• What do you want the audience to do, or think or feel after seeing your video?
• How could we measure if this was a success?
• What is the competition doing?

Once you have a clear picture of why you’re making content, who it’s for and what it needs to do to be successful, you are in a better place to develop a plan that meets those needs. It will still probably require some experimentation.?

Commitments: Points of no-return

As you develop your video production plan, it would be best to build in little tests and experiments to see what kind of quality you can get. At some point you will need to make choices that are not easily fixed or undone. The goal is to make these commitments small as possible and soon as possible to ensure smoother outcomes. Some decisions include:

1. Booking time
2. Spending money
3. Publishing to the web

All of these do involve some trust, some faith and some acceptance of risk. To do nothing can be just as much of a decision as taking no action.?

I think that in these fast changing times of technology disruption, you do have to acknowledge there needs to be some stepping outside of your comfort zone. Fortune favors the bold. Who dares, wins.

At some point you have to take the plunge and put your money where your mouth is.

How to avoid mistakes and minimize risk

There are some well worn tactics you can use to move closer to confidence, get more comfortable and find the “acceptable professional quality threshold” for your video content needs.?

1. Test early and often. Science! Have a theory, test it. Frequently, see what happens.?
2. Baby steps. How small of a test can you create? Something easy & cheap.?
3. Prototypes. Maybe try and shoot a video on your phone real quick and see if you can experiment with the general structure. Basically like a “sketch” instead of an “illustration”.
4. Setting quality standards. Decide what quality levels your video content must meet before starting.
5. Shoot for MVP: “Minimum viable product”. In many cases your video content just needs to NOT HAVE distracting aspects like bad lighting or sound to be? “good enough”.
6. Private feedback. Before you publish, maybe share with a few peers for feedback.?

Scenarios: Now let’s take a look at a few video creation scenarios to see how quality decisions come into play.?

Some things are easier to fix than others. Take example of “framing”, where a person is inside of the video frame of the camera.? if you were off to one side of center all you’d need to do is move the person to the center and the framing is fixed. If the lighting isn’t great and you’re in a room where there’s a skylight, that might be fine for awhile but if the clouds change, all sudden you’ve got a problem with harsh shadows and too-bright lighting and since you can’t change the weather, maybe you could cover the skylight or change rooms - things that take time to fix, unless you avoided them from the start.?

Now consider that you have a low-quality laptop microphone and there’s an echo in the room you are in. One fix to this problem could be to order a new microphone which will reduce echo and sound better, but if you need to order a new microphone, you would’ve had to plan ahead and do that a day or two before at least for a delivery on Amazon and then had enough time to actually plug it in & make sure you know how it works.

Now imagine you are in a rush to announce a new product and you want to create a video to promote it. Maybe you want some product shots or screen-captured footage of software so you can show off the features. In order to get the right footage, you have to plan ahead and make a script and probably get it reviewed. Then maybe more people start adding and subtracting information until it starts to get confusing. If you don’t have one person managing the project that has some control over what is said and shown, you could end up confusing your audience.??

These are just a couple quick scenarios to illustrate the kinds of decisions that come into play as you begin creating more video content for your company. There’s endless complexity to the quality-related decisions that get made - and not made- when creating B2B marketing video content.?

You can avoid many expensive and frustrating missteps by working with a trusted, experienced video creation specialist and the sooner you get them involved in the process, the better. They can even help you remove confusion, show you how to get started, strategize about what types of content to create in the first place and help get great results with minimal challenges.?

This process can be confusing but I’m here to help. If you’d like to discuss how you can develop video quality standards for your company, feel free to reach out and I’d be happy to help.?

Happy Creating

Dane!