CORPORATE, INDUSTRIAL FILMS, FOR THE PROMOTION OF COMPANIES
Corporate video guide and promotional films: prices and budgets to order them for the first time
If you are reading, maybe you plan to promote your company or your product. Maybe you have a fair soon. You want to advertise. What the “soul of commerce” is. And maybe it’s the first time you have to. I hope that here you can find useful information to request a credible quote, get a good price and, above all, a good result
Corporate videos, product videos and institutional videos for companies, industrial videos for industries, factories, new companies are promotional and presentation tools.
I don’t think I can reveal any secrets, also because there aren’t any. But in many years that I produce videos for companies, I have an idea.
If you don’t have time to read, watch this video where I tried to summarize how we make corporate videos, or call the studio or write on the form found on the CONTACTS page to realize how corporate videos are a decisive tool to increase the volume of Business of your company.
Index
- What is a “corporate video” or “industrial video” or “promotional video”
- Aims of a corporate video
- 5 reasons to make a corporate video
- The digital diffusion and the costs of a promotional video
- TV and corporate videos
- Quality of the corporate video
- Company videos storytelling and the figure of the author
- Inform or thrill: corporate videos or emotional videos?
- Technologies, contracts and quotes
- Corporate videos and show-reel
- Corporate videos: 8 rules for a video production (and make your boss happy)
- Dura lex sed lex
- Video for the corporate YouTube channel
- Video for the Company Facebook Page
- Examples of corporate videos
- Guides and tips
- Resources
What is a "corporate video" or "industrial video" or "promotional video"
Produce corporate videos and promotional movies: yes, but how? What are corporate videos? How are they produced? Why do they do it? What’s their use?
Go to Google and write: corporate videos, videos for companies and professionals, product videos, tutorial videos, promotional videos. You will find a lot of different information, often contradictory.
You must understand how they shoot and what to do before shooting, to avoid disappointment.
The corporate film (also known as corporate video or institutional video) is a particular audiovisual product, designed to be used in a defined sector, from business to business, B2B.
That is different from Business to Consumer, B2C, large-scale advertising in summary.
The corporate video is transmitted in institutional settings. It has very specific characteristics and must show the most important aspects of a company.
Often, but not only, because of the company is preferred to the competition.
In case of acquisition by funds, or to show the results achieved to investors or on the occasion of anniversaries (a classic, 50 years).
Not all videos that talk about the company are industrial videos, but every corporate video, if made with film or television tools, tells about the company, or some of its parts: research and development, design, production, the area of tests, marketing, and customer service.
For more information, you can see what social media and social media marketing are in general: you will immediately see that the target audience, the viewers, have changed and, above all, have multiplied.
Aims of a corporate video
The entrepreneur once, often bored, wondered: why do I have to make a corporate video? What is the use of paying an industrial video?
Often the answer was that it was useless, but it had to be done because there was a fair. And then he was commissioned (and still commissioned today) where it costs less, perhaps from the relative of the head of the workshop. Sometimes it is in black.
Until the economy pulled and competition was not high, it was fine.
It was enough to speak ill of the Chinese.
But then it became clear that in the international fairs the corporate videos of the competitors were real films and the “Chinese” had surpassed everyone: in price and technology research.
It’s a bit like tourism in Italy: years to pretend that nothing happened because we had such a beautiful sea, then we woke up overwhelmed by Spain, Greece, Portugal, Malta…
Today, a corporate video or a promotional movie is an essential tool for marketing, mainly digital. You don’t even need DVD anymore: you must have a good site and an updated YouTube channel, or your company simply doesn’t exist.
Who has few arguments maintains that a well-made corporate video is the business card to be presented to customers or commercial distributors.
Almost like the old booklet.
It may be true, but there are more serious reasons that escape most of the people who deal with this issue or who simply produce industrial films without understanding much, because maybe they do something else (today’s corporate videos, yesterday’s weddings, conferences in the morning).
5 reasons to make a corporate video
Corporate video and social channels
An industrial film is, first of all, useful for promoting and making the company known in all its forms: until a few years ago there were thematic, digital terrestrial and editorial televisions. It is as expensive as, paper advertising.
Today they are no longer useful because there are social channels (Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo).
Video marketing is online. But be careful because there are many gurus, experts, graduates (three years old) who hide the lack of knowledge in the field with English terms. Many are really good, but many, due to the very low access threshold, can be improvised.
Corporate video and credibility
First, a video shows that the company really exists, and then it shows why the product or the production cycle is beating others. Create credibility in short.
Corporate video and investors
An industrial video, if well designed and not amateur, allows an immediate understanding of business reality. We think of stakeholders, investors, partners, financiers, not just customers.
Today the company expands, operates in transnational markets and collects investments.
And it has a critical point that a few years ago I didn’t have: show the company from the inside. Numbers, graphics and data are not enough.
A picture is worth a thousand words: an old saying that is always current.
In the current economy, industries are evaluated by external organizations (credit institutions, supervisory bodies, political institutions), with the analysis of parameters other than the annual balance or fluctuations in the stock market. All aspects to be told, displayed convincingly to strengthen real guarantees.
Corporate video and internal communication
A video of the company is used for internal communication. Think of multinationals, groups that have multiple offices because they are the result of mergers.
All have different offices, facilities in different geographical areas.
They are directed by company videos designed for internal communication.
A video that does not promote the company but presents it to new employees,
Or a video tutorial that trains, for personal training.
Or a series of corporate videos that serve to present the products, the new campaigns, the strategies for the next periods to their sellers.
Meetings are often transmitted streaming, by teleconference, with obvious savings on flights, hotels and transfers: in these contexts, a corporate video becomes indispensable.
Corporate video and case history
Think about the after-sales phase: why do you need a corporate video?
Maybe it’s better to say an industrial video. In this case it serves to illustrate, immediately, how objects are created or how to work for installation or maintenance.
An industrial video, a video tutorial, an online promotional or corporate movie replaces or combines manuals (on paper or PDF), sections of F.A.Q. (frequent asked questions) with immediate results for the customer satisfaction.
Or for the pleasure of the partners when they can enjoy video tutorials that clearly and precisely explain how to perform maintenance on a device, how to update it or simply how to use it.
Or, for those who produce components, an instructional video to show the procedure for proper assembly or safety instructions.
Or, again, it shows how to develop sales methods.
The digital diffusion and the costs of a promotional video
In another article on the prices of corporate videos and in this video (which have been widely used by my colleagues), I have tried to show how there is no price list for corporate videos or a price list for promotional or industrial videos.
But how much does it cost to have a corporate video at the end? Because, it is always the same question.
Some say a few tens of thousands of euros (actually less and less) and a few hundred.
The truth is in the middle. In the sense that we need to understand what the immediate objectives are and, above all, what is the budget that we decided to allocate to a corporate video.
Prices, Costs, Estimates
Personally, I have a range of low-budget proposals, ready, that allow the company to have an excellent promotional video, in one or two languages, to be equipped, in a short time (one week) with three corporate, promotional and industrial videos different to do video marketing on your site, on social channels and at fairs.
But almost all customers want a project as they tell your company from the inside, for different purposes. And then you should make personalized estimates that cannot be delivered in a single day.
The use of digital in the production of corporate and industrial videos has brought high quality at reasonable prices.
In practice, it has reduced the cost and price of corporate videos to have “photographically beautiful” products.
Social platforms (YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook) and, finally, the care of corporate websites have made the dissemination of promotional videos, corporate and industrial videos in general more economical.
Each promotional product campaign, especially if it is B2B (not intended for the end customer) includes, in addition to the company video, video tutorials, product videos and video instructions.
Which are transmitted by mail (video mailing) or social platforms (video for social networks)
TV and corporate videos
Company videos and commercials
The diffusion of digital and social platforms has generally affected the television advertising market.
If telepromotion and telesales (B2C), from business to consumer, resist, investments in commercials have been reduced.
Companies, happier, to not have to pay more for their commercials, have diverted part of the budget in social media videos to be broadcast on their social channels, sponsoring influencers or creating their own YouTube channels.
But they must be full of well-made content.
And here is the critical point. The relative who has a video maker nephew is of little use, because in the end, we need a quality product.
The organic use of social channels has multiplied the possibilities: in addition to the promotional corporate video of the company or industrial, “father”, it is possible to create a shorter version to use as a real place.
Like the YouTube channel promotion, visible only to those who visit the channel without registering yet.
Or paid ads that must be sent before the videos are chosen by users.
This has allowed many companies, previously excluded from the television advertising market, for cost reasons, to use corporate and industrial videos as an advertising tool.
It is also because YouTube is not just a general platform.
Company videos and tutorial videos
How many have you seen a video of “how to do it”, a video tutorial, a video instruction on YouTube? Many times
And think about whether or not a video was suggested alongside the industrial video or corporate video of your company that produces a similar product.
It is interesting.
But think if, once that result was achieved, your video was filmed with a camera, with few lights, without a relative’s equipment or, in the best case, by a video maker because he wanted to “spend little“. It wouldn’t have helped.
These new possibilities for the dissemination of corporate videos have allowed the use of new forms of narration that in traditional media, such as television, would have been impossible due to the cost of transmission.
Quality of the corporate video
Video producers, schools and entrepreneurs
There has been a democratization of video quality.
The operator with a bulky machine on his shoulder has been replaced by videographers with cameras: they are cheap and allow “almost” cinematic images.
If in “large” cameras, “cinema” optics should be used (such as the publicity of many years ago that showed a good gentleman with a large brush on his shoulder on a bicycle), in the SLR cameras the producers video can use camera optics (DSLR). They cost much less.
There was a completely Italian abuse: schools were born, sometimes with poorly trained teachers, who in exchange for money (often a lot) cheated entire families.
After the (expensive) courses and the (free) internships at the agencies of the same teachers, it is not automatic to obtain decent earnings by buying … a camera.
It is clear that this is not the totality of the training institutes, but it is a photograph of many of the training proposals.
Many entrepreneurs have forced themselves to make corporate videos in this way and have compromised their competition in foreign markets.
Where investments are reduced compared to television budgets, but not as much as they expected in myopic ways.
As always, the truth is in the middle. A production company, equipped with its own equipment and technology, without having to rent anything, with its own means of transport, can guarantee better corporate and industrial videos, at the same price that would have been spent, with the same quality with which to rent the team necessary for the crew (Service Company)
Because, even though creativity helps, there is no much to do, without the tools (crane, lights, tracks, gimbal, cameras).
Video and Production Company
A corporate video or industrial film cannot be recorded with a single camera. In the end, it looks compared to one made with all the necessary equipment. And without rentals there are no additional costs for changes. There is more flexibility in reasonable figures.
The production of corporate videos, industrial films or promotional videos is a complex business, with complex technologies, which allow the creation of “real” videos, interesting and enjoyable to watch, and above all, credible.
As we said before, we must convince not only the “customers“, but above all the investors or business partners.
Digital has not erased classic advertising, which remains for strong brands and for companies with medium-high budgets, but has integrated campaigns and expanded the field of action, bringing those companies that would otherwise have been excluded
Company videos storytelling and the figure of the author
Explain, promote or create emotions?
In the intermediate field, fact explored by digital, the company “storytelling” was born, which occasionally (rarely) gave rise to phenomena and phrases with consequent economic results.
The videos for companies or even promotional videos, increasingly cheaper, have generated a form of modern and immediate communication that comes from the short film.
A history metric, that relies on the canons of cinema to describe companies. The classic institutional narrative has joined a form with stronger, comic, dramatic, sometimes even horror and pulp tones.
But here we need a fundamental figure, which is the “author“, who writes the story, which combines the purpose of corporate video or industrial film with a story.
It is an author, who can build a story about the company, finding intriguing elements that change the attention of the product or technology to the narrative metaphor.
Then return attention to the object of the company.
It is the corporate or brand narrative: a narrative focused on stories and not on objects.
The contents are no longer only technological, but we start from the vision of reality and, above all, from the people who become protagonists of the corporate world to tell.
But beware, it is a double-edged sword. It is very easy to fall into the pathetic or the grotesque.
Who works in the company often does not lend nor is not an actor.
And this is the Achilles heel of this narrative, stimulating and intriguing approach to corporate or industrial video. The fact´s narration.
The few virtuous examples of corporate narration are flanked by often humiliating examples.
Think about what happened to the now known “branch of the Intesa Bank San Paolo de Castiglione delle Stiviere“
Inform or thrill: corporate videos or emotional videos?
To inform or to thrill: corporate videos or emotional videos? Along the same lines as storytelling, there is an equally abused request for emotional videos: stories that generate emotions or something worse (for using a bad definition) that give the “wow” effect.
The corporate video, especially if it is promotional, must inform before exciting or engaging.
It must give valuable news and content, often explain complex technologies: it must show the fruit of years of development. In short, it must be give serious things.
Emotion (or the surprise effect) is used, often and not always, to cover content shortages or production limits from both, those who participate in the marketing of the company, and those who produce corporate videos or promotional videos.
Technologies, contracts and quotes
The ease of access to the production of corporate videos is not synonymous with easy and immediate success of the video promotion activity.
To produce quality video content, you need to have important and complex viewing techniques. That becomes a fundamental tool for directors, authors and screenwriters.
In our study we have the technologies, without rentals, and we know how to tell a company because, we have been doing it for more than 20 years. If we were wrong, we would have had to stop.
Without professionals (perhaps taking advantage of the figures within the company or calling family / friends who sometimes even organize weddings) it is difficult to obtain the desired results.
Fortunately, technologies in the field of video (for those who are passionate like me) continue to develop from semester to semester.
The same goes for narrative semantics. We need continuous updates that only reliable partners can provide.
In addition to the reel of the show, also look at the list of clients, the years in which a studio is operational, the professional profile, the productions collected in the portfolio. Relating them to the years in which they were published.
Communication is a topic that many people tend to describe voluntarily in a smoky way. You will understand the credibility of your interlocutor who already reads the estimate he will propose.
Buying an industrial video or a promotional film is like buying a good, with precise features and defined accessories. And the contracts must reflect the beatings if this do not arise from the offer, change providers.
Corporate videos and show-reel
Show reel of corporate video or industrial video or promotional video: do you need or not?
It is a double-edged sword; it is a video that video creators, video production houses and film operators create to promote themselves.
It is a summary of what is produced, firmly assembled, with emotional music, often known, selecting the best images of one’s work.
To promote itself, a company that produces promotional films brings together the best of its corporate videos in a single video.
The goal is to show the importance of our customers (such as putting customer logos on their sites) and at the same time shows the best of their photos.
This is a promotional video of many corporate films.
Why watch it? Because in a short time you have the idea of what your interlocutor has produced. Why you do not trust me? Because it is clear that this is a promotional summary.
Instead, pay attention to the jobs in the portfolio; look at them in their entirety, more than one. But if you don’t like them, or if you find them “boring,” consider that Clients, your colleagues, have often preferred them that way. Each video tells a story in itself, each client finally wants, rightly so, that the video has its identity.
Unfortunately, many clients do not give in to the evidence that a video should be short and focused. It should not last long. A good corporate video should be no longer than 3-4 minutes.
Many of those videos I made are 10-15. Why? They asked me that way. There was no way to convince the customer to make them more synthetic.
Corporate videos: 8 rules for a video production (and make your boss happy)
Understanding what features a corporate video and a promotional video or presentation of your company should not be easy but not impossible. Certainly something will be missing, but at least we will have a credible starting point:
Duration and number of shots
Short, short, short: you don’t have to bore those who watch the corporate video. But at the same time you will have to involve the viewer with many images.
Here is the difference between a production made by those who are structured to do so and those who are in the first experiences.
Count how many shots there are in a corporate video: the one with the most wins.
It is not really so brutal, but an industrial video or a corporate film with so many shots at the same time, without exaggeration, shows that there is more content, more work, more credibility in the production phase. Obviously they must be well done shots. Then, between a 3-minute corporate video and a 6-minute one, choose the 3-minute video, if the content is the same.
We work much more to make a short video, with many shots, than a long one with some. You will win in visualizations.
The text
The text is what you read, the speech: if a picture is worth a thousand words, a good voiceover is crucial.
Much attention should be paid to the text. It should not be written (or copied and pasted) as if it were for the website. The speech, the text to read must be constructed on purpose, by those who know how to do it. It is not a novel and must be fast, without repetition, in a correct Italian. Beware of those who cannot write. The word helps the image and vice versa. One needs another.
Voiceover, especially in foreign languages, is essential. It gives credibility: if a speaker is good, you immediately feel it. If it goes wrong, if you speak with a fixed voice, without also understanding what it says. Surrender only to non-improvised voice actors. If they don’t fit your budget, better a corporate video with just music
The imagination
Stimulate the imagination, but without cheating! Your company video must be mainly credible, it must show, really, what you do and, above all, how you do it. But make sure the door to the imagination remains open. Let the viewer reach the parts he has not shown with his imagination. That’s why so many shots help.
Technology
Technology, technology, technology: you can’t escape from here. A good industrial video, a video tutorial, a corporate video cannot be recorded with just a tripod, a camera and maybe a drone (strictly indoors)
Lights and photography are fundamental. And to use the “lighting fixtures” correctly, you must first have them, then it is time to fix them and, above all, you must have different ones for each type of scene. And if the director of photography is good, in the corporate video you will not notice that they have been used.
Camera movements: do you know why the “moved” shots were fashionable a while ago? Because the video producers did not have the tools to move the cameras, such as gimbal, crane, carts, dolly. Still shots are boring, need a lot and are lively but in a fluid and dynamic way.
The same for depth of field: the subject in focus and the blurred background. We need optics with a very wide aperture. In short, it is expensive.
The audio
The music of a corporate video must be of quality and you must have the rights to use it. Be careful You and your company will respond.
The sound effects emphasize your industrial video: they must be done.
He won’t notice if there are, but if there weren’t and he felt the difference, he would never come back.
Most industrial videos do not have them because it costs less not to put them. All here.
If the sound is well done, like the light, nobody notices.
But if it is badly done, yes.
The location
A company, an industry, they are workplaces and, therefore, are often worn out, physiologically dirty.
But when you decide to record the corporate video or the industrial video, they must be cleaned and sorted. Not in excess, because those who film it will take care of it, choosing the shots.
However, an orderly initial basis helps.
Clothes
More than clothes, you should think about personal protective equipment, PPE.
Be very careful that all employees and collaborators use them.
You cannot afford to show a company that is not in good condition.
Even the eye wants its part: it prefers those employees who, without uniform, are willing to dress more neatly on the day of filming.
Not like the day of the party, polished (it would be grotesque) but a minimum of style does not hurt.
Call to action
What should the viewer who saw your video do? Should do nothing? Should call? Should advice?
You must communicate who will make the corporate video or share with those who will film the promotional video and the industrial video what is the action that the corporate video should arouse in the viewer.
At the end of the industrial video, expect the viewer to do something. And you have to know what. If not, corporate video is of little use.
Dura lex sed lex
Corporate videos, promotional videos, industrial videos should not please those who commission them or please those who make them. They must work at the chosen audience.
This often clashes with the expectations of agencies or figures in charge of marketing in the company. Corporate video is not a cost, but an investment that should generate a return.
Promotional videos, corporate videos are a strategic tool to develop your marketing: when you choose the provider, first look at their references, check the amount of videos they have produced, consider the machines they have available.
If you make the wrong decision, the corporate video instead of promoting the company becomes a boomerang.
Sorry for my candor and thanks for coming to read here. I tried to summarize what I have seen in all these years dedicated to the production of videos for companies, industrial videos and promotional videos.
Some examples
Resources Guides Tips on how to make corporate videos
guide to corporate videos
If this is a new topic for you, you may be interested in this GUIDE TO COMPANY VIDEOS: why make them and how to get realistic quotes
| DISCOVER |
How to make a corporate video
How to make a video to present the company? How to make an industrial or corporate video? 8 ideas to create a corporate video without ever having made it
| DISCOVER |
company video prices and quotes
Prices and realistic quotes for corporate, industrial, institutional, product videos, tutorials and fairs. How to calculate the cost of a video
| DISCOVER |
promote the company with a video
How to promote the company with a video? 5 reasons to produce a corporate video and above all where to spread it
| DISCOVER |
Corporate YouTube video channel
Videos for the corporate YouTube channel. A guide to update the YouTube channel and broadcast live
| DISCOVER |
video for company facebook page
Corporate Facebook Page Video: a guide to understand why a company should have a Facebook page and broadcast live
| DISCOVER |
Corporate storytelling
corporate storytelling, corporate web series and stories for companies: are they used to promote a company?
| DISCOVER |
emotional videos for products
emotional videos for companies: to inform or excite? to excite to promote the territory or a product
| DISCOVER |
how to choose the supplier
How to choose the supplier of a corporate video and evaluate its estimate and define a contract. Corporate videos and capital goods
| DISCOVER |
Resources
