With the help of the internet companies managed to increase their audience by trading on a global scale using a website, online marketing, social media and blogs to create online brand awareness.

In recent years this has been taken one step further after the introduction of YouTube in 2005, which saw millions of people and companies using this video blog channel to promote themselves.

Companies turned to promotional videos as an effort to increase their brand visibility using a different avenue. With video production costs being affordable with the right budget, video can not only promote businesses but increase sales turnover, by reaching a larger audience that wouldn’t normally read blogs or visit the company website.

There are steps that need to be taken to create a good promotional video that will stand out and draw the followers that you want. As a company, you don’t want to waste your efforts promotion to the wrong audience, you want your target audience to watch the video, want the product or services and buy the items.

The first step to any promotional video is to determine the video production costs and set up a budget for the entire production. With most companies setting a marketing budget each month, the production may take more than one month, depending on the size of budget available.

Once the video production costs have been determined, the video will need to be planned. Planning a video isn’t only a vision on how the video should look once uploaded and visible to viewers, it should include the cast, the venue and the storyline.

Of course when doing a promotional video, the storyline will be a promotion on the company, what is offered, products and services and contact information. Many companies choose animation to add some fun to the production, while others stay with people to make their statement.

Equipment plays an important role in the production and your overall budget. Purchasing camera equipment can increase the overall video production costs dramatically. Many companies choose to hire a camera technician, someone to film the entire video for them.

The filming process can be a tedious one. In many cases each segment of video is filmed a number of times until it is perfect. With many takes, filming can take a week or more before editing is done.

Editing should be carried out by a video professional, a person that is able to stitch the video together to create a spectacular and professional promotional video that can be uploaded to the internet and increase brand visibility and improve sales.

Editing does take time and should be included in the video production costs. An editor will work their way through the many stages of the video, pour through the takes and then put them together to create a seamless video your company can be proud of.

Once your company is ready to upload the video, marketing needs to be taken into consideration. You want to draw people to your video, you want to increase awareness, improve sales and generate more leads.

Social media, blogs and the company website are all ways to create awareness. The more people that visit the video, the more leads you generate. Using video production software, companies are able to track the number of visitors to their video. Often this software includes reports, enabling managers and directors to determine if the video production costs were well spent and whether their company will benefit from video blogs moving forward.

Online video is in demand, more people are watching video blogs than ever before, which means it’s essential for companies to include this in their online marketing campaigns.