These 10 tips will help improve the qual­i­ty of your video mar­ket­ing con­tent and ensure that your brand is viis­i­ble and per­sua­sive in the moments that real­ly mat­ter.

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Five years ago, brands had to hire a pro­fes­sion­al video­g­ra­ph­er or an entire film crew to shoot a YouTube video or a True­View ad. These spe­cial­ists might have used a Sony NEX-VG10, which cost $2,000, or a Pana­son­ic HDC-SDT-750, which cost $1,400 to shoot that online video. And they prob­a­bly used Adobe Pre­miere Pro or Apple’s Final Cut Pro to edit their mas­ter­piece.

But today, most of the mil­len­ni­als in your mar­ket­ing depart­ment or at your agency can eas­i­ly make a great video for your YouTube chan­nel, Face­book page, Twit­ter feed, site, blog, or newslet­ter. All they need is an iPhone 6S or 6S Plus, which are out­fit­ted with a 12 megapix­el cam­era with 4K HD video capa­bil­i­ty. That was the whole point of Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” cam­paign.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FwaV1pIJyZU

And the Mil­len­ni­als who work for you can assem­ble their footage into a great video or a True­View ad with a free app called Direc­tr for Busi­ness.

Even though your pro­duc­tions costs have gone done, your brand still needs to make videos worth watch­ing and cre­ate con­tent worth shar­ing. These 10 tips will instant­ly improve the qual­i­ty of your videos.

1. Download Directr for Business

The first thing that all the mem­bers of your video mar­ket­ing team should do is down­load Direc­tr for Busi­ness. YouTube acquired the video edit­ing start­up that devel­oped the app in August 2014.

Direc­tr is still the eas­i­est way to make great video for your busi­ness and now it’s free! Directr’s unique sto­ry­board-dri­ven cre­ation process gives your video mar­ket­ing team the ideas, guid­ance, and tools they need to cre­ate great HD video with just their iPhone and share it instant­ly to your web­site, blog or social media page. If you’re a con­tent mar­keter, Direc­tr for Busi­ness helps your brand pro­duce high-qual­i­ty video con­tent faster and more sim­ply than ever before.

Direc­tr for Busi­ness includes pro­fes­sion­al­ly cre­at­ed sto­ry­boards for:

• Cus­tomer tes­ti­mo­ni­als
• Prod­uct announce­ments
• How to tuto­ri­als
• Exec­u­tive pro­file videos
• Event videos
• Social media tips
• Press release sup­ple­ments

You team can also share the videos they cre­ate imme­di­ate­ly to YouTube, Face­book, and Twit­ter.

2. Craft Video Marketing Campaigns Your Audience Will Love

Video is a great way to con­nect with your audi­ence because it gives your com­pa­ny a human iden­ti­ty. Your video mar­ket­ing team can enter­tain them with office antics or inform them with prod­uct demos. Once they start film­ing, they’ll real­ize how many pos­si­bil­i­ties they have.

Here’s a list of ideas to get start­ed:

Make Your Audience Think

Visu­al­ly show your audi­ence how you came to a con­clu­sion or how you’re think­ing about a prob­lem with a video.

For exam­ple, one of the most famous videos, “Dove Real Beau­ty Sketch­es,” explored the gap between how oth­ers per­ceive us and how we per­ceive our­selves. Each woman was the sub­ject of two por­traits drawn by FBI-trained foren­sic artist Gil Zamo­ra: one based on her own descrip­tion, and the oth­er using a stranger’s obser­va­tions. The results were sur­pris­ing.

Announce Product Releases

Let peo­ple know what’s new and give sneak peeks of what’s com­ing.

For exam­ple, “The Revenant | Offi­cial Teas­er Trail­er” was pub­lished on July 17, 2015, even though the immer­sive and vis­cer­al cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence star­ring Leonar­do DiCaprio wasn’t going to be in the­aters until Dec. 25, 2015.

Tell Customers How To Use Your Product Or Service

A sim­ple demon­stra­tion can increase the like­li­hood of some­one buy­ing your prod­uct because they will tru­ly under­stand how it works and why they should use it.

For exam­ple, Lil Wayne’s Galaxy S7 still works, even after he pours cham­pagne on it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=l5aF23XpBwU

Demonstrate How To Set Up More Complex Products

Help a friend out. You know it’s com­pli­cat­ed, walk them through it.

For exam­ple, check out this video to see how Apple let iPhone 6s users learn how to use the timer fea­ture:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CCbWyYr82BM

Let Customers Share Their Experiences

Users often come up with great ways to use your prod­uct or ser­vice that you your­self hadn’t. Lis­ten to, con­sid­er, and share their thoughts.

For exam­ple, Bar­bie used hid­den cam­eras to cap­ture real reac­tions to girls imag­in­ing every­thing they might one day become.

Share Stories That Your Customers Relate To

Birth­days, reli­gious hol­i­days, sports games, high school dances, fam­i­ly trips… The list goes on and on. There are lifestyle sto­ries that define us as humans and enable us to relate to each oth­er in a way that read­ing from a screen can­not.

For exam­ple, 72 per­cent of girls feel that soci­ety lim­its them, by dic­tat­ing what they should and shouldn’t do. Some­times, these lim­it­ing mes­sages can be found in unex­pect­ed and sub­tle places – like on your phone.

They may seem small, but emo­jis are more than just fun­ny faces. They’ve become how girls express them­selves in text and online. But do emo­jis tru­ly rep­re­sent girls? Always asked, and it turns out 67 per­cent of girls feel that even emo­jis imply that girls are lim­it­ed.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3BjUvjOUMc

Encourage Further Action

Get your cus­tomers active­ly involved in using your prod­uct or ser­vice. Ask your users to make a video and share it back you. Hold a con­test. Encour­age your users to share the video you made.

For exam­ple, in cel­e­bra­tion of Inter­na­tion­al Wom­en’s Day, YouTube’s glob­al #DearMe ini­tia­tive to inspire and empow­er young girls every­where not only invit­ed 25 amaz­ing women to par­tic­i­pate in the #DearMe video below, it also asked view­ers to take part in the cam­paign by mak­ing their own #DearMe GIF. There were about 3,090 respons­es.

3. Keep The Visuals As Interesting As The Conversation

Here are a few point­ers for set­ting up for a con­ver­sa­tion and pro­duc­ing a beau­ti­ful­ly shot video.

• Loca­tion, loca­tion, loca­tion! When there is lack of action in the shots, you should find some­where that is aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing, but doesn’t draw too much away from the promi­nence of the speak­ers.
• Back­ground should be nat­ur­al and unim­pos­ing. It should not pull atten­tion away from the per­son in the shot, but sta­tion­ary objects should also not appear to be delib­er­ate­ly posi­tioned. If shoot­ing in a restau­rant or cafe, there will be peo­ple sit­ting down or walk­ing around in the back­ground. That’s OK because view­ers will expect the move­ment due to the nature of the set­ting.
• Use nat­ur­al light­ing if pos­si­ble. Arti­fi­cial light­ing is good if nat­ur­al light is unavail­able.
• Use a vari­ety of angles and frames. Switch­ing the point of view keeps the video inter­est­ing and con­tributes to the enter­tain­ment val­ue.
• Use wide shots and close ups. They are impor­tant to telling the whole sto­ry.
• Use Over-the-Shoul­der Shots or Point-of-View shots to spice things up a bit.
• Insert shots that bring the view­er into the con­ver­sa­tion. This tech­nique adds dimen­sion to the video. The best con­ver­sa­tion movies will reflect the emo­tions of the peo­ple speak­ing.

4. Think About What Direction You’re Looking

In Hol­ly­wood, eye line is defined basi­cal­ly as the direc­tion a char­ac­ter in a movie is look­ing. It’s impor­tant in fic­tion films to match the eye line of a char­ac­ter to an alter­nate shot of what he or she is look­ing at so the audi­ence can stay engaged and believe the sto­ry. When a char­ac­ter looks off screen with their eyes raised, you expect the next shot to be some­thing he’s look­ing at in the sky.

This may seem like a com­pli­cat­ed movie term, it’s also applic­a­ble to your videos in a sim­pler way. When you watch a busi­ness video, the speak­er is either talk­ing direct­ly to the cam­era, or look­ing of-screen if they’re being inter­viewed.

So, next time you’re mak­ing a video, make a deci­sion as to where you’re look­ing. If you’re shoot­ing some­one with a wan­der­ing eye, try hav­ing a co-direc­tor stand behind the cam­era so it’s eas­i­er for your speak­er to focus. If you’re solo, pick a spot to con­sis­tent­ly look at while you film.

5. Use Different Angles To Enhance Your Storytelling

Depend­ing on the angle and/or the frame of the shot, the image you film will con­vey a cer­tain mean­ing to your audi­ence. Here is how var­i­ous angles affect the mood of the shot and how to best por­tray your indi­vid­ual style:

• Eye Lev­el: This is the most com­mon­ly used angle and is shot at the eye-lev­el of your star or from your per­spec­tive as the film­mak­er.
• Birds-eye View: This angle is shot from direct­ly above the per­son or object you want to cap­ture.
• High Angle: The high angle can have great sig­nif­i­cance. Frame your sub­ject then angle the cam­era down to achieve the prop­er form. This point of view can make your sub­ject appear insignif­i­cant and/or infe­ri­or to oth­ers in the shot or can be intro­duce com­e­dy.
• Low Angle: Posi­tion the cam­era low and tilt it upwards at the sub­ject in order to ampli­fy the impor­tance and author­i­ty of the sub­ject. High angle shots and low angle shots are often jux­ta­posed in movies in order to show the rela­tion­ship between actors as shown below.
• Dutch Angle: This angle is often used by direc­tors in hor­ror or sci-fi films. It is a tilt­ed shot. Because the shot is tilt­ed, the hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal lines with­in the frame are no longer bal­anced, which cre­ates an intense emo­tion in the scene. Use this angle to show dis­ori­en­ta­tion and/or dis­com­fort.

When film­ing, try out a cou­ple dif­fer­ent angles for each shot or vary your angles from shot to shot. This vari­a­tion will make your sto­ry more inter­est­ing by pro­vid­ing visu­al stim­u­la­tion.

Exper­i­ment, explore, and most impor­tant­ly, have fun with your videos!

6. Use YouTube’s Video Ad Builder

Now, if you go to the Make a Video page in the Adver­tise sec­tion on YouTube, you’ll see “Make mak­ing video is easy with Direc­tr” at the top of the page. Or, your video mar­ket­ing team can use a ver­sion of the app that YouTube calls the Video Ad Builder (beta) to make:

• Intro to my Busi­ness (40 sec)
• Intro to my Busi­ness (60 sec)
• My Busi­ness Sto­ry (40 sec)
• My Busi­ness Sto­ry (60 sec)
• Cre­ate a Pro­mo­tion (40 sec)
• Prod­uct Demo (40 sec)
• Ser­vice Overview (40 sec)

These themes are designed for small busi­ness own­ers who want to lever­age the pow­er of video with­out the high costs of a video pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny. But these themes can also be used by con­tent mar­keters in medi­um-sized and large enter­pris­es who want to cre­ate new video con­tent dai­ly or mul­ti­ple times a week. And increas­ing­ly, they need to cre­ate more video con­tent to engage and influ­ence con­sumers through­out the pur­chase fun­nel, in order to increase rev­enues, and grow brand equi­ty.

So, here are some key tips to help your video mar­ket­ing team improve the qual­i­ty of these four com­mon ad types.

7. Introduce Your Business

Here are some top­ics and ques­tions you may find use­ful when intro­duc­ing your busi­ness.

Talk About Who You Are

Start by intro­duc­ing your­self and your busi­ness. This will help peo­ple put a name to a face, and make it eas­i­er for them to relate to you.

• What moti­vat­ed you to start your busi­ness? For exam­ple, did you open a bike shop because you want­ed to reduce your car­bon foot­print?
• What kind of exper­tise do you have? For exam­ple, are you a florist with a Mas­ters of Botany?
• How can you make your sto­ry more per­son­al? For exam­ple, if you are a piano instruc­tor, can you talk about your own musi­cal pref­er­ences and style?

Let People Know What You Can Do For Them

Put your pas­sion into action. Tell peo­ple what you do bet­ter or dif­fer­ent­ly and you’ll give them a con­crete rea­son to choose your busi­ness over oth­ers.

• How do you go the extra mile? For exam­ple, are you a bar­ber­shop that is open ear­ly so peo­ple can get a hair­cut before work?
• What gives your busi­ness an edge over oth­ers? For exam­ple, are you the only cater­ing com­pa­ny in your city that offers Mid­dle East­ern cui­sine?

Give People A Way To Contact You

Don’t for­get to let peo­ple know how they can reach you. Remem­ber to include things like your email, phone num­ber, street address, YouTube chan­nel, and com­pa­ny web­site.

When shoot­ing, keep the cam­eras rolling as much as pos­si­ble. This will help you cap­ture spon­ta­neous, unscript­ed, and often fun­ny moments on set that give your video an authen­tic feel.

Can’t decide what to wear? Try on those out­fits and let your friends decide! Sec­ond opin­ions are always use­ful.

8. Highlight Your Product

Here are some top­ics and ques­tions that you may find use­ful when talk­ing about your prod­uct or ser­vice.

Give People An Overview Of Your Product Or Service

Break­ing down your prod­uct or ser­vice is a great way to help peo­ple see all the work you put into it.

• What is your product/service? For exam­ple, are you a gro­cery store whose prod­uct is local­ly grown organ­ic foods?
• How does your product/service work? For exam­ple, are you a cos­met­ics com­pa­ny that mails new prod­ucts to cus­tomers each month?
• Does your product/service have any spe­cial fea­tures? For exam­ple, are you a steak­house with a one-of-a-kind Kobe beef hot dog?

What Makes Your Product Or Service Stand Out?

Think about what you offer that oth­ers don’t. What are the unique ele­ments of your prod­uct that could help it rise to the top of people’s minds?

• How does your busi­ness make people’s lives bet­ter? For exam­ple, do you man­u­fac­ture clean­ing prod­ucts that are free of harsh chem­i­cals?
• How do you make a last­ing impres­sion? For exam­ple, are you a mechan­ic that guar­an­tees your work for 10,000 miles?
• What part of your busi­ness makes it dif­fer­ent than oth­ers? For exam­ple, are you a music store with a stu­dio where cus­tomers can actu­al­ly record them­selves play­ing?

Show People Where They Can Learn More

Remem­ber to let inter­est­ed peo­ple know where they can get more info. Include things like your com­pa­ny web­site, YouTube chan­nel, phone num­ber, email address, and street address.

If you are fea­tur­ing a spe­cif­ic prod­uct in your video, make sure you have a few extras of that prod­uct on set, in case you want to mod­i­fy or alter it dur­ing the shoot.

Every­one loves new things! Whether it came in the mail or still has the store pack­ag­ing, reveal what’s in your box! From gad­gets to cloth­ing, show off your pur­chase!

9. Create A Promotion

Here are some key tips on how to cre­ate your pro­mo­tion.

Capture People’s Interest

It’s impor­tant to build excite­ment for your pro­mo­tion. The more buzz you cre­ate, the more atten­tion you’ll grab.

• What is your promotion’s main draw? For exam­ple, are you a gym offer­ing free per­son­al train­ing ses­sions with the pur­chase of any mem­ber­ship?
• What about your pro­mo­tion will sur­prise peo­ple? For exam­ple, are you a com­ic book store host­ing a live appear­ance by a famous artist?
• What makes your pro­mo­tion an exclu­sive event? For exam­ple, are you the only sneak­er store in your city that has stock of a very lim­it­ed edi­tion shoe?

Fill People In On The Details

Don’t for­get to let peo­ple know what it is they’re get­ting excit­ed for. Mak­ing your pro­mo­tion clear will make it eas­i­er for peo­ple to remem­ber.

• When does your pro­mo­tion begin and end? For exam­ple, are you a record store offer­ing a clear­ance sale for one week­end only?
• Are there excep­tions peo­ple should know about? For exam­ple, if you are a bar with Hap­py Hour spe­cials, are they valid on week­ends?
• Is there a spe­cial rea­son you’re hav­ing this pro­mo­tion? For exam­ple, are you an art gallery host­ing a par­ty to cel­e­brate your 10 year anniver­sary?

Let People Know How They Can Participate

You’ve got people’s atten­tion; now let them know how they can get involved. Remem­ber to pro­vide your company’s web­site, email, phone num­ber, and street address.

Keep the con­tent of your video as con­cise as pos­si­ble. The details of your pro­mo­tion are bet­ter con­veyed through the “About” sec­tion of your video or your web­site, or as a link to a sep­a­rate source.

Check out the tuto­r­i­al video below on main­tain­ing steadi­ness while shoot­ing. It gives you some tips and tricks for stand­ing, mov­ing, and sit­ting while film­ing.

10. Educate Your Customers

Here are some key tips on how to teach peo­ple about your busi­ness.

Build Trust

Intro­duc­tions are an impor­tant part of this process. Peo­ple will be more inter­est­ed in what you have to say when they feel like they know you.

• What expe­ri­ences or train­ing do you have? For exam­ple, are you a yoga instruc­tor that spent time abroad study­ing dif­fer­ent tech­niques?
• Are you proud of your track record? For exam­ple, are you a gui­tar instruc­tor who’s been active­ly teach­ing for decades?
• Do you have fans that love talk­ing about you? For exam­ple, if you are a hair salon, can your hap­py clients pro­vide tes­ti­mo­ni­als?

Give People A ‘101’ On What You Do

A crash course on your prod­uct or ser­vice is a great way to show peo­ple what kind of ben­e­fit you pro­vide.

• Would it help to show your prod­uct or ser­vice in action? For exam­ple, if you are ski shop, can you cre­ate tuto­r­i­al videos to help intro­duce new peo­ple to ski­ing?
• Can you sim­pli­fy parts of your busi­ness? For exam­ple, if you are a com­put­er repair shop, can you speak in layman’s terms?
• Can you pro­vide fol­low up advice and tips? For exam­ple, if you are a jew­el­ry store, can you show peo­ple how to clean their rings?

Let People Know Where They Can Get More Information

Don’t for­get to include things like your email, phone num­ber, street address, and com­pa­ny web­site. And if you have oth­er videos, encour­age peo­ple to sub­scribe to your YouTube chan­nel.

For instruc­tion­al videos, it helps to use a tri­pod and to shoot every­thing from the same posi­tion and angle. This will make it eas­i­er to edit togeth­er your favorite shots for the final video.

Want to take your iPhone videos to the next lev­el? With a high-pow­ered 1080p cam­era and a huge arse­nal of pro­fes­sion­al video-record­ing apps, the only thing miss­ing is clear, noise-free audio. So, get your­self a micro­phone.

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Want more ways to ensure that your brand is mak­ing videos worth watch­ing and shar­ing? Then check out these 29 mind-blow­ing strate­gic mar­ket­ing insights from Buz­zFeed.