Even a narrowly focused enterprise solution (this one is aimed at data analysts and data scientists) requires an understanding of the business problem and the technology involved. To depict the technology in a way that makes sense to a technical audience takes collaboration with subject matter experts. This effort needs to be figured into the cost when planning an enterprise solution explainer video.
Say you’re in marketing, and you have been tasked to produce a short video, or a series of videos, to support or establish a position in the marketplace for a technology solution. Here are things to consider when planning an enterprise solution explainer video for one of these typical technology topics:
- New or improved service or solutionplanning an enterprise solution explainer video
- Reorganized/repositioned software suite or set of products
- New or undervalued product features
- New professional services
- Recently set up “center of excellence”
And let’s say you’re fortunate enough to have a deadline. (I say “fortunate” because I agree with legendary management consultant Peter Drucker that “Work without deadlines is not work assigned, but work toyed with.”)
Anyway, you’ve decided on using video for your enterprise technology solution 2-Minute Explainer because video is a great way to put things across quickly. Here are three things you need to consider in planning an enterprise solution explainer video.
What happens in the production process?
- Compression. Solution features and benefits that can be talked about for hours will be boiled down to two minutes or less
- Audience definition. For enterprise solutions, is can be a broad audience like “IT and business executives” or a pretty narrow one like “middleware admins.” What often happens is that halfway through the project, someone realizes that some new constituency needs to be taken into account.
- Rethinking. Subject matter experts are probably being asked to look at things in new ways. Some of this rethinking is likely to take place as the video develops.
- Politics. If there’s more than one team involved — it’s a suite of products, for example — managers will try to make sure their product gets top billing.
- Change. There’s a very good chance that a product being introduced or reintroduced is going to do some shape-shifting of its own several times between the start and the deadline. So you may need to re-imagine, rewrite, and execute new visual approaches quickly.
All these issues affect cost — and how you’ll meet the deadline.