Just like any other business, nonprofit organizations can and should use videos to leverage their content marketing strategy. But if you’re not an expert in video production, it may be challenging to create effective, impactful video content to captivate and motivate your audience.
If you’re wondering how to make a nonprofit video to enhance your organization’s marketing strategy, read on below to find out some helpful tips that can help jumpstart your nonprofit video content efforts.
Importance of Nonprofit Video Content
There are many reasons a nonprofit organization may use video content in its marketing efforts. Whether your organization is looking to fundraise, spread awareness of a specific cause, or simply tell a touching story, video is a great medium and resource for doing so.
The amount of video content available online, such as on social media platforms, continues to grow every day. If you want your organization to keep up with this ever-changing landscape, creating nonprofit marketing videos and extending your audience reach globally is important.
Video content offers a resource for online users that is unmatched. This is because videos are more easily grasped, especially for millennials and younger generations. Nowadays, many users may lack the attention span or desire to read about a cause or fundraising effort written online. Videos, on the other hand, give information in a short amount of time and offer visuals that are captivating and enjoyable for the user.
Additionally, collecting donations can become much more effective with well-produced, well-written, and emotionally driven video content. You’ll be able to offer more information, increase awareness of your organization, and engage more people over time.
Tips for Creating Compelling Nonprofit Videos
If you’re looking to improve your content strategy by implementing videos in your nonprofit’s marketing efforts, but you’re feeling overwhelmed, consider these tips as you figure out where to start.
1. Define Your Goal
First, you’ll want to identify your goals for your nonprofit video content. This will ensure that you create videos catered to what your nonprofit is looking for. Build your content with a defined end goal.
While awareness of your organization is important, nonprofit marketing videos can also help with fundraising and donation efforts. In fact, video is one of the most effective methods for driving donations to a cause, and more than half of people decide to donate after watching a video advertisement online.
Defining your goals from the get-go will ensure that any video content used in your marketing strategy will be a valuable tool in running a successful fundraising campaign.
2. Set Your Budget
Producing videos can be expensive, and nonprofit organizations may not always have the money or resources to create high-quality and effective content. Before starting the video production process, you should consider your budget and how it may affect any creative capabilities your organization has.
A lower budget will likely result in a lower-quality and less effective video. You’ll want to keep professionalism in mind while making your video content, especially if you’re asking for donations. Amateur-looking videos may not attract potential donors as effectively.
If you’re worried about not having the funds for a higher budget, consider what you can afford to do in-house versus what you may need to outsource to ensure a high-quality result. However, it’s important to remember that a larger budget is more likely to result in a better return on investment, so spending more money initially may be to your benefit.
3. Tell Your Story
Videos are the perfect medium for telling a story. If you want to encourage your audience to donate, you will likely need to present your organization’s backstory, as well as the story behind your fundraising efforts. This ensures that your potential donors are more likely to be engaged and be triggered into action.
Consider sharing your nonprofit’s unique story by offering your audience a compelling and emotional perspective. Introduce your staff members, volunteers, and beneficiaries who may be behind your cause. Remember, people want to help people. With the right story, your nonprofit’s video will appear more authentic, original, and relatable.
4. Educate Your Audience
When your audience knows exactly where their support will be going, they are more likely to donate to your cause. In your video content, consider providing information not only about your fundraising campaign, but also about the missions and values of your organization. You are more likely to convince potential donors to take action when they are fully educated on who you are and your motives.
5. Keep It Simple
Telling a story, especially one that’s highly emotional, can become complicated rather quickly. Instead, it’s best to keep your video as simple as possible. If you try to fit too much information into one short video, you will likely overload or lose the interest of your audience. Some may not even watch your video through to the end.
With so much content to choose from online, you are working with a short attention span from your viewers. Keep your video short by immediately grabbing your audience’s attention, stating the problem, providing your message or solution, including only the most important information and, finally, asking for action.
6. Have a Clear Call to Action
What exactly are you looking for from your viewers? More donations? Awareness of a problem or cause? Mailing List participants?
Video can be effective at attracting all of these individuals. However, your video must have a clear call to action so that your viewers watch your video and act accordingly. For example, if you are fundraising, include a link to guide your viewers so they can easily find where to donate. Without a call to action, you may lose potential donors who won’t take the time to research your organization or fundraising campaign themselves.
7. Edit Carefully
The editing phase in video creation is just as important as the production phase. Editing ensures that your video is easy to watch and user-friendly. If you have too much footage, this is a great time to narrow it down and include only the most important information.
Additionally, adding other elements during the editing phase, such as sound effects, music, subtitles, or other visuals, can help engage your audience more effectively. You’ll also want to cut out any parts in your video where the speaker may pause or stutter. This will shorten your video and prevent your audience from becoming distracted.
8. Share It
Once you’re ready to show off your video, there are many ways you can go about sharing it online. Social media is a great place to start, along with YouTube and your organization’s website. You may also consider including the video in emails or newsletters from your nonprofit.
Sharing your video on different platforms is an important part of engaging and targeting the right users. You may decide to only share your video organically, or you can optimize your video by running an ad campaign to reach a wider audience.
9. Work With a Professional Video Production Company
One of the best tips we can offer nonprofit organizations is to work with professionals in the video production industry. While you may have many questions about hiring a video production company, working with experts gives you the advantage of producing higher-quality video content. This type of company can also offer an unbiased viewpoint, since they are focused more on user experience and effective information sharing.
At Real Media, we produce high-quality videos for all types of brands and organizations, including those that are nonprofit. If you’re ready to start your next project, contact our team today at 913-894-8989.