Video is the window into your non-profit. Here are some things to keep in mind.
- It is better to have more close-ups now since many are watching videos on mobile phones or other small devices.
- Your call to action should have three parts: what to do, why to do it and how to do it. For example, if you are looking for donations, be clear about why they should donate, what the impact will be and of course make it easy for them to do so.
- If the budget is tight, you can get away with using a smartphone and a desklamp for the visuals, but good sound is crucial. Invest in a microphone.
- An 8 second attention grabber and with some foreshadowing of what is coming (even just text) is a great and simple way to start and keep people’s attention if you don’t have anything else in mind.
- Talk about 1 thing. It can have 20 steps or parts, but focus on overall message. It does not have to appeal to everyone in your audience–specific sells and very specific sells even more.
One last tip for after you have a video ready – Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world. If you are uploading it here (or even on vimeo or other platforms), make sure you are optimizing the title, the description and tags. If you do have a marketing budget, marketing videos is fairly inexpensive at the moment on both Youtube and Facebook so it is certainly worth testing.