How To Use Time Lapse Video for Marketing Your Business
How To Use Time Lapse Video for Marketing Your Business
Normal video frame rates used today can vary from 24 frames per second to hundreds of frames per second (fps). However, when the fps is greatly reduced to a few frames per minute or even an hour, the effect speeds up the subject of your video. Processes requiring hours, days, or even weeks will appear to occur in the span of a few seconds or minutes. This is called time lapse video, and it enables you to view processes outside the normal range of human perception. Although time lapse is a well known video technique, businesses have yet to exploit it fully in their marketing efforts. Using time lapse video for marketing your business can be a smart option.
Time lapse video increases engagement and interest
Time lapse video can engage the viewer in any number of ways. Because it’s not commonly used in marketing, it’s a novelty for many consumers. This, plus video quality, will be enough to hold the viewer’s attention. Novelty is the reason for the effectiveness of time lapse whiteboard videos, in which a person rapidly sketches pictures or writes notes while accompanied by a narrative soundtrack.
Example of a time lapse video by Miceli Productions. STANLEY DURA-GLIDE GREENSTAR.
Time lapse also reveals interesting patterns such as stars moving in circles in the night sky, indicating the earth’s rotation. Fascinating lighting changes throughout the day are revealed. It’s well known in outdoor photography and painting, that an outdoor scene appears differently throughout the course of the day as the lighting changes. This effect has inspired painters to portray the same subject under different lighting conditions. Time lapse lets viewers watch these changes evolve in front of their eyes. Another interesting effect is the flight patterns of aircraft at night near an airport. Time lapse will make their lights appear like firefly activity.
Effects such as these can transform your marketing message into something artistic and even poetic. On the other hand, you can also make the ordinary appear humorous when certain types of activities are sped up, especially when accompanied by the right musical soundtrack. Time lapse effects can inspire, entertain, and educate.
Time Lapse Video for Marketing Uses
Covering every possible marketing use of time lapse video isn’t feasible because there are too many of them. How it’s used will depend on the marketing message, the business, and the imagination of those who create it. However, here are three examples to give you an idea of its versatility:
Telling a Story
Choose one of your busiest employees who moves around a lot and create a time lapse video of the person’s workday. You might title it “A Day in the Work Life of John Smith.” Perhaps John Smith is the CEO, a supervisor, or a hard worker in the shipping department. A time lapse video that compresses this person’s day into one or two minutes does a good job of highlighting the dedication and professionalism of your best people.
Miceli Productions used time lapse and hyper lapse as part of a tour of the Kingswood Oxford science building.
Showing a Manufacturing or Construction Process
The manufacture and assembly of complex products such as cars, sailboats, or airplanes in one or two minutes makes for fascinating viewing. It doesn’t matter whether the process is done manually, with automation, or with robotics, the video will hold the attention of your viewers.
Use time lapse video for marketing to impress customers, business prospects, or potential new investors. Many construction companies use time lapse to good effect by showing a multi-month construction project, from start to finish, in a short video.
Showing Your Customer Fulfillment Process
Even though the video is obviously sped up, a time lapse will nevertheless convey a subliminal message of a fast and efficient customer fulfillment process. Choose a complex order and follow its processing, including the warehouse activity involved in picking, packaging, and shipping the order to the customer. You might even include its delivery to a smiling and satisfied customer in either accelerated mode or at a normal video speed.
Today, people have shorter attention spans and less time for viewing lengthy videos. The time lapse technique readily accommodates this trend by compressing lengthy processes into a one or two minute video that will engage the viewer. To learn more about using this technique to showcase your business, don’t hesitate to contact us.
You don’t have to be a marketing expert or public relations professional to know that people by nature are curious, inquisitive creatures. They love to be let in on a secret. They like to be “in-the-know”. Capitalize on this by including a behind-the-scenes video of your company and your team at work. When you are working on an exciting new venture or planning to introduce a brand new product or service, consider making a video about the experience and sharing it with your target audience. This is beneficial for a number of reasons, primarily to build up hype and get your target audience more intrigued about what you are doing. Creating a video like this will also give your viewers, particularly your loyal followers, a sense of inclusiveness and appreciation, letting them know you value them as customers and as people.
People are addicted to how-to videos these days. They can watch videos of people making mouth-watering dishes for hours or watch a tutorial on how to do makeup and hair. Consider including one (or several) how-to videos in your marketing campaign. If you run a clothing line, do a video on the fifteen different ways to wear one of the scarves that you sell. If you own and operate a bar, create tutorials on fun, seasonal cocktails. Get creative about how you can film how-to videos and if you develop a large, loyal viewership, consider regularly churning out new videos every week or month. The key to successfully creating how-to videos is to use a mix of information and entertainment. Today, people have become more sophisticated in the way they receive content. They do not want to be informed without also being entertained and they don’t want to be entertained without also being informed. Find a blend of both and make sure to infuse these key ingredients into every how-to video you make.
