How to Create a Best In Class Video for Your Nonprofit’s Next Fundraising Campaign

CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT! Is there a bigger buzzword in digital marketing than CONTENT?!

Well to be completely honest, there is not, but that is for a good reason. Quality and effective content is one of this biggest factors in the success of your digital marketing efforts. “Content is king”, as they say, and in many cases, video content reigns as king of it all.

So what makes a good campaign video, especially in a competitive nonprofit space? We are here to dissect just that – check out these pillars of a quality campaign video below!.

Purpose & Audience

You have limited resources, but this is an important project! This video could very well be the difference between success and failure of your upcoming campaign. So let’s invest time into this one main campaign video and get the most out of it. Make sure to define early on who is going to be watching your video, and what action you want them to take after watching! Know the purpose of your video, and do not stray.

Length

How long should a campaign video be? Well, first question… where is your campaign video going to live? Is it on a landing page? Will it only live on your social media? First, define this, and then consider the following.

If your video is going to live on your website, then make sure that your video is no less than 1 minute, but no more than 2.5 minutes! Since they are on your website, we can assume that you have their full attention, but you cannot abuse that by expecting them to watch a short film.

But what if this video is going to be shown on social media? Well, since social media has many voices on it, you do not have the luxury of their full attention space. So lets shorten your video down, and get to the brass tacks.

Here is the double whammy! If you make a full 2 minute video to drive your campaign, the chances that you can break that video down into smaller segments for social media is pretty high! So maybe invest in the longer film, and then break that bad boy down into smaller chunks.

Content

So you have decided on a purpose of the video, we have determined the length that your video needs to be, and now… what will the actual content of the video include?

I will let you discuss that amongst yourselves, but make sure to create a compelling NARRATIVE ARC in your video. By that we mean that there should be an introduction that creates a sense of curiosity, a crescendo to the big idea (yes, this can include a cheesy musical crescendo), and then finally, this big ask!

Your video needs movement, and it needs movement towards the ultimate purpose of your video, which we discussed earlier. Keep those three sections of your video in mind. There many other things that you can consider (as we discuss in the video), but ultimately if you follow this narrative arc, you are off to a great start, and a successful campaign.

Adapting for Multiple Platforms

We discussed this earlier, but your video can and should adapt to work on various platforms! Your audience is spread around the internet on Facebook, Google, Youtube, Instagram, Email, Snapchat, and much more… and each platform engages differently. So, let’s make sure that our video is effective on all of them.

This is something to keep in mind as you create your video – is every section of the video dissectable for a 30 second Instagram clip? Or perhaps an Instagram story? Keep every platform in mind as you go about making your video, and be strategic there, depending on what platforms you are most engaged on.

Well it looks like you now have everything you need to create an awesome and effective campaign video! Sounds like you have no excuses from here on out… so just hit record, and market yourself where people are already at, using video, a medium that people are now responding to more than anything else.

We cannot wait to see your campaign video come up on our social feed!

Michael Goodrum