2005 was an awesome year. I had graduated college two years prior and was starting my production career with great ambition. That year, iTunes introduced podcasting and YouTube had launched, quickly gaining traction. To say that I was psyched on where the video industry was heading is an understatement. Fast forward ten years and -- wow. The possibilities for brands to create cost-effective, original programming for customers is limitless. Enter episodic content.
MARKETING AS A PROFIT CENTER?
If you don’t already know the RedBull content marketing story, check out Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose' podcast episode Red Bull and LEGO Get a Leg Up with Branded Entertainment. In a nutshell RedBull has become a media powerhouse adding a TV Network to it’s content portfolio and generating additional revenue from licensing out their photo/video media.
“RedBull is a media company, in every sense of the word … they are generating media type revenues and I just think it’s an amazing model. I know we talk until we’re blue in the face about RedBull but we should be looking at this model and there should be a lot of people saying ‘we should be doing something like that’ - Joe Pulizzi
BUDGET
In their podcast Rose adds to the conversation saying, “...and it doesn’t have to be at that scale. I’m seeing small companies do this, I see non profits do this, I see sole proprietors do this; this happens at every size of company and it’s not just for the large companies that can afford to do giant media deals with Apple and that sort of thing. This can be done at much more modest scale”.
And he’s absolutely right. Creating episodic content can be an extremely cost effective production approach to building and marketing to a loyal audience of customers. Why? Efficiencies can be built in by creating a template approach to each episode. Once the creative treatment and “show” format have been determined, video producers can often crank out multiple episodes quicker by maximizing production days and post-production editing. There are many factors that contribute to a production budget, but in some cases we’ve been known to bring the cost per episode down to less than $2000.
INSPIRATION
Not sure what to produce? Here are a few Plum produced ideas to get the wheels spinning:
- Train your clients on how to use your product
- Provide support to your partners & dealers
- Inspire your customers with a DIY series
Whether the goal is to reduce call center volume, promote your product or create great entertainment to build an audience, Plum’s production team can help you brainstorm a creative approach to achieve your goals and feed those social media machines.
Need management buy in? Give us a ring. We look forward to producing your first pilot episode and assisting with the creative for your next pitch!