Did you know 37% of marketers admit they haven’t yet invested in video production simply because they don’t know where to start? As it turns out, this is the biggest barrier, followed by a lack of time and clarity on ROI.
We’ve been using video to grow VEED for a while now, so we won’t sugarcoat it: making videos does take time, especially at the start as you get familiar with the tools and iron out your processes.
But we can say this for sure — it gets better (and faster as you master the high-impact skill of making videos), and the ROI follows too.
Take it from a whopping 93% of marketers who say video marketing delivers a strong ROI. From brand awareness to sales and internal training, video is a powerful tool to achieve a variety of goals.
As for where to start: with a full breakdown of the creative video production, broadly divided into four phases. So, let’s take you through these phases right away.
- Phase 1: Planning and pre-production
- Phase 2: Production - Bringing the vision to life
- Phase 3: Post-production – Editing, branding, and exporting videos
- Phase 4: Distribution - publishing and measuring video performance
The role of professional video production in business success
Before we actually dive into the video production workflow, it's important to highlight just how crucial it is for business success (when done right).
Video has become an essential tool for businesses, whether it’s for marketing, training, product demos, or corporate messaging. A well-executed type of video can capture attention, simplify complex ideas, and strengthen audience engagement—helping brands communicate more effectively and drive results.
Why businesses need high-quality videos
Video is a core part of a successful marketing strategy, with 89% of businesses using it to reach their audience. More importantly, 95% of marketers say video plays a crucial role in their overall approach.
And it’s not just for external marketing—video is just as valuable for training and education. Employees retain information better through video than text-based formats like PDFs and slide decks. In fact, 7 out of 10 employees remember video content more effectively, and 72% find short training videos engaging.
How video quality impacts brand perception
Not all videos deliver the same impact. Without planning and structure, a video can fail to hold attention, making its key message forgettable.
Video quality also plays a huge role in trust—91% of consumers say it affects how they perceive a brand, up from 87% last year. Poor lighting, muffled audio, or shaky footage can make a video feel unprofessional and push viewers away.
That said, professional video production doesn’t always mean expensive, high-end production. It’s more about following best practices—clear audio, steady visuals, and a structured approach—rather than relying on fancy equipment. Many businesses create high-quality videos from home studios or with simple, budget-friendly setups.
The 4-phase video production workflow
[#TOC1]Phase 1: Planning and pre-production[#TOC1]
The first phase involves thorough planning — all to make sure your efforts are strategic and purposeful. We’ve broken the work into five parts to make it easy to follow along:
Define your video’s purpose and audience
Start by revisiting your business objectives to identify your video production goals.
For example, if the objective is to improve employee training, set a goal to increase engagement. Launching a new product or entering a new market? Make brand awareness your goal.
You can set any goal really, as long as it’s specific, measurable, and tied to your business objectives.
Next, determine who will watch your videos — answering the following key factors:
- Demographics (age bracket, location, gender, etc.)
- Interests, pain points, goals, and challenges
- Preferences (topics they most engage with, platforms they use)
Budget your professional video production
53% of marketers allot a third of their budget (or less) to video content creation. Your budget can be more or less the same, but consider the following factors before you call the shots:
In-house vs. outsourced production
Outsourcing filmmaking to a production company is ideal if you’re doing a one-off video project. For longer-term production, handling things in-house is far more economical.
Alternatively, handle parts of the process yourself — say, recording content — and outsource other parts such as video editing to freelancers or a specialized production team.
Key cost factors
Budget for the following:
- Equipment. Cameras, lighting, and sound.
- Talent and voiceover. Hiring actors or professional voice artists
- Location and set design. Renting spaces or setting up a home/office studio
- Props and wardrobe. Branded uniforms, soft design items, or any necessary materials
- Video creation and editing tool. Software to record content and edit videos (add special effects, transitions, branding, subtitles, etc.)
- Video hosting and storage platform. A tool to manage video streaming, storage, and analytics
Choose the right video format and style
Next, consider the complexity of your message, audience preferences, and available resources to decide which video formats to focus on.
Every format comes with its strengths and trade-offs. Live-action feels personal but takes extensive logistics planning. Animation, on the other hand, is a budget-friendly choice for evergreen content and doesn’t need reshoots.
Use the table below to match your needs with the right format:
Location, talent, and production setup
Renting a studio is cost-effective for one-off campaigns or high-end shoots needing pro equipment and diverse backdrops. But if you’re producing videos regularly, an in-house setup saves more in the long run.
You'll also need to decide between hiring actors, featuring your team, or using AI avatars.
Actors bring a professional edge, perfect for high-production or scripted content. If you’re going for a more authentic feel, featuring employees will work perfectly — just make sure you provide them with a prep guide with key points, wardrobe tips, and on-camera best practices.
On a tight budget or localizing content? AI avatars are a solid choice. With VEED, for example, you can make an animated talking avatar to use in your videos, pairing it with an AI voice or cloning your voice to make it more realistic.
Script and storyboard
Last stop before you go into filming mode: plan, script, and storyboard your narrative.
Rather than just delivering information, scripting helps shape your story arc — essential for making your video more engaging and memorable.
Start by identifying the specific problem your content will address. Then, think of relatable examples to illustrate it. Use this foundation to:
- Plan your hook. Open with a conflict, scenario, or thought-provoking question that makes viewers want to keep watching.
- Build the story. Map out real-world situations your target audience faces. Keep the language simple and avoid technical jargon here.
- End with a call to action. What do you want your viewers to do next? Watch another video, take a quiz (for training content), or visit your website?
Now go ahead and sketch out key scenes, adding notes on camera angles, transitions, and movements. This process, storyboarding, helps you refine your visuals before you record.
[#TOC2]Phase 2: Production - Bringing the vision to life[#TOC2]
Here’s where you decide on equipment to buy, nailing the lightning, and taking steps to enhance audio quality:
Essential equipment for professional video production
The good news is you can get video gear for any budget — just make sure it fits your content needs:
Cameras
DSLRs are perfect for high-quality, professional video shooting — giving you more depth control with interchangeable lenses.
Mirrorless cameras, on the other hand, give you real-time advanced autofocus — ideal for creating vlogs, social media, and interview videos.
You can also always use your smartphone camera. They’re great for recording on-the-go content for social media.
Stabilization
Next, to reduce camera shake and capture smooth shots, you’ll want one of these:
- Tripods keep the camera steady — ideal for interviews, static shots, and controlled movements like panning, tilting, and time-lapses.
- Gimbals actively stabilize movement enabling smooth, cinematic shots — perfect for tracking shots, sweeping panoramas, and moving scenes in vlogs, events, and action films.
- Stabilizers balance the camera for handheld shots — great for dynamic movement in action sequences, event coverage, travel vlogs, and documentary-style videos.
Lighting
With the visuals set, nail the lighting for a professional output. As Tim Zaal, VEED’s Video Content Creator, says, “Lighting is everything. You can have the most expensive camera, but without good lighting, the video won’t be any good. So, prioritize lighting.”
For best results, place your main light in front of you.
If you’re using a two-point setup, position the key light at a 45-degree angle to create depth with subtle shadows, then balance those shadows with a softer fill light.
Filming outdoors? Shoot in the morning or late afternoon for softer, more flattering light.
Microphones
Choose from:
- Lavalier mic. Hands-free, ideal for interviews and presentations.
- Shotgun mic. Highly directional, best for film shoots and outdoor recording.
- USB mic. Plug-and-play, great for voiceovers, streaming, and remote work.
- Handheld mic. Versatile for live events, public speaking, and performances.
If your budget allows, consider an external recorder for even higher audio quality.
Filming best practices for businesses
Now keep the following in mind as you hit record:
- Remove background clutter so the focus stays on your subject.
- Use windows, objects, and doorways to frame your subject naturally and create a visually engaging shot.
- Position your subject’s eyes along the upper third of the frame, leaving just enough space above their head.
To ensure your audio recording is high-quality:
- Record in a quiet, well-cushioned room with as little background noise as possible.
- Use rugs, curtains, or acoustic panels to absorb echoes from bare walls and glass.
- Keep your mouth 4–6 inches from the mic to avoid sounding too loud on screen.
Pro tip: If your audio still ends up grainy, use VEED’s Clean Audio tool to reduce background noise — but, of course, it won’t work magic.
Now that you’re ready to record, take the following shots to create dynamic footage and smooth transitions:
- Wide, medium, close-up. Film the same scene in a wide shot (full scene), medium shot (waist-up), and close-up (details, expressions) to add variety in post-production.
- Over-the-shoulder and side angles. For interviews and demos, record from different angles (e.g., 45-degree side shot or over-the-shoulder) to keep visuals engaging.
And don’t forget to capture B-roll content to supplement your main video with context, visual interest, and smooth transitions. Some ideas to get you going: cutaways, product close-ups, scenic shots, or story-supporting action clips.
[#TOC3]Phase 3: Post-production – Editing, branding, and exporting videos[#TOC3]
To breeze through this editing phase, invest in a tool that offers all the necessary features for streamlining every step of your video workflow.
You can check out these 17 best editing software creators swear by to decide. Or, take our word and try VEED — it lets you record and edit in one place, collaborate with your team, and use AI features to simplify the process.
Either way, once you’ve the right tool in your stack:
Edit and refine your video
As you edit, make sure your video structure follows the story arc. You’ll also want to work on your:
- Colors. Use color correction and grading for consistent lighting and tones across scenes. Also, adjust brightness, shadows, and contrast to avoid dull or overly dark footage.
- Pacing. Match your message’s rhythm with the content — fast cuts for dynamic content like promotional videos and slower pacing for educational videos.
- Brevity. Remove unnecessary shots and filler words (use the one-click Clean Audio feature in VEED to do this instantly) for a tighter, more engaging video.
- Music. Add background music that complements your content — use stock audio or buy licensed tracks for commercial use.
- Transitions. Use crossfades, match cuts, and other transitions as needed — overdoing it can feel unpolished. Switch angles naturally with movements like gestures or turns.
Incorporate branding and accessibility elements
For branding your videos:
- Add your logo, fonts, colors, and visual elements. Creating a brand kit in VEED streamlines this, saving you from repeatedly adding branding to each marketing video and helping your team create branded content faster. Working on multiple projects? Set up multi-kits to keep things efficient.
- Add subtitles to improve accessibility and engagement. But instead of manually subtitling videos, use AI to auto-generate captions — just make sure to review them quickly for accuracy.
- Use on-screen graphics and animations for clarity. Leverage visual elements like text overlays, icons, and motion graphics to simplify complex ideas and break visual monotony. Callouts, lower thirds, and bullet points also reinforce key messages, enhancing learning.
Optimize video formats for different platforms
Finally, for some final edits:
- Resize videos to fit the platform(s) you’ll publish them. Again, automate this step in VEED by adjusting aspect ratios and dimensions in just a click.
- Export files in the right format and resolution. MP4 is widely supported and balances quality with file size. You can also lower the bitrate (e.g., 8-10 Mbps for 1080p, 20-30 Mbps for 4K) to reduce size without visible quality loss. If high resolution isn’t necessary, downscaling 4K to 1080p helps reduce file size, making uploads faster and storage more efficient.
[#TOC4]Phase 4: Distribution - publishing and measuring video performance[#TOC4]
This last phase focuses on tracking results, testing, and optimizing your efforts:
Distribute your videos
Don’t let your videos sit on one channel — repurpose them to maximize reach and impact.
For instance, embed YouTube videos in blog posts or use a video hosting platform to share them on your web pages.
Trim longer videos into bite-sized clips for LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, highlighting the most engaging moments. You can also share full videos in email campaigns or break them into smaller clips, pairing each with a short, engaging email copy.
For internal use, host corporate videos in a Learning Management System (LMS) to centralize training, structure learning paths, and measure effectiveness.
Track video performance and ROI
Lastly, identify key performance metrics to measure your video strategy’s success, ensuring they align with the goals you set in phase one:
- Brand awareness: Views, impressions, unique viewers, watch time, social shares.
- Engagement and retention: Average watch duration, audience retention %, likes, comments, shares.
- Lead generation: Click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, form fills, email signups.
- Sales/Conversions: Conversion rate, ROI, add-to-cart clicks, purchase completions.
- Website traffic: Click-through rate (CTR), referral traffic from video, bounce rate.
- Learning and education: Completion rate, rewatches, time spent on page (if embedded).
Setting these metrics is just the start though. Regularly revisit them to identify which videos drive the best results.
As you create more content, start testing different elements — such as video length, thumbnails, titles, formats, and CTA placement — to see what resonates most with potential customers.
Ending note
Video production may seem overwhelming at first, but with a structured approach, it becomes a powerful tool for marketing, training, and communication. Whether you’re creating product demos, onboarding videos, or brand stories, following best practices ensures your content is engaging and effective. And remember—professional doesn’t mean expensive. With the right strategy and tools, you can produce high-quality videos that drive real results. So, start where you are, refine your process, and keep creating.