What is a Music Promotional Video?
If you are a music artist trying to showcase your musical talents to get continuous benefits of booking more jobs then this type of video is for you. Unlike a music video you would see on YouTube from your favorite music artist with a $40-$100 thousand dollar budget. This videos goal is to capture the energy of music performance at a lower cost. As it is not necessary for the video having a live audience always helps to have more engagement in the video and give the viewer a feel of what a live performance from you may look like for them. It also can show that you have a following depending on the size of the audience.
Again having an audience is not completely necessary but a benefit for those who have a hard time getting warmed up to playing to a camera which doesn’t always come off as natural as playing for a live crowd. We have done it both ways and just depends on the personal preference of the artist.
2 types of ways to get paid:
1) Public Venue – paid for the amount of people that come
2) Private event – paid for the full event at a bulk price
Whether you are being paid to perform at an event for a paycheck from the venue or paid by the number of people come to the event you will want a marketing tool to attract the right audience. This promo video can be used to send to the event coordinator that is looking for a music artist to perform or you can use it to promote the event and invite followers to attend. The goal here is to get you paid with landing higher paying events or bringing in more attendees.
One of the first steps booking agencies do that work with marketing artists is share any sample content they have to event coordinators. Whether you have a booking agent or not this is the best practice to get gigs that pay more. The better you represent yourself the more likely you are to get higher paying performances.
The best time to film this kind of video
There are two main times in your music career as an artist you would be ready to film this type of video.
1) You have money to spend on marketing and you book a shoot at a studio or venue to record your promotional video to get in the door at larger venues.
2) You have been booked for a great looking venue and want to capture the experience and energy that the crowd brings so you can showcase some of your best work.
Where can I use this video?
The better question here is where you wouldn’t use a promotional video? With social media videos being some of the top engaged content on the internet today it makes sense to just share the video wherever possible because you never know who your promotional video might reach. Using the promotional videos with local artists we have seen them quickly attract booking agencies, venues, music festivals, and more.
If you were to use this kind of video on your website. According to Forbes from a study in 2018. “The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video”. Being an artist you want to show off your craft and video is one of the best ways to do that if done professionally.
Some samples of places that TruFocus has seen clients use their promotional videos is places such as Facebook, Instagram, blogs, YouTube, Vimeo, and many more. The best part of it is that unless you put ad spend on these videos hosting the video on any of these pages is completely free of charge to you as a user of the platform. That is 24/7 marketing on your website or other marketing platforms which you don’t even have to pay for.
For the fastest Return on Investment (ROI) we learned that the best way to do so is sending the promo video directly to any potential clients straight to their email. The video host (YouTube/Vimeo) you send to them does not matter as long as you provide them with the direct link to your work. Not all results are guaranteed but we became curious to know from an artist a few years ago that filmed 4 great music promos with our team how long it took him to get his investment back. He had said after just 3 live gigs that the videos paid for themselves on top of 15 additional gigs that year all thanks to the videos he had created with us. Samples of those for video can be found in our Vimeo showcasing. CLICK HERE
Shoot details for a music video
Final Video Length: These videos typically range from anywhere from 2-5 minutes in length depending on how many songs you want included. Sometimes the shoot may just be 1 song all the way through. Another option is the highlights of maybe 3-4 songs such as this sample: CLICK HERE. Depending on the artist’s preference either option works for marketing purposes. We would not recommend anything longer than 6 minutes as the engagement of your viewers will drop-off
Shoot Duration: If the shoot is in a studio then it could take around 3-5 hours depending on the number of songs for the video and how much time is needed for setup. We have been in studios with very little lighting that require us to bring a full lighting setup which requires additional time for setup. There are also the other studios that have the perfect lighting setup and require no additional lighting so you can start shooting as soon as the camera is setup.
By filming a performance live you are looking more to 1-2 hours since you do not have the opportunity for a re shoot that same day and typically very little ability to setup more lights.
Number of Cameras: For any kind of music promo video you will want between 3-5 cameras depending on the location you are filming at. You can get away with 1 or 2 if you are on a budget but it is not preferred method for best results. The more cameras you have the more efficient the time on the shoot will be because if you only have 1 or 2 cameras you will need to do the same song over and over to get the different shots where as if you have 5 cameras and you have a good take you could be done faster with more camera options.