Disclaimer: I mention several gear in this article to make marketing videos using your smartphone easier. These are gear are I personally use or are well reviewed, so have included some as affiliate links I endorse. I receive a small commission from these links if you click through to view the gear and later decide to buy them. Note these gear are entirely optional.
People prefer watching video because they understand and remember information on video better.
It’s why videos get the most engagement—and why you should consider making videos to market your business.
It used to be that making marketing videos was technical and expensive. No longer. You can now easily make your own by creating your own “smartphone video rig” for roughly only $100 as of April 2020.
Making Your DIY Smartphone Video Rig
Your Smartphone Video Rig with recommended add ons (L to R): clip on lapel mic, tripod used as a selfie stick & clip on light.
To get the best out of your smartphone’s camera, I’d recommend adding the following gear to it. With your DIY smartphone video rig, you’ll then be able to make quality marketing videos of your business.
Lighting. Get a clip on light for your smartphone like this one. It has many brightness and warmness settings so that you’ll be able to find a setting that makes you look good on camera. Remember to face this light when shooting video indoors*.
*If shooting outside, you may find you don’t need the clip on light if soft, outside (cloudy) light shines towards you. But don’t let harsh, outside (sunny) light shine your backside or shine from above onto you; harsh lighting from these directions will make you look less flattering.
Audio. Add an external clip on lapel mic to your phone. External mics can record you talking with better clarity than your phone’s built in mic can.
Tripod. A tripod secures your phone so you don’t get shaky video while recording. Get one that also has bendable legs so it can also double as a selfie stick like this model does. This makes it easier to shoot video of your self talking to the camera.
Teleprompter. A teleprompter makes it easier to talk without having to remember a script. Ideally, get one that’s also voice activated so you can talk at your natural pace. Here’s a voice activated teleprompter app for iPhones and same version for Android phones.
Video captioning. After you record your videos, consider adding captions to them as many people watch videos with the sound off. Manually adding video captions can be tedious and time consuming, but now you can easily add them for a nominal fee with a tool like Quicc.io (I also have a way to caption them on your behalf in the near future if interested).
All you do is to upload your videos into Quicc and it will caption your videos in minutes. You can also style your captions with it, too. Quicco’s AI is 97% accurate, and it allows you to fix any rare captions it gets wrong.
Optional Add Ons to Your Smartphone Video Rig
Wide angle add on lens for smartphones. If you want to sometimes shoot video using your back facing camera, add a wide angle lenses to it such as this model. Wide angle lens add ons can make your video scenes look more cinematic. Be sure though that the lens you’re considering to buy actually fit your smartphone model before buying one.
A second Mount. A mount that attaches an 2nd phone to your Video Rig and which also attaches to your tripod if you wanted a use a teleprompter app on a 2nd phone to display your script.
Shooting Marketing Videos With Your Smartphone Video Rig
Set your phone on airplane mode and video to 1080 at 60 fps or 4 K (Settings > Camera > Record Video). The latter is the best resolution.
As you shoot your video, look at the camera lens. This creates eye contact with your audience as you’re reading and talking out your script.
Generally speaking, shoot your marketing videos up to 3 minutes long if you’re talking about a subject related to your business to demonstrate your authority. You will find that it’s more than enough time to cover what ever you’re talking about.
If not, just shoot them for up to 3 minute segments as part of a series: part one, two, three, etc. Most people’s attention span for video tend to suffer after 3 minutes, if not sooner.
For a just marketing message (offer, event, news about your business, new service/ product, etc.), you’ll may even find that shooting up to a 1 minute script is more than enough, in most cases.
Your smartphone video rig is portable. You can shoot your video inside or outside, talk while stationary or even while walking around as you point your tripod-selfie stick towards you. The latter is a good video shooting technique as you’re including motion into your video which adds visual interest.
Note, if shooting stationary, the background you’re shooting behind you should be plain or not too busy so it doesn’t look like you have anything sticking out of your head in your video! Also, stand several feet away from your background so that you don’t look too flat with the background behind you.
What to Say In Your Smartphone Marketing Videos
Basically anything that answers what people are searching for on Google related to your industry. Answering their search questions increases the likelihood that your marketing videos get found.
This means topics of interest to your potential customers. Topics could include new product or service announcements, how to tips related to your business, special offers, behind the scenes of your business, explaining something related to your business, etc.
Have an 70-80% mix of marketing videos that educate your customers with the remaining ones specifically promoting something about your business.
Whatever your topics are, make sure they provide value to potential customers and position you as the expert in your field.
Don’t forget to include a call-to-action to end all your videos with. Tell your viewers how they can contact you. A CTA is important for generating leads and sales to your business.
Once Your Video is Shot
Upload to it to YouTube or another video hosting site such as Vimeo, embed it on your website’s home page and/or post as your latest vlog (video blogging) entry and across all your social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Doing this will markets your business across various online channels.
Closing Thoughts
As you can see, it’s easy to shoot your own marketing videos using your created smartphone video rig hack.
If you don’t like shooting marketing videos on your smartphone, you can also shoot them using your laptop (opens in a new window). It’s another way to make your own videos to market your business that you may prefer.
Now that you know how to, all you have to do is consistently produce and upload your smartphone marketing videos to all your online channels and extend your reach online to generate leads!
I hope you found this article inspires you to regularly make your own smartphone marketing videos. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a reply below. I welcome your questions and comments and will reply to them.
If you need content ideas for your videos, smartphone or otherwise, I can send a free list of content ideas related to your industry to you. These ideas match what people search for on Google so this will increase the chances of your videos and business being found online. If interested, contact me via Contact Us/Find Us on this page or comment below for followup.
Also, if you find this article helpful and know someone who would benefit from it, please share it. I appreciate it and thank you for reading this article to the very end. I wish you the best in creating your own videos.