Spotlight on Business: Setting the Scene with City Girl Flowers

Producing video content is a great way to showcase the personality of your business and your products, before a customer ever sets foot in your shop. In this week’s Spotlight on Business, we’ll take a look at a business marketing video from City Girl Flowers, and share tips for creating a similar video for your own business.

Led by California Native Jill Gaynor, City Girl Flowers is a boutique floral design studio in New York City. Jill moved to NYC to became a full-time florist in 2014 and explains that “her aesthetic combines a bit of west coast ease and beauty with the sophisticated style of Manhattan.” You can see this style for yourself in Jill’s video:

With just a handful of photos, video clips, and some text, this simple video reveals so much about City Girl Flowers. We see the product, the beautiful, sophisticated ambiance of Jill’s workspace, and we see her at work, showing true passion for what she does.

Making a video like this for your business

Creating a video like this is easier than you think. Just grab a camera or your smartphone and shoot some photos and video clips that set the scene of your business. Here are some tips for making your own business video:

• Select a video style designed with businesses in mind. Animoto offers professional, customizable video styles for business. The City Girl Flowers video was created using the Frameless video style. Other video styles that work well for creating videos like this are Classic and Documentary. To learn more, check out our blog post on video styles for business.
• Include a logo. Adding your logo to the beginning of your video quickly establishes brand recognition and awareness.
• Set the scene. Start by giving viewers a good sense of what you do or sell. Jill is a florist, so the video opens with two video clips that capture the beauty of her flower arrangements.
• Add text. Keep it short and sweet. Use a few words to add context to the visual shots of your business or products. A good place to start is to briefly describe your style or product offering by using 2-3 title cards.
• Use motion. Including video footage in your project can bring extra interest to your content because viewers are naturally inclined to pay attention to movement. If you sell a product that doesn’t move, such as flowers, here are two tips: try moving the camera as you film a still item, or add motion by using or moving the still object. In the City Girl Flowers example, there’s movement in every video clip — from Jill creating the arrangements, to the camera panning and zooming in on them.
• Showcase people. Include shots of yourself and your team in the video to add a personal touch. This strategy works especially well if you’re the face of your business brand.

In just a few minutes, you’ll have video content to distribute via social media, on your website, or via email. Don’t forget to include a call to action letting viewers know where they can find out more, follow you, or make a purchase. To learn more, check out our blog post on adding a call to action to your video.

If you’ve created a video like this for your business, we’d love to see it and hear about your experience. Feel free to share it with us in the comments below.

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