CRO vs UX
The What and The Why
As Beacon Digital created video templates for their clients, they also wanted to establish the same kind of video style guides internally. These templates work very well with remote record footage, as a way to elevate low quality webcam-recorded video that has high content value. Once these templates are built out, they can be recycled throughout other video projects to stay consistent with brand guidelines, streamlining the production timeline.
For this video, I built out some templates including patterns, transitions, speaker lower 3rds, and intro/outro cards. The footage was taken from a zoom call, where I edited the video and audio to be mixed in with the animated graphics. The focus was to be on the speaker, to make the viewer feel more connected with the content by seeing a human face instead of just hearing a voice or reading text. It was also important to supplement visually appealing animations that kept your attention while digesting the information.
Video Description:
“In a perfect world, B2B companies should use both CRO and UX in combination to gather real insights about their website visitors, increase their user base, create test pages, and more. Kirsten Trued, Director of Web Production at Beacon Digital, explains how she thinks about the differences between CRO and UX and outlines when the best time is to use each strategy.”
So, how do you actually elevate remotely recorded footage?
If you’ve ever been on a Zoom call before, you’d know that everyone’s video quality WILDLY varies based on factors like environment, microphone, webcam, and desk setup. It’s very hard to make things look consistent when no two remote setups are exactly the same. That’s where using branded elements comes in. Something as simple as a texture in the background can make the biggest difference in the look and feel of a remotely recorded video. Lower 3rds and transitions are also extremely effective in elevating a video, as it’s a chance to show more branding elements like shapes and colors without totally distracting from the main focus of the content.
Take it a Step Further
When designing storyboards for remote record videos, especially if there’s a presentation being shared, it’s important to consider what design choices you can make to marry the original information with something more branded. Here, Kirsten had a venn diagram in her presentation, and I thought it would be effective to not only recreate the diagram in the company’s branding, but create an entire scene based on that one sentence below the diagram that was not illustrated in the initial presentation (shown below). This allowed for iconography to be introduced as she’s narrating in the background. The icons are bouncy, but the rest of the video is relatively smooth, suggesting that the company voice is casual but still professional.
Why is remote record important?
In a time where remote has become the new norm, adapting with the changing technological landscape is critical for the success of businesses. Full in-person studio productions are quite costly, and especially if you have a remote team, it’s difficult to get people in one place for a shoot. Utilizing remote record features allow you to create internal assets to use at your own disposal, with a fraction of the cost of a studio.
Aside from the convenience of having your own branded video assets, motion in general plays a serious role in a brand’s voice and tone. A company that has a more straightforward tone might not want bouncy animations, and would rather something minimal and sleek that fades in and out. On the contrary, a company that DOES has a playful voice might want animations that emphasize that tone. Graphics might pop or bounce in, have more moving parts, or move at a faster rate. Even if you offer the same deliverables to multiple clients, they will all have a varied final result due to the voice that gets expressed through motion. Just as you would write a voice and tone guide using language examples, movement can be used as a visual storytelling tool.