The Next Big Thing in Video Marketing: Drone Footage for Your Website
Unless you’ve been living under a sizeable rock, you’re probably familiar with commercial uses for drone footage and how unmanned drones (formally called unmanned aircraft systems) have opened the door for unique video content that was previously unavailable or too expensive to attain.
Drones have expanded the video capabilities of today’s marketer.
While the first drone “boom” made waves primarily in the real estate industry, there are applications that businesses in virtually any industry can take advantage of. Drones are more than neat video gadgets; they’re tools you can use to enhance your website and existing video content, showcase your business and tell a story.
Drone Footage as a Website Element
Drones are the most affordable tools for capturing killer aerial footage, which is something real estate professionals and property traders have capitalized on since drones became widely accessible. From a marketing perspective, drones provide a unique opportunity for businesses to represent their facilities and services; this applies to a wide range of industries beyond real estate.
The reason you should use drone footage in your website’s video content is the same reason you should use video at all: to visually display your brand, company or product and engage with visitors. Shooting drone footage is just an exciting and affordable new way to do that.
Using Drone Footage to Tell a Story
Drones are excellent tools for capturing elevated video that tells a story. With drones, you can capture excellent process footage that would otherwise be impossible – or even dangerous – to record. This footage can tell viewers how your products or services work, and serves well as supplementary footage for ground-level material (or vice-versa, if your drone pilot really knows what they’re doing).
Videos that deal with any of the following could benefit greatly from aerial drone footage:
- Ongoing construction or building development
- Certain product demonstrations
- Showcasing your facilities or team at work
- Any homepage/hero section video content
At Viral Element, we’ve actually used drones on numerous occasions to create compelling homepage background videos to great effect. Video is the new frontier for marketing, and innovations like drones are expanding the scope of what’s possible to capture on camera. Along with 360° video and virtual reality, drones and drone footage are going to be (and already are) huge for marketers in 2016.
The Best Way to Find and Use Drones Professionally
While drones have drastically reduced the cost of awesome aerial footage, they’re still not cheap. A standard drone costs $499.99 as of March 2016, and professional models can run anywhere from $900 to $1,300 (there are even more high end models in the $3,000-4,000 range).
If you’re only planning on using a drone for a single project or task (aerial shots of your business/work), investing in a drone isn’t really sensible or necessary.
The way most businesses are acquiring drone footage currently is through rentals.
This is one arena in which early drone pilots have been thriving. Professional drone services (renting a drone unit and working with that drone’s pilot to get the right footage) typically costs $50-100 per hour, which is perfect for single-day shoots or non-recurring projects. As a plus, you don’t have to worry about accidentally crashing the drone and having to reimburse the owner.
Note: if you’re going the rental route and flying the unit yourself, many providers offer insurance for the duration of your rental. Get it. You’ll be relieved you did, should a strong gust of wind push your unit into a tree.
Alternatively: Viral Element can provide this service for you. We have a couple of different types of drones we can use depending on the type of shot we are aiming to get and our pricing is quite affordable. Please contact us if you would like more information on our drone services.
Drones have made amazing aerial footage and unique visuals accessible for all businesses. If you’re looking for new ways to showcase your business, products or services, integrating drone footage with the rest of your website’s video content is a step in the right direction.
Source: Bluleadz
