Create a holiday video for your brand

Business Benefits

Improve brand recognition and engagement with your target audience.


Set an ultimate deadline and a maximum budget that will allow time for all your tasks without sacrificing momentum.

Include the tasks listed in this playbook as well as important goal post dates where you can check in with yourself and/or clients.

For a holiday video, you will want your video finalized well before the holiday season so that there are no holdups in distribution. Itemize your budget with expenses for recording equipment, editing software, advertising, hiring for talent and crew. Unexpected events and new information may shift your timeline or budget, which is normal. Allow yourself some flexibility, but starting with a rough baseline will help discipline your workflow and focus your big picture overview.

Decide what style of video will best communicate your brand and your campaign: animated, music, skit, or themed infomercial.

Plan the style alongside or before the overall planning stage since your timeline and budget will vary. For example, unvoiced animated videos won’t require the recruitment of in-person talent like a live action video would but may require additional software and production time.

Recruit a crew and cast. For live action, include camera crew, microphone operator, director, lighting assistant, cast, and editor.

If recruiting outside of your team, you can find help from production and casting agencies, or you can search for independent contractors or freelancers.

Consider any additional roles you might need, like animators or musicians.

Schedule time for filming. Consider splitting filming into multiple days to accommodate cast schedules or to capture specific angles for natural lighting.

Keep filming efficient to avoid the extra costs of reshoots. If possible, capture takes from multiple angles to allow more options in the editing process. Capture B-roll if needed.

Edit your footage and cut together to form your video. Include color correction, audio mixing, music, compositing, and graphics.

Choose the right editing software for your video and your budget. Adobe Premiere is the industry standard for cutting together footage, with Adobe After Effects standard for graphics and composition. Cheaper and free options also exist, such as DaVinci Resolve.

In many cases, the editing phase will be key to establishing the holiday tone. For example, a winter holiday video would likely benefit from color correction that emphasizes cooler colors, but summer videos may highlight warmer tones.

Render and export your video in a format and resolution to suit the platform it will be played on. Consider upgrading to 4K if your hardware and software allow it.

Don’t overlook this step as this is where you ensure the audio-visual quality of the final product. YouTube videos typically use mp4 files with a resolution of at least 1080p.

Upload and distribute the video online. Schedule its release to have optimal control over its first display to your audience.

In addition to YouTube, you may also want to consider other video sharing sites like Vimeo. Make sure you have an SEO-optimized description with holiday-themed keywords, tags, and links to your brand website.

Advertise your video and promote it on your social media channels.

With your video now available online, give it an extra push through your marketing channels. You may want to pay for ad space to feature your video, include it in a newsletter, or earn views through Twitter, Instagram, and other social media. Not only will this spread out your reach to your social media audiences, but you can also pair the video with SEO-optimized captions to increase overall visibility.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T15:25:34Z