About The Client
Laurel Road is a digital banking platform that offers custom solutions to help healthcare and business professionals manage their finances. Laurel Road’s services include student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, savings accounts, and more. Laurel Road has been helping professionals with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees consolidate and refinance more than $9 billion in federal and private school loans since 2013.
Laurel Road aims to be a dependable financial partner for its members at every stage of their financial journey, with the technology and simplicity they desire from a digital innovator plus the openness and safety that comes with a bank.
The Challenge
As a leader in the digital lending space, Laurel Road is used to developing content that covers a wide range of topics related to finance. Many of these topics are complex and require a deep understanding of the subject matter to help students, doctors, and nurses navigate their financial journeys. Their challenge was to create a series of 30-second introductory videos on various financial topics that were easy to digest and further interested them to learn more about the subjects they were viewing.
Scope of the Project
When searching for a video agency to partner with on this project, Laurel Road needed to rely on a team who could quickly understand their business, their target audience, and the overall messaging they were trying to communicate. It was also essential that this team had a strong understanding of production and post-production processes to ensure a high-quality final product. Sparkhouse was up for the challenge and set out to create a series of videos that met all of Laurel Road's needs.
Pre-production Planning
Laurel Road knew that in order to engage their target audience, they needed to produce video content that was both informative and entertaining. To ensure that the messaging of each deliverable was on point, a content plan was developed that outlined each video topic along with supporting blog posts to drive the generation of video scripts.
During the scripting process, Laurel Road relied on Sparkhouse to find the right voice actors who could not only deliver the video dialogue with the right conversational tone but could also appeal to the target demographic. To ensure the right actors were chosen, a live studio session was initiated to help the artists fully understand the needs of the project.
Once the voiceovers were completed, music was chosen to be used across all 30 videos, while storyboards were constructed to ensure the visual elements of the videos were in alignment with Laurel Road's end goals. The final step in pre-production was to create video icons that accurately represented the topics that were being explained. After a few rounds of revision, Laurel Road was confident their assets were being developed the way they wanted and that their target audience would be able to understand the messaging of each video.
Production and Post-Production
With all of the pre-production work complete, it was time to start animating the videos. Sparkhouse animated the colored storyboards and added the voiceovers and music. All animation tweaks were made, and the final videos were delivered.
As with any digital asset, it's important to have access to the necessary file formats to make sure the videos can be played and used across multiple channels. Sparkhouse wrapped up the project by sending Laurel Road all supporting project files, music licenses, and voiceover releases, as well as the audio components of the videos for their use as podcasts or other media outlets.
The Final Result
With the help of Sparkhouse, Laurel Road was able to create a series of easily digestible introductory videos on various financial topics that help engage their target audience and further interest them in learning more about the subjects they are viewing. The animations have been featured on the financial resources page of Laurel Road’s website and have been used in multiple email marketing campaigns to drive website traffic and conversions.
If you're looking for a video agency to partner with on a content marketing project, look no further than Sparkhouse. Our team of experts will work with you to ensure your project is completed on time and within budget while also meeting all of your specific needs and goals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you engage your target audience and achieve your desired results.
