Marketing Tool Kit: What the Experts Are Using. Brynn, Digital Media Specialist.

Key Points

• Behind every successful marketing campaign is a strategic tech stack. Brynn relies on a specific mix of video, photo, and optimization tools to keep her high-volume creative workflow running smoothly.
• As a powerful, industry-standard editing software, Premiere Pro forms the backbone of Brynn’s daily work for creating quality video ads, short-form, and long-form content.
• Customizing workspaces (such as having separate layouts for horizontal and vertical projects) and mastering keyboard shortcuts like Shift + E are essential for saving time and editing efficiently.
• Free and accessible programs like HandBrake (for video transcoding) and Adobe Lightroom (for quick photo formatting) are indispensable for solving technical file issues behind the scenes.

Our Favorite Marketing Tools

This month, we’re continuing our series highlighting the platforms, programs, and resources our team relies on every day. Our Digital Media Specialist, Brynn, spends her days filming for clients, editing video, and designing graphics. To keep every project running smoothly, she relies on a collection of tools that help streamline her workflow and fuel creativity.

Here are a few of her favorites:

Adobe Premiere Pro

More often than not, I am working on projects in Adobe Premiere Pro. It is a paid subscription editing software that I use both in the office — on video ads, short-form, and long-form content — and outside the office on my own projects! Premiere is a paid subscription that varies based on usage. One thing I think is really cool about it is that there are discounted offers for students and teachers! Some of my favorite tools in Premiere are the ones that make my workflow more efficient, such as keyboard shortcuts and workspaces.

• Basic Capabilities

At its core, Premiere allows you to cut, arrange, and export footage to create videos. You can add multiple audio and video tracks to your timeline. For audio, this means easily incorporating voice-overs, music, and sound effects; and for video, you can layer multiple camera angles, B-roll, and overlay graphics. You can also apply transition effects, such as cross-fades and slides, though personally, I am a big fan of the classic jump cut! Premiere also recently released more transition effects and altered its existing effects.

• Keyboard Shortcuts

(Shift + E): When working with multiple camera angles, you can use this shortcut to toggle off specific layers of your footage to reveal an underlying source without deleting or rearranging your timeline. If your edits change and you need to rework those angles, you can just press the shortcut again to untoggle and reveal the original footage.

• Workspaces

One of my favorite aspects of Premiere is the ability to create and rearrange custom workspaces. It offers incredible flexibility, and being able to dock or undock panels exactly where I need them drastically speeds up my workflow. While every project has unique editing requirements, I mostly rely on two consistent workspaces to maximize efficiency: one optimized for horizontal projects and another for vertical content.

• Button Editor Tools

Beneath the program view, there are more editing tools that can be customized however you need them. My favorite of these tools is the Export Frame tool, which allows you to export a video frame as an image.

• Pro Tips
  • When working with shaky footage, Premiere has a built-in effect that works to stabilize footage. The effect is called Warp Stabilizer, found under the Video Effects folder “Distort.” I use this one quite often. I usually pair it with slowed-down footage (but they hate each other), so I usually order the effects by 1. slowing the footage down, 2. nesting the clip, and 3. using Warp Stabilizer.
  • Another really cool feature of Premiere Pro that I use often is the Export Frame tool in the button editor menu! This allows me to take a single frame from a video and export it as a photo.
  • Sometimes video files can get pretty hefty, so an exporting tip I have, and use daily, is adjusting bitrate encoding when exporting videos. I can compress a video to a smaller size for socials by switching the VBR to VBR, 2 pass, and changing the target and maximum bitrates to (2,5). You can set this as a preset so you don’t have to manually change these settings every render! See photo example.

HandBrake

HandBrake is a free, open-source video transcoder. When Premiere Pro had a funky bug in one of its updates, I was able to use Handbrake as a workaround to convert the footage I needed into a more compatible format that Premiere Pro would accept.

Adobe Lightroom

Lightroom is a handy editing software (similar to Photoshop), with both free and paid options, that I use to convert funky photo formats to JPEGs. It works really well when color grading photos. While I mostly use Photoshop for images, Lightroom has the ability to convert photo formats, so I can convert HEIC photos into JPEGs.

(Adobe doesn’t like HEIC or HEIF… bleh… Basically, I use Handbrake and Lightroom for the same thing, only Handbrake for video and Lightroom for photos!)

Bringing Brand Stories to Life With the Right Tools

Creating impactful digital media is about more than just the software; it’s about having the right expert using it. With her eye for visual storytelling and a strategy-driven editing process with platforms like Premiere Pro, HandBrake, and Lightroom, Brynn produces high-quality video that captures attention and elevates our clients’ brands.

Coming in August

Our Marketing Tool Kit series isn’t over yet! Next month, you’re going to hear from one of our Social Media Strategists, Brian, about his go-to social media scheduling platform. Join us in August to explore his tool kit and learn more!

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