Ever told yourself, “We need to be doing more video” but never know what to film?
Chances are that your business is going to need more than one video. Why? Well, because different types of videos serve different purposes and help achieve a variety of business goals.
A well-rounded video strategy attracts, educates and converts your prospects and customers. There are probably at least 9 different types of video that you could be doing, but today we are going to focus on the 5 most crucial types.
Each video can be made at different levels of production and used in different ways. Some work best when they’re more polished, others shine when they’re scrappy.
Learn more about where each type of video fits in the marketing funnel, what channels you can share them on, how long they should be and their expected production value.
Brand Story
Telling your brand story in a video is a powerful way to show potential customers what you do and why they should care.
When people hear brand story, they think…the history of the company. Well, yes that comes into it but telling the story of your brand is so much more. It’s your ethos, your values, the way you work, you why you do what you do – what your company stands for.
Okay that’s great but I want them to buy my product, why would consumers care about that? Because PEOPLE BUY PEOPLE. People buy from people or brands that they trust, and they resonate with. Yes, you may think you have the best product out there but unless people trust in you and your business, you are going to have a hard time selling your product/service.
A brand story allows people to feel connected to you &
EXAMPLE
R.M. Williams not only craft beautiful items of clothing, they also create beautiful videos that share their brand story. After watching this video I nearly dropped $600 on a pair of new boots, im sure you will feel the same after watching!
Testimonials/Case Studies
Let me drop some Nielsen stats. “92% of people will trust a recommendation from a peer, and 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know.”
If that doesn’t convince you to create some testimonials, I don’t know what will!
Video testimonials are powerful tools for businesses, unlike text-based testimonials, they add a personal element that humanises your work and allows potential customers to understand how your products or services solve real world problems.
They generally tell the story of how a customer uses your product or service to solve their problems. Testimonials illustrate the value created by your product or service by providing validation from real people aka social proof.
Video testimonials are a great way to educate/convert a potential customer as they build trust with your brand. Typically, they are usually quite polished when it comes to their production value (this is a great example) and range from 3-5 mins in length.
Instead of just hosting them on your website and hoping someone watches them, you can create shorter bite sized edits for social media.
EXAMPLE
When you are exploring something that is so personal, like personal development. You want to talk and connect with someone on a deep level to allow you to truly engage in a productive conversation. Aliesha from SixAM has used testimonials to showcase how much of an impact she is having on her clients lives, straight from the horse mouth.
Hot Tip
If you don’t have the budget to create high production testimonial videos, you can still achieve great results. Try asking some of your happiest customer to record a short video of themselves answering a few basic questions you send them.
Demonstration
Have you ever purchased flat pack furniture? Unlike buying a table or chair that is already assembled, you empty the box and out pour 1000 screws, 6 pieces of wood and somehow, they all fit together like a Wasjig. The instructions are no doubt in a foreign language and only outline what was in the box. Imagine if you had any easy-to-follow video demonstrating 5 easy to follow steps on how to assemble said furniture. Try and tell me that wouldn’t boost sales.
Like an explainer video, a demo video essentially explains the key selling points of your product or service.
Product demo videos can include unpacking the product, how to put it together, demonstrating potential customers what to expect.
For a service-based business, this is a great way to show what the process is around your service offering at a high level. Sometimes it is difficult to show how your service works so an animated video is a great tool to use to help explain your business. For example, how can a lawyer help you when you go to buy a house?
Depending on your offering, a great idea is to create a series of videos that go over all your products and/or range of services.
You should think about posting these on your website on specific pages that are relevant to the product or service. They don’t need to be super expensive to make and are usually 2 – 5 mins in length.
EXAMPLE
If you haven’t heard of Asana, you should probably check them out. They offer web and mobile software that focuses on team-based work management. IN other words, they help sort your proverbial. They have cleverly created a video series called How to Asana. Using a mixture of to-camera and screen recordings, they easily relay how to not only use their product, but how it can help with everyday tasks like how to use their calendar function to plan and manage your workload.
Hot Tip
Do some research to find out what key features of your product/service people are interested in. This could come from frequently asked questions that your customer service team receives, or key features customers highlight in their feedback about your business.
Thought Leadership/Education
You’ve been building houses for 20 years, of course you know what you’re doing. But any builder could say that on their website. How can you relay your 20 years of experience to your customers?
Getting in front of the camera and dropping a few knowledge bombs is an effective way to establish authority in a particular niche or on a specific topic. It is a great way to share all your knowledge and expertise you have in your given field.
When you create a thought leadership video, you should think about creating a series of videos and be consistent in delivering them to your audience. A good place to post these types of videos is on a platform like LinkedIn.
As these videos are primarily you talking to camera, a high level of production isn’t necessarily required.
EXAMPLE
Shameless plug for the team at NextAdvisory here. In this video, NextAdvisory collated a list of commonly asked questions, setup the camera and live streamed themselves talking about the questions and answers. It’s not super sexy but its super functional. Streaming the video live means there is no cutting or editing, and really puts them on the spot to come up with the answers without falling back on notes or the internet. It also gives them the opportunity to clip out the questions individually and post them as separate clips. Have you ever wondered if you should hire an employee or use a contractor? Check out the clip below to find out.
Hot Tip
People like people. This is a great opportunity to showcase your personality. Be authentic to yourself and your brand.
Promo’s aka Hype Video
Did you hear about the new cinematic mode on the latest iPhone?! I’m not sure I’ll ever use it, but as a self-professed gadget hoarder, I just had to have it!
Promo videos aka hype aka teaser videos are like movie trailers, they build excitement without giving away too much information. These are your bread-and-butter top of the funnel videos, good for building brand awareness, increasing traffic to your website or specific landing pages.
Primarily these types of video are designed to promote something: a content asset, a product, a service, an event or a brand. As a top of the funnel piece of content, it is necessary to devote a reasonable budget to ensure this video content has maximum impact. Because of the impact we want these videos to have, they are generally quite short in length between 20 – 60 seconds in duration.
EXAMPLE
Now we could’ve dropped an absolute banger of an example video, like Nike’s “Its only crazy until you do it” or the infamous Dollar Shave Club but we thought we should showcase something that is a little more realistic when it comes to budget.
Here we have a San Francisco bicycle company City Bicycle Co. who shockingly, sell bicycles. Watch this video and tell me you don’t want to go out for a nice relaxing ride through the city.It uses dreamy music and stylised light flares that evoke a relaxed light happy feeling that entices the viewer to purchase a bike and go and pound the pavement.
Hot Tip
Pump up the excitement with using music. You want to engage the audience’s emotion when they watch this video so combining music with interesting eye candy can really bring out some feelings.