Video is your best marketing partner.

When you want to grow your business, you will find many occasions in which videos will give you the best marketing ROI. I am going to address a few different types of videos you may want to keep in mind in this article.When you want to promote your business, there are so many ways to go that making choices can be hard, and not always successful. Spotting the right video approach early on can save you time and money. Also, depending on the size of the business, the types of videos that will give you the best return may vary from company to company. This is something we help each of our clients with – making the right choices for them specifically. This article will hopefully help you on your path of making good decisions about video marketing.

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos help customers understand complex or abstract concepts regarding your business. Most markets are saturated, and unless you are completely unique in your space, you will have many competitors. To stand out amongst them, you have to reach your customers on various platforms, with only a few seconds at your disposal to grab their attention and make your case. Video is a multi-platform marketing tool; and if a video has viral ingredients, there’s a good chance it will be shared by its audience.These videos are often created using 2D animation (flat animation has been a trend) and are most commonly used for B2B or SaaS marketing. If the product or service you are offering is complicated to understand, an explainer video will help to simplify things for your potential customers and make you approachable. You can outsmart competitors by making an explainer video that weaves in advantages you offer over competitors, and deliver that information in an organic storytelling way. You can address direct benefits to customers compared to the cost (i.e. lower than your competitors), a more friendly design, geographical benefits (locally produced, etc.), or extensive customer support. Alternatively, you can communicate indirect, “soft” benefits such as a respectful corporate culture (i.e. being a social venture that solves larger societal and environmental problems), brand image (global brand, celebrity attachment), additional certifications of the business (eco-certified, fair-trade business), or the likeability of your business founders. Many things can be said, but you have limited time to make your case to your audiences because of continuously decreasing attention spans. In our world as a production company, we spend all day trying to find new ways to achieve the best audio-visual communication by keeping it short and entertaining. This is a quite challenging undertaking – and few videos rise above the rest.

“Use Cases” Video

When customers want to buy a product or subscribe to a service, videos can showcase different “use cases” to suggest how other people would use the same product or service. This video type improves the chances of customers discovering your product, and is great to show at conferences like CES or SXSW. “Use cases” videos are also great to release right at the launch of your product. They can be more cinematic or more corporate in style, depending on who you are targeting with the video (ex, investors, direct users, press, etc.)When people consider buying a product or service, they usually already have an idea of why they want it. Oftentimes it is because your business can solve a problem for them. It might be a physical or mental problem, and you offer them a solution. That is why a use case video primarily gives comfort and expands a customer’s vision of their own uses before they spend their money.“Use cases” videos should portray different buyer personas. It depends on the budget, but we usually push for at least 2 or 3 different customer examples since they address different aspects of the product and make it multi-dimensional. Especially today, diversity and inclusion are becoming the norm, which we happily support. Customers are demanding that they are properly portrayed by the businesses they want to participate in as consumers. Diversity is one of the key driving factors for businesses that want to grow on a global scale.You should ensure that your video will help your customers identify themselves in your marketing materials before moving forward.Shutterstock, a global stock image & video licensing service provider, conducted a survey in 2018 with US/Canadian/UK/Australian marketers about diversity. The result showed that most marketers agreed that images portraying diversity directly promote brand image and brand recognition. One more reason why you should have multiple use cases in your video and cast them with diversity in mind.

Product Video

Product videos tend to be a mixture of explainer videos and “use cases” videos because they can benefit from both video formats. A product video can also be used on the product page of your website or e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. These videos can be live-action (which is a great way to show the product from various angles to feel its size, texture, and overall feel), or 3D CG animation. These videos are usually short and require minimal or not cast, which makes them very cost-efficient. Like “use cases” videos, these can be great videos to show at conferences. When people are buying products online, they do an appropriate amount of research before making their purchase decision. If the cost of the product is low, reviews usually matter more than a video. However, when the purchase price is more substantial, the consumer’s personal perception – not only the feedback from other users – becomes an important metric in the decision, and a video is a great way to give a person deeper insight into the product’s various benefits and aspects. In these circumstances, your product video can be a major influence on whether the purchase is made.You still need a good product (that’s always first – you have to have a good product) and good reviews to have successful sales, but the media-literate consumer base of today will expect a high priced item to be accompanied by a high-quality video. Product Videos not only provide product information that can hardly be communicated with pictures, but they are a stamp of quality that tells people “this product is good enough to have a full media campaign behind it, and the price tag is justified.”. If you opt for a simple product video, you can minimize the spend by doing videos in batch if you are launching a series of products or promote a line-up after launch. You should consult with a producer from a production company to see what the most cost-effective and ROI-yielding approach to your product would be. Many production companies including ourselves offer free initial consultations and advice exactly for that purpose.

Branded Movie

When you spent months and years working towards your new product or service, you should make sure each step of the way that it gets the media attention it deserves. That is why a lot of companies go to exhibitions to launch world premieres. In these instances, you definitely should have your own media coverage instead of simply relying on journalists’ independent media coverage.Branded movies are also great for campaign videos on social media, as they have a lot of playability and can bring in views through word of mouth. While these videos have to be engaging and culturally relevant to your audience, they do not necessarily have to directly advertise your product or service.

CSR & Cause Marketing Videos

If you want to improve your brand image, taking corporate social responsibility (known as “CSR”) seriously is a good first step to being recognized as a socially conscious company. Working towards fully integrating that CSR into the  core of your corporate mission will completely reshape your company, and is usually a win-win-win for business, consumer, and society at large.When your business is doing more than just selling goods, when it is tied to the solution of a social/environmental problem, there’s a good chance you get free word-of-mouth marketing by passionate consumers, and prove yourself newsworthy. Supporting other non-profits with donations was a good strategy for boosting brand reputation in the past, but customers today are looking to buy from companies that provide solutions and initiatives beyond only a monetary contribution.. You might have heard of the terms “circular economy”, recycling and the “up-cycling business model”, and are probably aware of products made of renewable resources. Your socially conscious business has a much better chance to earn an opportunity to form partnerships with major brands to tackle certain issues. There might be new business ventures you can explore with the help of acclaimed larger players as a result of said partnerships. This is a chance for you to boost your brand recognition and tell the world your mission. This mission video will lift your brand image and it will indirectly increase the sales growth for you.

Summary

We just look at a few examples of video type for your business. There are more types of videos that are not listed here like TV commercial, Celebrity Endorsement, Info-Motion Graphic Animation, Tutorial Video, and so on. For further assistance, please contact us anytime to discuss what’s in your mind. We will be happy to discuss the possibility of making videos for you.