Video marketing, the most impactful breakthrough in the realm of conventional marketing, has indisputably become a part of every brand’s outreach strategy. Through the avenue, companies have experienced multiplied earnings in the form of leads, sales, revenue, and most importantly, loyal customer relationships.
Statistics suggest that consumers spend over a billion hours watching videos online; more commonly, on Facebook and YouTube. In fact, YouTube alone accounts for the majority of video consumption today, making it the number one platform for video marketing.
Evidently, video is the king of all forms of content today, which is why brands make use of marketing videos to scale and grow. With multiple goals, ways of appeal, and engagement formats, marketing videos present an ocean of opportunities for businesses, particularly small businesses in their acceleration phase.
As a startup, if you are looking to start your journey in video marketing, here is an extensive list of 18 different marketing video types, and ways to increase their impact.
18 Types of Marketing Videos
Marketing videos can be categorized into many types, based on their goals, and ways of appealing to viewers. Here are 18 of the most commonly used ones.
Explainer videos
Animated explainer video production are meant to simplify complex product or service offerings and often use engaging visuals including animations to break down a subject and deliver it in the form of digestible visual pieces. These are some of the most effective videos for companies providing complicated software solutions or other consumer technologies as they focus on helping customers understand the need for the product or service.
Corporate videos
Corporate videos are primarily used by companies for internal purposes, such as product training, communication of company updates, change of policies, cultural rules, etc. They are effective ways to reinforce company branding, company culture, and communication.
Product videos
Product videos highlight the experience of using the product; as opposed to explaining its specific features or attributes, these videos showcase the benefits or uses, thereby appealing to a viewer’s needs. With engaging visuals providing a real view of what it is like to use the product, these videos are effective in convincing a user of its utility.
Animated videos
Animated videos are tried-and-tested versatile marketing videos that showcase products in the form of eye-catching visuals woven into interesting stories. They are flexible enough to incorporate products in a wide variety of contexts, thereby allowing brands to extract ample value for money, irrespective of the complexity of their offerings.
Brand videos
Brand videos are meant to create awareness and strengthen brand identity. They typically use powerful storytelling techniques to showcase a brand’s ethos, ethics, values, and history. It seeks to help brands resonate with their customers, form deeper connections, and improve their reputation.
Commercials
Commercials, as the name suggests, are marketing videos that support paid outreach strategies. They utilize powerful content, copy, and captivating visuals to grab the attention of viewers and induce them to take some type of action, such as clicking a link, visiting a website, or signing up for a workshop.
Product demos
Product demos are detailed videos explaining the usage of a product. It allows existing customers as well as potential customers to see how the product should be used for the best results. As opposed to product videos, product demos are solely meant to describe usage and do not have persuasive content.
Testimonials
Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing videos a brand can use. They showcase genuine and real experience-sharing by existing customers or clients, through which the viewer gets to see what it is like to buy the brand’s products or services. Positive testimonials are an excellent way to build trust and attract more customers.
Event Reels
Event videos are a great for a company to showcase its impact on the society and build a blended community of customers, prospects, and marketing partners. It typically covers events hosted by a brand such as product launches, conferences, fundraisers, and more. Some event videos focus on highlights, while longer videos provide full coverage.
Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scene videos showcase a snippet of a brand’s life within their office. These types of videos are usually popular on social media, as they let prospects in on the real goings-on behind the making of their products, including their workers. It adds the much-needed human touch to a brand, which in turn enhances trust among customers.
Interviews
Interviews allow a brand to establish leadership and authority in its industry. By showcasing an interview with a company leader or experienced SME, it seeks to position the brand as an expert in its industry, in turn, building credibility and trust.
Personalized Videos
Personalized videos are meant to appeal to individual customers. They are created based on specific data collected on customers about their browsing patterns, location, purchase history, etc.; some may even include customer names. Finely tailored to suit specific customers, personalized marketing videos are found to be effective when shared through email or social media.
Social Media Videos
Social media videos are created for current and popularly used social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. They usually follow typical regulations imposed by the platforms on which they are published. For example, videos on Instagram are ultra-short and last only a few seconds. For the same reason, they use powerful content techniques to grab viewer attention, and induce action, such as visiting the brand website.
Live videos
Live videos, as the name suggests are live and encourage real-time interactions with viewers. They are an excellent way for brands to connect with customers, build transparency, and in turn generate solid relationships with customers. Thanks to social media, live videos now feature more interactive means such as polls, quizzes, stickers, and chats; all of which further contribute towards transparent and real-time communication with customers.
Landing page videos
Landing page videos are typically embedded into a webpage that users “land on” when they click a link. The link can be placed anywhere including paid ads or social media. These types of marketing videos are meant to give further insight into a product or service offering and convince customers to take action, such as buying the product or signing up for a webinar, etc.
Campaign videos
Campaign videos typically form part of larger campaigns for awareness, SEO, etc., and are meant to amplify the overarching message conveyed through the program. For example, for an awareness campaign, a video can be meant to introduce a brand or a product, compare similar products by the brand, explain the functionality, etc. The goal is to get more people to know about the product and the brand. For the same reason, aspects like impressions and views indicate its impact.
Email marketing videos
Email marketing videos are created as part of thoughtful email drip campaigns. From welcoming a customer onboard to upselling and cross-selling to educating and informing, email drip campaigns are created for various purposes. Brands now incorporate videos in conjunction with powerful email copy to increase open and click-through rates. The content of these videos can be anything from explaining product functionalities to introducing other products, depending on the primary objective of the email.
Conversion videos
Conversion videos are ultra-powerful marketing videos meant to be shared with customers at the inner end of the sales funnel. This means the prospect has expressed interest in the brand’s product, perhaps explicitly intended to make a purchase, and is ready to become a paid customer. A conversion video with carefully curated content can give them the final push needed to take action. They typically form part of retargeting campaigns.
Ways to maximize the impact of marketing videos
Follow the steps detailed below to maximize the impact of your marketing videos.
· Keep it precise
As a general rule of thumb, keep your videos short, precise, and to the point. Most viewers click out of a video within the first 10 seconds. Create a powerful narrative and combine engaging visuals to convey a message in as short a time capsule as possible. Focus on delivering the core message of the video, and refrain from beating around the bushes too much.
· Use captions or subtitles
Studies suggest that a majority of people watch videos in public places with the sound off. To prevent this from reducing the impact of your video, add captions or subtitles. Use caption-generation software or AI technologies to speed up the process.
· Leverage the power of storytelling
Gone are the days when overly pushy marketing content was the norm. Instead of selling the product features, appeal to the needs and desires of the customers and place the product attributes strategically around these needs. Build a narrative that focuses on the customer rather than the product and utilize the emotive power of video content to sell.
· Optimize page load times
As video content generally consumes substantial bandwidth, it tends to slow page loading on poor-quality networks or devices with smaller screens. Optimize the video to address these issues and ensure the loading time does not put customers off.
· Track uncommon key metrics and make improvements
Most companies consider the number of views to be a key metric of effectiveness. While it is indeed true, there are more important attributes such as the watch time, the pause times, the skipping rates, etc. that convey more valuable insights about the video indicating its impact. Determine these metrics and optimize them constantly for the best results.
· Use proven-effective emotive strategies like humor and shock
Marketing videos open the potent opportunity to appeal to human emotions. Maximize this window by leveraging proven-effective appeals like humor and shock. Most consumers love funny videos or videos that make them think. They remember content that they enjoyed in some way. Hence, create narratives that infuse storylines to appeal to these emotions, educate them, make them laugh and strategically incorporate your offering.
Wrapping up
Marketing videos are undoubtedly one of the most powerful avenues for brands to generate sales and establish strong customer relationships. Contrary to popular belief, video content is highly beneficial and value-packed for small businesses as well. Depending on their goals, and mode of content delivery, marketing videos can take many forms. Starting from explainer videos to animations to product demos, testimonials, event videos, campaign videos, and conversion videos, each one presents a promising way to appeal to customers and make an impact.
Use this handy list of the top 18 commonly used marketing videos, and their uses and benefits, with 6 actionable ways to maximize their impact, to scale and grow with the power of video content.
To start your journey with customizable and thoughtful small-business-friendly video production packages, contact K3video.
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