Video marketing is now one of the most powerful marketing strategies used by businesses to further their brand. A recent survey carried out by Hubspot showed that 53% customers prefer to watch a video about a brand or business they support while only 46% preferred email newsletters, and 41% wanted social image-based content.
There are various types of videos each with their own end results but overall the aim is to bring in more business and increase your bottom-line. The most important thing is to ensure you combine a good mix of videos types in your marketing efforts.
Types of videos you may want to use for your marketing strategies include:
1. Event videos. Make a video showing an important event eg attaining a company milestone or footage from a live event such as a business conference you may be hosting and use this to create a story around your brand to increase awareness and customer engagement.
2. Educational Product “How-to” videos. These are videos designed to showcase how to use your products or services while highlighting the products’ unique selling points, taking care to demonstrate how your product satisfies the customer’s need. The videos can be shown as a virtual tour of the product highlighting its special characteristics and features or in the case of a service the videos will serve to show the various processes and options available to the customer.
3. FAQs videos. Here the aim is to answer the many questions that a customer could have regarding your product. The video is also designed to subtly point out unique qualities of the product or service that will make the viewer decide to purchase the product or service.
4. Testimonial videos. Many businesses simply quote testimonials from genuine customers on their websites. While this is a good boost for gaining and enhancing trust from visitors to your website, a testimonial video goes even further. These videos can be easily shared by your customers or followers on social media thus providing you with free advertising opportunities.
5. Explainer /animated videos. These are good for telling stories about how your product or service provides the solution the customer is looking for. They can be woven around your brand to explain your brand’s concepts, mission or vision. Explainer videos are very popular and according to Vidyard, they are one of the top four video types (the others being product demos, how-tos, and testimonial videos) used in video marketing.
6. Case study videos. Use a video to explain some new concepts, product ideas or showcase your products that are in the pipeline and how these products will help your clients.
7. Live videos. Give your customers a virtual tour behind the scenes of your company, helping them to see the faces of the staff and your day to day operations.
8. Personalised videos. These are videos that are individualized for the recipient by including personal details from your CRM eg name, geolocation, item purchased, email address within the video script as part of the message the viewer sees. An advantage is that the viewer’s attention is hooked since the message feels very personal, the viewer feels noticed and cared for by the brand or business. The viewer is more likely to engage with the brand and this aids conversion.