Video is a powerful tool. Aside from its dynamic storytelling capabilities, its existence within your marketing playbook can help you reach a wider audience, generate leads, and increase sales. It’s proving itself to be king in the content calendars right now, and a major topic of conversation amongst our clients. With the conversation started, one of the first questions asked is always this: what kind of videos do we need to make?

Well, whatever is going to work best for you and your business objectives. 

So let’s figure that out by looking at your options.

Types of Brand Marketing Videos

There are many different types of video content that you can use for your marketing plan. Here are a few examples:

• Brand introduction videos: These videos acquaint potential and new customers with your brand. They give grand overviews of the company with a focus on benefit statements. 
• Brand stories: These videos tell the story of your company, its mission, and its values. They are a great way to connect with potential customers on a personal level and to show them why they should care about your brand.
• Explainer videos: These videos are used to explain your products or services in a clear and concise way. Often used by SaaS companies, they can be a great way to educate potential customers about what you have to offer and how it can benefit them.
• Product use videos: These videos show potential customers how to use your products or services. Popular among many industries to show details, specific features, and put the viewer in the “user’s shoes.” They can be a great way to demonstrate the value of your products or services and to answer any questions that your audience may have.
• Testimonial videos: These videos feature customers talking about their positive experiences with your products or services. They can be a great way to build trust and credibility with potential customers and to show them that your products or services are worth their investment. These are a must have for any business.

Goals and Objectives of Video

Knowing why you are going to invest in video is just as important as knowing how you are going to measure success. Video can assist with the following goals: 

Brand Awareness 

Awareness campaigns are designed to introduce a brand, product, or service to potential customers, aiming to facilitate brand discovery rather than drive immediate sales. Multiple video formats can help facilitate this goal, including brand introduction, product use, testimonial, and a combo of the three.

Key indicators of success or failure include the total number of views, the number of three-second views, and the average view duration.

Consideration Videos

Consideration videos serve to deepen the relationship between a brand and its potential customers, generating interest and fostering connections beyond discounts, particularly in competitive markets. Consideration videos display a brand’s expertise in a specific field and connection with its clients, customers, and end-users. If this is your goal, consider brand story, explainer, and testimonial videos.

The two primary metrics for consideration videos are:

1. Clickthrough rate (CTR): This metric reveals the number of viewers who were engaged enough to navigate from your website to other linked content.
2. View length: The duration of views validates the level of viewer interaction, indicating the effectiveness of the video in capturing and retaining attention.

Conversion Videos

Conversion videos are typically positioned at the end of the marketing funnel, aiming to drive sales and conversions. These videos should be tailored to the end user, and targeted to their specific affinities. With strong buyer personas developed, as well as your digital strategy data, you should have a good idea of what your buyers need to close the sale.  If brand ethos is top priority to the buyer – serve brand stories and testimonials. If technical capabilities are the primary goal of the buyer, serve product use and explainer videos – with an emphasis on benefit statements. If the target has reached the end of the funnel, they are waiting for specific details of interest to validate their decision. So by all means, give it to them.

The most significant metric for this video type is actual sales, closely followed by the clickthrough rate. Analyzing instances where viewers click but do not make a purchase can shed light on potential discrepancies between your marketing efforts and the product itself.

So what now? 

You have all this info, and hopefully some ideas. But now what? Now you get started. The basic steps are as follows: 

• Set your goal (scroll back up: awareness, consideration, conversion)
• Decide your video shoot goals (product, testimonial, etc.)
• Seek approvals (for filming: facilities, software back-ends, individuals, etc.)
• Script it out (think: dialogue, voiceover, and visuals)
• Schedule & coordinate
• Action!
• Review footage
• Edit, splice, and refine
• Save & share your final versions
• Distribute! 

While the above process took 20 seconds to write out, the actual project can take 2 weeks to 2 months, on average, depending upon the goals, time allotted, videography equipment, approvals, and overall skills. It’s no small endeavor. So take your time, get it right, and watch the efforts pay off. As we highlighted in Video is Valuable, 92% of businesses say that video marketing has a positive ROI.

To keep your video production and publishing momentum going, here are a few more tips on creating effective video content:

• Keep your videos short and to the point. People have short attention spans, so it’s important to get to the point quickly.
• Use high-quality video and audio. Your videos should look and sound professional.
• Be creative and original. Don’t just copy what everyone else is doing. Try to come up with something unique that will stand out from the crowd.
• Promote your videos on social media and other channels. Get the word out about your videos so that your target audience finds them.

So how are you feeling? Pumped and ready to start planning? Great. We’re excited for you. And we’re here to help with video content in any way we can. Please feel free to give us a shout if you need a brainstorming partner, answers to any questions, or are in need of a film crew. We’re just a click and a chat away from helping you create exceptional video content.