As marketers, one of the most common roadblocks we face is trying to drive the most engagement for our content! In fact, studies have shown it’s the most common challenge faced by B2B as well as B2C marketers.
In order to entice your audience to interact with your content, you need to consistently tell brand stories that inspire and delight. It’s a tall order, meaning that you have to persistently keep creating content that:
- Educates your audience and answers their questions
- Entertains and keeps them hooked
- Is relatable and shareable
Easier said than done, right? Grabbing people’s attention is a huge task, which is why many marketers can’t get by without video marketing!
Why choose video marketing?
Video marketing presents your brand with a fantastic opportunity to stand out from the crowd. They’re a visual feast for your audience. A video communicates a lot more information in far less time. In fact, a study from Responsive Inbound Marketing found that social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined! Moreover, video is a medium that can help you to tell some irresistible brand stories. It helps you to make use of thought-provoking visuals, graphics, sound and narration to get your audience hooked.
Over 500 million (that’s half a BILLION) people are watching video on Facebook every day. - Forbes
Don’t be left in the dust!
Create video content that provides an awesome experience for your target audience but remember that developing such content requires tons of strategic and creative planning. You have to also ensure that videos are created and targeted according to the stage of the customer lifecycle.
Each video type works best for a particular stage of the customer journey. When you segment your audience on the basis of their lifecycle stage, you will be able to target them with the right marketing messages.
The customer journey
Every customer goes through the above five stages in the customer journey.
Initially, a customer is not aware of your products/services. At this stage, you need to create content that grabs their attention.
In the next stage, the consumer is considering to choose from the options that are available in the market. At this time, you need to get them to inquire about your services. This way you will be able to capture their contact details.
At that point, you have a potential customer who you can connect with and nurture a stronger relationship.
Once you have engaged with those who had shown interest in your business, many of them will convert and move to the next stage.
In the last stage of the customer journey, you need to make sure that your customers are happy. This is the stage when you can delight your customers and get them to talk about your business. Your marketing messages at this stage should ensure that your revenue from your existing customers is growing consistently.
Let’s look at some video types that you can use across each of these stages!
Types of videos to use in marketing
Educational videos
Providing education to address a problem/pain point for your target audience is a great way to get noticed. Start with a little keyword research to find high search volume keywords in your niche. There are a variety of content formats to help you create educational videos including live action videos, whiteboard videos and webinars.
Popular editing tool Grammarly creates short educational videos like the one below to educate and draw in their target audience.
The key to these videos is that they’re short yet very informative. Whether you are in the business of selling business tools or consumer products related to health and beauty, educational videos are a great way to start building a long-lasting relationship with your audience.
Businesses that are cause-related can use educational videos to explain their cause in an interesting way. Take a look at this thought-provoking example from Malezi Bora.
This video beautifully explains and educates people about social problems and influence them to take a step forward. If you are selling a product/service that solves persistent social problems, then such videos can do wonders for your business. These videos work well for non-profit organizations as well.
Educational video content is critical for spreading awareness about your products and services. You should regularly produce quality educational videos. The strategy will fetch you more attention for your brand and a growing subscriber base for your content. They are equally helpful in capturing and nurturing leads.
Entertainment videos
Online audiences love short, snackable content. With this format, you can create entertaining videos that make your audience laugh or get inspired. An understanding of your target audience will help you to create videos that they’ll enjoy watching - videos that will imprint your brand and keep them coming back for more. Starbucks created a charming animated video series called 1st and Main. The video series entertains the audience and showcases Starbucks as a ‘the third place’ between home and work.
Take a look at the first video from the series below!
Videos like these work because they make your brand non-intrusive, and they let you have fun with your target audience. Whether you are a retail or an FMCG brand, this kind of content is a sure-fire way to strengthen brand rapport. Social media fans love videos like this, so if you’re considering video, this is a good start for your content marketing calendar. Entertainment videos are great for the attention stage of the buyer’s journey. Did the Starbucks video keep your attention? Case and point!
Explainer and demo videos
An essential part of marketing your products and services is to explain their unique value proposition.
91% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn about a product or service. - Strategic
An explainer video is an animated video that illustrates the core features of your products and services in simple terms. It uses animated characters, text, graphics and a narrative to tell your product story. Just note: You must use a professional voiceover and music while creating an explainer video.
Explainer videos are extremely beneficial for startup companies and businesses selling complex technology products.
Such videos are helpful in the capture stage of the buyer’s journey. You can put up your explainer video on your landing page along with a relevant Call-to-Action, to collect some qualified leads for your business.
Take a look at this incredible example of an explainer video from Ninja Bag, a junk removal services company
Here’s an explainer video from Sendible, explaining the ins and outs of the social media management platform.
The video above clearly highlights the unique value proposition of Sendible. It tells a story using an animated character to catch viewers' attention and make the video enjoyable and easy to digest.
Here is another similar example of a funny product video from a junk removal business called Ninja Bag that proves that you shouldn’t be afraid to use humor in a product video!
These kinds of animated explainer videos work best for boring products and services (yes, we said it). If that’s you, your products can be necessary and relevant, but the use of humorous videos make your product story more intriguing and exciting! It gives the audience a little something to connect to.
Event videos
Promoting your events on social media is a great way to strengthen your relationship with your fans and followers.
Video of a live event increases brand favorability by 63%. - Twitter
You can get professional videographers to record corporate event videos and then post them up on your social pages. Live streaming on social media is a trend that’s proven to work and requires minimal resources. You can live stream short snippets of your business events as stories on Instagram or as live videos on Facebook and Twitter. Check out this video from Google from their Google Pixel 2 launch event.
Event promotion videos are very helpful in nurturing your existing leads and building deeper relationships with them. They do this by creating hype around your brand and its newly launched products, and spreading the word! If you are a big brand with a large, geographically dispersed audience, then videos like these are a must!
Here is another example of a cost-effective event promotion video from CSCMP.
Motion-graphic videos like these can be created very quickly. They come handy for promoting an upcoming or periodic corporate event.
Testimonial videos
Every time new prospects visit your website or social pages, they are looking to validate the merit of your products and services. Once they are convinced about the features and pricing, they are keen to get an unbiased opinion about your offerings.
You can get your happy clients to be a part of a testimonial video that includes:
- Details about the problems that they were facing prior to using your products.
- Key product features that helped solve their problems.
Testimonial videos can work wonders to trigger the buying decision among your potential customers.
Customer testimonials are one of top three most effective type of video content. - Marketinghy
These videos are typically live-action videos, such as this professionally done testimonial from CliqStudios.
The video above is produced in a very professional way. It showcases the final kitchen designs along with satisfied customers talking about their experience. Testimonials can work for all types of high-value products and services. For any product where the customer has to shell out a large sum of money, social proof becomes extremely crucial.
Corporate videos
Corporate videos serve to showcase your company and its vision to your audience. It is the ‘About Us’ page of your website converted into a live action video!
A corporate video includes details like:
- Strengths of a company and its team
- Details about the business infrastructure and quality standards
- Awards and achievements
Corporate videos build trust among your audience and focus more on the corporate brand, its values and objectives. These videos can be very influential in converting prospects who are considering a variety of options.
Auto company Daimler created a compelling corporate video to showcase their strength and prowess.
This video beautifully brings out the values of Daimler - its spirit of technology innovation. It tells the narrative of the brand and epitomizes its vision to bring change. Such videos create a very positive image in the minds of the target audience. Corporate videos are essential for medium and large-sized businesses.
Here is a very cool example of how you can do your corporate video, using motion graphics. Motion graphics videos are a cost-effective way to create impactful corporate videos (which can be a huge plus).
Tutorials
When you are selling a complex product, you must demonstrate its usage to your audience.
Tutorials help you to teach your clients about using the product easily and effectively, and 4 out of 5 consumers believe that demo videos are helpful.
53% of the businesses said their customer support calls reduced after producing video content. - Optinmonster
Tutorial videos are usually created as screen sharing videos or slideshow videos. You can also create a powerful, live action tutorial video like this one from popular productivity tool Evernote.
This video makes it very simple for a new or an existing Evernote user to understand how to use the productivity tool more effectively. It has a human face while it also showcases live tool usage. It’s downright simple for the user to learn and implement the tips quickly! All type of technology products and services can make use of such tutorial videos to uncomplicate things for prospects and customers.
Work culture videos
Hiring a talented team is critical to the success of every company. It’s great to let people know how much your company values the right people. Attracting the right people is an uphill task. It’s hard to find people who have the skills as well as match your work culture. A company culture video helps you to showcase your workspaces and the overall work environment.
Job posts get 36% more applications if accompanied by a recruiting video. - Jobcast
It gives potential recruits a sneak peek into the everyday work life and the growth opportunities.
These videos are helpful when your business is growing and you need to expand your team size.
Take a look at this refreshing video from web hosting company GoDaddy.
The video showcases the work culture at GoDaddy by including company employees talking about their experience of working in a vibrant startup environment. It is a wonderful, lively video displaying the passionate work culture at GoDaddy. All types of big and small companies must create videos like these. Such content is essential for service-based companies where the attrition rate is higher than average.
Loyalty program videos
Reward programs are great to get your customers to stick around and purchase from you repeatedly.You can promote your reward program with the help of a video that showcases its benefits and explains how it works. Loyalty program videos work well in all types of video formats including animated, live action and motion graphics.
Such videos are very effective in the growth phase of the buyer’s journey.
Take a look at this intriguing video from HYOTS.
The video shows a guy getting attracted to the HOYTS reward program. He's dreaming of availing the benefits from the reward program. Loyalty program promotions tend to work very well for restaurants, clothing brands and airlines.
‘Thank you’ videos
Thanking your customers is a great way to make them feel special. These type of videos also work equally well in helping you to retain your existing clients and get more business from them. You can use any video format to thank your customers, but creating a very personal video would surely add more value.
Here is an example of a striking ‘Thank you’ video from Talbots, a US-based women’s fashion brand.
In this video, the whole executive team of Talbots comes together to thank their customers. The video gives the audience a sense of being a part of the Talbots community - of women who love to dress well. Videos like these help in bringing out your brand values and making your audience feel connected to those values. All types of B2B and B2C brands can make use of ‘Thank You’ videos for higher customer retention. Make sure you have a large customer base and you’ll definitely benefit from such videos.
The following table shows the effectiveness of each of the video types for different stages of the buyer’s journey and the channels you can use to promote them.
| Video Type | Relevant Stage(s) | Promotional Channels |
|---|---|---|
| Educational videos | Attention Capture Nurture |
Social media Blog |
| Entertainment videos | Attention | Social media |
| Explainer and demo videos | Capture Convert |
Website Landing page |
| Event videos | Nurture | Social media Blog |
| Testimonial videos | Convert | Website Landing pages Social media |
| Corporate videos | Convert | Website Landing pages |
| Tutorials | Grow | Website Social media |
| Work culture videos | Grow | Website Social media |
| Loyalty program videos | Grow | Email Social media |
| 'Thank you' videos | Grow |
Conclusion
Every video type and format has its own advantages. You can choose a video type that works best for a campaign and an audience segment. The video format will depend on your campaign budget and overall business goals. Most video formats can be developed cost-effectively. The only exception is live action videos. You can use all types of videos but make sure you stick to one or two formats and that will help you to maintain visual consistency.
What type of video is your favorite, or has worked for you in the past? Leave a note in the comments!
