Four marketing videos, is that all? Well, no…but the benefit of having these four at the core of your marketing video arsenal is that they cover some critical stages of your customer journey: awareness, consideration, decision and advocacy.
We probably don’t need to tell you that video marketing isn’t just about producing great video content, releasing it into the wild and hoping for the best. It takes strategy and planning, consideration of the different types of video content, distribution channels and audience, as well as the different stages of the buying cycle.
With 87% of businesses now using video as a marketing tool, the space is getting crowded and competition is increasing – and that means your content has to be great to have a chance of standing out. The good news is that consumers actively want video over any other type of content; 68% of people would prefer a short video to text (15%) or graphic-led content (8%).
The 4 Must-Have Marketing Videos of 2020
1. The Brand Marketing Video
Customer journey: awareness phase
A brand video is the opportunity for you to tell your brand’s story and convey your values and beliefs. It helps potential customers understand and identify with you quickly and easily, and it differentiates you from your competitors. It can also humanize your brand, especially if you create a more personal, casual style video. (Just make sure the video still rings true – your audience will be able to tell if it doesn’t.)
It’s also important to connect on an emotional level with your audience. Take this brand video from Barbie – it’s empowering, surprising and delightful. It draws you in and keeps you watching.
2. The Explainer Marketing Video
Customer journey: consideration phase
So your potential customers have come through the awareness phase and are now considering buying from you. Great! Explainer videos are great pieces of content to tip them forward to making a decision.
Typically short, this type of marketing video content clearly explains what your product or service is all about. It should be simple, easy to understand and to the point. Explainer videos should include:
- What problem your product solves
- Product benefits
- Key competitor differentiators
Explainer marketing videos also benefit you because they’re great for SEO and position you as an authority in your industry. You may think this type of marketing video will be boring – it doesn’t have to be. You can inject your brand’s personality, use animation, statistics, humor and make it fun.
This explainer video by Panorama9 for an IT monitoring solution could be – let’s face it – boring. But placing their target audience of IT workers at the front and centre, scratching at their pain points and doing this in a 1980s-style computer game animation makes it hugely watchable while breaking down exactly what the product does.
3. Video Interviews
Customer journey: purchase decision phase
Video interviews are a great way of persuading a potential customer to purchase. You can interview existing customers for social proof and testimonials, industry experts for credibility, your brand’s CEO for genuine comments and to connect with customers, and team members for more in-depth product information.
The interviews don’t have to be formal and can be mixed in with other formats such as animation, voiceover, images, demos, etc. As with explainer videos, interviews are great for SEO and giving your site traffic a boost. They are also a cost-effective way of producing great video content.
S’well’s CEO explains in this video interview how the company started, positions the brand’s environmental values and beliefs and discusses its growth in a relatable, authentic way.
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4. Animations
Using animation in marketing videos opens up endless possibilities. Animation can be used in video content at any phase of the customer journey and in any type of video, as we saw in our explainer video example. They can also be a highly effective way of conveying complex information in an engaging way, as well as being entertaining and just plain fun.
Animations should be easy to understand, distinctive and memorable – and always created with your conversion goal in mind. They also work very well on social media as they are eye-catching and easy to watch.
Take this animation video from Men’s Health – the title is ‘How a Bean Becomes a Fart’. You just know you want to watch it.
If your brand has these four marketing videos, you will be well-positioned to cover important aspects of your customer journey. Side tip! You can also use snippets from your videos as short-form content for social media, or splice snippets from different videos together to maximize the value of your content.
Check out our video marketing resource for more content on all aspects of video marketing, or contact us for a free video consultation.
