The rising popularity of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and streaming platforms like Zoom and Google Hangouts make producing quality video content essential to compete in today’s crowded marketplace. 

Some statistics that show the power of video content to market your business include:

• 82% of internet traffic is expected to be video content by 2021 (Cisco)
• 64% of consumers watching branded videos on social platforms will lead to conversion. (Tubular Insights)
• Video posted on website landing pages can boost conversion rates by up to 80% (Unbounce)
• Videos displayed on social media networks generate 1200% more shares than text and image content combined (G2 Crowd)
• Nearly a third of all people on the internet use YouTube, which comes out to around 1.9 billion people (YouTube)

Video content can be effective at communicating a wide range of marketing messaging and information objectives. Video is most often used to:

• Explain a concept
• Introduce a product
• Tell a story
• Show off customer loyalty
• Inspire movements
• Inform audiences
• Increase sales, revenue
• Build trust in your brand
• Increase exposure, consumer engagement

Types of Digital Marketing Videos

There are a variety of options for video content designed to reach your specific marketing goals, budget, and objectives. 

Brand Videos

Brand videos provide the ideal opportunity to further the discussion to highlight your company’s culture, passion, drive, and history. These types of videos are effective at introducing your company and how you do business. 

Brand videos may include:

• Company Overview: These videos are your chance to introduce your business to prospective customers, partners, and staff. Present your company in the best light while sharing your business’s goals and your overall mission statement in an impactful video format.
• Leadership Team Videos: Your leadership team is the driving force for your business operations. Letting the public know about those professionals who lead your operation will provide context and trust for your most valuable audience segments.
• Brand Culture Video: Your brand is what sets you apart in the crowded marketplace. It represents the identifying culture and environment developed for your customers and employees. Brand culture videos highlight these crucial elements of your business.
• Recruiting Videos: Recruitment videos help you cultivate and attract the most qualified pool of talent to add to your staff. Control the messaging and set expectations high for those recruits who would fit best in your business operations.

Product, Service Videos

Product and service videos are an increasingly popular style of videos as more and more companies go online to sell their products. Modern product and service videos allow you to get specific and demonstrate precisely what current and future customers need to know.

Examples of product and service videos include:

• Product or service overview: Video allows you to demonstrate the features and benefits of your products and services in a compelling way. Show viewers what your products are about and why your services are the best in your industry.
• Social Media Ad: Social media platforms offer unprecedented access to large segments of targeted audiences.
• Lifestyle Video: Showcasing the lifestyle of customers that enjoy using your products or services will have potential customers put themselves in that very lifestyle and envision the solutions your business provides.
• Unboxing Video: There is nothing like the excitement of opening up a newly purchased product from its packaging. YouTube is filled with channels and entries of unboxing videos. Seeing your product opened engages the viewer and compels them to make a purchase.
• Product Testimonial: Using loyal, satisfied customers to extol the virtues of your products or services by sharing their stories is incredibly useful for compelling consumers to act.
• TV Commercials: Historically, this is where product and service videos lived. Many times when a company launched a new product/service, TV commercials were the main, and often only, video marketing method. 

Thought Leadership Videos

Thought leadership videos are used to show how your business fits into your industry as a valuable leader and a trusted resource for your customers.

Seeing real people give honest assessments of their experiences is a powerful tool to reach and relate to future customers.

Some types of thought leadership include:

• Interviews with Key Members: The members of your staff know your company and the inside workings of your business operations as much as anyone. Use their passion, experience, and knowledge to provide a valuable perspective for current and future customers.
• Educational/Informative Videos: Video is a powerful medium used to educate and inform consumers about your products and services. It allows you to break down complex topics and processes, so they are easier to understand and apply.
• Instructional/How-To Videos: One of the first and ongoing uses for videos on the internet was to provide content that shows viewers how to do stuff. Answer all of your customers’ questions and address all issues through engaging, helpful instructional, and how-to explainer videos.
• FAQ Videos: A video representation of your FAQ page can be shared on social media and housed on your site as a permanent reference source for your business operations.

Trust Building Videos

Use your most essential resources to feature aspects of your company’s operation that build trust in your brand and your business.

A few types of videos that help with customer satisfaction:

• Customer welcome videos: Once you get a new customer, it is your job to do anything you can to keep them coming back. Welcome your customers with a video that makes them feel like an essential part of your business family, which of course, they are. Give them all of the specific information they will need to take full advantage of those products and services your company can provide.
• Customer onboarding videos: Video allows you to take the time to make sure your newest customers have all the information they need to maximize the uses, applications, and functions of your products.
• New customer instructional videos: These videos are specifically geared towards teaching new customers about the products they have purchased from you. This will give them the confidence they need to get everything out of your products and become loyal, long-term customers.

Videos That Increase Views, Exposure

No other form of online content can help to increase your exposure and brand awareness quite like video.

Video types to increase your online presence include:

• Viral Videos: There is no formula to making a video go viral on social media and other digital properties. The key is to produce engaging, exciting, entertaining, and compelling content that customers and followers want to share.
• Funny Videos: Humor is a great way to lighten the mood and make your brand more relatable to larger groups of consumers. It is tough to strike the right balance and create comic elements that appeal to everyone, but when you hit the proper tone with just the right content at the perfect time, you can extend your reach exponentially.
• Paid Media Videos: Social media networks, search engines, blogs, apps, podcasts, and other digital outlets offer a wide range of paid media advertising opportunities. Pay-per-click advertising campaigns are designed to target specific groups of target audiences based on demographic metrics like age, location, and income.

Video Can Help Increase Your Presence, Grow Your Brand

Including video elements in your overall digital marketing efforts is no longer a fringe option; it was just a decade ago. Video is now essential to reach the most significant number of prospective customers, drive them to your website, and add them to your loyal customer base.

The post The Complete Cheat Sheet to Different Types of Videos and When to Use Them appeared first on Relevance.