Your Marketing Needs These 9 Videos

Your Marketing Needs These 9 Videos

Did you know that are NINE types of videos your business needs? Gone are the days when the only video advertising was television commercials. Now, video is ever-present in our lives. For example, over 2 BILLION users log into YouTube every month. Just like any other tool available, as a business, your brand is going to need different things from different types of videos. Are you using all the kinds of video?

Since different types of videos are used for different things, it’s important to have a well-rounded video strategy. One that helps attract customers, educate them, converts, as well as creates customer engagement and builds relationships. Some types of videos that do that are webinars, promos, digital display, social content, and personalized videos for customers. Some of those are best when heavily scripted and polished, others are great when they feel quickly thrown together. What you need depends on what need you are trying to fill and where the target viewer is on their customer journey. It also depends on how much time, effort, and/or money to pour into video creation.

Explainer Videos

Explainer Video are quick 30-60 videos that explain who you as a company are. It’s basically a pitch video. They great for top of funnel interactions where you need to introduce yourself to potential customers and convince them why they should care about you. They work best when they are made with the audience in mind and feel personal. Don’t forget a strong call-to-action!

You can use Explainer Videos on your website, (think homepage videos) on social media, including YouTube, as well as in ads. 

How-To Videos

How-to videos are great for any point of the funnel, can be just about any length, and be used for anything other than ads. However, they don’t need to be extremely high quality or super polished. A real person-to-person feel is more effective. The point of a how-to video is to explain something in a way that will provide valuable content to your audience. This is not the time for a hard sell.

How-to videos are super engaging online because it can feel like pulling back the curtain and letting your audience in on trade secrets!

Promo Videos

Promo videos are basically the general term for commercials. Think short, polished, story driven, exciting videos with strong call-to-actions. They can be used anywhere you need to promote something!

Talking Head Live Video

Talking Head Videos

Talking head videos could also be categorized as thought leadership videos. These videos are when you put yourself in front of the camera and share your personality and point of view. These are not designed for a hard sell but instead to show viewers your authentic self and brand personality. Talking head videos work best on social media and on YouTube. 

Webinars

I’m going to include podcast videos here as well, (like the video recordings that most podcasts film while recording.) Webinars are inherently educational and therefore the focus needs to be on providing content for your viewers, not selling them. Most webinars are between 15-60 mins. And like in person seminars, they can take many forms: live Q&A’s, lectures, or panels. 

Hosting a webinar takes a bit of IT knowledge so it’s totally ok to use a hosting service! It’s a good idea to have a moderator (and maybe an A/V guy) on hand for any troubleshooting or technical difficulties. After the webinar is finished you can make it available for on-demand viewing, as well as cutting the webinar up into smaller clips.

Case Study Video

A case study tells the story of how a real customer uses your product. It provides validation from a third party. Case study video work best when they are clearly planned out and polished. Include the customer/video star on the planning process, that will make the video more authentic. Focus the video more benefits rather than features and back up the information with data.

Types of video in the funnel

Fun/Culture Videos

These videos are a way to highlight your company’s culture and personality. They help tell your brand story and personality. Often these videos are narrative driven, fun, and humorous. A good example of culture videos is pretty much every company’s TikTok. They are quick and fun and feel personal.

Demo Videos

A demo video is a video that highlights how a product or service actually works. It’s there to educate and inform viewers. Keep the video as concise as possible. They can take a few forms: a broad overview, pre-recorded demo, or live demonstration. For example, we have broad overview demos of National List Services on YouTube, we prerecord demos to onboard clients or answer technical questions, (Loom is great for this) and we often do live demos when showing potential clients how our systems work.

Personalized Videos

Who doesn’t love a personalized video? Sending videos instead of texts or emails to clients is a big part of our follow up. It’s so much more touching to see someone’s face and hear your name than just a written follow up. Because of the nature of our business there are some clients we have never actually met face to face and sending them a personalized video can help bridge that gap.

So, with so many avenues and different types of videos, it’s easy to see why it’s such a popular marketing tool. How do you use video in your marketing?

 
 

Let’s Talk: Digital Display

Digital Display

We’ve talked a lot about specific types of Digital Display Ads but what are the differences them? And how do you what type of Digital Display (Or online ad) is the best fit for your business?

What is Digital Display?

Digital Display Ads can be split into 5 main categories:

  • Digital Audio Ads
  • CTV (Connected TV)
  • Video Ads
  • Static Ads
  • HTML5 Ads

What do Digital Display Ads do?

Digital Display Ads encompasses just about every type of online ad. Each type of Digital Display Ad has its own strengths and weakness. Effective campaigns are often the ones that know how to best utilize each type of ad.

Digital Audio Ads

What is Digital Audio Advertising? It’s all the ads you get that are just sound. For example, any podcast, Spotify or Pandora ad is Digital Audio. It’s expected that Digital Audio Ads from just podcasts will surpass a BILLION dollars in 2021 and that the average American will spend nearly 90 minutes a day listening to streamed music or podcasts by 2022.

Digital audio ads are a great way to connect with consumers through a channel that they enjoy. And it is very cost effective, because the ad only plays if they are listening to music or a podcast.

CTV (Connected TV)

Connected TV advertising refers to ads that are delivered to internet-connected TVs – for instance, via Hulu or Roku. CTV is increasing in popularity for marketers! Consumers are embracing these platforms so more and more ad inventory is becoming available. In fact, CTV advertising spend is expected to grow from $6.94 billion in 2019 to $8.88 billion this year, a 28% increase.

The specifies depend on what you need your funnel to accomplish. Some of the processes used are A/B testing, improving user on-page experiences, usability tests, and optimizing existing content.

Video Ads

Video Advertising fits into 2 categories: The ads that play connected to streamed content, such as Youtube ads, and display ads with video content. Those are the ads that start playing a video when your cursor scrolls over it and native video ads.

Video ads are extremely effective. Video content is more eye catching and engaging than static images or text and they are easier to remember. They are great at story telling and promoting brand messaging. Studies show that almost 75% of consumers prefer Video Ads over Text Ads.

Many Video Ads on social media platforms are re-sharable like native content, which makes it easier for consumers to promote your content for you.

Static Ads

Static Display Ads are probably what you think when you think of online ads. Static Display Ads (or Banners) are the ads that are a solid image of various sizes in designated areas of a webpage or app.

Static Ads are very effective for generating general brand awareness, retargeting, drawing attention to a specific sale, targeting location based traffic, and much more!

HTML5 Ads

HTML5 Ads are attention-grabbing, interactive (or responsive) ads optimized for Google.

HTML5 allows a lot of flexibility and creativity with ads content and formatting. Video, text, imagery, and audio files can all be used. More imaginative ads create more engagement. HTML5 ads tend to have much hight click-through rates than static ads!

HTML5 ads are rendered in code. You are sent to code itself as well as the MP4 video.

What’s the best fit for you?

Every business and situation is different! No one type of ad is best for each business but usually a combination of the 5. Online advertising can be touchy so it’s important to have a strategy.

What’s your favorite type of Digital Display Ads to use for your business?