Tom Wozniak August 3, 2020 Video is widely recognized as one of the most powerful tools for marketing and communication. Having put together various types of video marketing programs for multiple companies over the years, I’m a big believer in the effectiveness of video as a tool in your content marketing program.
Below are four types of videos you might consider for your company. None of these ideas are unique. In fact, they are fairly standard in some industries. But, they are commonly used because they are also effective. So, as you’re building out your video content program, consider one or more of these as a starting point.
Client & Partner Interviews
This is particularly powerful in the B2B arena, where your company, your clients, and your partners are all likely interested in building awareness and marketing themselves. This makes client and partner videos a potential win-win for both your company and the other organization being highlighted in your video.
At the same time, it’s good to remember that a lot of companies use video for this type of content. Whether it’s consumer brands, with videos of their customers saying great things about their product or service, or business-to-business brands making longer testimonial videos – this is not a novel idea. So, if you’re going to go down this path, you should think about how you can make your videos stand out from typical examples of a client or partner interview in your own industry or particularly from your competitors. What can you do to add your unique spin on the concept? Just be sure that whatever approach you take lines up with your company’s brand image and its personality and culture.
My company recently released a partner interview series that has generated a lot of great feedback and buzz in the industry. Our approach to making them stand out was to keep them very conversational, ensure that our partners got a chance to talk about their companies, and then deliver extremely professional production values.
Team Member Videos
You’ve probably seen examples of these from big consumer brands in TV commercials and they are also very popular in the B2B arena. The goal is often to put some personal touch to a company’s brand image in the market. Do your clients regularly talk to a dedicated account manager or sales rep? Then, creating individual team member profile videos can be a great way to continue building rapport with current clients, and they are also a useful introduction for brand new customers.
Whatever approach you take to these types of team member videos, make sure it’s authentic to both the team member and your company’s personality. Humor can add a fun element to these types of videos, but make sure it isn’t forced and that it’s true to who your team members are and how they are perceived by your clients.
At a past company, we recorded a set of videos focused on our account management team where we went very over-the-top to play up each person’s personality. The videos all relied on humor, which was a great fit for our brand image and how we were already positioning ourselves in the market, as a company that didn’t take itself too seriously.
Event-Based Videos
Before 2020, a lot of companies attended conferences, trade shows, and other industry events. While that may seem like a long time ago now, if and when these types of in-person events begin making a comeback, they are a great opportunity to capture video content. Whether it is footage of your team at your company’s exhibit booth or presenting during a conference, they are great opportunities to gather valuable video content. Whether it is for a specific video (like a highlight reel from the event) or simply to act as b-roll that can be included in other videos, it can be very valuable in your video program.
The partner interview series I mentioned above was shot during a couple of industry events early in 2020. We were able to capture a lot of additional footage of our team interacting with industry peers during the events and various networking activities. That footage has become particularly valuable since real-world events have been canceled or postponed until at least late 2020.
Product Demos
If you have a product or service that may be difficult to explain or visualize or it functions in a way that is particularly suited for a live demo, then using video to record that demo can be a huge time-saver. Live product demos, which are common in various B2B technology industries, can be time-consuming and challenging to deliver repeatedly. So, creating a video of a flawlessly executed demo can be a great way to introduce new prospects to your company and its products and services – or to demonstrate something new to your current clients. Having these types of demos recorded can have the great advantage of letting your audience view the video at their convenience while freeing up your team’s time, as well.
Product demo videos can also dovetail into actual training and how-to videos, especially if your company has a more technical product or service that requires some amount of customer training.
While there are still a number of key decisions you will need to make in your video program, here is one that stands out.
Hire a Pro or Handle it In-House?
In a time where many of us carry powerful video cameras with us everywhere in our daily lives and regularly record and upload videos to our favorite social media platforms, it’s not a stretch to think that we can probably create pretty high-quality videos ourselves, without needing to bring on a professional videographer. This DIY approach can absolutely be successful, especially if your video strategy is to capture content in a very natural, unscripted way.
However, there are many reasons why professional videographers continue to thrive. One major factor is that if you want truly high-quality content and professional production values, you aren’t going to achieve them in your iPhone, no matter how many cool videos you and your marketing team members have uploaded to Instagram.
In some instances, even if you are going for more of an amateur/DIY look to your videos, a professional can help you achieve that goal even more successfully, because of their skill in everything from lighting and framing to editing and capturing quality audio.
Your budget should be a key driver in this decision, but if you have the funding, you likely won’t regret hiring a pro to make sure your video project is as effective as possible.
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