It’s no giant secret that today’s world responds to content, and video production is among the most impactful forms of marketing (no, we’re not biased at all…). I’ve seen plenty of well-produced videos fall into the abyss because it wasn’t strategized properly going forward. Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland is an epicenter of startup businesses, successful tech firms, and the leading edge of content marketing, so we here at SkipperFilms have seen both very successful video campaigns, and very poorly executed ones. A corporate video doesn’t go viral by accident; you have to put it in front of the right audience to create a bigger impact. Ideally, you have a video that does it all, and is attractive to everyone you want to target, but sometimes you need to diversify your efforts and create a video campaign composed of several very differently produced videos with different messages. Recently, these strategies were really driven home in my skull after speaking to a good friend and marketing/sales visionary, Jacob Garlick with Revsite.com. But without going too far into the strategy that follows the creation of these videos, I thought I would give you a run down of 5 tried-and-true styles of video that you can use to increase awareness, boost sales, and get one step closer to swimming in your pool full of gold coins.
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Emotional
What better way to connect with your audience’s inner feelings than to appeal to their emotions? Some of the greatest advertisements I’ve seen on TV have left me feeling emotionally inspired, or sad, or joyful. The purpose wasn’t to sell the product; it was to sell the emotions that the product evoked. But of course, if you connect with the emotions, you buy the product. Sneaky, huh?
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Humor
Who doesn’t love a funny video? Well, you might not know just how much strategy goes into creating humorous content for business. You can’t just throw a comedian in front of a camera and tell a joke, it needs to be thought out, relevant, subtly delivered, yet surprising and… yes… funny. I’ve seen too many people go out of their way to fit a joke into what they’re saying, and that distracts the viewer. When embedding humor into your promotions, be sure to keep it natural and unique!
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Educational
You have a product, you need to sell your product, and you need to explain what it does. This is very important to new ideas that might not be obvious to your audience. Sometimes the other styles of video can get this done, but sometimes it doesn’t. You can’t always get away with telling jokes or making your viewers cry if they really just need to know how it works, so that’s where a solid educational video comes into play. Have a video to point at on your website so you’re not spending hours every day responding to the “How does it work?” email. You can make it personal and relatable, but be sure to make this video clear and concise about educating your viewers.
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Irrelevant Videos (just hear me out)
So this one is tricky. Do it incorrectly, and it’s a wasted investment. But execute it well, and you’re looking at viral status, baby. By making an unbranded video, people will think it was just something someone uploaded to Instagram or Facebook, it was funny, or was so unique that there’s no way it was planned out. “But what’s this? It’s on a company’s account? What company is this? SkipperFilms? I gotta check these guys out, they seems pretty awesome.” See where I’m going with that? It’s all about subtle connections. People will do the legwork for you, you don’t need to go out of your way to subliminally place your logo in the background of every shot. Social media is a beautiful thing :winky face:
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The All-In-One
This is the one that can bring all the above together. You’ll see this kind of video directly on a company’s homepage, rather than pushed out over social media channels over the course of a campaign. This will be the video that stays relevant for years, rather than days or weeks.
“So isn’t the all-in-one better than the rest because it has it all?”
No, just different. Again, it’s all about the strategy. Those shorter funny, emotional, educational, or irrelevant videos might have a shorter run, but they have a higher chance of going viral, gaining you TONS of traction that an all-in-one video might not be able to do.
If you need help deciding what kind of video will help your business grow, never hesitate to Contact Us today and we’ll chat! Until then though, hang out in our Portfolio to see some of our work, and get an idea of what kinds of videos we’ve done! Enjoy!
