With video becoming a dominant content trend, video marketing has seen an upswing. Businesses are increasingly investing time and resources into video creation to reach a broader audience and stay competitive.
In our guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about video marketing, including its definition, types, benefits, and challenges. We’ll also share successful examples and tips for creating videos for your marketing campaigns.
Table of Contents
- What Is Video Marketing?
- 10 Most Common Video Content Types for Businesses
- How To Do Video Marketing in 2024
- Key Video Marketing Statistics You Should Know
- 4 Main Benefits of Video Marketing for Businesses
- 3 Video Marketing Challenges
- Common Video Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
- 3 Examples of Successful Video Marketing Campaigns
- Video Marketing Takeaways
- Video Marketing FAQs
What Is Video Marketing?
Video marketing utilizes video content as an engagement tool within your overall digital marketing campaign strategy. It can be used to tell a story, promote and advertise your brand, engage with customers, and more.
This form of content marketing uses different video content types and marketing techniques to build an audience for your brand and promote a product or service.
10 Most Common Video Content Types for Businesses
Video marketing uses different video content types, which include:
- Explainer videos
- Brand videos
- Marketing videos
- Screencast videos
- Social media videos
- Demo videos
- Presentation videos
- Training videos
- Tutorial videos
- Testimonials or customer story videos
1. Explainer Videos
Just as the name suggests, explainer videos are short and visual explainers, aimed at helping your customers understand your product or service. They are ideal for B2B companies or product-driven video production companies that want to explain a complex product to their customers. Examples include SaaS businesses like Autopilot and SlideShare and tools like Canva.
2. Brand Videos
Brand videos are short videos that showcase the company’s culture and values. These are valuable tools for increasing employee engagement and promoting internal brand awareness.
Brand videos come in many forms, such as employee interviews to behind-the-scenes video glimpses of the work environment.
3. Marketing Videos
Marketing videos, or video ads are created to promote products and services. These are the types of content you might create for your YouTube channel or share on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Typically, they are short, visual clips describing the product's main features and benefits. Alternatively, you can create long-form videos for in-depth product reviews. Marketing videos are often the most effective for B2C companies.
4. Screencast Videos
A screencast video is simply a recording of a computer screen, created using screen recording software. You can use screencast videos on their own or within another video. This type of video content is a great solution when you need to quickly film something for your colleagues or clients or when you need to record a meeting.
A screencast video can also include other multimedia elements, like images or screenshots. Optionally, it can contain audio or background music.
5. Social Media Videos
Social media videos are used in social media video marketing; they are available in many formats and styles, depending on the platform where they’ll be uploaded. Each platform has requirements for video format, length, and resolution that users must follow for optimal results.
One common element across platforms is the video caption feature. Create an appealing caption and optimize it with relevant keywords to make your video easier to find.
6. Demo Videos
A product demonstration or demo is a video that shows products in action. Instead of talking and explaining, the demo focuses on showcasing its functionalities and capabilities to the target audience.
The point of the demo is to close the deal by demonstrating the value of your product or service to existing and potential customers. For example, if the product is digital, such as software, the demo will showcase the software’s functionalities in action.
7. Presentation Videos
Video presentations are digital presentations that use video to communicate a message to the target audience. They can vary in style and format, ranging from images accompanied by audio narration (like PowerPoint presentations) to live performances by the presenter. Presentation videos are also known as lecture captions.
Presentation videos can have different purposes, such as introducing new products or services to the market, highlighting customer testimonials, or providing educational materials.
8. Training Videos
Training videos provide valuable insights to their target audience, whether they are employees or customers. These videos educate viewers on specific topics by providing instructions to develop new skills or acquire new knowledge.
9. Tutorial Videos
The terms “tutorial” and “training” videos are often used interchangeably because they have the same goal: to educate the target audience. However, there is a subtle difference. Training videos are mostly filmed for employees (though customers can use them too), while tutorials or how-to videos focus mainly on customer education.
10. Testimonials or Customer Story Videos
Testimonial videos feature satisfied customers sharing their experiences with your product. After introducing themselves, they talk about their pain points and how your product or service helped them resolve these issues.
Customer story videos are very effective for lead generation and conversion. They also build credibility and trust within your target group and nurture a positive brand image.
How To Do Video Marketing in 2024
How does video marketing work? Here are key steps you need to ensure you’re making the most of your video content:
- Define your video marketing strategy goals
- Choose the platform for your video content
- Choose the video type
- Create a video content calendar
- Plan the filming process
- Promote your videos
- Measure the results of your campaign
1. Define Your Video Marketing Strategy Goals
Before filming any video content, you need to define your video marketing strategy — understand your audience and define your video marketing objectives. Consider these questions to help you come up with a good strategy:
- Who is your target audience, and what pain points are they facing?
- What are you trying to achieve with video marketing?
- How can your video content help your target audience?
Remember: Your goals should be SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, instead of a broad and unspecific goal like “I want to increase sales,” set a more specific goal like “I want to increase sales by 10% in one month.”
Additionally, your strategy should include metrics. Define the key metrics you will track to monitor the progress of your video marketing efforts.
2. Choose the Platform for Your Video Content
The second step is to choose the appropriate platform for your video content. While you can publish videos on all social media platforms, you won’t be able to use the same video everywhere. Different platforms have different requirements for format and content types.
The best platform for your video content is the one your target audience uses. Some of the most popular ones now are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. To be more precise:
- TikTok: Ideal for short-form videos.
- YouTube: Suitable for all videos of all lengths and styles. It has a huge user base and is owned by Google, increasing your chances of appearing in video search results.
- Facebook: Has the largest number of users and is excellent for raising brand exposure.
- Instagram: Ideal for product showcases and video ads.
- Snapchat: A good choice if you’re targeting a younger demographic.
If you’re just starting with video marketing, use the platforms you already have followers on while simultaneously building your presence on others.
3. Choose the Video Type
A key step in your video strategy is determining which type of video works best for your brand and audience. Of course, choosing a primary video type doesn’t mean you can't create other formats — focus on those that align the most with your business objectives.
4. Create a Video Content Calendar
Once you’ve defined your audience, video marketing goals, and the type of videos you plan to create, it’s time to take action — by choosing a content calendar. A content calendar is a planning tool that helps you organize the recording and publishing videos so that you never miss a posting date.
Create a calendar that outlines video release dates and subject matter. You can also use the calendar to plan other content, such as blog posts and podcasts.
5. Plan The Filming Process
The next step is to start thinking about the filming process. Whether you’re filming in a professional studio or using a mobile phone, you need to have a plan. Without it, you could easily confuse your audience or leave out important elements in your product showcase or tutorial.
If you’re filming in-house, follow these steps to ensure you have everything you need for filming:
- Gather all the equipment you’ll need.
- Write a script.
- Choose the people who will be featured in the video (actors, influencers, employees, or your customers).
- Identify the perfect filming location.
- Determine who will control the recording and video editing process.
Of course, you won’t need to worry about these details if you’re working with a professional video marketing company.
6. Promote Your Videos
Now that you’ve created great content, you have to think about promoting it. Having a video will do you no good if you can’t get in front of as many people as possible.
Post your videos on your website, social media, and popular video-sharing platforms, such as Vimeo, Metacafe, or Dailymotion. Additionally, include video ads in your email marketing campaigns, as well as PPC and social media advertising.
7. Measure the Results of Your Campaign
Finally, analyze the outcomes. You can’t improve your results unless you understand them. Track various metrics, from the number of views to how often your videos are shared.
The most important metrics to monitor include:
- View count: The number of people who viewed your video content.
- Engagement: Actions people take when watching your video (like, share, comment).
- Play rate: The number of times users click “play” on your video.
- Watch time: Total time people spent watching your video.
- Social shares: The number of shares on social media platforms.
Key Video Marketing Statistics You Should Know
Video content has been around for a long time, but it has gained immense popularity in recent years. Here are some eye-opening statistics you should know:
- According to Wyzowl, 91% of businesses use video marketing.
- In 2023, companies saw a 15% jump in video plays compared to the year before.
- More than 75% of people spend at least 2 hours a day watching short-form video content.
- The Wyzowl report shows that live videos are the most common type, with 48% of video marketers using them.
- The lowest price for an animated explainer video is $600, while the highest price is around $250,000.
4 Main Benefits of Video Marketing for Businesses
Video marketing is a powerful way to connect with customers, motivate employees, and spread your business' message. Here are some of the most prominent reasons why video content marketing is essential:
- Engaging and trendy
- Highly shareable and consumable
- Improves your SEO
- Builds brand awareness and credibility
1. Engaging and Trendy
Video content marketing has boomed in recent years, and by the end of 2024, video content marketing is expected to reach $191.3 billion.
It has become such a popular tool for marketing as it allows businesses to create engaging and dynamic video content tailored to their audience. With video marketing, you can create something unique for your audience in various formats and market it directly to them.
2. Highly Shareable and Consumable
Videos can be easily shared on company blogs, embedded on websites, or shared with followers on social media. This gives them great potential to go viral.
As visual beings, humans naturally process and retain information better through visuals. Additionally, videos tend to be more memorable. According to the same Wyzowl report we mentioned earlier, 44% of customers are more likely to watch a video to learn about a product rather than read about it.
3. Improves Your SEO
Video marketing can help you improve your search ranking results and SEO. A Personify report showed that by 2025, videos will account for 82% of all consumer traffic.
To maximize your SEO benefits, keep the following in mind:
- Use relevant keywords to improve visibility.
- Include optimized descriptions, tags, file names, file sizes, and file formats.
- Use relevant and accurate information about your business.
4. Builds Brand Awareness and Credibility
Video content allows viewers to see your company in action and hear directly from you about what makes your brand unique. While someone unfamiliar with your business may read about your services on your website, watching a 5-minute video about the same topic can more effectively demonstrate how you can help them through engaging visual and audio elements.
3 Video Marketing Challenges
Video marketing strategies can bring many benefits. However, you should be aware of these three video marketing challenges:
1. Undefined Video Marketing Objectives
Many video creators choose to skip the very first step in creating quality videos — determining their business goal. This oversight is what leads to low viewership and little to no traffic.
Think about what you want to achieve with your video. Who is your target audience, and what pain points are they experiencing? What problems are they dealing with, and how can your product or service provide a solution?
The answers to these questions will help you establish your goals. Once you have a clear objective, think of the best way to align your videos with that goal.
2. Lack of Filming Ideas
A lack of ideas for video content can be a serious issue since you want to engage your audience and not bore them. You have only a few seconds to capture and keep your viewer’s interest, so you need to come up with compelling concepts.
Here are some strategies to find your next video inspiration:
- Use keywords specific to your niche and search YouTube to see what your audience most frequently looks for. Create videos that help them solve their pain points.
- Go through the comment section. It’s a great source of ideas and suggestions from users seeking solutions to their problems.
- Join niche-specific communities and groups and interact with people to get direct information on what kind of video content they would find most useful.
- Conduct surveys and send them via email or post polls to your social media accounts to gather feedback and ideas from your audience.
- Visit the “trending” sections on social networks to discover ideas that have the potential to go viral.
3. Ensuring the Audience Can Find Your Videos
Putting your content out there is one thing, but making sure it reaches the right audience is a challenge. You want to get the most out of your video content, which means you need people to discover and watch it. But how can you achieve this?
The answer is simple: You must know where your audience spends the most time online. This insight will help you choose which platform is best suited for distributing your videos and getting them in front of your audience.
Common Video Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Aside from the challenges, here are three video marketing mistakes you should steer clear of:
- Not talking to the camera: Looking directly at the camera creates a connection with the viewer, making it feel like you’re speaking directly to them instead of avoiding their gaze. It portrays you as confident and authentic, showing that you’re someone who knows and believes in their products and services.
- Reading off a script: Avoid reading off of a script while recording your video content. This can come across as unnatural and rehearsed, making it feel that you’re simply reciting pre-written lines instead of actually talking to your audience.
- Using stock music/images/footage/voiceover/video clips: While using some stock footage can be appropriate in some cases (e.g., when illustrating how certain products work), try to steer clear of it as much as possible. Authentic and original content is often more memorable, and sometimes a simple white background is better than an overused stock image.
3 Examples of Successful Video Marketing Campaigns
To wrap up, here are three examples of successful video content marketing:
1. LG – Meteor Prank
In 2013, LG took a unique and peculiar approach to promote their newest 84-inch ultra-HD TV — via a prank. They called in several people under the guise of a job interview them, with the TV cleverly positioned in the background as a window, displaying a cityscape. Suddenly, when a meteor threatened to crash, the interviewees lost it — chaos ensued!
This campaign is an example of a clever and memorable way to introduce a new product and highlight its best features. It will make some people laugh and some (as the guy in the video) very mad. But, they’ll all remember it for sure.
2. Amazon – Alexa’s Body
In 2021, Amazon came up with a very clever, innuendo-filled way to not only spread the word about its product but also demonstrate how it works. This Super Bowl ad featured Michael B. Jordan personifying Amazon’s Alexa, which got everyone talking about the product — for obvious reasons.
3. Inspired By Iceland – Introducing the Icelandverse
Does this tourism campaign seem familiar? Well, as a parody, pitched, and made in just a matter of days after Meta’s new Metaverse, this video ad blew up with over 2 million views. It’s funny, entertaining, and informative.
As Chief Visionary Officer Zack Mossbergson puts it, it offers an “enhanced, actual reality without silly-looking headsets.” This obvious sales pitch showcases the beauty of Iceland, highlighting what people can visit and do there.
Video Marketing Takeaways
Video marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to reach and engage customers online, especially when supported by a solid social media content strategy. It's a great way to share information about your products or services with both potential and existing customers.
Additionally, people are looking for more interesting ways to engage with businesses online, positioning video marketing as essential for staying competitive and relevant.
Video Marketing FAQs
1. How much does video marketing cost for businesses?
The cost of video marketing depends on several factors like the type of video type, how long it is, what needs to be included, etc. However, on average, good video marketing costs around $10,000 to $20,000.
2. How does video marketing help with SEO?
Videos are still content so they can be used to boost your ranking on search engines and improve SEO efforts. Video content marketing can use keywords in their tags, alt text, description, and more.
3. How effective is video marketing?
If done right, video marketing can be really effective. You can bring more traffic to your website, get customers interested in your products, and even convert some to regular clients. Find the right digital marketing agency for you and craft videos that resonate with your target audience.
