Digital video marketing is a $135 billion dollar industry in the United States alone. In the last few years, video gained massive popularity as a content marketing format with over 50% of consumers online wanting to see videos from brands as compared to any other content format.
This means that if your brand is not using videos to market its products and services, it is not going to match up to the competition. But why do so many brands still hesitate to get started with video marketing? The primary reason is the cost and high barrier of entry. While you can take care of the video creation process using an easy-to-use editor like InVideo, you also need to learn the different aspects of video marketing in order to make the most of it.
That’s why we’ve put together a comprehensive video marketing guide that will take you through everything you need to know about the subject in order to get started. Here’s what’s covered in the article:
- What is video marketing?
- Why is video marketing important?
- Types of video marketing
- How to create a video marketing strategy for your brand?
- 13 best video marketing examples
- Pro tips for video marketing
Pro tip: You can make video marketing even easier with InVideo for business where you can get tailor-made templates and on-demand video editing to create thumb-stopping videos for your brands easily and quickly. Get your free demo here.
Let’s get started.
What is video marketing?
Video marketing is using video content to connect with your audience to promote a product or a feature, to educate, or to increase social media engagement. Video marketing gives a new medium that’s more engaging and appealing to the brands so that they can interact with their customers.
Videos are a better way to give out tutorials and testimonials and open up new opportunities to closely interact with the audience through live streams.
Why is video marketing important?
A study by wyzowl found that about 87% of the marketers observed an increase in traffic after using videos for marketing. Moreover, 94% of the marketers found that audiences could get a better understanding of the product when explained through a video and 86% of them could generate more leads using videos.
Videos are more interactive and thereby help your customers associate better with your brand as well as retain more information. As compared to just 10% retention in text-based content, videos tend to have retention as high as 65%. This means that 65% of people consume your entire video as compared to only 10% consuming a blog post you’ve written.
Overall, videos are important if you want to engage your audience, help them retain more information, and finally convert them into paying customers. If you want to create videos for your own brand, consider signing up to InVideo for business where you can get customized templates for your brand's needs. Get your free demo here.
Now let’s look at types of video marketing for your brand.
Types of video marketing
Now that you understand why video marketing is important, let’s go ahead and look at the various types of videos you can create for your brand or business in order to grow.
1. Social Media videos
Social media videos help you reach people who are active on social media and position your product or service as a solution to their problems. You can use platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms to host such videos or even embed them on your site. These videos keep customers updated about what's going on with your business.
Most brands use social media platforms to create short-form, easy-to-consume content that achieves a variety of goals starting from spreading awareness about the brand and building an online community to helping drive sales. Now social media video themselves can be of various types, let’s take a look at the most popular ones below:
a. Short-form videos
Most social media platforms are pushing short-form content in the form of Reels or TikTok. These are videos in the vertical format that are less than a minute long and fill the entire phone’s screen. These are optimized for viewing on mobile devices.
Short-form videos give you a lot of flexibility to experiment with different styles of video creation to figure out the best way to keep your audience engaged. Look at how National Geographic does this to talk about important topics concerning humans and the environment:
To create such videos you need to understand how to put across your message in a concise manner as well as learn how to hook people’s attention from the get-go. And to create short-form videos with ease, you can take the help of InVideo’s Instagram video editor, which gives you access to hundreds of trending templates, stock videos, and a huge music library. And to make things even simpler, sign up to InVideo for business to get tailor-made Instagram templates for your brand. Get your free demo here.
b. Long-form videos
While short-form videos are all the norm these days, longer videos still have their place when it comes to explainers, testimonials, or any other topic that needs to be covered in-depth.
Brands can use engaging long-form videos, pack them with relevant information that is useful for their viewers, and gain a lot of traction that way. These types of videos provide a great opportunity to brands to tell their story and connect with their viewers better.
Gary Vaynerchuk, the Belarusian-American entrepreneur, puts out long-form videos as a part of his business model. These provide great value to his viewers and as a result, garner a lot of attention. This video by him is more than an hour-long but has about 900k views.
When creating long-form content, you really need to focus on storytelling. Script your videos well so that you don’t end up stretching a topic more than necessary. Once you have the planning down, go ahead and shoot and then edit your videos using InVideo’s video editor.
c. Livestream videos
Livestream videos are exactly what they sound like: videos streamed live as they're happening. You can use live stream video for different purposes, but a popular use is to document and share an event as it's unfolding. For example, you could live stream the Black Friday sale at your store and let customers see which products are sold out the fastest. Or you could invite an influencer or celebrity to chat with fans during a Q&A session on Facebook Live.
Apple lives streams apple events where the brand introduces new products or new versions to its viewers. The videos are detailed and talk about all the features and technical specifications live with the audience.
While live streaming videos, you don’t get retakes so you want to plan out your setup, your subject, and other tiny details in advance so that you don’t run into hiccups. You also want to ensure you have a high-speed internet connection.
d. AR videos
Augmented reality (AR) is a new way to promote your business, brand, or product. It’s an interactive virtual experience that allows users to place 3D objects into their environment. AR provides endless possibilities for brands to connect with their audiences and create a memorable experience.
With AR, you can add 3D elements to your videos to allow your audience to interact with them through their smartphones. This creates an engaging visual and interactive experience for them. For example, you can add 3D objects like a coffee cup or pizza box to your video. Then, when the viewer points their phone at the object, it will appear to be real in their environment.
For example, look at how AirCard created a memorable, bespoke augmented reality card that is both engaging and personal in nature which they posted on their Youtube channel.
Softwares like Spark AR and Lens studio can be used to make AR videos easily. You can start by adding in your video and icon, and then submitting the effect on the social media platforms.
2. Video ads
According to HubSpot, over 80% of marketers believe that video ads are essential for their marketing strategy and give them a positive ROI. The reason is that an increasing number of consumers have started to prefer video content over traditional broadcast commercials.
Video ads are the best if you want to create a lasting impression of your brand and make it more popular. They help you reach more audiences and increase brand recognition.
Let’s look at some types of video ads that you can use for your brand:
1. Social media video ads
Social media video ads are the videos that we see on stories and feeds of our social media pages. These ads are highly engaging and are very effective in compelling the audience to take action.
Video ads on social media can appear in a variety of formats, including on your feed (for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), in your stories, on the explore page, and even when scrolling through your Reels and TikToks.
Social media ads are designed to catch users' attention as they scroll through content online and offer businesses a powerful way to meet their audiences where they spend most of their time. Take this example of Lola’s lashes, who use story ads to present a comparison of how using their eyelashes can enhance the appearance. The ad focuses on demonstrating the easy-to-use and nontoxic magnetic lashes.
The ad helps them capture the attention of women and men in the beauty community looking for higher-quality lashes that can help them enhance their appearance. You can create ads like this one easily using InVideo’s ad maker.
However, you first need to understand who your audience is and what kind of content resonates with them. Then you need to figure out on which platform they spend the most time and target accordingly. Remember that you need to tailor your content — videos, images, copy, etc. for different audiences as well as different platforms. Check out these guides on Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and YouTube ads to get a deeper understanding of how to create an ad for each of these social media platforms.
Pro tip: To speed up your video ad creation, sign up to InVideo for business where you can get customized ad templates and on-demand video editing. Get your free demo here.
b. TrueView Ads
TrueView video ads are skippable video ads that play before, during, or after other videos on YouTube. TrueView has two formats: in-stream and discovery.
In-stream ads play before a viewer watches the video they’ve selected on YouTube (and can also play on partner websites and apps), while discovery ads appear all over YouTube alongside regular content and across the Google display network.
With both TrueView in-stream and discovery ads, your money is only spent when a viewer watches your ad for at least 30 seconds or to the end of your ad – whichever comes first. Advertisers pay when someone chooses to watch an ad (CPV) rather than simply seeing it (CPM).
Swiggy, a food delivery platform, uses true-view video ads to showcase its new features and promote its brand. These eye-catching intros grab the users' attention and persuade them to click on the ads. This is a great example:
To create your own true-view video ad, you need to understand that the first five seconds must make an impression that makes the viewers watch till the end. You can start by planning a short script for your ad and then create an attractive video. Start a new campaign on Google Ads, and fill in the details step-by-step to create your trueview ad. You can put together this video using InVideo’s ad maker to create a compelling ad in just minutes.
c. Native Ads
Native ads are designed to appear as part of the page they are on instead of typical video banners or boxes. You can use these types of ads to promote sponsored content, which is a form of advertising that doesn’t necessarily present itself as an advertisement.
Note: Native ads and sponsored content are not necessarily videos, but they can contain video elements that promote products or services.
Infusionsoft created this Facebook native video ad to promote its step-by-step YouTube tutorial on how to get started with Facebook live. The headline was meant to catch people’s attention - “Learn everything you need to kick off your first Facebook Live—with ROI in mind.” There is an in-video description, followed by a clickable CTA available for viewers to take action at any time.
To create native ads you need to get the targeting right by studying insights thoroughly, measuring the impact and A/B testing. You must also understand the mindset of native users as they click to explore more about the brand or product. Engaging them with interesting content becomes more important. You can use InVideo’s ad maker to create video native ads in a jiffy. You can also use effects, text, and photos to make it more appealing.
Pro tip: Outsource your brand's ad creation to InVideo for business and make your ad creation easier and quicker with tailor-made templates and on-demand video editing. Get your free demo here.
3. Educational videos
Educational videos are great for your website, social media, and email marketing. They allow you to show off your expertise while educating your audience simultaneously—and they are also an excellent tool for lead generation.
Firstly, provide value to your audience with educational videos that walk them through a particular process or show them how to do something. You can also create educational content by showcasing customer testimonials or case studies. Lastly, if you want customers to take action, instruct them what to do next by suggesting another video or an offer.
a. Tutorials
A tutorial is a video explaining how to do something step-by-step. Tutorials are helpful when the viewer wants to learn how to complete a specific task.
If you're asking your viewers to complete a task, such as using software or learning a new skill, then tutorials are one great way of helping them achieve that goal and guiding them through it in manageable steps. You can also create tutorials for complex topics.
Check out this video Sony made for walking their users through setting up their PlayStation VR experience. They've used special effects to help their audience complete the process with ease and have made the content fun and engaging in the process.
To create a tutorial video, plan out how you’re going to give the instructions and break it down into steps. Write down the script, record the audio and then record your screen. You can then edit or trim this screen recording and readjust with the audio. InVideo’s video maker can help you edit and put together your video within minutes. You can add in the voiceover and also enhance the video with cool effects.
b. Industry updates
An industry update is a short, informational video that gives viewers the latest news about a company or field. It's important to keep up to date with these videos so that people stay informed about any changes in your industry.
"Up to date," in this sense, means "current" or "in date." You should always ensure you have the most recent information about your industry. This way, you'll be able to stay on top of new ideas, products, and trends. Having the latest information will give you an advantage over competitors who may not yet know what's going on in their field.
The photoshop training channel on youtube updates its viewers with the latest updates on Photoshop in 2024. It lists out the new features and tools added recently and talks in-depth about each of them.
To create an industry update video, you must list out the latest happenings that are important and arrange them in order of priority. You can then record yourself speaking these updates or make a slideshow video with the updates included in it in the form of text and photos. InVideo’s video editor can help you make an industry update video quickly and easily using its efficient features. Here’s a quick template you can get started with
c. DIY videos
Short for “do-it-yourself” videos, DIY videos are homey and personal. They show your viewers how to achieve a relatively simple task or activity. This can range from creating a living wreath to changing the oil in a car.
DIY videos are fantastic for two reasons: they showcase your expertise and can be a good source of organic traffic. Sugar cosmetics gives its viewers ideas on how to apply makeup correctly themselves. It shares trendy and attractive makeup hacks that audiences can follow using their products.
If you want to create a DIY video, test out your idea for practicality and relevance first. Then if the idea is worth sharing, lay down a step-by-step explanation. You can then shoot a video demonstrating your DIY idea. InVideo’s video editor can help you edit this video easily and help you make it better with effects and text animations.
Pro tip: Create educational videos for your brand with ease by signing up to InVideo for business where you get access to customized educational templates for your brand. Get your free demo here.
4. Testimonial videos
Testimonial videos are intended to help customers trust your brand. These showcase testimonials from real users who found your videos helpful and they increase your credibility by using other people's word-of-mouth recommendations to tell your story.
a. Customer testimonials
Customer testimonial videos feature customers talking about their experience using your product or service. They can be a powerful tool when used in the right place in your sales funnel.
Simple customer testimonial videos can be quick and easy to film, making them perfect for sharing on social media channels. Still, they can also be used on homepages or within sales pages.
If you have satisfied customers who are willing to talk about their experiences with your business, this is a great video to show. You can ask them to talk about their perspective of what it's like to work with you and how your product or service has helped them. Google UK decided to show one of their customers’ opinions in the form of a video – an incredibly smart decision because their major revenue comes from search ads. And they did a great job!
You can ask your customers to create a video testimonial about their experience with your brand. These videos can be combined together to make a customer testimonial video that highlights the brand’s customer satisfaction. You can take help of InVideo’s video maker to put together a compelling video or start by using the ready-to-use testimonial templates.
b. Employee testimonial
Employee testimonials are videos focused on the people who work for your company. These types of videos can be useful both internally and externally. They’re significant as part of a company culture initiative, helping prospective employees learn more about working at your company.
If you’re considering employee testimonial videos, here are some ways you can use them:
- Demonstrate how the work environment is collaborative and supportive.
- Explain why team members enjoy working for the organization - this helps build employee engagement.
- Show new hires what it’s like to be a part of the organization before their first day, alleviating some nervousness or uncertainty about starting a new position.
- Highlight how team members have become leaders within their department or in other departments within the organization; this type of recognition and support will motivate others to continue doing their best work.
Here’s an example of employees at cloud computing software company, Okta talking about their relationship with Adobe as they helped them overcome a particular issue as Okta worked with Adobe. It highlights the excellent work environment in the company while helping Okta build trust and credibility.
To create an employee testimonial video like this one round up testimonials from different employees and put them together usign InVideo.
c. UGC videos
User-generated content (UGC) is a type of marketing where your customers themselves create and share content for your brand. These videos can be simple clips your customer shares on social media or more elaborate shows that they produce, edit, and post on their website or blog.
UGC video content can tell the story of how a customer used your product, what they love about it, or how it helped them solve a problem in their lives. Since UGC relies on customers creating the content for you, there's no need to worry about including calls-to-action (CTAs). You should focus, instead on incentivizing customers to make such videos. This can be done by the way of a challenge like several brands like Canva and GoPro have done in the past.
Fabio Wibmer won the GoPro World Challenge for his amazing user-generated video. It's priceless for its brand recognition value and has over 33 million views on YouTube!
You can also combine multiple videos created by users to turn it into a compelling story that showcases how your brand solves a particular problem. GoPro has been known to do this with their longer ads. All you need to do is use InVideo’s ad maker, choose a template you like and replace the clips with your UGC video clips.
Pro tip: With InVideo for business you can create testimonial videos that are tailor-made for your business. You even get video editing on demand so that you can outsource the entire process. Get your free demo here.
5. Company videos
Company videos introduce your business to potential clients and customers. They tell your organization’s story, help establish a voice for your brand, and communicate how you can be of service to people interested in what you do. The most successful company videos share their mission, vision, values, and other tenets that define the culture of their team.
a. Company culture videos
Company culture videos showcase your brand’s core values. They give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your company and help them understand what it’s like to work there from an employee's perspective.
When you create a company culture video, share some of the fun things about working for you—so potential employees can get an idea about what their experience would be like with your team. If you want to gain interest from people who are unsure about whether they want to pursue a job at your company, use this opportunity to explain what makes you stand out from other employers in your industry.
Here’s how Mike Stevens for Founders Brewing Co. talks about the company culture and how things work in this amazing 2-minute clip.
To create a company culture video, it is great to start with a few pointers on the things about your culture that you want to highlight. Work with a videographer to film your daily workings at the office, focusing on the things you want to highlight. Once your clips are ready, the video can be brought to life by using InVideo’s video editor.
b. Behind the scenes
Behind-the-scenes videos give your audience a look at what goes on at the backend in your business, office, and off-site. This type of video is best when you have something interesting to show the viewer relevant to your company or brand.
These types of videos are often filmed with a handheld camera or in vertical smartphone format. The footage can be edited for a more polished look, shared as recorded, or even live-streamed.
This type of unedited format allows you to get authentic reactions from yourself and others in the office while still showing the inner workings of what makes your company work. After filming, share this content on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat and promote it through official channels.
This video posted by Zomato, a food delivery platform, is a travel diary of life as an Instagram admin for the organization. The fun video does a good job of showing you the company's headquarters from an innovative perspective.
To create behind-the-scenes videos, shoot random moments of your daily office day. Take videos that give a peek into how the brand functions and what thought process goes into the working. You can then combine these clips to create a video that gives your viewers a closer look at how your brand works. InVideo can help you combine these clips easily within minutes with its video editor. You can also add in text, effects, and audio to make the video more attractive.
c. Event videos
An event video, at its core, is a video of something that happened at an event. This can be filmed in real-time and streamed live, or it can be recorded and disseminated afterward. Typically, event videos are filmed and distributed as a means to promote the gathering to those who couldn't attend in person.
Event videos are a fantastic way to tell your brand story. They showcase your company culture and drive home your brand messaging, which is why they're the perfect addition to your marketing strategy. Not only that, but their versatility makes them a great tool for recruiting and training purposes as well.
In 2021, Microsoft created a grandiose event for the release of its new operating system, Windows 11. Through the video, the company revealed some of its new features and created hype around their launch.
To create an event video, pick out the most interesting and impactful clips from the whole video. You can then combine these clips to make a video that portrays your brand’s values and effectively delivers your message. You can do this using InVideo’s video editor and create a compelling event video within minutes using the templates.
Pro tip: Creating company videos is easier than ever with InVideo for business. Get your free demo here.
6. Product videos
Product videos are a great way to show your products in action and/or explain how they work. Product reviews, product demos, product comparisons, product tutorials, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) videos fall under this umbrella.
a. Explainer video
An explainer video is engaging and succinct. It has a narrative arc that demonstrates the problem, solution, benefits, and call to action (CTA).
This type of product video introduces your product or service and can be used in conjunction with an about us or landing page video.
Microsoft made this concise video that will appeal to B2B businesses seeking to emulate its success. Not only does it help educate the viewer on Microsoft’s enterprise cloud solution, but it also uses smooth animations to evoke themes of growth. A solid voiceover while explaining what cloud hosting services offer makes the video stand out.
When creating an explainer video, plan out the points you’ll be covering in the video and write down a brief script. Follow this script throughout the video to give it a structure. You can use InVideo’s video maker to create an attractive explainer video for your brand.
b. Demo video
With a demonstration video clearly showing how a product works, you can help shoppers decide on your offering over competitors'. And by walking them through every detail you can make sure they stick with yours instead.
This video by Airtable is a brief 2-minute tutorial that explains the basics of what the app does and why it's great for getting things done. Even though the video isn't long, it addresses the needs of potential users, showing them what they can do with their data using Airtable in just 2 minutes.
If you want to create a demo video for your product, make sure you list down all the features and benefits one can get from it. Highlight the advantages the product has over other similar products in the market to make it stand out. You can use InVideo’s video maker to create an amazing demo video within minutes using customizable templates and adding in audio, video and text into it.
c. Product launch video
Product launch videos are created when a company is ready to showcase their latest offering and they want potential customers to be aware of it.
In order for a video like this to be effective, it must establish the problem that your product solves along with its features and benefits. Also, don't forget about your call-to-action (CTA). This is a very important element in any type of video content because it encourages the viewer to take action after watching, whether that's signing up for an email list or visiting your website. The CTA should specify what you want viewers to do next so there's no confusion.
One Plus held a global launch event to announce its flagship phone, which is touted to have the best features and be sold worldwide.
For creating an effective product launch video for your brand, make a video that talks in-depth about the features and uniqueness of the product, and present your product in an attractive photo or video clip. InVideo’s video maker can help you make an attractive video about your product in some simple steps.
Pro tip: Create tailor-made product videos for your brand with customized templates on InVideo for business and make your video creation easier and quicker. Get your free demo here.
7. Animated videos
Animated videos are an effective way to communicate ideas and concepts. They are easy to understand, fun to watch, and highly engaging. You can use animated videos for different purposes such as product explanation, educational content, explainer video, promotional video, and others. You can use animated videos in different ways, such as making a motion graphics animation or using characters.
a. 2D animated videos
The most common type of animated video is 2D animation, which is perfect for marketing purposes and can be used to create explainer videos with ease. They are faster to edit and create as compared to 3D animations and often have a wider appeal.
HubSpot created a 30-second animated video with interesting transitions, iconic narration, and clear instructions. The great thing about animations is that they can make an otherwise boring topic seem fun.
If you want to create a 2D animation video, you can get an animator to custom design the video for you after you’ve laid down a story that you want to portray. But this is a costly option. But if you are looking for a more cost-effective option to create 2D animation videos, use pre-made animated templates by InVideo that help you make such videos easily within 10 minutes.
b. 3D animation videos
If you need to demonstrate your product or service in a very realistic manner, then a 3D animation video is the better bet. But because of the huge budgets involved, these videos are sparingly used. Most brands who want to showcase product prototypes that haven’t really been made yet, use these videos.
With 3D animation, it is easier to create immersive experiences that will resonate more with your target audience since people are generally used to seeing the real world in three dimensions. Many of us understand three-dimensionality better than we do flat two-dimensional objects; we just see them less often because our eyes favor depth perception over flatness.
In this video, 3D animation acts as a tool to explain the product and how it works. The video demonstrates that the vision line system offers value by solving problems the client faces.
Creating 3D animation videos also provides two similar options as 2D animation videos. You can either hire an animator who can custom design 3D animations for your brand or use 3D animated templates by InVideo to create these videos easily and save costs as well.
c. Stop motion animations
Stop motion animation is a technique where objects are physically manipulated, one frame at a time, to create the illusion of movement. This is a more creative type of animated video which has found multiple use cases over the years. From food companies to tech companies, you will have seen these everywhere.
You can use stop motion animation for product demos, explainers, explainer videos, whiteboard animations, and more. Stop motion can also be used for kinetic typography and for animated text over image videos. This stop motion video is amazingly created by Honda to show its journey of six decades as a brand in the automobile sector. The ad left its audience in awe and garnered a lot of attention.
To create a stop-motion video, you need to visualize the whole video and create a storyboard as the first step. You can then set up the shots and take photos. Put together these photos in a video editor like InVideo and shorten the duration of each clip to 1 to 2 frames to create a stop motion video.
Pro tip: If you struggle with creating animations for your brand, just sign up to InVideo for business to get on-demand video editing services. Get your free demo here.
Now that you have some ideas to work off, let’s go ahead and look at how you can ensure that these ideas help you reach your goals.
How to create a video marketing strategy for your brand?
Without a proper strategy, you can not expect to get good results from your video marketing efforts. Proper planning, scheduling, and implementation are a must for the success of any campaign. Let’s see how your brand can effectively strategize video marketing:
1. Define your goals
Before getting started on video marketing, the first step must be to define the goal of your campaign. It can be anything from promoting products, educating the audience, or increasing sales.
How to decide your goal?
You must identify the stage of the funnel you need to focus on. This is important as videos for audiences of each stage are different.
The top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) audience must be targeted with videos that create awareness about the brand while the middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) audience requires videos that demonstrate products and highlight its features. The bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) audience must be targeted with videos of customer testimonials and reviews to convince them to buy. In short, defining your goals helps you stay focused on your marketing strategy and implement it in a better manner.
You can watch this video to understand more about the sales funnel.
You can create videos for all the stages of your sales funnel with some easy steps using InVideo. Choose from the templates and make your own ad within minutes.
2. Identify your target audience
Your target audience will be the set of people for whom your product or service is the best fit. They can be identified based on certain demographics like age, gender or location.
Identifying your target audience helps your brand tailor its messaging for a group of people who are most likely to convert and eliminate people who do not value or relate to your offer. This process of niching down helps save marketing costs and scale your marketing ROI.
To identify your target audience, use social media analytics and analyze the performance of previous videos to find out which group engaged most with your content. Here’s a video that can help you get an in-depth understanding of how to identify the target audience:
3. Establish a budget for the video
When planning on creating a video, one of the first things to consider is the budget. Video production can get really expensive if you’re not paying attention to the costs involved in the process.
The benefit of planning a budget is that you can be mindful of the spendings on a marketing campaign and cut down costs after analyzing the process thoroughly. It also helps you focus on which areas require more spending. For instance, video scripting will not cost you as much as shooting and editing will. But if you use a tool like InVideo, which comes with a robust online editor, a library of millions of stock assets, and ready-made templates, you can even cut your editing costs substantially because it allows you to create videos yourselves.
To decide the budget for your video marketing strategy you will not only need to consider production and editing costs but also distribution costs. If you’re planning to post the video on your social media platforms, it will not cost you anything. But if you are planning to run it as a video ad, then you will need to factor in how much it will cost for you to get the conversion you desire.
4. Choose the platforms you’ll focus on
There are numerous channels you can utilize for video marketing. But not all of them work for every brand. So, directing your video marketing efforts and burning your marketing budget on a channel that doesn’t necessarily have a high ROI will not help you get anywhere. So, take a look at the following factors before you decide on the right platform for your brand.
- Target audience: Use analytics tools to study the behavior of your target audience and find out on which platforms they’re most active on. For instance, people in the fashion and lifestyle niche might be more active on Instagram as compared to business and marketing niches, where your audience might be more active on Twitter.
- The interaction with viewers: Choose a channel where audiences are more responsive and expressive and can be connected with easily. This will help you reach a segment that is already interested and convert them easily. Interacting closely on platforms will also help your brand collect valuable feedback directly from them.
- The user friendliness of the channel: You must choose platforms that are user-friendly and easier to navigate, especially in the beginning when you are starting out. For instance, it is a lot easier to create and post videos for your brand on YouTube instead of on Vimeo. So you might want to start there.
Typically you want to choose a mix of 2-3 platforms simultaneously instead of just focusing on one. This helps you diversify your video marketing efforts and reach multiple audiences at once. This way if one particular platform is not working out, you can also repurpose that content to another platform. For instance, you can turn your Reels into YouTube shorts. Here’s a video that can help you learn the ropes for this:
And to create videos for each platform, look no further than InVideo for business where you get access to customized templates for each platform. Get your free demo here.
5. Create engaging videos
A Time magazine article revealed that the average human attention span has gone down to about 8 seconds. So, if you want your video campaigns to work for your brand, you need to create videos that can hook their attention and keep them watching.
But grabbing attention and retaining it is no easy feat, so here are some tips you can use to create engaging videos.
- Understand your audience: Understand the likings and preferences of your viewers by studying what kind of videos they watch more.
- Spark curiosity: Start with a hook and build up the curiosity so the audience feels compelled to stay and watch the entire video.
- Be authentic: Keep your content original, add authentic sources, offer comprehensive explanations, and show some of your personality in the video to create an emotional connection with the audience.
- Use social proof: Include testimonials and reviews in your videos as social proof to build trust and reliability.
- Use eye-catching visuals: Make use of colors, graphics, and transitions in your videos to make them visually appealing.’
To learn more about how you can come up with engaging video ideas that help you get more views and grow your brand, check out this video we have on our channel:
6. Analyze the performance of your videos
While videos are one of the most engaging mediums for ads, just uploading them on various platforms won’t help your business. You need to analyze the performance of your videos thoroughly to collect insights and feed that into your next video marketing campaigns.
To analyze the performance, start by setting some video metrics. These metrics will depend on what you wanted to achieve with the video content and can be metrics like watch time or the number of shares on social media channels.
The video analytics tool by Google even gives you information on the engagement of the video, new audiences reached, and the retention of previous audiences. Studying this data can help you make more targeted and relevant content for your audience and engage them better.
13 best video marketing examples
Now that you understand the different types of video marketing and how you can go about creating a strategy, here are some of the best video marketing examples from various brands that you can use as inspiration when creating your videos.
1. BMW: Commemorates competition
You don’t always have to take a dig at your competitors or showcase how you’re better than them to get prospects interested in your product. You can also celebrate them or engage in friendly banter to hook their audience and improve your brand awareness.
For inspiration, you can take a leaf out of BMW's book. In this ad, they celebrate the retirement of Dieter Zetsche, head of Mercedes Benz. They thank the German engineer for the terrific competition and show him riding off in a BMW i8 once he gets dropped home in a Benz. The unlikely endorsement from a competitor and the spirit the ad showed helped improve BMW’s brand recognition and earned them fans from their competition as well.
It might not be possible to go all out and get the head of your competitor’s organization to indirectly endorse your product. But you can congratulate and thank your competition for giving you a tough time and keeping you on your toes to get your competitor’s audience interested in your product. The only thing to consider before creating such a video is to make sure it matches your brand voice and tone. And of course, you can bring it to life using InVideo’s editor.
2. Go Pro: Creates entertaining listicle videos
“Top lists” videos are timeless and very prevalent online because they’re easily digestible, shareable, encourage discussion, and they help your audience discover new things. So, if you want to grow your brand presence through social shares, you should create a top-list video.
Here’s how GoPro nails it in this video. It shows 10 times users put the GoPro camera through extreme situations and apart from entertaining the audience, it also tells potential buyers that the cameras can endure tough conditions and appear unscathed. Plus, the content is user-generated so it helps grow the brand’s fanbase and sales.
To create a similar listicle video, you can get your users to send clips of how they use your products or create a listicle of the best use cases yourself. You can then compile the footage using a template from InVideo like the one below, change the background music to suit your mood and you’re good to go.
3. Redbull: Posts videos of extreme challenges
Challenges help brands build rapport and connection with an audience, thanks to their ability to engage and entertain them. This in turn helps elevate the brand image and recognition in the community.
One of the best examples of brands that leverage challenges on a regular basis is Redbull. In this video, free runner Jason Paul challenges his friends to a parkour session. The stunts and the FPV drone shots engross the audience and motivate them to follow the channel for more.
But if Redbull is an energy drink company, why did they choose to post videos of challenges? There are two reasons- Their target audience is people who aspire to excel at extreme sports and live life on the edge. Also, the brand’s tagline is “Red Bull gives you wings,” so they want their videos to impart the feeling of adrenaline rush that their drink gives with their videos.
Before creating a challenge, ensure that it aligns with your brand values and voice like Redbull did. And if you want it to go viral, go ahead and create a low-barrier entry point that will encourage your users to take part in your challenges and post about it. You can also go one step further and create a challenge for a bigger cause to improve your brand image and recognition.
4. Victoria’s Secret: Celebrates mothers with a mini-series
Creating recurring series helps you stand out, build authority on a topic by building up on the content regularly, and help you get discovered more easily by search engines as bots find it easier to index connected videos.
Here’s a raw and emotional mini-series from Victoria’s secret to celebrate moms and the unconditional love and faith they hold for their kids. Each video in the series features a mom talking about her experience with motherhood and the dreams they have for their kids. All of them are heartfelt and touching and help the audience personally connect with the brand, which helps grow their engagement and brand awareness.
To create a video series, pick a topic around which you can create plenty of content. It can focus on being emotionally appealing like Victoria’s secret or focus on educating your audience and imparting a lot of value. So, you can also create a series of interviews, post case studies, or just post informational videos on your product and its features. Once you’ve shot your videos, you can take the assistance of on-demand video editing with InVideo for business to bring them to life. Get your free demo here.
5. Mailchimp: Repurposes podcasts into videos
If you want to save time and effort in your content creation process but still improve your visibility, reach new audiences, and rank higher on search results, repurpose your content.
For inspiration, take a look at how Mailchimp has repurposed its podcast content into a video. It simply includes text quotes from the recent episode along with the audio recording so the audience will be compelled to check out the episode, follow their content, and tune into their podcast regularly.
You can break down a podcast, blog post or lengthier videos like webinars into bite-sized videos to repurpose content. All you’ve got to do is jot down the key takeaways of the video and transform them into digestible content. You can either take snippets from your actual video or try something like Mailchimp and create text-based videos. Replace the default text with your own pointers, add snippets of the audio recording, add music, and finish with a strong CTA. Check out this template below so that you can get started.
6. National Geographic: Uses storytelling to explain global issues
Video is a powerful medium and incorporating storytelling in all the videos helps you come up with relatable content that engages your audience and creates an emotional connection, which ultimately helps grow your viewership and profits.
Here’s an example of one such video from the National Geographic channel. It uses storytelling to explain to viewers the history of dental hygiene and how toothbrushes became a widespread problem. The well-timed cuts, transitions, and narration hooks the audience and compels them to follow the brand.
To create an impactful story like Nat Geo, decide why you want to tell the story and what action you want viewers to take after they’ve watched your stories. Then, create a plot with an interesting introduction, conflict, and resolution. If you’re introducing characters in your story, make sure the characters you introduce are relatable to your target audience.
7. Kizik: Promotes products through memes
Meme marketing is one of the best ways to improve brand engagement and build a community since memes have evolved as a mode of communication and help connect with audiences easily. Here’s an example of a meme marketing video from Kizik, a hands-free shoe brand. The video meme depicts how easy it is to wear the shoes and instills curiosity about the shoes so viewers will be encouraged to check out the products on their page.
To start creating memes like Kizik, first ensure that they align with your brand voice and your target audience. Then, understand the context of various memes and customize them so they highlight your product’s features or how your brand solves the problem. Here’s a meme template from InVideo which you can make your own by replacing the text.
8. Amazon: Highlights its brand through user-generated content.
User-generated content helps build credibility and authority as customers who have already tried the product endorse it and vouch for its effectiveness. Naturally, this leads to more traffic and conversions for you.
For inspiration, take a look at this reposted content from Amazon. The customer has used items purchased from Amazon to make a solar-powered lamp. Although there’s no direct sell that compels others to buy from the brand, the video entices the creative population to check out the products on Amazon so they can build the lamp.
If you’re just starting out, it may be hard to get user-generated content organically. So, run contests that encourage users to promote your product by participating in existing trends. Then, create a hashtag your users can relate to so they feel more connected to your brand and post about it. You can always compile user-generated content into a compelling video for your own social media handles using InVideo’s online video editor.
9. McDonalds: Jumps on the short POV videos trend
A Point of View (POV) video puts the audience in the driver seat and makes the situation in the video unfold real-time. Some of the best examples of these types of videos could be trends that place you, the audience on the other end of a conversation with different people like your friend, partner, etc.,
These videos are extremely popular and shareable because of the level of personal connection they have with the audience. Brands are also taking advantage of the viral factor associated with these types of videos, so they’re also creating similar videos. For example, take a look at this Instagram Reel from McDonald’s which shows us what it feels like to be the bottom of a bag containing fries. The content is mundane but effective as it encourages people to order from them.
To create a POV video, decide the tone of the video and its length first. If you plan to cast characters and create a storyline, it would be better to create a video script before you start shooting. Then, add your POV title and dialogues as text in the video so customers don’t scroll past it because they don’t have earphones.
10. Automation Anywhere: Interviews the customer
Interviewing customers and posting their experience with your product helps build trust and authority as it tells potential customers that your product already works for others like them.
Here’s an example of one such video from Automation Anywhere, an automation solution for businesses. It promotes the effectiveness of the product by asking their customer a series of questions on how their tool helped deliver results to their company.
To create an effective customer interview video like Automation Anywhere, ask your customers the right questions so your video becomes a sales letter that promotes your product effortlessly without coming across as salesy. Start with the problem they experienced before they used your product, ask them how your product solved it, and request them to outline what the future with your product looks like so customers know your product is their long-term solution.
11. UiPath: Explains new feature with an animated video
Animated videos are always popular with any type of audience because they break down complex topics into digestible information while also being highly engaging. Here’s an example of an animated video from UiPath which explains how a new feature works. Instead of explaining complex topics like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and how it integrates into a business, the video simply shows the benefit of the interconnectedness and how it benefits the business to compel users to check it out.
To create an animated video for your brand, consider signing up to InVideo for business where you get tailor-made templates and on-demand video editing. Get your free demo here.
12. Microsoft: Interacts with industry experts
Interviewing experts in the industry helps you dive deeper into the problems in the market and helps you provide more value and insights to your customers. It’s a great way to build trust and authority in your space and be seen as the expert that can solve their problems.
For example, this 20-min interview from Microsoft’s Future Week shows us how manufacturing can change to include sustainable practices. It provided great value to users by providing a fresh perspective on the subject so users who are focusing on sustainable manufacturing will want to come back for more content on related topics or even take part in the event next year.
To create interviews that provide value to the community, connect with people in your industry and reach out to them for an interview. Once they agree, decide the theme and prepare a set of questions beforehand. Then, promote the podcast or live show with a video. You can use the template given below to create the promo video. Simply replace the default pictures with pictures of your guest, and add a sneak peek of what will be covered in the interview along with the date and time to create excitement.
13. Patagonia: Gives back to the community
People like brands that are socially responsible as it helps them feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. It also helps form a stronger connection with brands having similar values as them.
For instance, in this video, Patagonia, a clothes wear brand helps spread awareness on the importance of voting and get more people to participate in the voting process. They showcase their milestone in a simple slideshow video and add a strong CTA at the end so other companies join their cause.
With those ideas in mind, let’s look at a few practices you need to adhere to ensure you get the maximum benefit out of your video marketing efforts.
Pro tips for video marketing
Here we have some pro tips for you to follow for an impactful video marketing strategy that helps your business grow:
Tip #1 - Create a posting schedule
It’s important to post your content consistently as the frequency of uploads affects the algorithm. The more consistent you are, the algorithm ranks you better.
Apart from this, your viewers wait for your content. And posting videos randomly make your audience lose the context, which eventually makes them become uninterested. So, scheduling videos helps them get regular updates at regular intervals.
Tip #2 - Incorporate storytelling in your videos
Keeping in mind the short attention span humans have, it is necessary to keep them engrossed throughout the video. One way to do this is through storytelling.
But how to tell a story that impacts the audience?
Start by structuring your story into a plot. Decide the purpose of the story and the action you want viewers to take at the end. Start with a hero (your customer), introduce a problem, and talk about how your brand helps your customer solve it.
Make sure that the characters are relatable and help form an emotional connection with the audience. Also, keep in mind the video format, the audience, and the channel this video would be released.
Here’s a great example of effective storytelling. The ad by Bell’s scotch whisky focuses on adult education by telling a story of an old man who learns to read English, so that he can read a book written by his son. The intelligent placement of the product, in the end, attracts the customers to buy it.
Tip #3 - Post user-generated videos
User-generated content is images, videos or audio that your customers share after using your products. Generating more user-generated content
You can ask your customers to create a video using your product and their experience using it. You can then use these videos as a part of your marketing campaign. Doing this gives you two benefits. One, you get more shares from that customer’s friends and family which increases your reach. Second, the content acts as social proof as viewers tend to believe past users more for making a purchase decision.
Using user-generated videos for marketing gives you access to some unique content that contains authentic reactions and feedback from your customers. Hence, increasing your brand’s credibility.
Let’s look at this post by Daniel Smith artists material on Instagram which is a user-generated content. The page reposts the review from Madeline Kerri who talks about a watercolor palette by the brand. This helps people get to clearly see how the shades from the palette turned out.
Tip #4 - Optimize your videos from an SEO perspective
Video SEO refers to the process of optimizing videos to improve their ranking on the search result page. There are many strategies you can use to achieve this end goal. But here are some ways that we find the most effective:
- Insert video transcript: Video transcripts make your videos accessible to a larger audience as people can watch it on mute as well. It also helps the bots understand the context of the video better and rank it higher on search results.
- Create engaging thumbnails: Thumbnails are usually the first thing people notice in your video. So, relevant, clear and enticing thumbnails work best to convince them to click. Thumbnails with a human touch work even better. For example, the second video in the search result for ‘how to waterski’ clearly depicts a human doing it, hence will gain more clicks.
Source: wordstream.com
- Focus on your video titles: Titles help you stand out amongst the competition by grabbing viewers’ attention quickly. A well-focused, succinct title that has good keywords would help your videos perform better. Your video title must make your viewers want to know more and click on it.
- Embed the video you want to be ranked first: The video that you want to rank for must be the focus of your webpage so that customers don’t have to scroll till the bottom to find it. Search bots also don’t record these hidden videos on web pages.
Tip #5 - Add a CTA at the end of the video
A call-to-action or CTA at the end of the video acts as a guide for the viewers to take action. It is a visual and auditory prompt to encourage them to do something like visit the website, subscribe, download, etc. CTA aids brands get a response from the viewers that helps them achieve their goals.
They are imperative for any video marketing content. A CTA can be like a cue through the sales funnel for audiences. For instance, after engaging with educational video content, your TOFU audience must be redirected to more information, downloadable content, etc to enhance awareness.
Call-to-action can also be your tool to increase engagement as it encourages viewers to show interest in the product if they relate to it through some easy clicks.
Wrapping Up
Video marketing, if done right, can help you scale your business to heights and that is why with this blog we’ve attempted to simplify the world of video marketing for you. If you’re still skeptical and want to learn more about how you can grow your leads through video advertising check out this blog here. If you want to understand the role of video in a sales funnel, check out this blog here.
And to make the process of video creation easier for your video marketing needs, sign up to InVideo for business.
And if you prefer learning via videos, you should check out our YouTube channel, where we share daily video creation tips and tricks, the latest video trends and ideas, and help you make more money as a video creator.
This post was written by Mrignayni and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
