15 types of videos to engage users

To get people involved and connect to your brand it is important to not just sell a product but to tell a story. Video content marketing is a very important and effective tool for increasing brand awareness and connecting to potential clients. With videos you have the opportunity to show your and not just tell your prospective clients about your brand. This is also important since an overwhelming majority of people say that they retain more than 90% of the videos message.

While traditional advertising like TV ads have their place, more and more people spend most of their day online consuming videos on the internet. It is thus beneficial for brands to advertise with videos and tap into this huge prospective client base.

Now if you have never made or edited a video, you might find this task very daunting but don’t worry I am here to help you on that. The steps are simple, first decide what type of video you would like to make, then shoot the videos to convey the story. Finally edit the videos, organizing and arranging them, to make the final video to share. Then go ahead share the video and see the magic unfold. The story you want to tell will depend on your goals and your personal style, here I will help you by discussing aspects important for deciding the goal for which you would want to make videos. I will also explain some of the different types of videos you could make, and give you some high level information about video editors to help you dig deeper.

Video marketing strategy

First and foremost you need to know your target audience and what they relate to. Then think about what you want to achieve - do you want to inform the viewers, sell a particular product or just create incoming traffic to your website. Remaining important piece is to figure out which social media platform is preferred by you target audience.

Remember, the best strategy is to make a relatable video and put it on a platform that your potential clients visit often, otherwise your hard work in making the video would not help you achieve your marketing goal.

Video sharing platforms

Billions of people around the world are spending up to 3 hours per day on social media platforms. Adding videos your target audience will find relatable on your social media can help in creating a brand reputation. Consider your client base and what kind of social media platform they are likely to use then share something which is engaging for people. The popular platforms, which I am sure you are well aware of, are Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

Types of videos

Let’s now look at the different types of videos that you might want to consider making. The type of videos you make is crucial to your video marketing. Different types of video can help with one or more goals such as create trust, give information and educate about your brand, or understand and address the users’ problems.

Here are 15 types of videos you could consider making.

1. Vlogs

Video blogs are where your video is used as a blogging medium. Instead of writing a text blog, you make a video of the activity that you want to showcase. Sharing such videos adds a personal touch while also clearly showcasing the usage of your product, or perhaps making the prospective client get comfortable with you and/or your team.

2. Interview / Q&A

Q&A style videos are quick and easy, you can choose the questions and the order of the questions to make the most impact. You can select from existing question or ask your existing client base to submit some questions and then use those.

In the interview style videos keep in mind to invite the right guest. A guest who shares the same values as your brand and who is also relatable to your client base. Before the interview ask your guest some casual questions about them and their life, to make them comfortable. And during the interview, create an atmosphere with no distractions or pressure for them.

For both types of videos remember to keep the atmosphere light, shoot the videos in space that has natural light and keep it short (10-15 minutes max).

Adding text captions to such videos is a wise thing to do, as a lot of viewers often see the videos muted and rely on the captions for information.

2. 360 degree videos

Engage your client’s interest by making 360 degree videos where they can explore the front, back, up down and sides. The whole experience is bigger than any video to watch. However, to make these kind of videos you would need special cameras.

4. Brand films

Make a short film with a storyline that showcases your product seamlessly. A video that tells a relatable story while showing your product. You can make such videos yourself and with your team. A fun and approachable video can turn out to be an excellent source of client engagement, specially on first touch.

5. Behind the scenes

BTS videos add that personal touch to your brand and could highlight the ethics, values of your company and/or the work environment. They can make people think that they are a part of your team and so connect more intimately with your brand.

Share your bloopers, the making of a product, a day in the life of your employees, a casual get together in office, or even a clip of video conference recording where you all were joking and having fun!

6. White board animation videos

This a good way to explain the complexity of your product in a simple way for your clients. The logical format of these videos are very engaging for potential customers and easily establishes the credibility of your product.

7. How to / Tutorials / FAQs

Take all your customer questions and put them together to make a simple FAQs videos, these are great because they instill confidence and trust in your customers. These videos create insight and transparency of the customer service which increases conversion.

People these days make a lot of “how to” searches, make a short, easy to follow videos of your product to target these specific how to questions to show up at the top of these searches.

8. Social Media shorts

Short and engaging videos made in the right way can make big impact. You appeal to the logic, emotion or ethics of the clients in a short 30 secs to one minute video. If you do connect to the clients then your brand and values have the potential spread in tens times the speed overnight.

9. Product Review / Demo / Unboxing

Unboxing videos from the perspective of a customer, shows a potential customer exactly what they will get from your services. Instead of talking about your product, you can turn the perspective and start from your clients problems and how your product comes in to fix it.

10. Testimonials

Written testimonials sometimes come across as impersonal and perhaps exaggerated, and video testimonials thus fare better. A satisfied customer describing their personal experience on video carries the right emotion to create trust in a potential customer. You could request the user to send you a quick video, or have it like a simple quick Q&A, personally or over video conferencing.

11. Animation

Make use of cool animation video that catch the attention of the users from the start to the end. The hardest of technical and complex message can be easily and creatively explained via animations. However these are harder to make by non-professional animation artists.

12. User-Generated Content

After you have an initial client base, you could form a community and have them share their experiences, or tips and tricks or comparison videos about your service or product. These kind of videos from the perspective of the existing clients could address the smallest of questions of prospective clients, plainly generating trust in your products and your brand.

13. Personalized Video

When sharing videos for one-to-one communication, including your clients’ names makes it much more likely for them to watch your whole video. Seeing their name in the video title, also increases their chances of starting to watch it. And more generally, more the personalization better the impact of the video. In general, you would make such videos as a response to a client query or as a proposal for some contract from your side. Sending a video along with other formal documents can give you the edge over the competition.

14. Live Streams

These are live videos which you broadcast as the events happen. Usually you would do this to highlight and share some important milestone, or as a live question answering or discussion with your current or prospective clients. Make your personality shine and establish a rapport with your audience.

15. Contests/Giveaways

Holding contests or giveaways can be the easiest way to draw traffic to your web page and get positive engagement from viewers, but these viewers may or may not turn in to clients. Just remember, you will achieve a good turn over only if you have a prize which appeals particularly to your targeted clients while also relating the exercise to your brand.

Importance of editing videos

It is not enough to just convey the core message directly about your brand, the goal should be to tell an engaging story. After shooting your videos, you will need to refine them and arrange them in creative ways to best capture and convey your brand value. Thus, video editing is a very important part of your video content marketing journey.

It is as important to choose the right video editor for your brand as it is to choose the right storyline and recording equipment. While the professional video editing programs have tonnes of very advanced features, they have a steep learning curve and also require powerful computers. Web browser based video editors offer the convenience of intuitive editing and offloading the final computation, i.e. video exporting, to powerful remote servers on the cloud on a pay as much as you use manner. Which option to go for depends on your level of expertise and access to expensive graphics oriented computers.

Conclusion

In todays world where people prefer videos over reading a long post, and everyone checks their social media account multiple times a day, video content marketing is a simple and effective tool to help your brand grow and reach prospective clients. Whether you have the video made professionally or you make it yourself, just remember to pick the right type of video, edit it properly, and eventually tell a relatable, clear and engaging story to shine brighter than your competition.

Good luck!