The possibilities with video are almost endless. While endless creative possibilities are exhilarating for a video or content producer, they’re annoying as hell for a results-focused marketer or revenue leader.
You recognize that videos play a vital role in the buyer’s journey. You understand the power of videos in capturing your target audience’s attention, conveying the complexities of your solution, and increasing engagement and conversions.
As wonderful as that all is, you want to be sure that every dollar you invest in your video marketing strategy is well spent. That means aligning your video marketing strategy with your organization’s growth objectives.
So, let’s zero in on the best types of marketing videos for guiding your potential customers through the buyer’s journey. Because if you’re producing the right types of videos for them, you’re much more likely to see higher returns in terms of increased leads, conversions, or revenue.
Company Culture
Stage: Awareness
Goal: Increase trust through the people behind the business.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes) or Medium (3-5 minutes)
Company culture videos are the wild card of the bunch. You may be wondering why they’re even here among the other marketing videos. When you’re driving growth, people matter for the success of any organization.
People trust real people more than brands, and video puts a face to your brand. Talent wants to know what it’s like to work at your company, and prospects want to know what it will be like to work with your team. What’s happening behind that business facade? Build trust by showing them a behind-the-scenes company culture video.
Events
Stage: Awareness
Goal: Build key relationships and tight-knit communities.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes)
An event is a large-scale operation, whether it’s a company get-together, industry conference, or user conference. Naturally, you’ll want to create a promotional recap video that visually captures the sense of connection from this event. Beyond the experiential hype video, you should also look at an event for what it really is: A gathering of people.
Events are a golden opportunity to capture a ton of interview footage with team members, industry people, or customers. Opportunities like this don’t just come along, so you have to capitalize on them. With careful pre-production planning, you can turn a one-day event into at least 20+ videos to fill up your marketing campaigns for the year.
YouTube Channel Trailers
Stage: Awareness
Goal: Turn YouTube visitors into channel subscribers.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes)
Your YouTube channel should be treated like any other landing page, where the goal is to convert. On YouTube, you want to convert visitors into subscribers. A YouTube channel trailer automatically plays when someone lands, so you have a short amount of time to explain what the channel is about and what you’re about.
If your trailer resonates with channel visitors, then you’ll win them over. Without one, you’re depending on people to instantly connect with your library of video content, which they may or may not want to skim through.
Having a YouTube channel trailer greatly increases the chances of subscriber conversions because it helps them recognize right away that this channel is right for them. (Here’s Superneat’s YouTube channel, if you want to subscribe.)
Social Media
Stage: Awareness or Interest
Goal: Capture and hold people’s attention to convey key messages.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes) or Medium (3-5 minutes)
Social media clips are either bite-sized sections taken out of a full-length video or quick-hit standalone videos created for specific channels. These are great brand-building tools as well as promotional tactics for other marketing campaigns, like eBooks, webinars, and events.
Social media is a noisy place, and people don’t want to spend too much time on a single piece of content when they have infinite content choices. These snappy videos are undeniably good at grabbing people’s attention. But be sure to experiment. Short is usually the preferred length on social, but a medium length might be more valuable in certain content situations.
Thought Leadership
Stage: Awareness or Interest
Goal: Demonstrate your expertise and ability to solve problems.
Length: Medium-Long (3-10 minutes)
Thought leadership videos are the undisputed champions of building valuable, long-term connections with your audience. By providing insight into industry developments, trends, and best practices, you’re demonstrating your expertise while helping them solve challenges. And you’ll be the same resource they turn to when they’re ready to buy a solution.
The same rules of written thought leadership apply to video content—remember your personas and buyer stages. Length is important to call out to ensure value is coming across here. Go a little longer to avoid cramming too much information into a 60-second video that’s tough to follow. You can always create shorter social media clips from the full-length.
Podcasts
Stage: Awareness or Interest
Goal: Expand audience reach and build a loyal brand community.
Length: Long (10+ minutes)
Podcast videos are living proof that people do actually have long attention spans. Over half of podcasts are between 20 and 60 minutes, while less than 10% of episodes are shorter than ten minutes.
Podcasts are a unique addition to a growth-oriented marketing strategy. Their conversational and entertaining vibe makes them winners when it comes to expanding audience reach and building a loyal brand community. Podcast videos are also easy to repurpose into many pieces of additional content, so they’re truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Webinars
Stage: Awareness, Interest, or Consideration
Goal: Build trust and rapport with your audience.
Length: Long (10+ minutes)
Webinars span three stages of the buyer’s journey, depending on the subject matter. Similar to podcasts, webinars are longer in length and offer an immersive experience. Unlike podcasts, webinars are more educational than entertaining, so they need to deliver value during the webinar and lasting value afterward.
The big miss with webinars is not sharing this in-depth video content with a broader audience after the event. Your reach will only go so far with webinar attendees, so you might as well post a polished, branded recording on YouTube. Even if you only had 100 attendees, your YouTube webinar could get thousands of views and extend the life of this more labor-intensive content.
Testimonials
Stage: Consideration
Goal: Put proof in front of prospects and remove barriers to action.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes)
Most people need validation from others in the same boat before they make a large purchase. And this is especially true in a B2B context. Testimonial videos help you put this proof directly in front of your audience.
When you leverage notable clients and/or compelling use cases and results, you’re removing a major barrier to action. In fact, two out of three people say that they’re more likely to make a purchase after seeing a testimonial video.
Case Studies
Stage: Consideration
Goal: Provide concrete evidence that your solution works.
Length: Medium (3-5 minutes)
A case study video is the full-length story of a customer testimonial. It has a narrative arc that carries the customer’s journey from beginning to end, portraying your customer as the hero who overcomes challenges with your solution.
These real-world examples offer concrete evidence of the kind of success someone will experience with your solution. Case study videos play a powerful role in growth marketing strategies as their influential storytelling format is usually the tipping point for a prospect who is about to purchase a solution.
Product Marketing
Stage: Decision
Goal: Demonstrate the benefits and use cases of your solution.
Length: Medium (3-5 minutes)
Jumping on a call with your sales team may be too big of a leap for some prospective customers. That’s why product marketing videos are an incredible stepping stone. They’re also greatly appreciated by the majority: 86% say video is great for helping people learn more about a product.
Product marketing videos warm up your audience by giving them a taste of what your solution can do and how it benefits them. Whether it’s a talking head video or a platform walkthrough, these videos continue to be a powerful and efficient way for marketing and revenue leaders to convert leads into paying customers.
Explainers
Stage: Decision
Goal: Show how your product or process works clearly and concisely.
Length: Short (1-2 minutes)
Explainers are a punchier, more visual version of product marketing videos. They’re designed to convey complex ideas in a rapid-fire, easy-to-understand fashion. An explainer for a solution provider demonstrates how their product works, while an explainer for a service provider shows how their process works.
Highly versatile, explainer videos are effective on many different marketing channels. But they pack the biggest punch on your website because they increase the chances of conversion with buyers about to make a purchase decision.
Training
Stage: Support
Goal: Ensure customers extract the full value out of your solution.
Length: Long (10+ minutes)
Training videos typically fall into the retention portion of the funnel. But since gaining new clients is much more expensive than nurturing existing ones, having a solid retention strategy in place is crucial to achieving your revenue goals.
Training videos can be used for both onboarding and ongoing training. These videos ensure that your customers are clear on your capabilities and are able to extract the full value out of your product or services. Training videos keep your customers loyal to you instead of seeking greener pastures.
You’re right to care about the types of marketing videos you invest in. The choices you make with video content affect the overall performance of your organization’s marketing initiatives.
By being selective about the types of videos you share with your audience at different points in their journey, you’ll deliver the kind of content they care about and respond to. This thoughtful approach will lead to more impactful marketing campaigns and, ultimately, more impact on organizational growth and success.
