Three Types of Videos That You Can Use to Build Your Business

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft

Getting started with video marketing when you’ve never done it before can be very intimidating. It’s a great unknown that takes a lot of creative effort and energy. Research has shown that though video marketing is the most effective form of advertising for businesses of all sizes, it’s also historically hard for business owners to begin using videos for marketing because they just don’t know where or how to start. There are numerous unanswered questions and fears that make it hard to make this decision and but making no decision will inevitably leave money on the table. The biggest questions we hear on a regular basis from marketers that want to use video marketing are: 

• I want to use videos for marketing but what will the videos be about?

• Do I have to be in the videos, I hate being on camera?

• I heard video marketing works, but I’m not sure what kind of videos my company needs? 

If that last one is you, then you’re in luck because we’re going to talk about 3 types of videos that you can use to build your business and that will at least start to put some structure in place for the type of video marketing that you need. As video production specialist, we know how to take the fear out of the equation and get right to making a plan that will grow your brand and business with effective video marketing.

Precursor: There are way more than 3 types of videos, and some of these will have some sub-categories, but it still will not be anywhere near exhaustive. I promise we will keep writing articles and blogs and try to cover some of the other areas but the best option is to contact us and talk through some ideas. No reason to figure this out alone.

1. Explainer Videos

Educational style videos that are scripted and tell the viewer exactly what a product or company does in 60 seconds if possible. They are cleverly written to make them memorable and though they sound similar to the Company/Branding videos that we talk about later in this article, they are distinctly different because they are planned, written, and not organic. There are video production companies that only make these types of videos and some big businesses spend well over 250K per video to produce explainer videos. 

Explainer videos are mostly broken up into two categories. 

A. Animated videos- Most explainer videos are animated with simple instructions. If you’ve ever used Coinbase.com you will see they advertise a lot of educational videos about how certain crypto works and they’re all animated explainer style videos. A very common and extremely useful type of video for businesses around the world, and they’re not going away anytime soon. Here’s a great example from Asana that fits this category perfectly. 

B. Live Action- In these version of an explainer video, usually one person plays the lead or provides a voiceover, this could be an employee or a hired talent, but it’s usually a hired talent. They talk directly to the camera and explain what the product or business does. In the best version of these videos, they are in interesting environments, and funny, but I’ve seen a lot of these that are simple yet still effective. This one from Dollar Shave Club kind of became the archetype of these types of explainer videos for a while, but plenty of recruiting videos, or how-to-videos still fit this category. 

2. Short Form Content Videos

Everyone should know about reels at this point. Made famous on Tiktok, but they’re also used on Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, and Facebook. They consistently vertical in format and range from 5-90 seconds long, but are considered most effective in the 15 second range.

Here’s a few different types:

A. User Generated Content (UGC)- is the most popular type of short form video content. It is very rudimentary, often self shot, and will have a clever caption. For example it could be a video of a person in bed eating food with music playing and a caption that says “treat yourself to dinner in bed, you deserve it.” If this was for a business it would say “I used Uber Eats to treat myself to breakfast in bed, I deserve it.” UGC is an endless category so think recipes, testimonials, how to videos that are all very short, targeted to social media, and shot on a phone usually. Here’s an example from Quaker Oats. Here is an another example from Grasshopper Mowers. 

B. Ads- Short form content videos that are made to look sneakily like UGC but have super high production value and are usually shot at the same time as a larger commercial production. Sometimes these are testimonials, but most of the time they’re more stylized than that. We often cut super short vertical ads out of 30 second commercial shoots as do many major corporations. The recent Dunkin ad that ran during the super bowl is also making it’s rounds as short form content and was cut from the longer version. 

C. Social Proof- Influencers, podcasters, bands, and marketers love to hit people with clips of them doing what they are trying to be known for as a sort of social proof. All those hot takes from influencers, and podcasters with big engaging captions, those are social proof, and just like the big commercial shoots they’re also often reusing content. They’re taking the most engaging content from something long form to make something short form. Here’s a favorite clip from the Holy Post Podcast with John Mark Comer as the guest. Perfect example of social proof that funnels you to actually engage with the larger version, in this case an engaging short video clip from an over 60 minute long podcast that I did listen to after seeing the short clip. So it worked.

D. Everything Else- There are so many other versions of short form video content. Recipes, travel videos, construction videos, tutorials, comedy, even bts. Here’s a link to a pizza dough recipe that is more of a production than the first UGC category but still quick self shot content. Here’s a reel from a “random dude (ChrisFix)” who makes videos in his parents driveway with over 10 million subscribers, and that’s the power of short form video content that can funnel you to longer content and obviously works to build a brand.

3. Company/Brand Videos

Brand videos are sometimes referred to as a Company Overview Video or an About Us Video. These are videos that from a birds-eye view will explain what a company does and why they do it. It can sometimes include how you got started, what you stand for, what you’re known for, what products and services you offer, and why potential clients need you. These are made with your customers in mind, but can be multi-purposed and used as onboarding materials, and can also be cut into really engaging social media video clips. 

A. Small Business Branding- The most straightforward of this type of video. Small business owners or their employees talk directly to the camera and explain what they do, and why they do it. The video can highlight the products they offer, their customer base, and their passion for their industry and community. There are also a lot of Small Business Branding Videos that are really visually appealing, have no dialog, and they let the products and services speak for themselves. The second type is more of a personal favorite of mine because I find myself watching more of those, but both can be effective in different ways. This early video from Onyx Coffee Lab before they grew into the third wave coffee giant they are today is a good example. Their whole Youtube page if you sort from oldest to newest gives you a good look at a variety of cohesive branding videos that were part of the successful efforts of making a small business grow.

B. Corporate Videos- These videos are commonly aimed more at existing customers and employees, but they can cover a variety of concepts. If you want to highlight a new product that the company is rolling out, or you want to raise awareness for how much the company gave to charity, or if you want to talk about how great a place it is to work these all can be great branding videos with a wide general reach. Since corporations are big, their overview videos are usually industry or products specific, and they spend less time on why the company started but more time on what the company’s identity is right now.

Examples of Corporate Videos: We produced this video for Iron Mountain to unveil a new high-tech storage solution they were bringing to their existing customers. We also worked with Coliant Solutions to show the usefulness of their new fire suppression vehicles to existing and future clients by creating this proof of concept video as well as tutorials for customers that purchase or lease the vehicles. All of these videos highlight a small segment of a larger corporation but increase brand awareness among sales channels and give great content for web and social media applications. Working within Central Illinois we also produced a company overview video for a bottled water company that features hired talent that gives a history and overview of their business and service region.

These categories are just a few examples of the types of videos that can grow your business or brand. There are so many more options like industry specific videos for non for profits, industrial applications, or real estate videos. Not to mention product videos, training videos, and recruitment videos which are all very popular right now.

The options are endless but at Mecoclub we are experts at helping you along the way to find the video and marketing needs that best fit your brand. We provide a full suite of marketing services besides video production including photography, artist management, creative consulting, content and ad writing, and drone services. We work with experts throughout our industry to serve clients all over the United States from our homebase doing video production in Bloomington IL to working with clients in New York City, Nashville TN, Southern California, and everywhere in between. Looking for a production team and want to know what Mecoclub can do for you? Contact us today.