Business Video Fundamentals
Our friends at Wistia have a five-day email course on business video fundamentals. It’s pretty cool, and we thought we’d give you a little preview. An appetizer, if you will.
We signed up, and we’d like to share Day 1 with you.
Why you don’t need a “video strategy”
So, you’ve heard video is awesome, and you’ve just got to have one! We see lots of companies get excited about video and decide it’s time to implement a new “video strategy.” We’re excited that you’re excited, but hang on a second before you start crafting that strategy doc. Instead of creating an entirely new “video strategy,” think about how video can help you achieve your existing strategic goals.
What campaigns is your team already working on, and how can video help? What can video help you achieve? What is video good for? These questions are central to your success as a video creator. We’ll track with these questions throughout the course, and answer them as we go along.
Three types of videos
We’ve found it useful to break down business videos into three main types. Most of the time, we see companies start with conversion videos, then move into making more teaching videos, then, finally, evolve their strategies to make videos that evoke feelings.
If you’re just getting started with video, we recommend beginning with conversion-centric videos since these are generally the easiest to measure immediate, direct ROI. On the other end of the spectrum, you can unlock the full potential of video by taking a more ambitious, emotional approach, but direct impact is often going to be harder to measure.
Conversion videos
Video is really useful for getting a web visitor to do something. Maybe you want them to sign up for a newsletter, demo a product, or download a PDF. Regardless of the specific goal, it’s relatively easy to measure the results of a conversion video.
Teaching videos
Teaching videos are a great way to educate your audience. They can show off your product, automate conversion, and save you time. They don’t necessarily have to be about your product, either. For example, since Wistia is a video hosting platform, we make teaching videos about video production, video marketing, and product how-tos.
Evoking feelings
Video is a great way to save time, but beyond that, it’s the best way to strengthen emotional and human connections. This is a hard place for most companies to start, since it’s tough to measure ROI, but once you get here, you really begin to see the power of video as a medium. Feeling a connection to your company will motivate viewers to convert.
This emotional connection builds a deeper brand connection. Not only does it save you time, but it will encourage your audience to explore a new way of thinking about your product. Evoking feelings is what video is built for. The entire entertainment industry wouldn’t exist if videos didn’t successfully draw out human emotions. Everybody likes a good cry.
Where can I be more human?
Video’s most important superpower is actually quite simple: it reveals the human side of your business.
There was a time when almost any purchase you made, whether commodity or service, required having a conversation with someone. We all know that’s changed, and there’s something beautiful and oh-so-21st-century about sitting alone in your room at 3 am, pants-less, using the Amazon algorithm to price-compare a new vacuum cleaner you probably don’t really need.
However, the removal of human interaction comes at a cost. In many situations, we crave interpersonal guidance. Not only that, but human interaction delivers the immeasurable value of what a human can bring to the table: increased trust, clearer understanding, and a deeper connection to a brand.
Video is so powerful because it brings a sense of humanity that scales infinitely with our online marketing. There’s no set recipe for using video to build these personal connections: the most important thing is to get the real people behind your product on camera.
Today’s action item
We hope these examples helped you figure out where video might fit into your existing content strategy! If you want to put these lessons to work, here’s a little assignment for you:
List out 3 problems you’re trying to solve as a company right now. Pick 1 of these 3 problems and write 3 video concepts: a conversion video, a teaching video, and a feeling video. Don’t forget to ask yourself how these videos are helping bring a human touch!
Pretty cool for the first day of class, right? So if you’re just getting into video and you don’t just want to take our word for it, the folks at Wistia know a thing or two about a thing or two, too. (Say that five times fast)