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40 ways to use web video to help your business grow

More and more, businesses are using video to promote themselves. Gone are the days of printed press kits, store employees handing out pamphlets of in-store specials, and simple power point presentations. Bandwidth is increasing and the cost of video production is decreasing. Across the board, videos are becoming the primary method of communicating with customers and prospective customers, and video is making it much easier for companies that have a large traveling sales team and remote employees to keep their team aware of the goings on within the company. New River Entertainment has compiled a list of 40 ways that businesses are using video to improve communication.

Customer Reference Videos

1. Customer Testimonials

People are always looking at reviews and getting the opinions of friends before they try new products or services. Customer testimonials from people who have benefited from your services are a great way to promote your business and compel people to try your services. Running anywhere from fifteen seconds to a minute, these videos are used to support or are combined with other marketing material.

2. Success Stories

Like customer testimonial videos, these videos extol the virtues of your product, are often presented as stand-alone marketing support and are usually grouped with additional customer success stories. Running typically between one and two minutes, the videos follow an interview format with the person on screen answering the questions of an interviewer off camera.

3. Video Case Study

Video Case Studies are a combination of customer testimonials and a more comprehensive look at how your company’s services and products have increased your customer’s success rate. The case study video is structured like those found in print, using a “problem-solution-benefit” format. They incorporate both a narrator and the voice of your customer; often include b-roll and/or other supporting video or text, and run from two to five minutes.

4. Man-in-the-street Interviews

Customers respond well to spontaneous responses to targeted questions from random people. This gives a sense of realness to the product and people respond better when they personally relate to something. These targeted questions help promote your product or service or help to show the difference between your brand as it is compared to real or imagined competitors. This is extremely popular with soft drink manufacturers, phone companies and fast food chains. These videos are becoming hugely popular on YouTube and on business websites.

5. Customer Presentations

On the occasion that one of your customers is presenting at a trade show, conference or business related event, and mentions your company indirectly or in conversation with you, it would be a good idea to get this on video. This would be a good addition to your website or YouTube channel. Remember to get permission from the speaker first, however.
Product and Service Promotion

6. Product Presentations

Product/service presentation videos come from your customer’s perspective and focus on how your product can solve specific economic, business, or personal problems that your customer or prospect is experiencing. The focus in on the benefits of your products and services over those of your competitors, and are typically shown in the early stages of the buying cycle.

7. Product Demonstrations

Product demonstration videos generally have one main target audience: a prospective client/customer who is relatively far along in the sales cycle. In technology marketing, these would be targeted at the technical approvers who need to understand how something works in order to approve, and in consumer marketing, the videos would target the economic buyers of large items who may be further along in the sales process. Using techniques like screen captures, 3D cut-away, or a high impact demo by a presenter, are all great ways of showing how your product/service works.

8. Product Reviews

Product reviews from a trusted third party make the best reviews, and can be found anywhere from various business portals to YouTube. When positive and promote your brand, they should be referenced. Partnering up with trusted third parties to actually create reviews for your products is also an option.

9. Visual Stories

Sometimes called explainers, these short animated videos use illustration, motion graphics and voice over to explain complex products or services in a compelling and easily digested way. They usually run one to three minutes in length. There are websites that use a new version of this tool that offer characters and backgrounds that you can animate and add an automated voice.
Corporate Video

10. Corporate Overview

Like a brochure for small companies, these videos give new visitors to a website a better idea of the company. These videos typically contain key products, company history; introduce executives and owners, and other top level business information. Because video production costs are decreasing and their popularity is increasing, corporate videos may start to be replaced by multiple, more targeted videos.

11. Executive Presentations

Making a presentation to executives can be a daunting task, but occasionally they need to be done. Whether it’s for a quarterly update, responding to a major event in your industry or making a regularly scheduled presentation, it’s important to do it well and professionally. New River Entertainment can make sure you impress your company’s executives.

12. Staff Presentations

Research shows that when presented with video that is promoting a company, customers have more trust in those that drive the day to day operations of the company over those in senior management positions. Service representatives, technical experts, administrative assistants and the like are more relatable to your customers, prospects and influencers in organizations than CEOs. Because the use of video is increasing in popularity when it comes to communicating with an external audience, it is important that the video have as much impact and appeal as possible.

13. Corporate Facilities or Equipment Tours

Because outsourcing, downsizing and recessions have changed the face of North America’s manufacturing business, the structure and focus of these videos have changed. The focus has moved away from your product and showing off the company to how you can solve your customer’s problems and increase their revenue.

14. Annual Report / Review

We all know how exciting it is to read annual reports. Public companies are legally required to create annual reports and quarterly reviews, so why not make it more easily digestible and either supplement or replace the written material with videos?

15. Video Signature and Video Introduction

Social media and videos have become the norm in presenting individuals and companies. Most companies have a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Twitter, and it is not uncommon for dating sites to use introductory videos for their members to showcase themselves. It’s proven that people are more likely to watch a video than read something. A video signature is a video that is a direct link or embedded in the signature portion of your email. Introductory videos give people who don’t know you a better idea of who you are. A write-up or a claim about how great you and/or your business are goes only so far. Video grabs attention gives a more personal feel.
Training

16. Training

Training videos were some of the first videos that the corporate world used, and they continue to be one of the best uses of video for service, support, professional development, sales and so on. Both DVDs and Online Video are a cost-effective substitute for in-class training and can be returned to again and again for refreshers. Video can easily be integrated into online training management tools.

17. Overnight expert videos (Sales Support)

These videos are an excellent resource for your sales team, especially if you serve a large geographic area or sell through several different channels. It is well worth it to put together short overnight expert support videos for your sales team that highlight key selling points, product features, benefits, objection handling and follow-up issues to be considered by your direct or channel sales force.

18. How-to Videos

Training videos are very popular on the web. Traditional training and printed training manuals are quickly being replaced by How-to videos, video manuals, quick assembly demos, on-site video reference, and other types of video. Mobile video which is becoming more and more prevalent will increase the popularity of this type of video.
Customer Support

19. Post Sale Support and Maintenance Videos

Few people read manuals these days and the generations coming up will read them even less, perhaps making them obsolete. You can save thousands of dollars of post-sale support by making informative assembly, installation and maintenance videos for your products and services.
Internal Communications

20. Internal Communications

Although time and interest is somewhat limited, it benefits the company as a whole for employees to know about all the other various departments within the business, and even why they exist. Internal videos can highlight new business activities and achievements, business plans, new hires and more. Having a clearer understanding of the entire company can lead to more effective communication, a deeper feeling of being part of a whole and it’s a great way to highlight local heroes or employees of the week/month. Though used in companies of all sizes, they most benefit larger, more geographically dispersed companies as well as companies that employ a large number of remote employees.

21. Event/Conference and Trade Show Communications

Many companies spend far too much of their marketing budget for employees to attend and participate in a variety of industry events, yet only a very small percentage of employees really benefit from these activities. The knowledge gained at these events from presentations, demos, interviews, commentaries etc…can be captured on video and shared with employees without all the travel costs. Small groups can gather to watch the videos and discuss what they learned.

22. Employee orientation

It’s beneficial for both you and your new employees for them to be well versed in company history, procedures, structure, policies, and codes of behavior. A video they can watch on their own time and refer back to if necessary saves time and energy for everyone.

23. Health, Legal & Safety

Health and safety issues are something that every type of company must address and the cost of dealing with these things is growing. Videos showing best practices are one of the most effective means of minimizing these costs.

Advertising, Marketing, and Promotion

24. Commercials

The face of advertising has changed and continues to change as technology rapidly progresses. Movie style ads are showing on sides of buildings in crowded areas, before videos on YouTube, and in movie theaters. These new venues create diverse set of advertising opportunities. The key to success is to create specialized content to targeted audiences.

25. Viral Video

A video goes viral if it is so captivating that people want to share it. They are difficult to do well and often the most engaging videos aren’t related to a brand. Therefore, there is little value beyond being entertaining. New River Entertainment knows that viral videos have to be extremely engaging, entertaining, shocking or meaningful to be successful and we have experience creating them.

26. Email Video

Testing shows that open rates (the measure of how many people are viewing an email) can double if you include video in your email marketing activities. To be effective, however, the video should be purpose-built to elicit a specific activity such as requesting a demo or more information. There is a resurgence of e-mail use with marketers, and embedded video or links to video in email is becoming very popular.

27. Infomercials

If done well, infomercials can be very effective at selling certain consumer products. They have been around for a long time because they work. Shopping channels are basically 24 hour infomercials and there are new ones sprouting up all the time because of their success and popularity.

28. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a lucrative way to promote your business. A combination of focusing on the brand as well as showing how you can solve your customer’s problems will make this form of marketing more successful. For example, Home Depot has a branded DIY (do it yourself) series on their website that shows customers how to fix things around their home. This satisfies customer’s needs as well as promote the store and its products.

29. Interactive Video

Although still in the early stages, interactivity is beginning to be built into video. We see it now with YouTube as viewers are able to add annotations and links to video. Eventually you will be able to build in form fields, calls to action, multiple scenarios and other engaging content that will get people to interact with your video as opposed to just passively watching it. This will be a huge boom for your business.

30. Branded Entertainment and Sponsored Video

Having your company name attached to content is a great form of advertising and there are many ways to do it (product placement, sponsoring a show etc…). Almost daily, we see a new format for sponsored video being made for delivery on the web. Associating your brand with informational content on the web and the right entertainment outlet can be a great opportunity for your company.
PR Support and Community Relations

31. Video Press Releases

Although print press releases are still being produced and distributed, they are now supplemented with rich media and video to capture the attention of customers and tell a more engaging story. Video is now being produced and released to support important company announcements and focus is on the customer and how they will benefit as opposed to solely on the company.

32. PR Support Materials

People like easily accessible material. Companies that really want to market themselves and get their name out are developing video support catalogues of company and industry related materiel like b-roll, industry footage and sound bites that are available to bloggers, news gatherers and networks to use for stock footage. The demand for this material is profound. Make this available to news and business portals and watch your revenue increase.

33. Community Relations Video

Companies that have a strong presence in the community, whether it be helping the environment, the youth, or contributing to important causes, should capture these efforts on video. Capturing the moment benefits everyone!

34. Corporate Talk Show / Interviews

Talk show format video for corporations are beginning to replace weekly newsletters that are often labor intensive and have a small viewing audience. In this video format, a host interviews people that both work in the company and those outside and they discuss things that are relevant to your audience. It is important to engage your audience and discuss things they care about rather than simply talking about the company. These contain specific interviews that get delivered to specific audiences.

35. EPK (electronic press kit)

Popular in the mid-90s, electronic press kits on DVD are being replaced by web-based video and text.

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