Video content has become an indispensable tool for businesses of all sizes. With consumers spending an average of 19 hours per week watching online video content in 2024, it's clear that video is no longer just a trend – it's a necessity for effective communication and marketing.

This guide will explore 10 essential types of videos that every business should consider incorporating into their strategy. We'll dive into the benefits of each video type, best practices for creation, and how they can drive engagement, boost conversions, and ultimately contribute to your business's success.

Top 10 helpful types of video that every business can use

1. Explainer Videos: Your Business at a Glance

Explainer videos are short, engaging pieces of content that provide a concise overview of your company's products or services. Typically lasting between 60 to 90 seconds, these videos are designed to quickly capture attention and communicate your value proposition.

Key Benefits:

• Simplify complex ideas
• Increase conversion rates on landing pages
• Improve brand awareness

Best Practices:

• Focus on the problem your product or service solves
• Use simple, engaging visuals
• Include a clear call-to-action (CTA)

Explainer videos are perfect for your website's homepage or landing pages, where they can educate top-of-the-funnel buyers and pique their interest in your offerings.

2. Product Videos: Showcase Your Offerings

Product videos dive deeper into the specifics of your offerings, demonstrating features, benefits, and use cases. These videos are particularly effective for complex products or services that are difficult to explain through text alone.

Key Benefits:

• Increase product understanding
• Boost customer confidence
• Reduce support inquiries

Best Practices:

• Highlight key features and benefits
• Show the product in action
• Include customer testimonials or use cases

By creating compelling product videos, you can help potential customers visualize how your offerings can solve their problems or improve their lives.

3. Testimonial Videos: Let Your Customers Speak

Testimonial videos feature satisfied customers sharing their positive experiences with your company, products, or services. These powerful pieces of content provide social proof and help build trust with potential customers.

Key Benefits:

• Build credibility and trust
• Overcome objections
• Humanize your brand

Best Practices:

• Choose diverse, relatable customers
• Focus on specific, measurable results
• Keep it authentic and unscripted

Testimonial videos can be particularly effective on product pages, in email marketing campaigns, and on social media platforms to showcase real-world success stories.

4. Company Culture Videos: Showcase Your Values

Company culture videos offer a glimpse into your organization's values, work environment, and what makes your business unique. These videos help attract top talent and differentiate your brand from competitors.

Key Benefits:

• Attract and retain talent
• Differentiate your brand
• Build emotional connections with customers

Best Practices:

• Highlight your company's mission and values
• Showcase employee experiences and perspectives
• Demonstrate your commitment to diversity and inclusion

Use company culture videos on your careers page, in recruitment efforts, and on social media to give potential employees and customers a sense of what it's like to work with or for your organization.

5. How-to Videos: Educate and Support

How-to and tutorial videos provide step-by-step instructions on using your products or solving common problems. These videos are invaluable for customer support and can also be used internally for employee training.

Key Benefits:

• Reduce support tickets and calls
• Improve customer satisfaction
• Demonstrate product expertise

Best Practices:

• Break complex processes into simple steps
• Use clear, concise language
• Include on-screen text or captions for clarity

How-to videos can be featured on your website's support pages, shared on YouTube for broader reach, and sent directly to customers who have specific questions or concerns.

6. Promotional Videos: Generate Excitement

Promotional videos are designed to generate excitement around new products, features, or events. These videos allow you to showcase your passion and get customers and employees hyped about what's new in your business.

Key Benefits:

• Create buzz around new offerings
• Increase engagement on social media
• Drive traffic to your website or event pages

Best Practices:

• Keep it short and engaging (30-60 seconds)
• Use eye-catching visuals and music
• Include a strong call-to-action

Promotional videos are perfect for social media platforms, email marketing campaigns, and as pre-roll ads on YouTube or other video platforms. They can also be effective on your website's homepage or dedicated landing pages for new products or events.

7. Employee Spotlight Videos: Humanize Your Brand

Employee spotlight videos highlight individual team members and their stories. These videos put a human face on your company and help build connections with customers and colleagues alike.

Key Benefits:

• Showcase your team's expertise and passion
• Improve employee morale and retention
• Build trust and authenticity with customers

Best Practices:

• Focus on personal stories and motivations
• Highlight the employee's role and impact on the company
• Include insights into the employee's life outside of work

Share employee spotlight videos on your company's social media channels, careers page, and in internal communications to foster a sense of community and pride within your organization.

8. Behind-the-Scenes Videos: Offer an Inside Look

Behind-the-scenes videos give viewers an exclusive look at your company's inner workings, culture, and processes. These videos add a personal touch and help foster a sense of connection with your brand.

Key Benefits:

• Increase transparency and build trust
• Showcase your company's unique personality
• Create a sense of exclusivity for viewers

Best Practices:

• Show the "real" side of your business
• Include candid moments and interactions
• Explain processes or techniques that make your business unique

Behind-the-scenes videos can be shared on social media, included in email newsletters, or featured on your website to give customers and potential employees a deeper understanding of your company culture and values.

9. Live Videos: Connect in Real-Time

Live videos allow you to connect with customers and employees in real-time, adding a personal touch to conversations and interactions. They're great for interviews, Q&As, product launches, and events.

Key Benefits:

• Foster real-time engagement with your audience
• Create a sense of urgency and exclusivity
• Gather immediate feedback and answer questions

Best Practices:

• Promote your live video event in advance
• Encourage audience participation through comments and questions
• Have a clear agenda or structure, but be prepared for spontaneity

Platforms like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and YouTube Live make it easy to broadcast live videos to your audience. Consider hosting regular live sessions to build a consistent and engaged community around your brand.

Also Read : Doing Voice Over Like a Pro: A Guide for Beginners in 2024

10. Social Media Videos: Reach a Wider Audience

Social media videos are short, engaging clips designed specifically for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. These videos help increase brand visibility and reach a wider audience through shares and engagement.

Key Benefits:

• Increase brand awareness and reach
• Boost engagement rates on social platforms
• Drive traffic to your website or other content

Best Practices:

• Keep videos short (15-60 seconds)
• Use captions or text overlays for silent viewing
• Optimize for mobile viewing with vertical or square formats

Tailor your social media videos to each platform's unique characteristics and audience preferences. For example, create fun, trendy content for TikTok, while keeping LinkedIn videos more professional and informative.

Best Practices for Creating Effective Business Videos

Regardless of the type of video you're creating, there are some universal best practices that can help ensure your content is engaging, effective, and aligned with your business goals.

1. Define Your Objectives

Before you start creating any video, clearly define what you want to achieve. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or improve customer retention? Your objectives will guide your content, style, and distribution strategy.

2. Know Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial for creating videos that resonate. Consider their demographics, interests, pain points, and preferred platforms. This information will help you tailor your content and messaging effectively.

3. Keep It Concise

In today's fast-paced digital world, attention spans are short. Aim to convey your message as quickly and efficiently as possible. For most video types, try to keep your content under 2 minutes, with social media videos being even shorter (15-60 seconds).

4. Focus on Storytelling

Even in short-form content, storytelling can be a powerful tool. Structure your videos with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Use narrative techniques to make your content more engaging and memorable.

5. Invest in Quality

While you don't need Hollywood-level production values, ensuring good video and audio quality is essential. Invest in decent equipment and take time to learn basic filming and editing techniques. Poor quality can detract from your message and harm your brand image.

6. Optimize for Mobile

With more than half of video content being consumed on mobile devices, it's crucial to optimize your videos for smaller screens. Use larger text, ensure your visuals are clear on small displays, and consider creating square or vertical videos for social media platforms.

7. Include Calls-to-Action

Every video should have a clear purpose and guide viewers towards the next step. Whether it's visiting your website, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase, include a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA) in your videos.

8. Use Captions and Subtitles

Many viewers watch videos without sound, especially on social media. Including captions or subtitles ensures your message is conveyed even when the audio is off. This also improves accessibility for hearing-impaired viewers.

9. Optimize for SEO

Don't forget about search engine optimization (SEO) for your videos. Use relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Create engaging thumbnails to improve click-through rates. Consider creating transcripts of your videos to boost SEO further.

10. Be Consistent

Develop a consistent style and tone across your videos to reinforce your brand identity. This includes using consistent intro and outro sequences, color schemes, and music choices that align with your brand guidelines.

Measuring the Success of Your Video Content Strategy

Creating great videos is only half the battle. To ensure your video content strategy is effective, you need to measure its performance and iterate based on the results. Here are some key metrics to track:

1. View Count

While not the most sophisticated metric, view count gives you a basic idea of how many people your video is reaching. It's particularly useful for measuring the success of your distribution strategy.

2. Play Rate

This metric shows the percentage of page visitors who actually play your video. A low play rate might indicate that your video's placement or thumbnail needs improvement.

3. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate measures how much of your video viewers are watching. It can help you identify at which points viewers tend to drop off, allowing you to optimize your content accordingly.

4. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

If your video includes a CTA, track how many viewers are actually clicking through. This metric directly ties your video performance to business outcomes.

5. Conversion Rate

Similar to CTR, conversion rate measures how many viewers take the desired action after watching your video (e.g., making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter).

6. Social Shares

The number of times your video is shared on social media platforms can indicate how compelling and valuable your audience finds your content.

7. Comments and Feedback

While more qualitative, viewer comments and feedback can provide valuable insights into how your audience perceives your videos and what they'd like to see more of.

8. Return on Investment (ROI)

Ultimately, you want to ensure your video content is driving business results. Calculate the ROI of your video marketing efforts by comparing the costs of production and distribution against the revenue or other business outcomes generated.

Conclusion

Video content has become an essential tool for businesses looking to engage their audience, showcase their products or services, and build brand awareness. By incorporating these 10 types of videos into your content strategy and following best practices for creation and measurement, you can develop a robust video marketing approach that drives real business results.

FAQs :

To help you further understand and implement these video strategies in your business, here are answers to some frequently asked questions:

‍Q1: How much should I budget for creating business videos?

A: The budget for business videos can vary widely depending on the type of video, production quality, and whether you're creating in-house or hiring professionals. Simple social media videos or screencasts can be created for little to no cost, while high-quality explainer or product videos might cost anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000 or more. Start with a small budget and scale up as you see results.

‍Q2: How often should I be posting videos?

A: The frequency of video posting depends on your resources and audience. Consistency is key. For social media, aim for at least 1-2 videos per week. For longer-form content like explainer or product videos, monthly or quarterly might be more realistic. Analyze your audience engagement to find the right frequency for your business.

‍Q3: Do I need professional equipment to create good business videos?

A: While professional equipment can enhance video quality, it's not always necessary, especially when starting out. Many smartphones now have excellent cameras that can produce high-quality video. Focus on good lighting, clear audio, and compelling content. As your video strategy grows, you can invest in better equipment.

‍Q4: How long should my business videos be?

A: Video length depends on the type of video and platform. Here's a general guide:

• Social media videos: 15-60 seconds
• Explainer videos: 60-90 seconds
• Product videos: 2-3 minutes
• Testimonial videos: 1-2 minutes
• How-to videos: 3-10 minutes (depending on complexity)

Remember, it's better to have a short, engaging video than a long, boring one.

‍Q5: How can I improve the SEO of my videos?

A: To improve video SEO:

1. Use relevant keywords in your video title, description, and tags
2. Create engaging thumbnails
3. Upload a transcript of your video
4. Embed your videos on relevant pages of your website
5. Encourage engagement (likes, comments, shares) as this signals value to search engines

‍Q6: Should I use animated or live-action videos for my business?

A: The choice between animated and live-action videos depends on your content, brand, and budget. Animated videos are great for explaining complex concepts or for businesses without physical products. Live-action videos can add a personal touch and are often better for product demonstrations or testimonials. Many businesses use a mix of both types.

‍Q7: How can I make my videos more accessible?

A: To improve video accessibility:

1. Always include captions or subtitles
2. Provide a transcript
3. Use clear, easy-to-read fonts for any on-screen text
4. Ensure there's enough contrast in your visuals
5. Describe important visual information in the audio
6. Consider adding audio descriptions for viewers with visual impairments

‍Q8: What's the best platform for hosting my business videos?

A: The best platform depends on your goals. YouTube offers great reach and SEO benefits. Vimeo provides a more professional look and better quality. For social media videos, native uploads to each platform (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) often perform best. Many businesses use a combination of platforms to maximize reach.

‍Q9: How can I repurpose my videos to get more value from them?

A: To repurpose videos:

1. Create short clips from longer videos for social media
2. Turn the audio into a podcast episode
3. Transcribe the video and turn it into a blog post
4. Use screenshots as images for other content
5. Compile several related videos into a longer, comprehensive guide

‍Q10: How do I measure the ROI of my video marketing efforts?

A: To measure video ROI:

1. Set clear goals for each video (e.g., sales, leads, brand awareness)
2. Track relevant metrics (views, engagement, click-through rates, conversions)
3. Use UTM parameters to track traffic from your videos
4. Compare the cost of video production and promotion against the value generated
5. Consider long-term benefits like increased brand awareness and customer loyalty