How to market your promotional video:
1. Trade shows
If you have a trade show booth, a promotional video will be a great addition, or more likely, a necessity. Why? Because a video will attract the attention of trade show attendees. They’ll go where the action is or where their attention is diverted towards. And a fast moving, entertaining and informative video is just the ticket to do that.
In addition, when people go to your booth and you’re engaged with someone else, a marketing video is just the thing to keep their interest for a few minutes while you conclude your conversation, knowing that another prospect will be ready to talk soon.
2. General marketing of your business’ product or services
There’s nothing like a video to succinctly describe your product, service or company. A lot of thought goes into the script from which a video is shot. In fact, the script is the backbone of the video. Good script, good video. And of course the reverse is true. But I digress.
People want things fast, to the point and content rich. An effective marketing video does just that. Most should be no longer than 3 minutes, have a succinct, well-thought out message highlighting no more than 3-5 benefits or value propositions your company offers.
3. Marketing of niche items that people need to understand
Sometimes people have to be educated to the fact that your product or service will make their lives better. And there’s nothing better than a video to do that. Perhaps place a DVD promoting your next product into the package your customer receives. More likely, you’ll want to stream it on your website though.
If they come to your website to buy xyz, there should be a video explaining the benefits of buying it – from you! But then there could be a smaller thumbnails with clickable videos that market related or other products you have to offer.
4. Include link with emails
Just below your signature line, you might want to include a link to your marketing video. Email servers often don’t like attachments or embedded videos and will view your video email as spam. However, if you link a thumbnail on the page, that should be fine because the reader is electing to do so, rather than having a potential virus waiting there for them when they open the email.
So any sized thumbnail that contains a link or just the link itself will work quite well
5. Demos on a laptop for your sales team
If your sales team doesn’t have video as part of their dog and pony show, they’re way behind the times. The use of video as part of a presentation can be a welcome entree to your company at the beginning of a sales meeting, or a nice break in the discussion, or a good device to get the discussion back on track.
More and more, companies that you’ll be present to have built in internet and video projection capabilities and all you’ll need to do is bring a USB memory stick to link to your videos at the meeting. Just make sure that everything is compatible and optimized before you get to the meeting. Nothing worse than having a video not play or play distorted and have the prospect say those fateful words, ‘Gee, we play videos here all the time and they don’t look like that!’
To avoid those problems, load the videos on your laptop and connect it directly to their projector. This way, you know they’ll play correctly.
6. Send to distributors to explain your message, your product, vision, etc.
Aside from being there with a cheerleading squad, there’s nothing better to get distributors excited about your product than a well-crafted video.
Make sure it gets into the right hands and encourage them to watch it if you can’t be there. Even if you can be there, a video can be used to point out things that you forgot to mention or will reinforce things you may have, but in a more succinct and entertaining fashion.
7. Website video
Every website needs a video. Period. I challenge you to think of a product or service where a video wouldn’t help. Whether it’s a marketing or orientation video, it will most likely be needed for the visitor to your site to understand the product and value points and otherwise be persuaded to purchase your product or use your service.
Plus, a promotional video just looks good on a website. First there was print and that was sufficient. Then graphics came along to enhance the site. Now video is the standard. I think there’s a letdown if there’s no video to watch. If not, having a video will definitely increase their interest, stay on your site longer and improve the chances of them using your product or service.
8. Train and orient new employees
A marketing video will give your employees, old and new, a shared vision of your company. Having everyone on the same page, understanding the mission, value points, products, services, etc. of your company is vital for a cohesive workforce and positive outcome.
Inevitably, employees will have an aha moment about something in the video, when they watch it. It lets them know what’s important and how the company wishes to portray itself. Whether it’s edgy, traditional, or somewhere in between, the promotional video sets the tone and conveys it to your workforce.
9. Promote your company on the second largest search engine – YouTube!
Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine, after Google? Yep. People are watching more video these days than ever before. And the numbers will only increase as time goes by. So if you don’t have a properly optimized video on YouTube, get going!
Another benefit to placing your video on YouTube is that it is owned by Google. So if your company can benefit by having higher search engine rankings, then YouTube is the place to be.
10. Promote events, product roll outs and other time sensitive things
Depending on the production value you need, a quick promotional video can be produced rather quickly, as needed. Or several videos can be shot in one day and edited when you need them. The point is that you should have an entertaining, informative and motivating video to promote what’s important to you and your company.
If things change, the video can easily be edited to reflect those changes. The bottom line is that a high quality video can be produced in relatively short order on an as-needed basis. The main thing to remember is that the quality of your video has a direct impact on the viewers impression of your business. So make sure it’s a good one!
11. Use it in your social media campaigns
Video makes people inquisitive. Chances are that if you include a video on your Facebook or Linked In pages that people will click on it and at least give you 3-5 seconds to hook them. So why not do it? Besides, having a linked video from Linked In to YouTube can only act in your favor for the search engines.
As is the case with the use of video elsewhere, a video will help you articulate or supplement your post. Or maybe your video can be the post itself! ‘Watch Video One’s new video that features XYZ’ could be the title of a post. Feel free to keep our company in the post, but I suspect you’ll replace it with yours!
12. Repurpose the footage for a commercial on cable or network
You can shoot more footage than you need for your marketing video in order to use it for other purposes. Of course this needs to be planned out well, but it can lower your expenses big time.
Just make sure you have the shots you need identified and have them professionally filmed. You can fool around with editing it yourself because unless you erase the footage, you can always try again or hire a professional. But if you hire a professional for anything, it should be to film the original content.
Even if you don’t have the other videos in mind when your marketing video is being shot, it’s possible to use that footage for commercials or other purposes.
13. Make a video series of new users for existing or new products
To enhance interest and keep people coming to your website or social media site, consider making a video series. Of course it needs to be content rich, entertaining or both to keep people coming back for more. The famous BlendTek blenders is a great example of this: See it here. They have a series of videos on YouTube that show how strong their blenders are by having them devour things like golf balls, iPads and other unlikely item.
You can develop a persona that you wish to convey and create a series that will feature your product or service but brought to life in an innovative and creative fashion. Just don’t let the entertainment factor get in the way of the main purpose of the promotional video, namely to sell your product or service.
14. Producing a promotional video will force you to separate the wheat from the chaff
Because a marketing video is by nature short, or should be, it will force you to focus on the essentials of your company. You only have 1-3 minutes to tell your story and by doing so, it will reveal what’s most important.
This process may lead you to develop a new mission statement, really understand what you do, what you stand for and what your future goals may be. It may be necessary for others to collaborate with you to fine tune your message. This is a great ‘excuse’ to get people talking and coming to a consensus about your company, your target audience, action(s) you want the viewer to take and other previously mentioned benefits of this process.
