What Is Video Marketing: 30 Best Ideas to Boost Your Business

Brands that utilize video as a marketing and content strategy attract 41% more traffic than brands that don’t.

Also, 72% of customers would prefer to learn about a product through a video rather than any other form.

And most importantly, 46% of consumers mention that video led them to buy a product.

Now, what does this all tell you?

First of all, videos are the most effective content strategy in the current digital scenario. Also, consumers buy a product after watching videos about it.

So to drive customers, videos are most certainly the best way for small businesses to go for.

What is video marketing?

Video marketing refers to using video material to advertise a good or service, build brand recognition, or enhance traffic and engagement.

It can comprise various video types, including live streaming, instructional videos, product demonstrations, client endorsements, and how-to videos.

Social media, websites, emails, mobile apps, and other platforms can all be used for video marketing.

Why is video marketing important?

With videos, it is simple to make customized and tailored videos catered to certain audience segments and channels.

Making a video can be quite cheap, especially when compared to the price of producing other types of advertising like TV or print.

With video marketing, you can monitor the success of your promotions, determine what is effective and what is not, and come to informed judgments.

Videos may be used to inform and influence potential clients, making them an effective tool for generating conversions and sales.

Since search engines frequently favor websites with videos, movies can help increase your website’s visibility on the web.

Video Marketing Statistics

If you are still not convinced, here are some statistics to prove how significant video marketing is for small businesses :

An average web user spends 88% of their time on videos.
64% of consumers are more likely to buy the product after watching a video about it.
Using videos on landing pages can create conversion by 80%.
92% of mobile video viewers share videos with each other.
65% of executives have visited the vendors’ websites after watching a video.
Video boosts open email rates by 19%
70% of marketing professionals state that video converts better than any other medium.
The click-through rates for emails would increase by 200% to 300% if video included
300 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute.
Videos on the homepage increase conversion rates by 20% or more.

Now, you know how crucial it is for your business to grow.

But if you are wondering

– what to do with video marketing?

– What videos should you create?

And what’s really working out for all successful brands out there?

Or you just might lack compelling video marketing ideas; here are some best ideas for small business video marketing.

Best Small Business Video Marketing Ideas

Product Demonstration Video

If you are new to video marketing for your small business, the very first and simplest thing you can do is create a product demonstration video.

Product demonstration videos help customer to understand :

What is your product?
Who is it for?
How does it work?
How can it help the target audience?
Why should people buy from you?

And other details, specifications, features, or descriptions of your product toward its practical application.

If you already have, try making another with a different perspective. Focus on the product value and how you are communicating through your product.

Some Tips :

Don’t make it a straight-away advertisement.
Demonstrate the video using various visual elements such as animation etc.
Create a video from the consumer’s perspective.

Telling Your Vision Through Video

A short video about why your company exists. What is the story behind creating this company from the ground up?

You need to bring someone significant from your brand to become the face of it. Be clear with what you aim to show.

You don’t need to be as descriptive as a documentary on this. Aim to come out as sharing a vision with your customer.

Just to tell where you come from and where you want to go.

Tell a story that resonates with people and must mean something to them in the context of the product.

Some Tips:

Don’t go overboard with this.
Don’t tell your life story or too much about the struggle.
Tell what is in for the customer to be part of your journey.

Customer Testimonial Video

According to a 2015 Nielson study, 83% of customers make purchases with personal recommendations from friends and family.

It also figured out that 66% of those put their trust in online product reviews published by fellow consumers.

Well, that’s a huge opportunity right there!

Now, you need to leverage that social proof to generate more leads for your business. Videos are the best to instill trust furthermore.

So why not make a customer testimonial video?

You have to record or document the satisfied customers talking about their great experience with your product.

A customer testimonial is more trustworthy and credible for building trust among prospects regarding your product.

Some Tips :

Allow customers to be specific about what they say.
It shouldn’t be all praising, or at least not directly.
Focus on telling how it helped rather than just saying, “it helped.”

How-To Videos

How-To videos are amongst the most popular types of videos on the web. They are also known as tutorials, instructional videos, or DIY ( Do-It-Yourself) as well.

These videos help viewers to find a solution to a specific problem they are experiencing. As the name suggests, it tells how to do a specific task.

How-to videos grab the greatest attention on the web, and it is the most searched category on Youtube, even more than music videos.

7 out of 10 viewers on Youtube search for it to find a solution.

So it is best to reach out to targeted customers or audiences in your niche.

For example, if your small business is about offering digital marketing services, you can create videos such as :

How to sell your products on Instagram?
How to use Facebook Ads?
How to increase followers on Instagram?
How to increase traffic on your website?

And so on..

There are infinite questions regarding your niche where people are constantly looking for solutions.

Present yourself as an industry expert and offer solutions for your prospects. It is a great way to increase brand awareness and build your audience.

Company Announcement Video

Brands need to keep interacting with their customers to pass on any major changes with the company or the products.

It can be about expanding your offices or launching a new product.

Company announcement videos can be about re-branding or major products, services, or software changes.

These videos are quite like Press Release but better than it as it draws more attention than any PR or social media post.

You can make a short and concise video featuring your team members.

Explainer Video

An explainer video is something quite like a demonstration video or demo video. It features how a product or service can offer a solution to the customers.

It is much more detailed and explanatory in nature. It focuses on demonstrating how the product works.

It helps customers or prospects to break down some complicated concepts about the product or any particular topic and process.

These are often like video manuals for a product to help customers learn the detailed features of any product.

You can create these videos to target all those prospects and customers who are either buying your product or want to buy.

Webinar Video

A webinar is an online event where an influencer, tutor, or any speaker delivers educational or presentational conferences to a dedicated audience.

These events are mostly to generate leads for businesses. Webinar video works more like a lead magnet for small businesses to get prospect information such as names and email addresses.

The participants must have enrolled for it sometime before it commences. Businesses provide valuable content in these webinar videos addressing issues of the target audience.

Towards the end, you can further explain your services or product to help them furthermore with existing issues.

Webinar videos are one of the most powerful video marketing strategies today to build an email list for targeted audiences, which converts well into sales.

The participants of this webinar might be students or professionals enrolling for it. This is different from any other video form of marketing as it engages with the audience directly.

Webinar videos allow you to get instant feedback from the participants right at the moment.

10-Second Feature Demo Video

It is one of the most common video types you should have on you if you sell some products or services to customers.

These videos will demonstrate different features of your product that deserve more attention. A 10-second feature demo video works best on social media platforms or on pre-roll ads.

You can definitely boost these videos for paid promotions to increase the reach of your product.

Team Member Interview

You can always feature the interview with your team members from your company. These interview videos will focus on a valuable topic in your niche that your team members reflect on.

For example, you can get your Founder, CEO, or designer to get that aspect of the business. How do they work with other team members to develop the product?

You can also put some behind-the-scenes of your business through a particular team member.

It will be great to hear a different side of the story in your company. They can talk about certain aspects of the product you offer.

Just make sure you provide value to your audience and get more insights into your business.

“Meet The Team” Video

Meet the team videos are different from team member interviews as this one will feature different team members in your company on a casual note.

This 10-minute video will be about knowing your team.

They can talk about their favorite things, how they end up working with you or the company, and what other things they do. And a lot of fun stuff as well.

Sharing photos from the old times can be a great way to build trust and relationships with an audience.

You can also make this like just a conversation and talking about their favorites and remembering the old days.

The aim is to introduce your team to the audience on an emotional level. They need to understand the story behind your team members.

Unboxing Video

Unboxing is a very popular concept in the video arena. People love to watch unboxing videos in order to document their first-time reaction to a product.

2 of the top 10 most-watched Youtube channels are about product unboxing. They are one of the best ways to review products candidly.

You can make such videos to engage the audience with your products. You can also send boxes to other people and record their reactions as well.

Video is an open field; there is just so much you can do. All you need to do is take a popular idea like unboxing and give it a twist or your own touch.

It will attract people to watch and know about your brand and products.

Behind-The-Scene Video

Audiences love to see behind-the-scenes tour videos as they give a glimpse of what goes behind the curtain.

It helps them understand what goes into the making of your product or how things work in your business.

People love to see such videos where brands document themselves in their company sites, such as offices, factories, etc.

If you let them see how positive workspace you have in your office and how “cool” your office employees and team members are, they relate to you like nothing.

It helps them associate with your product or services in a positive aspect.

Behind-the-scene video can be used for different purposes, such as

Giving a Tour of your company or manufacturing unit
Creating an employment branding or recruiting video
Go live with your employees or team members
Celebrations and events

Product Comparison Video

Product comparison videos are quite popular on Youtube as a huge number of people search for product reviews on Youtube.

You can create product comparison videos where you can feature two products, comparing their features, specifications, advantages, disadvantages, and other aspects as well.

The comparison should be fair and unbiased. Your goal is to inform the audience about these two products in contrast and analyze them accordingly.

Either you are declared a winner at the end on the basis of a set metric. Or even better is to leave the overall judgment to the consumer to decide.

Whiteboard Video

Whiteboard videos are extremely popular on video-sharing platforms and with brands as well. These videos are great for presentations, explanations, and telling stories.

The best part is they are visually appealing to watch and yet inexpensive to produce. Lots of brands rely on explaining various things through whiteboard videos.

It can be an informational video, tutorial video, brand story, or explanation of any process as well.

They prove to be really good assets for small businesses due to reasonable cost with the valuable content it offers.

Round-up Videos

Round-up or listicle videos are among the most popular video formats on Youtube. These videos feature lists on a certain topic.

These listicle videos are highly engaging as people love to see round-up content. Using stock footage to create a roundup list in video format, you can be creative.

You don’t need high production costs to create these videos, just some very good editing and visual storytelling.

Round-up videos are highly informative and entertaining at the same time. You will find a huge number of people commenting on listicle videos on Youtube.

Such videos can also be quite interactive because people like to add more to the list or give their opinion about what’s missing or could be better.

Interview Video

Interviews are a great format to learn new things as they come from an expert and tell the story about the person.

It is a great balance of getting information as well as perspective on how to work on it. Learning from people who made it gives you great content to grow.

You can bring in experts on the topics in your niche or industry. You can also collaborate with other creators, celebrities, influencers, and experts.

Interviews can be formal, casual, or maybe in podcast format, and so on. There are many ways you can execute an interview video.

The best is to come up with your own show or series of such interviews so people will look forward to it.

Also better to do interviews around a central concept for the overall series or show.

Pitch Video

A pitch video isn’t always to send out to investors or clients. You can create a pitch video to add more value to your content library.

These kinds of videos feature information about your product and how it can help consumers or clients.

Pitch videos are short but informative and more on the promotional side. It is to convince people to buy your product, tool, or services.

The video will be all about your product’s features, benefits, and applications.

Seasonal/Festival Videos

You don’t have to be overdramatic or cheesy, but creating a greeting video on various holidays or festivals is important.

It can even feature your team members celebrating the holiday or festival and wishing customers the same.

You can even go beyond and create a funny horror parody film featuring your team members right at the time of Halloween.

Or you can go live along with other team members to celebrate Christmas together. These videos can be fun, experimental, or just something about celebrations.

If not all, you can just release a short video of you along with other team members wishing the festival or the season to people.

Creative/ Viral Video

Creative or viral video is a very broad category of videos that a brand or small business utilizes to

Stir up the conversation around the brand
Drive a huge boost in traffic
Establishing a brand image through the kind of content they put out
Promote a product more organically

You have to make sure these videos are highly creative, unique, and engaging. They must have a ‘wow’ factor to be viral.

It doesn’t need to be anything related to your product but may still tell about your brand image.

It can be a humorous video, some social experiment, office pranks, and actually anything that people can enjoy and share.

You can decide to publish these videos occasionally on festivals or holidays such as Christmas, Halloween, etc.

Or even it can be your “thing” to create fun videos every once in a while that resonates with your brand values and image.

Podcast Video

Podcasts are known to be a great content marketing strategy where people develop a huge love for long-form content.

They also love grasping information and helpful content to go on while exercising or driving.

But Podcast videos are even more popular. It allows people to talk about their craft, skill sets, topics, or any common passions with their audience.

You can start a podcast by bringing various guests to talk about their expert topics relevant to your audience.

It can be a one-speaker podcast or like an interview as well. You can bring guests for Q & A, where you can take audience questions too.

Podcast videos are loaded with high-quality, valuable information for the target audience. They always appreciate good content and ask for more.

Reaction Video

Reaction videos are trending on Youtube. It is about reacting to a video or any piece of content on camera as documenting your first-time experience.

Not necessarily for all kinds of small businesses, but it can be an interesting piece of content if you can be open to accepting new concepts around it.

For example, if you are a vocal coach or public speaking coach, you can react to various singers or speeches, talking about how they are doing and what techniques are there to use.

If you are an expert on any topic or niche, you can react to the videos related to it and give your honest opinion on it.

Screencast Video

If your business is about software or an app, screencast videos are often meant to demonstrate certain features or processes to learn.

Screencast videos are about recording your device’s screen while talking in the background to instruct.

These videos might not be visually appealing or of high quality, but they are the best format when explaining anything on the screen.

They are extremely helpful in spoon-feeding the consumer about how to do a certain task on some software or app.

Video Emails

Just adding “video” in the subject line of your email newsletters can boost open rates by 19%.

When a person finds “video” in the subject line of their crowded inbox, it’s tempting and intriguing to at least check it out.

But considering that, you should also not send them lengthy videos as that will be a major put-off for your subscribers.

You need to focus on creating this video email that is easy to open and watch with relevant textual content or caption.

Tips for creating great video emails :

Keep your video short: You can go for the length at a maximum of 2 minutes.
Get to the point quickly: With a very brief introduction, tell them what this is all about, why you are contacting them, and what it is for them.
Send Personalised Message: Create a personalized video featuring yourself addressing the end-user regarding a certain message.
Mention CTA: Don’t forget to include a strong call-to-action to give them a specific action to take a right after watching the video.

Contest Announcement

Are you planning to host a giveaway or any contest?

The best way to share the contest details to ensure everyone knows the procedure and rules is by creating a video.

Announcing the contest through video also depicts your conviction and dedication towards this contest for people.

Also, it makes it easy for people to understand all the rules and regulations of the contest.

Make sure you give a proper visual representation of how people can participate, what the process is, and what things to do to win the giveaway.

You can share this video on social media platforms or, even better, use it for Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or other social media ads as well.

User-generated Video

The user-generated video wouldn’t be easy to get, but it can be a valuable addition to your content profile.

These videos will be created and featured by your users, which you will be publishing on your platform.

User-generated content is always high-quality content and also engaging for the audience as it resonates well with them.

You can get these videos by running a contest or survey. Ask people to submit videos about their experience with your product.