Promoting your business with video

There are so many ways that video can help promote and grow your business. What’s right for you depends entirely on the business you have.

So, here’s a simple guide.

1. If you want to showcase the values, culture and services of your organisation, a brand video – a ‘behind the scenes insight’, often showing people at work and seeing them speak to camera – is a great way of building awareness, credibility and long-term trust.
2. If you want to show a ‘before and after’ or illustrate how a process delivers real benefits, a case study video is ideal. This may mean filming on several days to give more insight, but the end results will be worth it.
3. To capture the spirit and occasion of a particular day and deliver that news quickly, you’ll need an event video. This is perfect for any business hosting a conference, charity fundraising day or sponsoring an outdoor festival.
4. When you see a video that explains how your product works or perhaps how it performs alongside a competitor as a side-by-side comparison, this is often called a demonstration video – ideal as an aid for sales and marketing. This style of video can also be used to educate customers or to train staff and is a great tool to have, especially when face-to-face meetings are not possible.
5. When you want to shout about your business (but don’t want to do the shouting yourself), try asking your staff or better, your customers. Testimonial videos are a great way of delivering something that’s honest, spontaneous and authentic.
6. If you’re a good presenter and confident sat in front of a camera, a live (or pre-recorded) video blog is a great way to produce quick results. All you need is a smart phone or webcam. Done well, this will give your video and it’s content, a human, relatable quality, great for building relationships with your audience.
7. Animated videos are great for simplifying complex subject matter, such as technical products and are often used to explain how things work. Animation has a wonderful way of bringing to life things that real life can’t achieve.
8. If you’re an expert or you know someone who is, then a presenter video could be the best way of informing your target audience. These kinds of films often feature someone stood or sat in a studio or other appropriate environment, delivering powerful, engaging subject matter.
9. Conversely, if you want to gauge the opinions of an unsuspecting general public, then have a cameraman wander about interviewing people on the streets. This is usually referred to as vox-pop video and they often deliver some entertaining and surprising results.

Mark Currie

email: mark@catapultfilms.co.uk
website: www.catapultfilms.co.uk