When most people think of explainer videos, a few main use cases come to mind. Generally, marketers create these videos when they launch their business and need to communicate with their audience quickly. They might put the video on their homepage and possibly share it in email campaigns, but that’s about it. However, there are myriad other ways to use videos. Here are a few innovative ways to use your marketing videos:
1. Crowdfunding campaigns
Businesses use crowdfunding campaigns for many reasons, from gaining startup capital to obtaining the extra resources they need to expand operations or develop new products. Whatever the reason, telling a good story often makes the difference between funded projects and failed ones. Kickstarter even recommends video as a way to tell your story. Animated videos tend to stand out from the pack, giving your organization more of an impact. As the number of campaigns continues to grow, fundraisers need to make sure prospects truly understand the value of what they will create with the money.
2. Recruiting
Talent is every business’s most important resource. These days, it can be harder than ever for companies to find the skilled employees they need to grow and thrive. As a result, more businesses are starting to treat prospective employees like they would customers, even creating content to engage with them. When it comes to recruiting content, there’s nothing as effective as video. Video can effectively convey company culture and grow employer brand. This video from Dropbox uses puppets in lieu of actual employees to demonstrate what it’s like working for the company. The result is quirky and fun while remaining surprisingly informative.
3. Promoting an app
In this new “app economy,” it’s crucial for business to have a mobile app. Mobile devices power customer relationships and give companies more data about their user base. According to The Verge, Apple’s App Store recently reached 100 billion downloads, which have earned developers more than $30 billion. Whether you use your app as a major business driver or are just introducing an app to help visitors take advantage of a conference or event, it’s important to promote. The app store now allows developers to upload short app previews, which are 15-30 seconds long. To go along with this, why not create a larger video campaign when you launch an app? Companies can share app preview videos on social media, in email campaigns or on their website.
4. Highlight research
Content marketing takes a lot of time and resources. A thoroughly researched asset like a white paper is great for lead generation and driving customers down the sales funnel. The best way to take advantage of larger pieces of content is to break them down into smaller pieces to reach wider audiences and give the paper a longer shelf life. Take a look through white papers and e-books to pull out information that might work by itself in a short video. This way, you can reach people who may not be interested in reading a research paper. This approach has additional benefits as well.
“Use video to highlight research.”
According to Content Marketing Institute, using video to highlight portions of other content can improve your SEO. Since video is so shareable, prospects could be more likely to latch onto thought leadership presented in video form than a wordy white paper.
5. Digital ads
Say you already have an awesome landing page video. You can make this piece of content go further by using it as a digital ad. From PPC to promoted social posts or even YouTube ads, explainer videos are an excellent outbound marketing tool. According to Inc., one key way to make animated videos work for advertising is to make them engaging both with sound and without. Grab the attention of users with a promoted video ad that autoplays as they scroll past it.
Whenever you have new products, events, or research to share, video is an excellent means of getting your voice out there. Consumers’ love of video shows no sign of slowing down. Marketers can take advantage of this by finding more creative ways to use video and repurposing the video content they already have.
