Whether you are B2B or B2C, no matter what you sell, these are five videos that every business can use to grow. According to a Cisco report, video is expected to grow to 84% of web traffic in the U.S. by 2018, up from 78% this year. So if your brand doesn’t have a video strategy, you’re missing out! 

Testimonial Videos

We like to see other people just like us and hear proof that what you have to offer us is legit. Video testimonials are more powerful than written ones; the more relatable the better! You can have different customer testimonial videos placed all throughout your website and put them where you want people to buy or sign up. Or you can use them in your e-mail blasts.

These videos can help a customer decide whether or not they go with you or they decide to go with some other guy. It gives your business credibility, builds brand respect and brand loyalty with your audience and can influence consumers who wouldn’t normally choose you. 

Product Demos/How-To Videos


A video can show in just a few seconds what may be difficult to explain with text. You want to use this kind of video when there is already a curiosity or a need associated with your product or service. If you're still convincing them they should care about you, then it's too soon for this kind of video. Try starting with just a simple video that states the problem or goal and then tell the audience how your product helps achieve this goal or solves the problem. 

When your audience is ready to see how it works and get into some of the more challenging details, then go for the explainer video that walks them through step by step. You can achieve this sort of video with a DIY route, or you can go with the professionals to throw in a voiceover, animation, and really help your video stand out! 

Interview Videos

Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Whoever that horse may be. Sometimes it really helps consumers to see who is running the show. By putting the President or CEO of your business on camera, you build buyer trust and relationships. Use these videos as an opportunity to educate your current consumers who are loyal to your brand and to influence future customers. Tell them about your company – the history, the mission, and where your company is going in the future.  

And maybe you don’t want to put your CEO on camera, for whatever reason… People love to hear employees talk about how they love where they work and why "XYZ" is such a great company to buy from and support.

About Us Videos

You might also hear these referred to as company profile videos. This is a great video to focus on the why. Why there is a need, why you do what you do, and how your product or service affects people… These are stories people want to hear and if they are impactful enough, these are the stories people share the most! You want people to be engaged so much that they want to tell everyone about your story. That’s a customer for life.

Creative Videos

We have entered a world where we don’t have to sell the audience something in 30 seconds or less. Whether you want to produce a video that will air on every TV in America or you want a video for social media to gain awareness, the bottom line is people want to be entertained. Your commercial or video for Facebook won’t be as effective if it’s not memorable. By using visual storytelling to strike peoples’ emotions, you can give them something they won’t forget. These ideas may take longer to come up with, but they can pay off big time when it comes to gaining awareness, converting leads, and engaging with your current customers.

All of these videos can attract, engage and convert your leads into customers. Long story short, you should have a video on your home page and every landing page of your website. 

Videos can increase conversion by 80%, so why would you not have a video on every page of your website??! It doesn’t matter how long the video is – it should be as long as it needs to be and not a second longer. You want to create the desire and ignite the passion if you can. 

By giving your audience a clear value proposition and incorporating the benefits of why they should buy your product or use your service, you can increase the conversion rate and use all of these different types of videos to measure what types of videos your consumer enjoys watching the most. 

Olivia Turnage
@laughlivlove

I must admit I am a lover of the sequential arts (graphic storytelling).  Comics, animation, cave drawings, and storyboards bring narratives to life while interacting with the observer on a whole new level. If you are in the preproduction stage of your project it is imperative that you have your ideas sketched out and here are five good reasons.

• 1 Structure

Humans have a lot of thoughts racing through their heads at any give moment. Once you have written out the pertinent ideas, they may not be structured to convey a story or a chain of events. Visualization will help with the focus and fluidity of the story or ideas.

• 2 Predict and Prevent Issues in Storytelling or Production

Having a visual representation of your shot list or script can help you notice weak points in your story well before you invest in production. This will save time, money, and hair, as you will not be pulling it out later.

Example: Working on story that required a paintbrush to move through a complex set. The goal was to show off the environment, but the story suggested that the video would come off as being about the paintbrush. Were the brush’s movements a serendipitous circumstance, or was it a possessed self-motived paintbrush? No one wants to buy a haunted paintbrush and –oh yeah we weren’t selling paintbrushes!  The concept worked in text, not as in visuals.

•  3 Ground Your Project in Reality

No matter what your project is, it needs to be financially and physically attainable. Drawing out your plans can help you stay the course. If it’s a pain to hand draw a thousand people, then imagine how hard it will be orchestrating a thousand characters when in production.

• 4 Storyboards are Art

There is something special about capturing a quick gesture representation of a complex story or idea. Getting to see the underlining work or process adds a humanist element to a project. Even technologically sophisticated and highly produced blockbusters like, The Dark Knight Rises had concept art and storyboards. 

Subscriptions:

You’d be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t use Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Prime to watch TV. These subscriptions are reasonably cheap (under $10 a month) and provide quite a vast range of current and past television series, movies, and more. Furthermore, Netflix has branched into content creation - bypassing the cable networks and going straight to the viewers. And from what I’ve seen, its remarkably good content (House of Cards, Orange in the New Black)! 

Other networks are jumping on this straight-to-viewer idea as well, integrating their content into the world of smartphones and apps. CBS recently unveiled their All-Access app, which provides new and old episodes of nearly every show CBS airs, including my personal favorite Survivor. HBO’s popular steaming app, HBOGo, allows HBO subscribers to watch HBO on the go via tablet or phone. And they just introduced their Apple-friendly HBO-Now for live-television subscription a la carte – no cable provider needed. Just in time for Game of Thrones!