I was on a call with a new client the other week.
They had never made a marketing video before, and felt hesitant about going ahead with the project. This is totally understandable: video is many things, but a light commitment isn’t one of them — especially with a limited marketing budget.
But even if you have plenty of resources to leverage (this client did), there is still the problem of choosing what kind of video to make. There are so many options!
Do you go with…
- A short, eye-popping video ad to drive traffic to your website?
- A landing page video to boost conversions and capture more leads?
- An onboarding video to wow your first-time buyers and boost retention?
- An internal training video to help your new employees kick butt in their roles?
And the list goes on and on. (Jeesh, someone call the Overwhelm Police!)
If you have no prior experience with video marketing, how do you determine what type of video will benefit your business the most?
That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you in today’s blog post. You know, just in case you’re pondering the same question my client was.
This week, I’ll help you decide what type of asset you should produce as your first-ever marketing video. If you’ve never created one before, and you want to bet on a sure thing — or as close to a sure thing as it gets — I think I may have the definitive answer for you.
And just to be clear: this answer is not based solely on my opinion as one, albeit experienced, video marketer. This is something my team and I have observed again and again with first-time clients, who boosted their revenue with a single strategically deployed video asset.
But before I reveal the answer to you, there’s something else you must know…
The not-so-secret ingredient behind videos that convert
Choosing the right type of video for your business isn’t just a question of “what” …it’s also a question of “WHERE.”
Here’s what I mean.
When you create a video marketing asset, the quality of the video itself (as in, how persuasive and effective its message is) matters, no doubt…
But how and where you implement that asset in your marketing funnel matters just as much, if not more so!
A video that’s the marketing equivalent of a boiled onion skin won’t persuade people no matter how much targeted traffic you send its way. But even a masterwork of persuasion can still fail to grow your business if you never get it in front of the right audience.
It’s kind of like a 700-horsepower pickup truck in that way. If you use it where it can make a difference, like for long-distance hauls or off-roading, it’s unbeatable…
But if you only buy it for twice-a-week grocery runs where you don’t even load up the full trunk? Then it’s nothing more than a midlife crisis on wheels.
With that in mind, let’s ask ourselves: WHERE can your first marketing video make the biggest possible impact for your brand?
Well, video is great at three things:
- Grabbing attention, especially in today’s distractible digital space
- Conveying complex ideas in a simple and efficient way
- Oozing personality in a way that simple text can’t always achieve
All these strengths make it the perfect tool for solving one of the biggest marketing challenges businesses face right now. What’s that challenge, you ask?
Simple: it’s answering the #1 question your potential customers or clients will always ask — no matter who they are and no matter what industry you’re in.
The ultimate question your prospects are asking is…
Why you?
Out of thousands of other companies working in the same space, why should customers choose your business?
And out of eleventy gazillion similar products and services, why does your offer deserve their money — more than anyone else’s?
That’s what every single prospect wonders about when they encounter your brand or your offer for the first time. “Why should I choose them?”
On top of that, they are asking the same question not only about buying from you, but also about learning from you. What’s in it for them if they follow you on socials? Does your email list deserve their subscription? Is your video content worth watching?
As a business owner, you want to be perfectly poised to answer this question with clarity and confidence. You want all potential customers or clients who land on your website to know within minutes (ideally seconds!)…
- Who you are and what you do
- What makes you different from everyone else in your industry
- Why your offer is uniquely positioned to help them
So: if you haven’t done video marketing before and you don’t have a foundational video asset already live on your website, then that’s going to be the best use of your time and money.
You want to create a website explainer video that clearly, rapidly, and powerfully answers that all-important “why you” question — and highlights your unique brand position and value proposition.
With that in mind, here are the exact types of assets you should prioritize for your first-ever video…
Top 3 types of website explainer videos (choose one)
Okay, we’ve established that you want your first marketing video to do two things:
- Answer the “why you?” question in a way that’s impossible to misunderstand.
- Be absolutely unmissable to new leads as they enter your funnel.
If we keep these two “jobs” in mind, we can immediately come up with three solid options…
Option A. Homepage explainer video
Your homepage is the most-visited place on your site… but new people who end up there are also very unlikely to buy anything right away. In fact, up to 99% of them will leave without converting!
Unless, of course, you manage to capture some of those new visitors and turn them into leads — so you can start earning their trust and building a relationship.
If your goal is to capture a first-time visitor’s attention and convey who you are, what you do, and why they should care about you, as quickly as possible — and ultimately, to nudge them into your marketing funnel…
This is where a homepage explainer video can really shine. Even if you go by engagement alone, it can help you reduce bounce rate and increase time visitors spend on the page (according to this study by Wistia).
But why settle for vanity metrics if you can boost the numbers that actually count?
Because most importantly, a well-deployed homepage video can supercharge a marketing funnel’s ROI! For example, just look at what one of our clients, Mimic Technologies, achieved with their own homepage video.
(Hint: it rhymes with “$250,000 in new revenue booked within 45 days.”)
Option B. About page explainer video
For many marketers and business owners, the About page is an afterthought.
This is a mistake.
You wouldn’t think so, but the About page is typically the second most-visited page on a site! And the people who end up there are usually looking to answer that all-important “why you?” question I’ve already talked about.
So why not take that little spark of interest, and stoke it into a raging fire?
Your About page is prime marketing “real estate” to convey the awesomeness of your brand and your offer to a potential buyer. Not in the sense of “look at how amazing / industry-leading / award-winning etc. we are” — but in the sense of “hey, look at what we can do FOR YOU, our customer.”
If executed right, your About page can outperform any other landing page on your site, even your homepage, in terms of the number and quality of leads it captures for your business — especially if enhanced with a customer-centric explainer video.
Option C. Video Sales Letter (VSL)
Video Sales Letters are something of a special breed in the world of video marketing. They can be notoriously hard to produce if you don’t know what you’re doing — but their persuasion powers are legendary.
In terms of effectiveness, a powerhouse VSL is probably the next best thing to an in-person conversation with an experienced salesperson. But unlike a salesperson, video sales letters can handle an unlimited number of prospects 24/7!
Bottom line is, if you have a sophisticated, high-ticket product or service that already converts — but you’d love it to convert even more — then a VSL could be a tremendous choice for your first-ever marketing video.
(By the way, a VSL can work for low-ticket offers, too — here’s our friend Russell Brunson using it for a free offer. But unless you really know what you’re doing, selling a premium product or service with a video sales letter is a much safer bet.)
Let us help you create your first (or next!) high-converting video
No matter which of the three options you choose for your business, we’ve got you covered.
Over the years, we’ve created explainer videos for 700-plus clients (and counting!) across dozens of industries. Education, biotech, manufacturing, finance, coaching, real estate, petroleum, pest control — you name it, we’ve done it!
We invite you to take advantage of our genius marketers, silver-tongued copywriters, and absurdly talented artists and videographers to create your first, or next, business-boosting video in any of these styles:
- Live action
- Motion graphics and cartoon animations
- Virtual Reality Animation
- Digital stop motion animation
- 2D character animation
And more.
Interested? Then head on over to this page and fill out a 1-minute form to get a risk-free, no-strings-attached quote. After that, you’ll be able to book a strategy session with our marketing experts and brainstorm your future business-boosting video together!
Looking for something smaller… but still more than powerful enough to grow your business? We can craft an irresistible Elevator Pitch that will help you grab your prospects’ attention in less than 30 seconds. (Yes, really!)
