7 Video Content Ideas to Get You Started With Video Marketing

These days, good marketing means making great video content. It’s no longer enough just to publish stellar pop-up ads, thoroughly-researched blog articles, and fun social media posts. Now, you need to engage, entertain, and enthrall your target audience through well-made, eye-catching video content.

Of course, that’s easier said than done! If you don’t have any video marketing experience, you might have ample ideas about marketing your brand but not know how to translate those ideas into the video arena.

Today, let’s break down seven smart video content ideas you can use to get started with video marketing. 

Why Is Video Content So Important?

Simply put, because it’s the most popular and profitable form of marketing, bar none. YouTube, for example, has nearly 2 billion unique users every month (and the highest-paid YouTube stars can earn more than $29 million per year!). Remember, those are unique individuals checking out the platform, whether they are searching for cat videos, branded content, or something else entirely.

In other words, people like to watch videos online. So why wouldn’t you make video content a cornerstone of your marketing campaigns? Many other businesses have already taken this leap. Indeed, 86% of businesses use video in their marketing strategies, and many marketers focus exclusively on video content above all else.

When done properly, video content:

• Informs your audience about your brand or a specific product or service
• Entertains your target audience members, laying the groundwork for excellent customer relationships for years to come
• Sticks in the minds of your consumers so they are more likely to remember your brand instead of your competitors

Plus, video content is easily shareable. Unlike a PPC or pay-per-click ad, if someone likes an authentic and candid-feeling video advertisement, they can share it on their favorite social media platform, getting you even more traffic without spending another dime.

The video content model can be cost-effective, profitable, and very useful for boosting your conversion rate. Given all these advantages, there’s no reason not to start making video content for your marketing campaigns ASAP.

But how to start? Let’s look at seven video content ideas to get your gears turned.

Product Demonstrations

Product demonstrations are no-brainers, plain and simple. Product demos are opportunities to showcase how your product works, what it does, and how it solves customer pain points.

Of course, you should already know the pain points your target customers will likely experience; it’s all part of your target audience research. As you research who you’ll advertise to, you need to know:

• What your customers want
• What they need in a product
• How your product can solve those needs and wants

If you already know these things, it should be simple to demonstrate the true value of your product in a short, 10-to-30-second video. Think of this as a form of video advertisement you can put up on YouTube, your company website, and even on your social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Depending on the technical complexity of your product or service, you may need to implement graphics, slideshows, and other elements into your video. That’s no major trouble, given the prevalence of online video-making tools and other platforms you can use without a lot of graphic design experience.

10-Second Feature Demos

You can even go more specific and create bite-sized, 10-second feature demo videos. Feature demos are best if you have relatively complex products or services with lots of moving parts or distinct features.

For instance, let’s say you have a comprehensive platform for accounting and managing projects. It offers project management dashboards and invoicing templates with features such as automatic invoice creation, etc.

Learning to use all those features can feel a little overwhelming. To make it easier for customers to understand your product, you can make 10-second feature demo videos and explain how each feature works. You can upload the videos to your social media pages as well as your company website. That way, people who purchase or try out the software can see exactly how those features will benefit them and how to start using them.

Thank You Videos

Your brand might already use social media or email to thank its customers. But video marketing can give you an extra opportunity to show some well-timed gratitude.

Interacting with your customers after a purchase helps your business get repeat customers and boosts its reputation through word-of-mouth referrals. Even better, thank you videos can be made only once, then templated and repeated multiple times and sent to every customer.

Thank you videos don’t have to be very long, nor are they very technically complex. They are a perfect form of video content to boost your marketing campaigns if you run a small business alone or with just a few employees. It puts a face on your brand and makes it more likely that your customers will feel emotionally connected to your company.

Of course, you can always go the extra mile and make a customized, longer video for a repeat customer or someone who makes a large purchase. There’s no better way to make a customer feel special than to thank them “in person”!

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonial videos are key aspects of any digital marketing campaign, and for a good reason. They feel candid, unscripted, and authentic and show that you already have some satisfied customers, potentially convincing those on the fence about purchasing your products.

Customer testimonial videos should be posted on YouTube, Facebook, and your company website. These are excellent pieces of video content that don’t necessarily require big budgets or lots of special effects. Just call satisfied customers, ask them what they liked about your products or services, and hit “record.”

Even better, as you get a more dedicated customer base, you’ll have more and more opportunities to interview satisfied customers to sway your target audience members into making purchases of their own.

Team Member Interviews

Team member videos are exactly what they sound like: interviews with your team members demonstrating their expertise and commitment to your brand.

Take restaurants, for example. If you are about to relaunch your restaurant in a small town after a few months of being shut down for renovations, you need your relaunch day to be big and profitable. What better way is there to do that than to interview your restaurant’s chef?

In the interview, you can ask them how they were inspired to make their favorite dishes, what they recommend new patrons try and have them gush about the new renovations, seating, and kitchen arrangements they’ve been playing with.

Team member interviews are great for providing new information to your customers and boosting your brand’s authority.

Q&As With Existing Customers

Q&A’s with existing customers are relatively long video pieces that are nonetheless important for long-term video marketing campaigns. Q&A’s with prospective customers or clients are perfect if you want to show how your brand addresses real-life customer challenges.

Ideally, you should interview a customer or client who either has recently purchased a product or is about to do so. Make sure you can record them and then ask questions about how your brand serviced them, what they liked most about the product or process, and so on.

Because this type of video content is candid and unscripted, people are more likely to believe its content than an obviously scripted advertisement. You can put Q&A content on your social media pages, or you can stick it on the testimonials page of your company website, depending on where you think it will get the most traffic.

User-Submitted Videos

Lastly, consider implementing user-submitted product videos from time to time. User-generated content, or UGC, is extremely valuable because it feels authentic to new prospects and potential leads.

User-submitted videos should highlight a real user or client using your product or enjoying your service. It’s not exactly the same thing as a customer testimonial, as it includes more action footage of the customer using the product in question.

Still, it does a lot of the same stuff. It may convince prospective customers to take the leap and make a purchase, and it is an important type of brand advocacy, helping to grow your customer base much quicker than other types of video content.

That said, ensure you only post user-submitted videos that feel legitimate and authentic. If a video feels inauthentic or fake to your customers, they may actually turn away from your brand in favor of a competitor.

Bonus Idea: Tutorial Videos

We said we would discuss seven video content ideas, but let’s check out an eighth and final idea to round out your marketing prospects.

If you make technically complex products, or if your services have a bit of a learning curve, it’s not a bad idea to whip up some tutorial videos for new purchasers or subscribers. For example, say that you make a one-of-a-kind car cleaning chemical that’s meant to be the only necessary solution for scraping away oil, grime, and other debris off the surface of customers’ cars.

However, you have to use the car cleaning chemical correctly, such as by mixing it with warm water, for it to work as advertised. Why not make a tutorial video demonstrating the process from start to finish? You can even include a link to the tutorial video, helpfully posted on your company website or in the product’s instruction manual so that every purchaser can check it out.

Tutorial videos aren’t just good customer service. They also serve as a form of “after-purchase” marketing. The right tutorial video will solidify confidence in your brand and your business, making it more likely that a current customer will come back for another purchase in the future.

Wrap Up

Video marketing is about authenticity, engagement, and great-looking footage. The above eight ideas are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can create when you put your mind to this marketing vector. The right video content will bring new people to your brand faster than ever, plus keep your current customers engaged and interested for years to come.

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