What is Corporate Video Marketing and How Can it Help Your Business?

You’ve heard it before. A marketing strategy is not complete without video marketing.

So as a small business owner, you’re probably asking “How do I get started?” 

In this article, we’ll go over a crash course on corporate video marketing so your business can stand out in a sea of online content.

What is corporate video marketing?

Corporate videos are essentially any video content from a company that is not explicitly an advertisement. Examples of these types of videos include the following:

• Explainer videos for employees
• Customer testimonial videos
• Service or Product demo videos
• How-to videos
• CEO statements
• Event videos
• Safety videos
• Brand videos
• Corporate overview videos
• Investor/shareholder presentations

While corporate videos aren’t actual advertisements of a company or its products, they still act as a source of marketing strategy and support. They are produced by a business or an organization to raise awareness about its brand, products, or services.

Corporate videos can convey the authenticity of your brand and company, demonstrate a product or service so the consumer better understands what they are purchasing, and testimonials provide proof of your product or service success.

While all these needs can be accomplished via written form (user manuals, blog posts, social media posts, etc.) it’s common knowledge that consumers don’t read as much anymore. So, corporate videos are truly an important investment.

What are the benefits of corporate video marketing for SMBs?

Brand awareness

For any new or small business owner, brand awareness is the pillar of a marketing strategy. How can customers find you if they don’t know you exist? Brand awareness is a tool to share who you are to the world and explain the services or products you provide. If you have high brand awareness, then more customers will try your product and if they find your product to be satisfactory, they will recommend and share their testimonial increasing your brand awareness even more.

In the marketing funnel, there is Awareness (goal to attract), Consideration (goal to inform), Conversion (goal to convert), and Loyalty (goal to engage). In this funnel cycle, Awareness and Loyalty are very similar. Once someone has become loyal, they will help you to build awareness once more via social shares or encouraging new customers to use your product.

Examples of videos that provide Awareness include explainer videos for employees, product or service demonstrations, CEO statements, and corporate overview videos. Alternatively, an example of a Loyalty video are customer testimonials. Although, testimonials can be sprinkled throughout any corporate videos you create.

Lead generation

While building awareness is important, it is also important to do so strategically. Any good marketing goals and strategy considers lead generation and identifies the customer that will buy your product or service. Because video is so ubiquitous and used across so many platforms, it’s a no brainer for your lead generation strategy. When creating your video, it is important to understand who your consumer is and how they want to receive their information.

For example, if your product is for an older demographic, you would create videos that can be longer in length and shared via Facebook. Alternatively, if your product is for a younger demographic, investing in very short videos that are shared on TikTok would be a better use of resources so you can generate appropriate lead generation.

SEO/website traffic

As this article states, “Video is anticipated to dominate the marketing landscape, with experts anticipating online video to account for 82.5% of all web traffic.” And consumers consume 500 of online content each day, so the math suggests that there is a big tie between video content and web traffic overall.

By creating corporate video content marketing that is paired with your SEO strategy, you can increase SERP (search engine result pages), traffic to your website, click-through rates and ultimately increased conversion rates. What does this look like exactly? Well, pair your videos with the high rank keywords associated with your business and/or product/service.

For example, if you are a fast-food company specializing in chicken sandwiches, a keyword may be “farm-raised chickens.” In this case you would create a video highlighting how your product uses farm-raised chickens and the story behind the farm.

However, it is important that your video productions and content remain authentic. In the past, Google algorithms and metrics would prefer active pages over those that did not produce as much content. However, that is no longer the case. So do not create videos for the sake of doing so. Make sure they are intentional and authentic for the viewer, so we continue to build trust.

Strategies for using corporate video marketing to grow your business

Potential pitfalls to avoid

Even with the best intentions, the best small business can make mistakes when creating their corporate videos. Here are a few pain points to address and/or consider:

Choose the correct video formats

It’s easy to get caught up in the content of your video and forget the correct format for your audience. Maybe they do not need a high-production video tutorial when a recorded webinar is more efficient.

Navel-gazing

As a small business owner, you are the expert and passionate about your business. This means that you have likely come up with efficient processes and internal jargon with the intention of creating the best product/service for your customers. But don’t forget – your potential customers don’t know nor need to know your internal jargon or processes. They only need to know how your product/service is of benefit to them.

Forgetting your brand story

Customers want to hear the story behind your product. Often, it is the first thing they want to hear from you. It builds trust and connection. However, as your business grows and the number of services or products developed begins to grow, it can be easy to forget to go back to your story when creating marketing materials. Don’t fall into this trap – always go back to why you do what you do.

How to get started with corporate video marketing – FAQs

How much does a corporate marketing video cost?

This varies depending on the video you are creating and the budget you have. If you are creating a video recap of a major event that you provided, you will likely spend more money on the filming the day of and the editing afterward. Alternatively, if you are creating a short TikTok video interviewing a staff member on their role in the company, this will likely be very cheap. For more guidance on how to do a corporate video on a budget, check out this UpCity article.

What do you need to make a marketing video?

Again, the answer depends! Are you creating the video yourself or are you outsourcing this to an agency or freelancer?

If you are creating this video on your own – you may only need your iPhone and simple online editing tools (for that TikTok staff video). However, if you end up doing a larger level production in-house, you will need the following:

• Video camera
• Lighting kit
• Tripod
• Boom pole for audio
• Various microphones
• Audio connection cables
• Headphones
• Editing software

If you end up using a service provider, then you would need a marketing strategy that they can work off of, along with a budget.

What goes into a high-quality video?

In this UpCity article, we discuss some tips and tricks for good video marketing, but here is it in a nutshell – know your target audience, be authentic, set clear call to action, and have a clear rollout plan.

You may think a video on a particular topic would be beneficial or nice to have, but does your customer think that? They may want something completely different than what you expect. And when creating that video, it is important to do so authentically. Don’t go through the usual motions and assumptions.

Be transparent and clear with your message. It should not be confusing and have a point at the end, so the consumer knows exactly what the message was. Finally, if you create an amazing video but do not have a plan on how to roll it out to the public, then no one may end up seeing it.