By now it seems like anyone talks about it...
"Social networks will give more and more space to videos!" say the CEOs of Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok.
"Video is the tool that has the highest conversion rate for companies!" analysts say.
"Putting a video on a website's landing page can increase conversions by 86%," say the web gurus.
Often, however, when we think about making a video for our company, we don't know where to start and we fall back into the usual formats that are the same as millions of other formats and make our company indistinguishable from the crowd. Then we don't see results and we get discouraged.
However, the problem is often upstream. The video itself is not a magic wand that one pulls out and the company takes off - otherwise it would be enough for anyone to take a cell phone and start filming random things (oh my, that's often what happens...).
Shooting a video for a company is instead the last of a series of steps that take place in a marketing and communication operation which involves the study of the company, its ecosystem of products, its philosophy, its staff and its target.
In fact, to use a video in order to convert and find customers, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of its position within the pyramid of the sales funnel. We must therefore understand if our purpose is to raise awareness (brand awareness), consideration (site traffic, generation of contacts) or conversion (sale).
In fact, each video format must be created to be placed in a specific point of the sales funnel, otherwise it won't work.
There are many formats that can be created to promote a company and its products. However, our experience has led us to identify the 5 major types that use video language for business promotion.
Let's see them together!
SPOT
The spot represents the company's flag, the flagship product on a visual level.
It is the video that lasts at least a year and that we can run through campaigns and sponsorships until we make a new spot (usually every 1/2 years).
ATTENTION! The spot is placed at the top of the sales funnel so it is mainly used to raise awareness. This means that its purpose is not to sell (at least not directly), but to make the company known, to excite, to trigger an emotional and value correspondence between our business and the viewer. It cannot and must not be this and also something else, otherwise it is distorted and becomes something that is neither meat nor fish.
The commercial serves to make us known and to transform a lead from cold to hot, to bring it to the lower part of the sales funnel, where it will be ready to convert.
Here is an example of a commercial we made for the contest organized with the CNA Roma, Altaroma and the Rome Chamber of Commerce.
THE SHORT DOCUMENTARY
This is the ideal genre to use when we want to highlight all aspects of our company: the product, the company mission, the players involved, the benefits designed for customers.
The short documentary is, in fact, often made with one or more talking heads (interviewed characters) whose speech is edited together with footage of business processes and products on sale. It is a format that is not an alternative to the commercial but can support it to communicate all the technical and operational information that the commercial should not, in principle, contain.
Here is an example that we made several years ago for Argiano, the famous winery, producer of Brunello di Montalcino. It was a product that they used both on the web and in multiple presentations around the world and which in a few minutes allowed them to effectively illustrate what their wine has to be unquestionably the industry leader.
THE VIDEO SERIES
This is one of our favorite advertising tools because it completely fits the logic of social networks. The seriality and the diversification of the contents are qualities that completely meet the favor of Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube, where obviously a single video is not enough to create a content calendar that can retain a viewer.
A video series can be focused on different aspects of the company: the product catalog, the staff, the commercial outlets, the brand and the philosophy. They are ideal when we want to create loyalty and especially when everything we want to say does not fit in a single video.
Here is an episode of a video series created for Rosso Restaurant, which tells about one of its various commercial outlets: pizza.
THE GIF
Last but not least, there is a tool that should not be underestimated at all. We call it GIF for convenience since, in actual behavior, it behaves as such (a very short video looping). The gif, as we make it, is usually composed of a single shot on which there can be titles. It is a very valuable tool for social networks that prefer very short and effective videos, which go straight to the point. Plus, of course, they are indexed much better than photos.
They can also be used to give a focus on a product or its characteristic, on an event, on an aspect of the company philosophy.
Here is an example made for the fashion brand: Centopercento Cachere.
FASHION FILM
Fashion Film deserves a separate chapter.
Fashion Film is one of our favorite branding tools. It is something that goes beyond the stringent market logic and syncopated times of advertising, yet it represents perhaps the best type of content for those fashion companies that want to create a product that will remain over time and that remains current even in twenty years. Exactly, because the fashion film, unlike the fashion video, is not created for a product or a collection, but is a work directly linked to the brand and its soul. It is a small film made up of video art, cinema, theatricality and advertising. A unique product of its kind that only an industry as varied and irrepressible as fashion could create.
This is a fashion film created for the contemporary jewelry brand Plexishock, starring the talented Cora Gasparotti and produced by the CNA Roma.
These are the 5 main formats with which to start getting an idea when thinking about communicating your brand with videos. There are many others of course: product videos, testimonials videos, interviews, fashion films, brand films, fashion videos (which are different from fashion films), corporate videos, brand videos, video reportages ... but we will talk about these in another episode .
If you are thinking about a video strategy to promote your company or to make a single video, we will be happy to help you.
You can call us to tell us what you would like to do and get our feedback and ideas. Who knows, maybe together we will find the right place to do something great!