How to Create Videos for Your Business
let's talk about how to get you started on creating awesome videos for your business
So, you’ve decided that your business needs video - but how do you start creating a video? What kind of video do you want to create? Let’s talk about it!
What kinds of videos should I make for my business?
Different Types of Videos (Explained)
Once you decide that you want to make a video – or multiple videos – you need to decide exactly what videos you are going to make. Working backwards from your desired outcomes will help you determine what to make. We don’t shoot product demonstrations toThere are a variety of different videos that you can create – here are a few examples.
Customer Testimonial Videos. These videos showcase your happy customers, as they explain why they like your product, and more importantly, why they like working with you and your business. These are extra important for businesses where customer service is a core part of your offering. Customers buy a shovel because they know it works, they buy a service because they want a good experience with the company
Product Demonstration. Product demonstrations are important when your product is a new type of product customers may be unfamiliar with, when you want to show off features others may not know exists, and if you want to demonstrate the ways your product is superior to competitors’ products.
Behind-the-scenes video. Behind the scenes videos can be good to show the high quality process that goes into making your product or service. If you have processes you’re proud of and stand behind, pull back the curtain and show your customers the care that goes into it. They can also be good for showing your company’s culture. Today’s buyers will often choose to buy from a company whose values match their own. By showing customers those values in action, you can reassure them about who they are doing business with.
Meet the Team video. Showcase how awesome your team is (and humanize your company) by letting your followers get to know the team members that make up your business. This can work for recruitment, but showcasing the types of colleagues a prospective employee would have. They can also serve to share expertise, if you’re a rocket company, and one of the members of your “meet the team” series is a world renowned rocket scientist, it builds customer trust.
Company culture videos. As an extension of your Meet the team videos, you can do fun videos like ‘a day in the life’ or other videos that showcase how awesome your company culture is – whether that’s funny clips from a Zoom meeting or a work outing. Funny & light-hearted isn’t the only way to go either, your company culture video should send a clear message to viewers about the values your company operates by. Are you a group of hard hitting, truth seeking journalists? A socially focused company with their heart on their sleeve? Each of those deserve a different video.
FAQ Videos. What are some commonly asked questions about your product, business, or industry? Create videos answering those questions. These can save your sales reps time, show customers that you are thoughtful, and help your business’s SEO
Commercial. Create an advertisement for your company.
Do some research! You’re not expected to reinvent the wheel – find videos that you think are well done, and try to emulate that type of video. You don’t want to copy it word for word, but looking at videos that other businesses have made will help you figure out what you want for yours…and just as importantly, what you don’t want to do in yours.
How do I start making videos for my business?
Once you decide what type of video you want to make, you need to actually start creating it. While there are ways to make decent videos on your own, we recommend that you start with the desired outcomes first, and then spend some time thinking about your company’s “voice. You may already have branding guidelines and a voice established. Having this voice or tone in mind will be extremely helpful for a production team. It can be helpful to find several video pieces that you like, or even things you want to be sure to avoid and share that with your production partner. Don’t worry, everyone borrows from everyone else -these are just being looked at for tone and stylistic elements, not being completely copied. Once you’ve gotten that far you can consider hiring a video production company to do the heavy lifting of bringing that creative vision to life. Before writing a script or taking things to the next step, have a call with a few production companies. They can give you an idea of timeline and how the costs may vary depending on how much of the creative process you do internally versus rely on a production partner for.
There are three main stages of video production - Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production.
How to determine video production goals
It’s easy to say that you want to create video, and less easy to define why that is, and what you want that video to look like. To determine your video production goals, you first want to think about why you wanted to create video in the first place. The questions below should help you narrow down your reasoning and goals behind creating videos for your business. At the core though we want to determine who we want to see the video, and what we want them to do after seeing it.
Questions to ask yourself
- Where do I want this video to be posted? (It’s okay if the answer is multiple places – it likely should be!)
Social media?
Website?
Paid advertisement?
TV?
Mailed out on VHS? (don’t do this)
- How long does the video need to be?
How long is my customer willing to watch?
Should there be multiple versions (lengths) of the video?
Who is this video for? (target demo)
What message do I want to get across to viewers?
What do I want viewers to do after watching the video?
Where should I show my videos?
The three primary places where you should show your videos are on your website, your social media accounts, and in paid ads. There are many other places where they can be useful however - you can also include them in pitch decks, send them directly in sales emails, include them in trainings, buy tv ads, put them up on Youtube and many other avenues. Each platform will serve a different purpose. It’s important to outline their intended purpose before creating videos because it will determine which platforms you will place them on and thus how they will be produced. Different platforms will have different recommendations (and limits) for how long a video can be, what is most effective, and what format a video should be in so it’s important to pay attention to that in the early planning stages.
Recommended Video Length per Platform
How long should my videos be?
The length of your videos is dependent on the platform that you are posting on. A video production company can shoot footage and break it down in different length videos (and size dimensions) for whatever you need it for – common breakdowns are 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and 1 minute, although videos can be shorter or longer based on the need they are fulfilling. Generally speaking if the intent of the video is to gain attention it should be very short and have something very attention grabbing in the first 5s. For a video to be used later in the sales process they can be longer, but we should still focus on brevity 90s-150s is a good guideline.
How long should a testimonial be?
The general consensus is that a testimonial video should be between 60 - 90 seconds. However, you can feature longer testimonials on your website, and can always film extra and break it up into multiple 60 - 90 second video segments as well. You want the video to be long enough to get your point across, and for the audience to get a good feel for what it’s like to work with you, and how satisfied your customers are with you and the service or product you provide.
How long should a YouTube video be?
One of the most commonly recommended lengths for YouTube videos is between 3 and 8 minutes. However, that number varies based on topic, industry, and target audience, so it’s not fair to say that a certain video length is ideal for a one size fits all scenario.
There are pros and cons to both short videos and long videos. Longer videos (at least 8 minutes) on YouTube have more opportunities for mid-roll ads, and can bring in more money from ad revenue if people continue watching. In a post-Vine and current TikTok world, attention spans are short, so you want to at least have a great hook if you want people to keep watching your video until the end.
How long should an informative video be?
Speaking in very broad terms, try to keep an informative video under 20 minutes - if it needs to be longer we can break it up into a series. We encourage you to ask yourself “If I was going to look this up myself on YouTube, how long would I expect the video to be?” The expected length will vary by the topic. A viewer expects a video about how to build a passenger plane from scratch to be hours long, but expects a video about how to make a PB&J to be less than a minute. The trick is to make your video match the viewer’s expectations. If you see a 30s video about how to build an airplane I’m going to assume it’s not thorough, if I see a 4 hour video about how to make a PB&J I’m going to assume it’s some strange art project.
You can also create various videos on the same topic, just with different lengths. If you can shorten an informative video down to 30 seconds, great. But you can also have a longer form of that same video for those who want to learn more information, and can use the shorter video to direct viewers to the longer one. We call this the breadcrumb approach. Regardless of length, you want your video to be engaging, interesting, and yes, informative.
How long should a social video be?
Social is an area that has more defined guidelines. Videos made for Instagram Stories should be 15 seconds or less. The maximum length for an Instagram Story is 60 seconds, so anything longer than that will have to be broken up into multiple stories. While it’s possible to still retain viewers' attention with multiple stories of the same video split up, it’s not recommended.
Videos made for Instagram Reels should typically be between 15 seconds and 1 minute, maximum. However, if you can get your message across in less than 15 seconds, that can be beneficial as well. The first few seconds of the Reel are what is going to really grab (or not grab) your viewer’s attention, so those seconds need to be spent convincing them to keep watching until the end.
TikTok videos should be around 15 seconds. Similar to Instagram Reels though, shorter can be better. TikTok has the ability to upload videos up to 10 minutes, but the majority of viewers do not want to sit for 10 minutes to watch a video from your business. TikTok also gives users the opportunity to skip ahead and to change the playback speed on certain videos, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.
How long should a video be for OTT?
The ideal length for an OTT video is 15 to 30 seconds. You want to hook viewers immediately and make the video interactive, while still being concise. Think of these like TV ads that can just be a little more targeted. OTT ads show on devices and streaming services that stream over the internet.
