Determining what types of videos your organization needs as part of your sales, marketing, culture, recruitment, product initiatives, and beyond is an important discussion for any company to have on a regular basis.
The benefit of scheduling a "regular basis" assessment is that it enables your team to ensure your content is as fresh as possible while also keeping tabs on "evergreen" content in your publishing queue that can remain relevant over a long period of time. The latter is important to achieve so that you can control your video marketing costs when you think about your video goals, which platform they'll live on, and who they are aiming to reach.
Ultimately, deciding on which type of videos your team wants to produce is a balancing act of factors including timing, budget, team schedule, and overall company priorities.
That being said, here are a handful of the types of videos that The Video Garage creates on a regular basis in collaboration with different organizations:
Organization Overview Video
Overview videos are a "calling card" for an organization looking to succinctly highlight their mission or service, team, and core values. Typically, these videos live on the homepage of a website as well as other social platforms. Lasting about 2-3 minutes long, they feature a series of segments of interviews with folks in the company edited together with b-roll (action shots) of the company's work environment, products, or other offerings.
Again, the goal of this type of video is to explain what products or services the company provides, to have viewers get a sense of the company's team, and to learn a bit about the story of the company overall.
Culture/Work Experience Video
Culture videos are almost identical to Overview videos in that they are often a combination of different interviews with the organization's team edited together with b-roll of folks in the organization throughout their work day.
The target audience of a Culture video is future hires rather than customers or potential partners. However, having a strong Culture video can often give prospective customers a better idea of what the company is about and that can be a positive differentiator when it comes to sales.
Explainer Video
An explainer video can take on a variety of forms, but as the title suggests, the purpose is to clearly and concisely explain to the audience the organization's products, services, or mission-driven goals.
This type of video can include a variety of on-camera talent and filming styles in order to support the messaging a team is trying to get across to their audience.
Some Explainer Videos feature a representative from the company addressing the audience directly, almost lecture-style; it could include animations, demonstrations, or screen grabs of software or processes.
Another version might focus on a "narrative" storyline to illustrate the experience of a product or service that a viewer can follow along with and relate to. Finally, companies selling a product or service often gravitate towards a "hands on" demo usually featuring an expert on their team to address frequently asked questions.
Ultimately, an explainer video is intended to illustrate to your audience what you do, what you offer, what you're about, and how you're different from other organizations in your space.
Product Demo
As we touched on earlier, a Product Demo video is one that the audience can view to see an example of how a product is used while learning more information. This type of video can vary in length, approach, and elements needed. The product demos we get asked to do usually includes capturing footage of a representative from the organization walking through a demo they've done "live" for folks previously, but "for the cameras this time."
Training Video
Much like a Product Demo video, a Training video often includes a person from the organization giving their rehearsed training presentation to the camera crew rather than a live audience.
There are also some projects that look to capture a Training video with a live audience present or hire actors to "play out" scenes that illustrate points given by the presenter, which is an option too.
Event "Sizzle" Promo or Recap Video
Event Sizzle videos are either presented in advance of or drawn from happenings at a live event. Most Event Sizzle reels are drawn from one event and then used to recap the event or to promote the next event as a teaser.
Sizzle reels are typically 2-3 minutes or less and utilize a montage of quick-cut video clips of the event. The images often include presenters on stage, attendees mingling and enjoying each other's company, signage, and the overall event space. Music on the faster-paced side of things is usually incorporated.
The videos either utilize short clips from attendees talking about the experience at the event, or the videos don't have anyone speaking in them and the images (video) speak for themselves.
Narrative Video
A Narrative Video is one that follows a story that includes utilizing actors playing out scenes as characters rather than folks being interviewed or presenting information as themselves.
These videos are logistically more complicated than most other types of videos. Pre-production tasks can include casting actors, finding locations, securing props, prepping wardrobe, pulling permits, hiring the crew needed (and organizing their parking, call time, food, "holding location, etc). All these elements require more time, planning efforts, and resources than the other types of videos mentioned above.
That said, with careful planning, a clear script, and a concerted team effort, these types of videos can often be the best way to communicate your message to your audience.
----
We'll go over a few other types of videos in a future , including videos for social platforms, for your YouTube channel, and for internal purposes.
We hope this primer is helpful to you as you plan your video needs. If you have any questions or comments, or if The Video Garage can help bring value to your organization, please click here to reach out to us!
----
About The Video Garage:
The Video Garage is a Boston-based media production company that specializes in high-end, B2B & Educational media production.
We partner with innovative and mission-based clients to realize their visions through professional videography, photography, 3D images, animation, and more.
Our goal is to become your long-term partner, and for every project to represent a pivotal moment in our client's success story.
We work with startups and research labs in the STEM space, small and medium sized businesses across virtually all industries, Fortune 500 companies, and world-class educational institutions in Boston, Cambridge and across the globe.
