It is always difficult for a start-up to decide upon the right marketing strategy that would achieve the maximum traction. In today’s scenario where your target audience is tech savvy and heavy social media users, you needs more than just the perfect landing page. You need a video that explains your start-up and your goods and services. It is not just a good marketing tactic but also a great way to receive feedback.
You can use a video to talk about your venture, your offerings and also to answer any question the users might have. A good promo video can do wonders for your business if it reaches the right people. Focus on what you want to deliver in your video and work in that one direction itself.
Learning from the successful start-ups is crucial.
Here are some start-ups that were able to create powerful promo videos:
Dollar Shave Club
The video stars the founder of the start-up, Michael Dubin, himself. It captures the audience’s attention through its comedy while also talking about the value proposition of their product and service and also the advantage that Dollar Shave Club has over other competitive products. The audience gets a clear image of what they’ll receive and also a laugh along with it.
ZenCash
ZenCash explains it all through its demo video. The video was designed by Demo Duck and sports a unique hand-sketched design and pattern throughout. It begins with the pain points of running a business and goes on to explain how ZenCash works towards making zash receivable transactions simpler because, “running a business shouldn’t include running down customers who don’t pay”. The design of the video is such that viewers are easily attracted. 75% of the visitors clicked play and watched a majority of the video which was well above the average.
Spotify
Spotify hits it spot on with their video. The
start-up is all about music and so is their explainer video. The video grabs one’s attention right from the beginning with its
engaging music and animation. They hit upon all the key features and also the competitive advantage they have of being a free service.
Spotify is able to establish it’s mastery over the music industry by telling the viewers how music was meant to be consumed in the first place and how Spotify is now going to offer that.
Groupon
Groupon understood its audience and customers and hence made a thorough explainer video. Groupon can be difficult to use for some who are not very technically savvy so they created an animated video displaying how to go about using the service. The video is short and simple and demonstrates how easy it is to use for everyone. Along with that they are also able to re-iterate their brand promise: We’d rather have a happy customer, than an unhappy customer’s money. At the end they also add their customer helpline number. This is a perfect example of a helper video.
AirBnB
Airbnb is one company that has been able to create a good number of creative videos as commercials and also otherwise. They ran a campaign through twitter and vine which turned out to be a creative genius.
This video has been created in the form of a short story about travel, adventure and finding your place in the world. Airbnb users from across the world were asked to submit scripted 6 second vine videos via twitter which were then combined to make the commercial, entitled ‘Hollywood and Vine’.
Panorama 9’s IT-MAN
The cloud-based service provider Panorama 9 created a character, the IT-MAN, for introducing themselves to customers. The video is created in the form of a video game where the hero is IT-MAN whose job is to cross hurdles and solve all IT related issues in an organisation while also slaying dragons, Russian spam bots and still maintaining his energy level. The magic power-up is none other than Panorama 9. The video is such that anyone who has watched it would be able to recall it. It is certainly one of the best start-up videos out there.
PadMapper
PadMapper is again a great example of how humour can easily engage people. The video takes on a casual and humorous tone and starts by talking about the need of looking for an apartment. It then goes on to talk about the various offerings on PadMapper and all its features while infusing every sentence with funny undertones. The tagline itself, “making apartment hunting suck less” makes one laugh and is not easy to forget.
Going through this list would definitely give you a sense of direction as to what form of a video you want to make. The common thing among all these videos is that they found the creative element that helped them stand out against their competitors. They were different and did not belong to the herd of videos out there. One has to understand that not all videos can go viral. To make your video go viral it needs to be creative, unique and appealing to the audience.
Creating the Video
Gone are the days when the production of a video was always an expensive affair. Given the high demand and a good number of professionals working in the field, you can now produce your explainer video on a budget.
You can now hire people for the production of your video and not exceed your budget. Have a script in place or at least a basic idea and the rest can be outsourced. There is no dearth of professionals out there who will take care of everything from production to editing.
- You can hire freelancers for your video production from platforms like VideoPixie, Upwork, Fiverr, Stagephod, PeoplePerHour and Freelancer.in.
- You can also create and edit videos on your own on online platforms. Animoto, Masher, Powtoon, Masher, Nutshell and Magisto are some of the best tools out there.
- If you want to do some research and find the right creators who can make a video for you, use tools like Vidooly’s Creator Wizard.
Distribution
Once the video is produced, make sure that it is distributed to places where it matters. You will definitely put it on your website along with your social media handles. Other than these, post your video on Youtube and Vine to increase visibility. You can also go for Vimeo and Dailymotion if you wish for. Otherwise, if your content is good and useful enough then you should be able to achieve the reach organically and you wouldn’t even need to spend a dime.
Measure the Performance
Once your video is published and distributed you need measure the impact that your video has had on your audience. Use tools like Google Analytics and Youtube Insight to receive some solid data on your video. You can measure the number of plays, pauses and the length of the video each viewer went through.
Wistia is another tool that can help you measure your video’s performance.
If you have uploaded your video natively on Facebook then you can make use of Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm which places a lot of weightage on videos. You can also measure people’s reactions to your video through social media monitoring. Identify keywords and hashtags and use tools like Radian 6 and Meltwater to analyse people’s sentiments before and after your video.
Looking for more inspiration
If you are looking for more videos to go through before you plan out your own, then visit http://startup-videos.com/ to find them all under one roof. You can find videos categorically divided and can also upload your own video if you wish to do so.
At the end, content matters. So make sure that your script has the following elements:
- The pain point or the problem that the customer faces
- Your offering and USP that would help solve the problem
- A Call-of-action, while also including your company’s name and contact
Creating a video is now so easy and is a sure shot way to distinguish yourselves from your competitor. Do not miss out on opportunities as now is the perfect time to step into the game.
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