What’s the first question you should ask yourself before you sit down and plan a video for your content marketing strategy? It’s this:
What is the purpose of my video?
Why Is Knowing Your Video’s Purpose So Important?
Knowing the video’s purpose is critical because it dictates:
- where the video will be hosted
- what kind of call to action you put in your video
- your distribution strategy
- how your content is presented
Knowing your videos intended purpose also serves as a lens and increases the chance that you’ll get every single one of your intended videos in front of the right section of your audience.
So it sounds pretty important, right? And it is absolutely crucial. Although there are many different types of video you can make, from the point of view of intended purpose it boils down to just three choices.
Three Types Of Video From The Perspective Of Purpose
The end result – the purpose – of your videos should fall into one of these three categories:
- To attract people to your website.
- To persuade people to buy your products or services.
- To help people who’ve brought your products or services actually use them.
And that’s it.
These three types of video correspond to the three stages of the Sales Cycle: attraction, conversion, consumption. (If you want to read more about the Sales Cycle, then the go to guy is called Sean D’Souza.)
Let’s have a look at each type of video – and how its purpose affects its conception, execution and application.
The Attraction Video
The Attraction Video is the video equivalent of a blog post – it’s something that you send out into the big wide world and its job is to send traffic to your website.
You want to get as many eyeballs on an attraction video as possible – so it gets posted to YouTube, to your blog or website, to Web 2.0 properties if you have them, to other video aggregator sites, in Forum answers, on other people’s blogs or websites, in iTunes. Basically anywhere you can post it where your audience might find it.
The purpose of the Attraction Video is to get people to your website – so the Call To Action should reflect that. You should direct people to go to your website – and give them a compelling reason why they should.
The actual content of the Attraction Video should serve the purpose of attraction – whilst there are several ways to do this, a great way is to provide solutions and/or information to your target market.
Get your attraction video strategy right and your videos will send targetted traffic to your website 24/7. When using video in Content Marketing, the attraction video is the video type you will make the most of.
The Conversion Video
The Conversion Video is a sales video. It’s the kind of video you send your subscribers to when you’ve got a product or service to sell. Sales Videos are something that I’m exploring at the moment – the copyrighting ‘goo-roos’ all claim that good Sales Videos outperform good Sales Letters by a factor of anywhere from twice as much to ten times as much.
The Call To Action in a Conversion Video is simple – it’s buy my stuff! And you should keep out and out sales videos on your website. There are several ways to do this…hosting the file at Amazon S3 and using a custom Video Player is a common way to present the sales videos. (But it’s not the only one).
Conversion Videos done right have the potential to increase your sales – the production values and time invested in making these videos should dwarf the values and efforts spent on either attraction videos or Consumption videos.
(Paul’s Note – a video that you make for the purposes of increasing your opt-in subscriber rate is also a conversion video. The ‘sale’ is that you are getting people’s email address and their explicit permission for you to market to them.)
The Consumption Video
The Consumption Video is designed to assist those folk from your tribe who’ve brought your product or service to actually use it.
Here’s a real world example – my son got a fancy Telescope for his birthday a couple of years ago and I had to assemble it. The instructions were probably comprehensible for someone technically minded – I thought they were tosh.
However, the company had a step by step video where one of their guys walked through each step, explained what you had to do, why you were doing it, and how to do it. That video made something that I was having trouble with into something that became relatively easy.
The easy way to create Consumption Videos is look at the FAQs you get for every product or service that you sell. Answer each one with a video – live action or screencast or hybrid of the two – and you have consumption videos. And you’ll stand out from your competition because few people do it.
If you sell any kind of software and/or plug ins Consumption Videos are an absolute must.
The Call To Action for a Consumption Video is to send people to a central page where they can access more videos that address common problems.
Consumption Videos can be hosted behind paywalls, or in membership sites. I have seen various companies host consumption videos on the ‘Toob too – and it’s possible that they can do some attraction as well. But if you do this, make sure that the primary values of a consumption video are adhered to. Any atttraction these videos do is an unlooked for bonus.
Summary
So before you create your next video ask yourself the question:
What is the purpose of the video I’m making?
Once you know what purpose you want to fill, it clarifies the whole video making process and makes your finished video serve your business more effectively.
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{ 20 comments }
Thanks for breaking down these different types of videos, Paul.
I think the last type – consumption videos – is the one that’s most often overlooked. Or maybe it’s just me.
One of the projects I have lined up this year is to create a series of consumption videos that new students at our martial arts school will receive via email autoresponder, that detail how to get the most out of their experience with us.
It’ll be informative but also re-sell them on the benefits of why they joined in the first place.
Carmen
Great idea! The other benefit from those consumption videos will be to encourage your clients to attend and actually consume. It’s soooooo much easier to get a client to buy something new from you – or in this case continue their subscription to your martial arts school – if they are actually consuming and getting benefit from your service.
Paul
The three types of video you mentioned are usually what every video seems to be trying to accomplish all rolled into one!
LOL – ain’t that the truth! And that’s why it’s so important to know which type you are making so you can target it properly!
Thanks Paul.
Determining the purpose of the video… actually all content pieces – before you begin. This is so important. I don’t know why so many people fail to clarify the purpose in their minds before beginning.
I’ve hired quite a few writers over the years, and the one tip that makes their writing better is this: first determine the ending. Then begin writing.
Thanks Paul also for categorizing videos using Sean’s attversumption model. Genius insight.
(Btw I dropped you an email a few days back – haven’t heard back. Did you receive it?)
Hey Anke
Thanks for stopping by – and yep, I got your email. Had a nasty ear and throat infection last week….only now getting over it and looking at my backlog of emails!
And using Sean’s model seemed a natural way of understanding a video’s purpose.
Paul
Paul,
I like that included CAll-to-Action in all of these. In my video series (which is at #80 today) on insurance questions I recently started adding a Call-to-Action in the video and have an increase in inbound inquiries.
Before I was just putting the call-to-action in text accompanying the video. But actually telling people in the video what I wanted them to do has helped a lot.
Thanks and as always awesome stuff!
Ryan H.
Ryan
Some people won’t read the description – and the way it appears on the ‘Toob they have to click on the ‘More’ button to expand the description and actually read the call to action. You always gotta be explicit about it – and you can also reinforce it with annotations too if you want to be really hard nosed.
Paul
Thanks Paul!
What are you feelings on Annotations in general. There use… how to use them and/or the possible overuse.
Thanks!
Ryan
I tend not to use them. I’ve got 165 videos on YouTube – I’ve used Annotations four times. Each time it was because I had a video that I had to nuke the soundtrack for – and the annotation explained the situation and gave a link to where they could see a version of the video without the nuked soundtrack.
Other than that using Annotations becomes an extra production layer….and means you can’t use that video anywhere else than YouTube. But if you have a video where something has gone out of date….annotations would be a great way of telling the viewer that. So in that instance they’d be good – but personally I wouldn’t plan on using annotations as a designed part of the video.
That make sense?
Paul
That makes perfect sense. Thanks Paul!!
Paul,
Thanks for laying it out for us. I’m mostly doing awareness videos but may do some consumption videos as well. What do you think about the consumption vidoes being used also as awareness videos? In other words teaching someone to use a tool (not my own) and then bringing them to my site. I’d be curious about any tips you have for this blended style. Thanks!
Hi Tom
Although this might be semantics, if you’re demonstrating a tool that’s not yours then it’s not strictly a consumption video because the purpose of a consumption video is to get people who are already using your stuff (product/service/whatever) to get the most out of it.
So it would make it an Attraction Video.
There’s a DIY chain in the US (forget what they’re called) who do this kind of thing – they have released a series of videos showing people how to do tasks like tiling a wall or plastering or painting etc etc. And what they do is put a subtle reference to the fact that the tools you need to do those tasks are available in their store. That’s their call to action.
For you, what I’d suggest is film a video teaching how to use a specific tool or do a specific thing – and then the call to action is that they can find more videos/information like that at your website.
That make sense?
paul
Hi Paul, you are exactly right, as I am developing videos for youtube and it does falls in category 1 as posted by you. Thanks for a helpful post, I have gone through all your video tips and they did helped me very much in my video development. Thanks again and regards
No problems. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Paul,
Its a superb post on three types of video from perspective of purpose. I am on first type and I really wished to attract people to come on my website.
Pete
The easiest way to attract people to your website via video is to make videos that solve the problems of your target market. And give them a compelling reason to go to your website (for example to get access to a hidden series of videos that give more info….etc etc).
Get it right and your videos will send people to your website 24/7.
Paul
Paul,
This is my first time landing in your page. I just want to ask something related to your previous post about copyright on video marketing because 60% of my campaign are into videos. With regards to the description, do I have to make it longer? I mean, can I post the transcripts there or an article. I’m so very confused about this.
I hope you posts more articles about video marketing. I will tail you from now on.
Like what you’ve replied on my other comment I did a video and it’s rolling at vimeo. You’re right, I need to DO it and think of the best with proper content,time and efforts. My propose to is share information and I think I’m working on it well.
Totally.
Love.
This.
Purpose and meaning in anything is a fantastic, uber-helpful starting point.
Purpose of blog post, purpose of product, and purpose of video are all wonderful — but what I like about this article is it intercepts video-makers, guiding them towards proper foundations, and ultimately making youtube a more effective, fulfilled place
Thanks for changing the world, Paul!
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