Many marketers, sales professionals, and even CEOs have heard about or seen the power of video, yet they may not be sure how to make videos for business. The good news is that they recognize the power of video to increase sales. However you want to slice it, the business world has become more competitive. Video can be a great equalizer, helping you establish a direct, authentic relationship with your customers.

The bad news, however, is that this lack of familiarity about making video for business often leads to one thing: inertia. It tends to keep these potential content creators on the sidelines. 

They think things like, “I don’t know how to create videos and my competitors are making sleek polished marketing videos. How can I compete with that?” 

Or they start to think, “I wouldn’t know where to get started. Plus, I have so many things on my to-do list. Maybe I’ll get to it later.”

At Dubb, my team and I hate to see this happen. This is why I decided to write this article on how to make videos for business. If I could give one piece of advice, it would be to consistently create and release content. While it is easy to read this article (or any other article) about creating videos for business, you’ll get much more out of it by consistently doing it yourself. Yes, you will make mistakes. But those mistakes, so long as you learn from them and keep creating content, will get you closer to becoming a video marketing expert.

But with that behind us, here are some key strategies that you can leverage when making videos for business. 

How to Create a Business Video: Key Tips and Strategies

When thinking about creating business videos, future creators naturally think of the content that they are going to create. Creating a business video is much more about the type of shots that you want to include or which one of your employees that will appear in your video. That said, it is helpful to start here. 

Content Creation Tips

One of the first things to know about creating a business video is that we are living in the middle of an important paradigm shift. “Old era” video used to be a corporate-looking video with expensive sets, paid actors, and sleek editing. Granted, some of these videos exceeded the creators’ expectations. Just look at Hulu’s 2009 Super Bowl ad. However, this type of video could be extremely costly—both in terms of dollars and time spent. There was no guarantee that the video would go viral or lead to conversions, yet companies invested a significant amount of cash upfront. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. 

The current age of online video marketing, however, is much different. The shift has been from corporate videos to authentic videos. 

The great news for new content creators is that you don’t need any extensive technical skills or expensive equipment. You don’t need to purchase the latest and greatest editing software to clean up raw footage. The barriers to content creation are virtually zero. 

What is more important is being truly authentic and making a deep, personal connection with your audience. Coming across as salesy or two-faced with a hidden agenda will damage your cause. Your audience has a strong “BS meter.” They can tell if you or your organization don’t respect them or if you don’t believe that your product or service can solve their problems.

Instead, think of video content as a way to show off your true self to your audience. As I’ll mention below, your audience—no matter the sector or industry—does not want to make a purchase from a faceless brand or company. They want to purchase from a person that they know and trust. The beauty of video is that you can build that familiarity and trust at scale. So ultimately, don’t feel the need to adopt a “serious” persona or act like someone you aren’t. Just be yourself. Your audience will not only appreciate it, but you’ll increase your chances of making that final sale.  

From authenticity, I believe that some of the best marketing videos offer a healthy mix of information and entertainment. Combined, we at Dubb call it infotainment. 

The old way of thinking was that business videos had to be “corporate” and focused on the ultimate ROI. They couldn’t be entertaining because it would take away from the seriousness of the message. Simply put, this attitude placed many content creators in a straightjacket. 

Once again, there was a paradigm shift. Infotainment videos provide some functional value but are delivered in an entertaining way. There are many examples of infotainment videos that are extremely inexpensive to produce. For instance, you can use your phone to film a video about new trends that you are discovering at an industry conference. You can shoot a quick video showing off you or your colleagues’ personalities when explaining a new product that you are launching. Using Dubb, you can even create one-to-one personalized videos to close prospects at the bottom of your funnel. 

Listen to your creativity here. Keep in mind, though, that infotainment videos are entertaining and informative. You must provide real, tangible value to your audience. This requires you to get into the minds of your audience and feel what they are feeling. Think about the problems they are facing in their lives and deliver real value in your videos. This can be everything from explaining showing how to use your product in a common situation or even answering frequently asked questions from your audience. Also, think about your audience’s expectations for your content. If you work in a conservative industry, for instance, you may want to be more biased toward providing value than bloopers or other mistakes or flubs in your videos.

When creating your infotainment content, make sure to keep your video tight and concise. Your audience is busy. They don’t have time to watch a video that is disorganized or unnecessarily long. By releasing concise videos, however, you show your audience that you respect their time. You get to the point and provide near-immediate value to your viewer. Trust me in that your audience will appreciate it. 

Along with this idea of infotainment and conciseness, you should aim to build your credibility by showing proof or validation in your business videos. With so much video content on the Internet today, it is vital to appear (and actually be) credible in your audience’s eyes. Doing so will not only increase your engagement numbers but will ultimately lead to more sales.

One way to build your credibility is to film and distribute customer testimonials. Testimonials are a fantastic way to show your audience that (1) your business has customers and (2) that your customers are extremely satisfied. So the next time that you find an enthusiastically positive customer, think about asking him or her to film a quick testimonial video. Of course, make sure that you obtain their permission before filming the testimonial. In sum, a good customer interview or testimonial can be a great addition not only to your video content but even to a podcast (if you have one).

Another way that you can build your credibility is to show a real scenario in the course of your business. This depends on how your business actually operates. For instance, taking your viewers behind-the-scenes as you prepare for holiday orders is a great way to show that business is booming. You can even consider creating a support channel, where customers and potential customers leave text or video comments and your team responds (in video form, of course). 

While you may receive some negative comments, this is all about trying to build long-term, positive relationships with your audience. The dirty little secret is that if you are not getting negative comments in your content, you are not creating in the right way. Don’t take them personally. If you can find some constructive criticism, great. But if not, consider taking the negative comment as an opportunity to further educate that audience member. You never know what might happen.

Platforms and Channels

From this discussion about your content, you must also consider the channels and platforms where your videos will appear. While you can choose to place your videos on many channels or platforms, we find that creators find more success if they are strategic. Not only do different platforms have their own personality and technical requirements, but it can be difficult to manage all of your platforms.

A case can certainly be made quality is better than quantity. 

With that said, one of the channels that I’m most excited about is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social networks for businesses. It isn’t just a place where you accept friend requests and revisit it when you are searching for your next job. LinkedIn is a place where you can learn from thought leaders in your field. Ultimately, it is also one of the most fertile grounds for truly making a splash with video. In fact, according to several studies, only one percent of LinkedIn users are using video.

This presents a terrific opportunity for you. Simply put, this is a phenomenal time to organically post video to LinkedIn. Whether you want to publish a quick video of your thoughts on the latest news in your industry or an update on your company’s latest product, LinkedIn can be a fabulous home for your video. To put it another way, by uploading video to LinkedIn, you are fishing in a packed pond with few other fishermen.

Along with LinkedIn, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, and YouTube are also great for your video content. These are the juggernauts and you are sure to find members of your audience here. Whichever platform you choose, think about how you can use the inherent nature of these platforms to your advantage. As a simple example, Instagram is more suited for shorter videos that are filmed in a square style. Be strategic here and think about which platform suits your needs, whether you are focusing on organic content, sponsored content, or a mix of both.

Beyond these social media platforms, however, you want to seriously consider leveraging the power of video email. Email is a consistently underrated, yet extremely powerful technology because of its stickiness. 

The statistics are promising. Over half of the world population uses email and a majority of business professionals prefer email to communicate for business purposes. I could go on and on, but one more statistic is quite illuminating. According to Cisco, using the word “video” in an email subject line increases open rates by 19 percent and clickthrough rates by a stunning 65 percent. All it takes is one word and you can see a tangible difference in the success of your future email campaigns.

Therefore, email can be a great tool to share your video content—especially if you have a robust email list. That said, many people don’t effectively use video in their email marketing. Often, they try to proceed in two ways. They either try to send video emails by either attaching a video to the email or simply share a video link in the body of the email. This leads to some problems. Most notably, many email programs don’t let you attach large video files. Even if your email service lets you attach a large video to your email, the recipient’s email service may reject your email. As for sharing links, email recipients are extremely skeptical to click on unknown links in the body of an email. They may think that it is spam, an attempt at a phishing attack, or something worse. Their conservative instincts kick in and they don’t click on the link—even if it intrigues them or could potentially solve a problem that they’re facing. 

The status quo is untenable, but we at Dubb have developed solutions to address this problem. Our software automatically generates a three-second animated preview of your video in the email itself, letting your recipients get a good idea of what the video will look like. If they are interested, they can click on the animated preview and view the full video on a landing page. In sum, this is an extremely powerful feature that allows you to use video email in the most effective way possible. It breaks through this barrier of mistrust and convinces your email recipient that they should view your video.

Email is an extremely powerful channel for your business videos. You get to leverage all of the inherent benefits of video and the inherent benefits of email. What’s not to like?

Don’t Forget About Analytics

Throughout this discussion of creating business videos, there is one more thing to keep in mind. When making videos for business, it is critical to recognize the power of data and analytics. 

Online video is a game-changer for many reasons, but one of the most prominent reasons is that you can use data to better understand how your audience is reacting to your content. Many of the most prominent social networks (like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube) provide you with free data on how your video is performing. You can not only see engagement and likes of any particular video but the average amount of time that users have watched your videos.

As you can likely guess, this data can be invaluable in shaping your future video content. Instead of guessing what your audience wants in your video content, you can look at cold, hard facts. For instance, if you are starting to notice that your audience is dropping off at a certain point of a certain type of video, think about reshaping some of your content. If you notice that viewers absolutely love one piece of video content over, seriously consider doubling down. 

This is why it is so important to consistently create and release content to your audience. Granted, you don’t want to release shoddy content in the hope of obtaining more data quickly. The data, in all likelihood, will show that you are releasing poor content. But by consistently releasing valuable content at a fairly rapid pace, you will quickly discover what works and what doesn’t work. The real magic is using that data to shape your future business videos. Even though you never want to rigidly follow the data without considering the consequences, it can offer a pretty convincing argument that should talk about certain topics or avoid future discussions of other topics.

So regardless of your expertise with business videos, it is wise to analyze the data that you are receiving from your audience. Doing so will help you understand what your audience truly wants. And from there, you can address those wants and needs in future videos.

Escape Your Shell

The tips and strategies above will certainly point you in the right direction when creating your own video content. Nevertheless, one absolutely critical point is that any fear or anxiety about creating video content shouldn’t stop you from doing so. Yes, it can be difficult for some people to appear on camera. For many, it isn’t a natural skill. 

However, you don’t need to be extremely suave or charismatic to get the job done. Video content is about people connecting with people. It is about making a tangible difference in people’s lives. There’s no problem with starting small. Create a 30-second video and don’t be afraid to rehearse. Once you get into the habit of creating video content, you will find it easier.

We at Dubb love helping potential creators make videos for their businesses. To learn more about how we can help you, don’t hesitate to click here.