If your company is looking to showcase a product or service, having a video demo puts you at a significant advantage. We’ll explore in this article how a video demo creates buzz, saves time and connects and engages your target audience.

What is a product demo video?

A product demo video is fast becoming a critical part of the sales process of B2B and B2C companies. With these videos, you have a tangible opportunity to demonstrate the value of your product to a prospective customer.

However, they aren’t all creative equals. An uninspiring product demo can slow down close rates. Conversely, high-class product demos have the potential to rocket sales.

In essence, the demo often means the difference between closing a deal and losing a prospect. A great demo lets your prospects understand how your solution truly solves their pain points and enables them to become more successful in their job.

As Geoffrey James explains in, Give a Great Product Demo: 5 Rules, “There is almost nothing more powerful than a great product demonstration.

When done correctly, a demo allows the customer to see and feel how things will be better if they buy (and worse if they don’t).”

So, if you’re looking into why a product demo video might be the right marketing choice for your product, here’s the guide for you.

Key benefits of video demo for companies

1. Create a buzz around a new/product service

If you want to see the trend moving towards product demo videos, have a peek at Amazon. An increasing number of products have demo videos these days and they allow their product to stand out from others on the search page. There’s a big difference in the appeal that can be garnered between an image and text and video. Suddenly, you have music and movement to gather attention and keep it.

Your brand might be excited about releasing a new product and product demos allow your audience to feel that buzz. Whether you’re making this product demo in-house or with professionals, lighting, sound, even animation can help to give an insight into the key features and value that will positively impact your customers.

2. Evergreen

Although product demos are an expense upfront, their potential reach is great. Post on your social, use in ads, create a link in your email newsletter, upload to YouTube. If you’re going down the traditional route, the same video can be repurposed for TV.

3. Less intrusive

Rather than convincing people through words, a product demo lets your product speak for itself. Ultimately, this lets the customer decide for themselves if the product is suitable for their needs. Non-intrusive marketing means viewers are more likely to click into your CTA and explore the product.

4. Refine, recreate, reap the rewards

With product demos, you can track analytics to see how viewers engaged with your video. At what point did they click through, or conversely, at what point did they lose interest? There is no such thing as the perfect video, but over time there is huge potential with video analytics to refine content so it reaches your target audience and speaks to them.

5. Help your sales team

Running a sales team is costly. What with salary, commission and travel expenses, it can add up. Giving your sales team video content that they can send out before a meeting saves time, which reduces expenses for the business.

6. Solve your customer’s problem

Here is the crux of product demos. It is the core reason behind why so many businesses choose to create demos. Customers are short on time and if you can convince them in a quick video that your product will solve their problem, you’re setting your product up for success. When a customer sees a product in action, it’s far easier for them to see themselves seeing its benefits. Try to avoid filling the video with your business’ values and mission— this is the time to focus on the customer’s needs and wants and address them directly.

7. Combat concerns

To piggyback on the last point, this is also your chance to address why the viewer may be reticent to commit to your product. Research the potential barriers to purchase, and work with your video production team to ease these concerns. If the price is high, you need to showcase how your product is superior to competitors, for example.

8. Let your brand’s personality shine

If you’d like to learn more on how to achieve this, our previous article Top Product Demo Examples in 2022 gives plenty of food for thought. We’ve also included a list of definable goals for an outstanding product demo.

Need an epic product demo video?

Although anyone can create a product demo video, this doesn’t mean that anyone can create a video that will make an impact. Top video production agencies don’t get there by chance. Understanding people, inviting viewers in with compelling stories and compiling expertise, talent and marketing knowledge gives your video the best chance of succeeding.

Let expert storytellers with years of video production experience, a healthy dollop of creativity and expertise create your next product demo video.

Give your product the video marketing it deserves by getting in touch with us at VideoWorks London today!

You can also connect with our sister companies, VideoWorks Dublin, VideoWorks Cardiff and VideoWorks Belfast.

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It doesn’t matter how long you spend on post through social channels or cranking up on your ad spend. Not unless your brand stands out from the crowd. Otherwise, your brand isn’t going to reach its potential.

Brand awareness is one of the main pillars of building a successful business; that includes B2B as well as consumer-facing brands. Have a think about it; when you go to buy a car, you’re likely to be much slower to opt for the obscure brand that you’ve never heard of before.

That said, if you’d seen some crisp, professional ads displaying this car as the newest in motor performance and you’ve consistently seen trustworthy reviews, then you’re far more likely to at least be open to learning more about this car brand. The same can be said for any industry. Consumers are smart. They’re reluctant to invest their money into unknown products and services. Brand awareness is where you can build real momentum and start standing out from your competitors.

Top methods to build brand awareness

1. Referral strategy

Referral marketing is an incredible option because you have the opportunity to generate brand awareness and acquire new customers at the same time. There’s not a whole pile of other methods that have this capability.

Also, you’re working with your loyal customers. Those that trust and admire your business are the ones that will be spreading the word to their friends, family and perhaps their social media followers.

AirBnb is an excellent example of what can happen when a business focuses on its referral programmes. They committed to making the referral programme as simple as possible for customers to partake. This included the ability to share across multiple channels, so whether it was via a link, Facebook or email – people would still find it easy and quick to spread the word.

AirBnb also found a difference when A/B email testing with one crucial element. Each invite needed to appear as a gift, not a promotion. And that applies to a lot of referral marketing. Making it sound inviting rather than pushy, will make people a lot more open and excited about joining in on the programme.

Taru Bhargava, author at AppVirality, describes just why this person-to-person referral experience is so effective:

“We tend to follow the footsteps of those whom we value. Sometimes these actions imitate ‘the monkey see and monkey do’ approach. According to a Nielsen report, 84% of people go by recommendations from friend and family. If we observe it carefully, word-of-mouth via mobile app referral follows the same trend. In Airbnb’s case, it was further elevated by a personalized landing page, when a user installed an app via a referral link.”

2. Create a brand awareness campaign

It’s not going to shock any of you reading this that campaigns these days primarily involve video.

Here are the three reasons that hold businesses back from creating video campaigns:

• 66% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too time-consuming.
• 41% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too complicated.
• 37% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too expensive.

If this is what’s holding your brand back, then it’s time to open to the advances in technology.

A good smartphone can create videos. The quality won’t be cinematic, but it will still effectively get your message across.

Another key to creating a campaign within budget is organisation. If your team has decided that the video quality needs to be impressive, then a top-quality video production crew can create multiple campaigns in a batch. This makes each campaign more cost-effective and saves time. It’s also great for a business to have content ready to roll out in advance. Having professionals in the creative process will provide refinement in defining and connecting with your target audience. It also gives you the expertise to make your brand memorable within these videos.

There are many formats to play around with, here are just a few:

• Animation videos
• Brand introduction video
• Event videos
• Explainer videos
• Interview video
• Testimonial videos
• Tutorials/How to videos
• User-generated content
• Vlog

This is just a taster, yet it still gives plenty of scope on different angles that enliven your business and allow prospective customers to see into what makes your brand worthy of their attention.

3. Epic storytelling

No matter what format or platform you choose for your content, even the simplest photo tells a story, has a mood, conveys meaning. According to research by Headstream, if people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately.

A memorable brand tells wonderful stories that connect with the audience, invokes emotions, and sparks interest. Creating stories that make your brand unforgettable, and you’ll win the interest of your audience.

4. Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting campaigns fosters brand awareness so effectively. This strategy reminds your website visitors of your products and services after they leave your website without buying. After visiting specific pages, it allows you to retarget them and show your visitors relevant visual or text ads when they visit other websites. These are your audience segment that have a high potential of becoming customers. They’ve browsed your website but perhaps need time to consider the purchase. Drawing from the infamous rule of seven, it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase will take place.

Retargeting enables your brand to focus on perspectives that are most likely to become customers. This refinement boosts brand awareness and also offers personalisation in the content that you use to interact with this segment. They will see your content across various websites and social channels that they use. People will have a conception that your brand is successful and reliable as they’ll become familiar with your branding and learning more about your business ad by ad.

Brand awareness isn’t rocket science. If you follow these steps and ensure that your content is both high-quality, engaging and has a strong storytelling core– then you’ll see tangible evidence of growth in brand awareness. If you’re looking for a professional team of storytelling content creators, you can get in touch with us here at Videoworks.

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We all know video is peaking every year. We’re consuming more of it and with that there is also an explosion of content. Cisco predicts that more than 82% of consumer online traffic will consist of online videos by 2022. Marketing and video marketing have become synonymous at this stage, and moving with this change means adapting to consumer preferences.

Do enough of your target audience consume video?

Is it a good idea to allocate part of my marketing to creating video campaigns?

Will it be worth it?

The answer to all of these is: yes.

Now, that we’ve that cleared up, let’s get onto in-banner video ads. First, the different types and then why they’re a brilliant addition to transforming your sales.

We’ll give you the insights on how to create a banner that truly stands out and connects.

It’s time to see what benefits lie for your company by creating in-banner video ads.

What is an in-banner video ad?

In-banner videos are banners with videos embedded within them. These are short loops that are embedded into a webpage. Say you sell cameras, you can have these ads feature in the middle of a photography blog.

Viewers respond far better to animated rather than static forms of advertising. Videos, after all, have a higher engagement level compared to text or image. Once viewers decide to click on the ad, they can either expand the video or go to your specified domain.

Taking the time to create the story that your target want to see and learn more about is the key to making a worthwhile in-banner advertisement.

Types of banners

This is a straightforward aspect of IBV (in-banner video). You’ve got three choices:

1. Click to play – the banner is static until the viewer clicks on it.
2. Autoplay with no sound – video plays on mute until the viewer clicks on the banner.
3. Hover to play – video plays once the user hovers mouse over your ad.

Benefits of banner video advertising

Strengthen brand personality

There’s so much potential in IBV to capture your brand’s charisma, trustworthiness, creativity… whatever it is that makes your business unique and worth checking out. Working a dynamic team of video professionals helps you to capture and showcase the standouts of your company, its products and services.

Charged on a pay-per-click basis

You’re only charged when a viewer engages with your ad. This works far better than paying for impressions as it ensures you’re only paying for genuine interaction with your brand. However, those impressions still work to extend brand awareness, so it’s a nice benefit on the side.

Seamlessly fits into the user experience

Take Youtube, for example, you’ll generally fit into relevant searchers. Your content isn’t jarring or intrusive, viewers aren’t peeved by an advertisement that doesn’t fit their interests or needs.

This is because the bidding style means that placement is dependent on search queries and keywords. Having this advantage makes it more likely that the viewer will click on your ad – as long as your content is high quality and engaging!

Customer retention

Let customers know about a new line drop or exciting advances in your brand. A lot of businesses neglect ad promotions when it comes to their established customers. However, it’s important to keep them in the loop and engaged with your brand to extend lifetime value. Obviously, this can be true of all advertising but as we’ve established the power of video leaves a greater impression than the static banner.

No video length limitations

This differs from instream ads, you know the ones that pop up during a Youtube video?

With in-banner, there’s no time limit, just a storage limit. This gives you creative scoe, however, we’d recommend still leaning towards the more conservative end for ends. Anything under three minutes tends to work best.

Tips on creating an engaging banner video

Tell a story

The thing about website banner videos is that they usually only have seconds to catch their viewers’ attention.

And the best way to do this isn’t with flashing buttons demanding them to sign up. Instead, open up a story, one that captures the curiosity of your target audience. One that draws them to your site gladly. The power of video allows you to encapsulate a tone, emotion and style with a blend of creativity and video expertise.

Develop brand recognition

This isn’t just slapping a logo in the corner – having a recognisable brand takes consistent messaging and themes. You want your customers to recognise your branding within the first five seconds. It’s best not to rush this phase, learn what works, see what competitors are doing, and create a dynamic and unique flow to your content.

Personalise

Setting up you’re campaign with personalisation in mind is a big trend to stay ahead of in 2021. Create a series of videos and set your campaign so that viewers see different ads depending on their personal preferences and whether they’ve seen your ads before. This creates a dialogue and gathers interest in your brand.

Connecting with your customers this way makes it more likely that over time they’ll approach your brand and stay in their mind.

Anyone that tells you one ad will cover all your marketing leads is probably trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

I’m sorry that marketing miracles don’t exist. You can learn more about customer interaction and the power of seven here.

Format

One of the most common ni-banner video formats is a product release. However, this ad style also works well with testimonials, explainer videos, or just a general insight into your business. Whichever one you choose will impact your connection with a different stage of the consumer funnel. This blog breaks down the different styles and which one best suits your campaign.

If you’re looking to create a suite of ads to accelerate brand reach, site visits and conversions – then you’ve come to the right place. Videoworks is where good ideas happen, maybe your business can be our next successful client campaign.

Here’s where to get in touch.

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In a perfect world, you’d publish brand-new, highly engaging videos every week. There’d be a camera crew at hand, ready to shoot and broadcast your company to the world. However, budgets have their limits, so it’s a good idea to make the most out of your campaigns. And there are ways to make them feel fresh and not sloppily rehashed.

Throwing a campaign into your desktop’s trash is as reckless as burning money. Thinking outside the box along with some editing can go a long way in revamping a campaign, spreading awareness and getting a return on your marketing.

Why repurpose video content?

The rule of 7 – that’s why.

This rule is firmly embedded in every marketer’s mind when they’re doing the hard slog. It takes an average of seven interactions between a consumer and a brand for a sale to occur… Seven!

That’s why we repurpose content. Consumers need more information than ever to part with their money. So much competition exists for their attention that they’ll need to feel compelled to choose your business. Let it be said that this applies to B2B as well as B2C.

Before you start repurposing videos, make sure that you archive your videos – and in a way that it can be found again. In fact, maybe have a back up for the backup. The first stage of evergreen video marketing is to keep your repository easy to search and access. Now let’s get into how to optimise your video content’s potential.

Tip #1: Vary your distribution channels

Long-form Youtube videos are begging to be repurposed.

Video generates the most engagement across social.

LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to share a video on the platform than any other type of post.

Recycling content works to improve engagement on your social channels. Create snippets that you can share across social in a series. Changing the size of the video is crucial. You don’t want the top of the speaker’s head cut off, or for any font to drift off the side of the screen.

Here’s a break down of the recommended video specs and dimensions that you’ll need for different social channels:

Regular Facebook Video:

Recommended size: 1280 by 720 pixels

Minimum width: 600 pixels

Supported aspect ratios: 16:9 (horizontal), 9:16 (full portrait), 2:3 (vertical), 4:5 (vertical), square (1:1)

Instagram in-feed video and video ads

Square video: 600 by 600 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio)

Horizontal video: 600 by 315 pixels (1.9:1 aspect ratio)

Vertical video: 600 by 750 pixels (4:5 aspect ratio)

Twitter horizontal videos

Recommended size: 1280 by 1024 pixels

Minimum size: 32 by 32 pixels

Maximum size: 1920 by 1200 pixels

Twitter Vertical Videos

Recommended size: 1200 by 1900 pixels

Minimum size: 32 by 32 pixels

Snapchat Video Specs

Recommended size: 1080 by 1920 pixels (9:16 aspect ratio)

Recommended specs: .MP4 or MOV, H.264 encoded, between 3 and 10 seconds long, maximum file size 32MB

Linkedin Shared Videos

Maximum size: 4,096 by 2,304 pixels

Minimum size: 256 by 144 pixels

Supported aspect ratios: 1:2:4 to 2:4:1

#2– Create a social teaser video

Creating hype and excitement stems from those sneak peeks.

You may be familiar with influencers using this technique before a new line drop. However, any business can create this sense of anticipation. Turn heads by focusing on how this new launch is a big leap for both your company and your industry. 53 percent engage with a brand after watching a video on social media.

And so, creating dialogue – especially through video – on a regular basis before a launch makes it more likely that they’ll head straight to checkout on the launch day. The plan is to already have completed the rule of seven (which obviously isn’t hard and fast), so that you’re customers are eager to purchase your new offerings.

#3– Landing page video

Landing pages with a video have an 80 percent increased conversion rate.

Think about keeping this style of video under two minutes, and about 90 seconds is best. It’s enough to get your essential message across while holding onto users’ attention. What goes without saying is that a landing page video tends to need a crisp, professional finish. As long as the original video quality is good, editing the footage and sound can transform the feel and end result.

#4– Convert webinars into snippets

I’ll refrain from using the common term “digestible snippets” because we’re not talking about biscuits here. Saying that, so long as you’re using a high-quality microphone and camera, webinars can be a goldmine of content. Especially, over the past few months where Hangouts and Zooms are commonplace – there’s likely been some really good discussions. If you haven’t done so already, think about recording any meetings that get into product details or provide value and engagement for your audience. The key then is to break these down, so that they capture and retain attention.

#5 – Behind the Scenes (BTS)

This last one showcases personality, adds variety to your content and lets viewers into your brand’s character. Using BTS footage gives you the chance to connect with customers on a personal level. A community doesn’t have to be “Hey guys! DM me and join our private community”. People can feel a part of a community simply by letting them into the lighter side of your company and creating a sense of endearment.

We are the makers of big, little and everything-in-between campaigns. We can also help you to make the content evergreen and show you the ropes so that the effects of our work together produces the best results for your business.

Send us a quick message to start collaborating with us here at Videoworks today.

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In this article, we’re going to walk you through what your business can gain from having high-quality explainer videos as assets for your brand. We’ve cherry-picked the best explainer videos and show you why these videos performed so well for the brand. Gaining insights and inspiration from successful videos will help kickstart your brainstorm so you can create a truly exceptional explainer video that enriches your content library.

So what exactly is an explainer video?

In a nutshell, explainer videos are short online marketing videos that feature a narrator who concisely explains and educates users on your product or service.

There’s definitely a debate on whether explainer videos are exclusively animated or not. Saying this, our take is that it can also be live-action, a whiteboard style or a blend of any of these. What’s important is that the video doesn’t just convey a brand image but explains some aspect of your business.

These videos are really effective when nestled on a site landing page as viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.

The benefits of explainer videos

• Increases conversions – it’s a great way to attract and engage your audience. Know that customers are 64 percent more likely to purchase from you after watching an explainer video.
• Alleviates demand for customer support – explainer videos reduces the customer’s need to contact customer support by no less than 47%! This also improves your brand loyalty, as providing quick and easy solutions for your customers increases customer retention.
• Shows you’re customer focused – video content, especially when explaining a topic, is the preferred medium. The furious pace of modern living, endless social media feeds and inescapable ad consumption has decreased the population’s attention spans. Your job isn’t to make your audience sift through 5,000-word articles when you can explain it in a fun 5-minute video. Make your company a joy to interact with.
• Multiple functions – there are so many different utilities that an explainer can be used to build your brand. Harrison, in a Forbes article, mentions the following explainer video categories, which we’ve expanded upon below.

Types of explainer videos

These are the most common explainer videos that we make for our clients:

• Benefits video – this is the show and tell video, a chance to prove to prospects the value that your brand can bring to them. These feature well on a landing page and can be repurposed for social media marketing. Win-win!
• Testimonial videos – brand loyalty is crucial, and showing that you have plenty of it really bolsters your company. This speaks much louder than a written review, as this takes satisfied customers a few seconds to draft. A testimonial video shows that your customers are willing to spend a couple of hours in their day to help out your brand. You’ve clearly done something right if this is the case!
• FAQ videos – These videos answer all common questions and save time. The beauty of this – and we do it with our own clients– is that you can add more content when new questions pop up for your customers.
• Demo videos – slightly different from “how-to” videos as it gets into the finer details of your product/service.
• “How To” videos – perfect when launching a new product or service. Not only does it show your customers how to get the most out of your product/service, but you can also highlight your support catalogue to potential customers.

Best explainer videos examples in 2020

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Before you can really begin a conversation with a video production company, you should prepare but how?

Step 1: Work on your objectives and desirable outcomes

Step 2: Look at your audience and see similar videos targeting your audience.

Step 3: Clarify what your core message is. The clearer your message is the more digestible your video will be for your targeted audience. With the message, how do you want audiences to react at the end of a video?

Step 4: Decide on the form. Looking at how you want your video to reach your target audience, what form should the video take. Is it an animation, documentary, drama? IS there a creative concept behind the video?

Step 5: Using all of the above, write a video production brief including object, target audience, core message and budget. Production companies respond to honesty and if you want a video to solve a messaging problem you’ve historically had, include that and we can best respond.

We help format distributor Atlantic Formats for their video production needs, if you need help with this, don’t hesitate to call us on 020 3239 2077

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Expertise
At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. A good crew are usually worth splashing the cash on. Most corporate and educational videos only need a small crew consisting of a cameraman/director and a sound man.

Location/ Production Time
Can the shoot be completed in a day or will it take longer? Will the crew have to travel? Are there expenses associated with the location? All these things need to be considered when choosing where to shoot in order to keep the costs down.

Equipment
Even the quickest video can required a lot of equipment. Most videos will need the use of at least one camera, lighting and sound equipment. Most cameramen worth their salt will provide all this on the day.

Editing/Graphics
A short 2-3 minute video can take up to 3 days to edit and ensure a clean cut finished product that is interesting and eye catching. Some videos many also required graphics, for example; subtitles or a company logo.

Length of Video
The duration of the finished video is one of the major factors that can affect the cost of producing a video. It will determine the length of the shoot as well as the length of the edit. The shorter the video, the quicker it’s made – the cheaper it will be to make!

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If you would like to join the team, we are regularly looking for the following roles to be filled:

– Camera
– Camera Director
– Production Assistant
– Production Manager
– Editor

If you are interested in one of the above jobs and want to your name to our database, email a cover note and a cv to jobs@videoworks-london.co.uk

We look forward to seeing your talent!

Team VideoWorks

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Here at VideoWorks, we are interested in our business and other businesses. One of the perks of the job is that we are able to enter other businesses and see how they work. From that vantage, we have seen how video has helping to improve businesses! Internal messaging within a business can be complicated and getting everyone on the same page almost impossible. Video production can do this and that’s why training videos are a growth area for us.

Every company worth their salt needs a professional development strategy. Producing a video or a series of videos to help your employee’s professional development or inform them about big changes to their workplaces (we won’t mention Brexit) is a fantastic way of informing them in a visual manner. Since the alternative would be face-to-face meetings, video production to share important information to employees is cost-effective. 

Training video production is also such a fantastic tool because employees are more likely to remember and respond to the training delivered via video. The videos can also be accessed whenever the employees need to and can be re-watched in the workplace or at home. One of the great benefits is that so much training is theoretical but video production and dramatisation can transform the theoretical into reality and multiple types of scenarios and examples can unfold to illustrate an important point.

If incorporating a trainer into the video, it is far cheaper to film the trainer an distribute internally than for the trainer to visit the various locations a business might have. INstead of on-going training costs, a video would require a once-off payment. Get in touch with London’s leading video production provider now for a competitive training video quote!

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