Finding your (video) type, part 1
Videos that stay in their lanes
Especially in these budget-conscious times, it can be really tempting to try to make a very versatile video that can serve multiple purposes: sales, instruction, corporate identity, and more. Ultimately, though, we’ve found that shorter videos that are able to focus on their specific purpose and audience tend to be much more successful. Without tailoring your video content in this way, you risk giving a viewer too little of what they are interested in and too much of what they aren’t, leaving them dissatisfied with their experience.
Below, you’ll find a list of the most common categories of videos we make, along with some information about their characteristics and purposes. They’re grouped by overall style (live action or animation, though many have a blend).
Click here to skip to a discussion of animated videos, or keep scrolling for a discussion of live-action ones.
The Testimonial:
Purpose: Marketing
Length: Under 3 minutes
Use cases: Sales consultation, YouTube, product website
Style: Live action, sometimes with some limited motion graphics
Audience: purchasing decision makers, potential end users, key management at the potential customer’s organization
Customer testimonial videos can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal, particularly if the featured customer is a key opinion leader in the same field as the intended audience. The story of their relationship with your company and experience with your product carries a lot of weight. For more details about this type of video, check out our earlier blog posts here and here.
What they’re meant to do: Tell a short story of a real-world customer (or customers) who has interacted with your company and used the product. The focus should be on the positive impact that the product and partnership has had on the customer’s business or research.
What they’re NOT meant to do: Give a full description of the product’s features and benefits, show data, show how the product works at the macro OR micro scale
What the viewer should feel: “Someone in my field has had a good experience with this vendor and this product. I’ll take steps to learn more about it.”
An example of a customer testimonial video
The Product Mini-doc:
Purpose: Marketing and corporate identity
Length: Under 3 minutes
Use cases: company website, YouTube, cutdowns for social media
Style: Live action; can include some limited 2D animation
Audience: Purchasing decision makers, the broader community in the field
Product-focused mini-documentaries tell a short story of the product’s development through the eyes of the scientists, engineers, and other people who contributed to it. It generally covers the need that the product will fill, what and who was necessary to develop the product, and its expected impact on a large scale (ie to human health). These often also include a few humanizing quotes about how the team was built, challenges the R&D team had to overcome, or other anecdotes that establish the team’s expertise and relatability.
What they’re meant to do: Connect with the audience on a human level while also promoting the product (at a fairly low level of detail).
What they’re NOT meant to do: Go into details about how the product works or features and benefits (a little information is ok, but not a lot), explain protocols, include a lot of marketing language
What the viewer should feel: “This product was developed by people with a lot of expertise in my field and who knew what features and capabilities were important to include in this product. I can relate to them.”
An example of a product development mini-documentary
The “Company Culture”:
Purpose: Brand and corporate identity; recruiting; investor relations
Length: Under 2 minutes
Use cases: company website (often on the career page), YouTube
Style: Live action
Audience: Potential employees, current and potential investors, the broader community in the relevant field (especially if your company is new)
Company culture pieces allow the viewer to relate to your company on a more human level, as well as establish your company’s personality within your market. Are you the reliable veteran with the established reputation, or the disruptive innovator with a radical new idea?
These videos are often used for recruiting, so it’s important to highlight the diversity of your workforce so that potential employees can more easily picture themselves working for you.
What they’re meant to do: Introduce a human element into the viewer’s relationship with the company; recruit new employees; establish a company persona for investors; relate the history of the company.
What they’re NOT meant to do: focus on products; show data or financial reports; discuss technical details, use a lot of corporate language
What the viewer should feel: “This company has values and a work environment that I can relate to and respect. I can envision myself working there/I think they’re a good investment opportunity.”
An example of a company culture video
The Demo, or “How to”:
Purpose: Instructional
Length: Varies, but if it’s longer than 5 minutes, consider breaking it up into chapters
Use cases: Product website (generally under “resources”), YouTube
Style: Live action (with a few exceptions)
Audience: End users
In a demo video, a company representative performs the steps involved in using a product, maintaining it, or other tasks related to it. Demo videos can instruct on anything from wet lab work to using your ordering website– the sky's the limit! They’re especially helpful for new products that have unusual workflows or complex protocols, and can also be a great opportunity to help out your tech support staff– just ask them which topics they get the most calls about to get ideas.
For this type of video, you’ll want to choose a host who is very familiar with the protocol and product, as well as a good presenter. Applications scientists/specialists or technical trainers are ideal.
What they’re meant to do: Teach the customer how to use the product, provide tips and tricks and best practices with as little extraneous content as possible.
What they’re NOT meant to do: Persuade the customer to buy the product, go into details of the features and benefits, show data.
What the viewer should feel: “I understand all how to perform all of the steps in this protocol/task and am confident that I will be successful.”
An example of a demo video
The Music Video
Purpose: Edutainment
Length: 2 to 4 minutes (under 2:30 is ideal)
Use cases: YouTube, other social media, occasionally in live events
Style: Live action with professional actors; sometimes there will be limited animation that the actors interact with, but this style is rarely completely animated.
Audience: Everyone!
This video type is hands-down the most fun to brainstorm, write, and shoot. We either write a completely new original song, or find an existing one to license and write new lyrics for it. The lyrics highlight your product and/or a scientific concept at a very high level: the point is not to persuade the viewer to purchase, but to drive awareness, interest, and shares on social media. A catchy tune and a good deployment strategy for this type of video are really key to success (DCA can help with both).
What they’re meant to do: Entertain, leave a tune in the viewers’ brains that is associated with your brand/product, be shared by viewers
What they’re NOT meant to do: describe features and benefits in detail, include marketing language, show how the product works, relate your company’s history, list your entire catalog of products, include more than very minimal onscreen text
What the viewer should feel: “That was so much fun! I’m going to send this to all my friends in the field. I know they’ll enjoy it.”
An example of a life science music video
Click here to continue reading about animated video types!