The Ultimate Promo Video Marketing Guide for 2021

As marketers, it can be difficult to determine the right style of promo video to gain the most from your budget. This is why you need the best promo video maker available, and a ton of promo video ideas to put to work to succeed at promo video marketing in 2021.

While they’re great tools for driving engagement, longer promo video ads tend to have a big problem—they’re not designed for quick, effective communication.

Instead, one of the more popular videos types for this fast-paced style is the promotional video ad.

In 2021, promo video ads are incredibly popular since they can communicate ample information rapidly to even the most distracted viewer.

What Exactly Are Promo Videos?

While it may seem like any short video can be a promo, or that any promo is an ad, there’s a little more that goes into this video format.

Promotional videos can definitely be advertisements, but the objectives can range from informing customers and simply showing off your cool products in a fun format to launching events or undertaking new initiatives.

Promo video makers are designed to make your life easier when producing a promo.

Instead of having to drop half your budget on editing, you can download a quick video maker app and use your smartphone’s amazing camera to do the trick.

With promo video makers, you can swiftly put together a great quality clip that highlights your best features and attributes.

Why Do I Need a Promo Video for Marketing?

There are several excellent reasons behind why you should consider downloading a promo video maker and trying your own hand. Promo videos let you do the following for marketing:

  • Make your brand relatable. Promos are a great way to highlight not just your products, but your team. Show your CEO talking passionately about your company or provide your employees with the chance to shine by giving a tour of your offices.
  • Give visitors something to draw them in. A short, engaging video can help set the tone and get viewers interested in what you’re selling.
  • Introduce your products in a fun way. Articles and ads are great for certain purposes, but video gives you a chance to really cut loose. Creating a fun demo can make it easier to sell a product or service and build more hype around it.

How Do I Make a Marketing Promo Video?

While you need a great concept and proper execution to make an awesome video, there are some ways you can make your life easier when filming.

  1. Have the right tools – You don’t need a fancy camera or a $1,000 editing suite. Your smartphone’s camera is powerful enough, especially when used with great promo video makers like VideoBoost, which lets you quickly edit and produce amazing video ads with pre-made or unique footage in under 3 minutes.
  2. Know what your goal is – Promos aren’t necessarily sales-oriented, but you should know exactly what you’re going for. Having a goal in mind helps you make better decisions about the type of footage you need to capture.
  3. Keep it short and simple – Promo videos are meant to be short, so get to the point, and make it a good one at that. Focus on the most important messaging and remove excessive explanations that can distract or detract from your goals.

As for an example easy to use template from a promo video maker such as our Boosted app, watch the clip below to see how you can make your own promo video ad in less than 3 minutes. Below is a basic but professional promo video advertisement template for a yoga business. Watch how easy it is to make:

5 Marketing Tips to Make a Good Promo Video

In theory, creating a promo video for your business may seem fairly straightforward. And while making a video isn’t the most complicated thing in the world, there certainly are a couple of key elements that you won’t want to forget when it comes to making your own promo videos. 

Below, we’ll go over a few quick tips to help you understand what exactly goes into making a good promotional video for businesses. 

  1. Keep it focused – No matter what you plan on promoting in your video, you need to ensure that the topic is clear and focused, surrounding only the relevant details of your promotion. So, for instance, if you’re creating a promo video for an event, you’ll want to make sure your video covers only relevant topics, such as where and when the event will be held, and what your guests can expect to experience. 
  2. Make it a teaser – When creating effective promotional videos, the goal is never to take a deep, insightful look into a product or service. Instead, the goal is to provide its viewers with a short, attention-grabbing trailer, which highlights a certain event or topic, in order to get the viewer interested in learning more. A good promo video should always use fast cut scenes, sound bites, and titles that make the information catchy and easy to remember. 
  3. Keep it scripted – Especially if you’re somewhat of a goofy or fun-loving person, you might be tempted to use improvised content for your promotional videos. While there’s nothing wrong with doing this, we highly recommend that you stick to using planned, scripted content for your videos. Keeping your video’s dialogue scripted ensures that you’ll be discussing the right information at all times, without ever straying too far from the point. 
  4. Create multiple edits – You’re obviously going to want to make the most out of your promotional videos, which means using them on as many different channels as possible. Therefore, it’s a good idea to try and make multiple different versions of your videos, so that you’ll be able to use them on different channels, and you’ll be able to keep your feeds from getting to be too repetitive. 
  5. Graphics are key – When making promotional videos, it’s vital that you use some type of visual graphics, be it logos, banners, discount codes, or dates and times, to help add a bit of an attention-grabbing, visual appeal. Using visual graphics can help make the viewer aware of the key facts that you want/need them to remember. 

The main things to remember are that the video needs to clearly focus on a single topic or event, which helps convey the most important information. And, that you can use flashy, memorable graphics to get your viewers to remember certain key details conveyed in your videos. 

So by focusing on the information you want your viewers to retain, and by trying to add a visually appealing edge to your videos, you should easily be able to create promotional videos that will entice consumers to want to learn more about your brand. 

10 Awesome Promo Video Ads to Inspire in 2021:

Now that we understand the qualities needed in order to make a standout video, it’s time to put your promo video maker skills to the test.

One of the best ways to do this is taking inspiration from other brands, here we take a look at five standout promotional video over the years to inspire your promo video marketing for 2021.

  • Marks and Spencers

To the backdrop of a popular track, Marks and Spencers created a lively and vibrant promotion video to show off their healthy food range. Already known for their indulgent and upmarket food choices, the British brand uses a choice of uplifting colours with ever-changing graphics, to highlight the freshness of their product range.

Their promo video maker obviously knows a thing or two about synchronicity as the soundtrack is times to the graphics, helping to keep viewers engaged throughout. Cleverly, it keeps text to a minimum, instead letting the video do the talking.

  • Dollar Shave Club

Bringing fun and humour to an otherwise dry subject, Dollar Shave Club clearly gets its key messages across right from the get go. Pushing their value for money message, it’s clear what their USP is straight away.

In terms of user engagement, it draws you in with its direct approach and great script.

Facing an already well-established market, they take the ‘disruptor brand’ approach, and as you can see, it pays off.

Proving that you don’t have to spend a fortune to create a much-talked about video, they paid $4,500 to promo video maker to produce this, and to date, it’s had 11 million views!

  • Sealy Hybrid Mattress

Deviating from the usual promo video maker route, Sealy opt for bright happy graphics to sell their hybrid mattress. This dovetails into its investment in innovation and technology, showing that it’s a forward-thinking brand.

Using vibrant colours and their product as the ‘hero’, they clearly demonstrate why you need their hybrid mattress in your life. It’s hard to not feel enriched after watching it!

The animations draws in the viewer throughout the video, making it a compelling watch in a fun way. If you look back at the key targets we talk about in the intro, you’ll see this ticks all boxes.

  • Listerine

It’s not easy to make mouthwash videos sexy. However, Listerine have developed a well-produced promo video, that explains the journey of their brand.

Like all good promo videos, it answers your questions and incentivises you with reasons to buy their product. With a nod to well-proven advertising techniques, the promo video maker has also given you reasons why you need Listerine, playing on the ‘fear’ of bacteria.

Produced to a high-standard, it sets the benchmark for other animated promo videos.

  • Blendtec

Going down the ‘shock and awe’ route with a handful of comedy thrown in, Blendtec have raised smiles and over 300 million views with their ‘will it blend video’.

In this simple demonstration, they dump an iPad in their blender, and yes – blend it up! It’s one in a long line of promo videos made by the company that showcases their blending prowess in a fun and entertaining way. Much like the Million Dollar Shave campaign, they’ve also opted for using their own CEO, giving it a personal touch that makes you like the brand even more.

 

  • Starbucks

In this promo video, which is no longer than 60 seconds in length, Starbucks takes us through a full year of positivity and kindness, by depicting videos of customers and employees celebrating a range of charitable acts. 

By using basic human emotions like happiness and kindness, Starbucks truly attempts to resonate with its customers. 

After all, who doesn’t want to deal with brands that are happy and kind, right? 

  • Samsung:

In order to promote its newly released VR technology, Samsung created this fun and captivating promo video, where viewers are taken along on a fully-immersive, 3D ride with Santa and his sleigh. 

The fact is that most virtual reality videos are extremely visually appealing, but, they lack any sort of narrative. 

That’s why Samsung decided to use something relevant and memorable, i.e. Santa and his sleigh; which helps make the video more relatable and immersive to its viewers. 

Plus, who doesn’t love the idea of going for a ride with Santa Claus?

  • Hostel World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ8ecrT0KA8&feature=youtu.be

Sometimes, there are simply no better ways to connect with your audience than by using a bit of clever, tongue-in-cheek humor. 

And that’s exactly what Hostelworld did when they teamed up with the world-famous, Charlie Sheen, in order to make this short 16-second promo video. 

In the video, you simply see Charlie Sheen cooking for a group of youths in a seemingly civilized kitchen, which is used as an ironic reminder to viewers that staying in hostels (and that even Charlie Sheen himself) doesn’t have to be uncivilized. 

This clever use of humor not only makes the viewer laugh or smile when they see the clip, but it also works to help make the video (and the brand) more memorable. 

  • Google

When Google initially launched its Virtual Assistant promo video, they made sure to use a combination of visual appealing, single-shot, zoom in/out graphics, and a bit of clever dialogue to depict the problems that their product is meant to resolve.

By the time you’re done watching the video, you have a very clear idea of what the product is, as well as what it’s capable of doing. 

Google also does an excellent job of adding a touch of humor to their video, which helps make the clip that much more memorable.

  • Slack 

Slack is an online platform that makes it easier for teams of freelancers and remote workers to collaborate together on projects. 

In order to drum up a bit of buzz surrounding the company’s launch, the company decided to release this quirky video, which is reminiscent of an episode of a TV comedy show. 

Once again, the effective use of humor is used in order to depict the problems that the company and its product solve. And by keeping things light-hearted and funny, the video is significantly more enjoyable and more memorable to anyone who sees it. 

20 Awesome Business Promo Video Ideas

In today’s digital business environment, consumers prefer video to virtually all others forms of content. 

In fact, if your brand isn’t already creating video content, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to attract, engage and delight your potential customers. 

In the following article, we’ll go over 20 effective and powerful ideas for promo videos that you can use for your brand. 

Some of these promo video ideas include introductory videos, products unboxings, and even simple tips and tricks videos – all of which are ideal videos to help build trust with your audience and promote your brand online. 

Our 20 Favorite Promo Video Ideas for Small Business Owners:

Without further ado, here are our 20 favorite promo video ideas that you can implement immediately to boost your business:

1) Business Introduction Videos

When launching your business, you only have one chance to make a first impression. This is why having a good introduction video is so important. 

There are a number of ways to create an engaging intro video, but the most successful have these 3 characteristics in common:

  • They are concise – With so much stimulating content on the internet, holding a potential customer’s attention is harder than ever. Grab their attention and then communicate your message simply and quickly.
  • They tell a story – Even if your video is only about 3 seconds long, it should still have a storyline. Seeing stories progress is something that holds the audience’s attention more than anything else. 
  • They include a call-to-action (CTA) – Inspire your audience to take action, whether that’s connecting with you on social media, asking a question about a product or service, entering a competition or even making a purchase. 

Using these three factors, there are a number of successful formulas you can take inspiration from for your intro video. For example, check out this company profile video for a digital art production company called Cinematic. 

One popular approach is telling a company story, i.e. the humbling tale of how the company itself came to be. 

Calling on your company’s legacy can be a powerful tool in attracting and engaging potential customers. In addition, demonstrating that the company has survived and grown over a number of years will reflect endurance and reliability.

Another creative way of introducing the company is by interviewing actual customers and have them make the introduction for you. This immediately communicates trustworthiness as it features real, authentic customer satisfaction.

Alternatively, mimicking a short, famous film or any other popular video can be very effective too, as the viewer becomes engaged in the story since they already know it! 

2) Promotional Product Videos

Product videos come in different shapes and sizes. Depending on your target market, customers will be attracted to very different kinds of content.

Nonetheless, they, once again, share 3 key attributes:

  • They tell a story – Like with introductory videos, the best product videos will get an audience invested in the unravelling of a story. But beyond just making the video engaging, a story gives you the opportunity to show your product being used. 
  • They are short and snappy – As a general rule, product videos shouldn’t exceed 30 seconds — especially if it’s for sharing around social media. Conciseness gives you an opportunity to be innovative. After all, it’s challenging to tell a story and portray your brand values in such a short space of time. There are a few occasions where product videos can go on a bit longer, but these usually have a strong emotional message which can keep the audience attentive for an extended duration.
  • They connect on a human level – A product exposé should relate to the customer, and videos with a story are far better at doing this than a series of images and text. You want the video to communicate honesty and relate-ability, with customers leaving feeling as though the video struck a chord with them.

For example, check out this short, snappy product sample video, which is only 30 seconds but manages to show the product and its features in a variety of dazzling HD shots. 

3) Customer/User Testimonials

A customer testimonial is a previous user of your product or service sharing their personal experience of the company. Video testimonials tend to be more effective than written ones as they provide a face and voice, adding personality and authenticity to the words the customer is saying.

Honesty and believability are the keys to video testimonials. Check out this short Customer Testimonial Video for a better idea of what this looks like. 

You want to tell a customer’s story in their own words to really transmit that authenticity factor and make a big impact.

4) How-To Promo Videos

How-to videos are a useful and entertaining way to learn how to do something online, and especially more effective as they rely on demonstration as well as words. Customers respond very well to this kind of video, as it doesn’t immediately spell out “ad”.

For a great example, check out this How-To video about creating an awesome product video. 

Let’s take a look at a few important tips on making a successful how-to video.

  • Make it human – As we’ve already established, viewers respond well to sincerity and authenticity, which means incorporating some honest, light humor can be a great way to make the video much more enjoyable and relate-able to your audience. 
  • Speed up footage – Again, audiences prefer shorter video content and will get bored watching someone repeat a task many times. Use hyperlapse to speed up some of the footage and make your video more entertaining to watch.
  • Include subtitles – When scrolling through social media, videos are usually on mute when they auto-play. Having subtitles means viewers can get hooked on the content just by sight.
  • Make it memorable – If you want to use a how-to video to generate publicity, then you need to make it original, yet easily memorable and recognizable. 

5) Repurposing Video Content

While we often create video content with one platform in mind, for example Facebook, it’s a good idea to consider repurposing any of your existing content and optimizing it for other channels. 

This is a cost-effective way of getting your content more mileage from your content and having it reach a larger audience.

However, not all video content will work well across all channels so you need to be mindful about what will work where.

For example, very short how-to videos may perform well on TikTok, they’re not going to be as effective on platforms like Facebook or Youtube, where people are usually looking for more in-depth information. 

But by familiarizing yourself with the preference of your users on all the different social media platforms, you’ll be able to repurpose your content effectively for each. In turn, helping maximize the usage and potential reach of each piece of content.

6) Listicles/Roundup Videos

Listicles are the incredibly popular and shareable top 10 lists that we pretty much all love to read. In videos, they usually take the form of a “roundup video”, but the concept is the same, listing off any number of the best products, services, etc. in a certain category. 

This kind of content is so popular because the sparse text and segmentation makes them very quick and easy to digest. Plus, these videos often work as good “click bait”, so they’re a great way to get your name in front of a larger audience.

For a great example, check out this roundup video of the top 10 best selling retail products. 

7) Virtual Tour

People love knowing the more intimate details about brands and people they look up to, just think how many behind the scenes and morning routine videos there are on Youtube. 

Giving audiences a look at your offices or factories will intrigue them and help them to get a more comprehensive picture of your company. 

It all comes down to portraying that human experience and allowing customers in to see the real, unscripted stuff. In other words, virtual tours and real behind the scenes footage can make your videos seem considerably more human and relatable. 

8) Funny Promo Videos

Humour is a great promo video marketing tool, and when done effectively, will win over customers almost every time. 

People love when brands don’t take themselves too seriously, and they’re much more likely to share content they think will amuse others too. 

A little bit of lightheartedness can go a long way, like this video from a company called Conductor, which instead of advertising their marketing prowess, created a video titled How To Fail At Marketing. 

9) Case Study Promo Video Ideas

Case study videos focus on the collective customer experience, often with references to statistics and numbers about a company’s previous work experience. 

They can either concentrate on a group of customers or clients who all achieved success with a product or service.

For a great example, check out this Case Study by Nurture Digital. 

These kinds of videos tend to be very figure-oriented, and generally speaking, the more technical and factual, the better. 

10) Live-Streams and Event Coverage

Live streaming is an excellent way to make customers feel connected to you in the present moment, especially when it involves a Q&A and live customer interactions. 

Event coverages are a great opportunity to stream live too and you can generate a lot of publicity over social media beforehand to get people to join in. But the key is really to ensure you include exclusive content that viewers can’t get just by watching your usual promotional material.

With that being said, live streaming can be a bit more stressful than other types of videos, especially since it’s very important that there aren’t major hiccups while you’re on air. Customers can easily be put off by technical issues or swear words slipping out, for example. 

11) Employee Greetings/Recruitment Videos

Creating videos tailored to welcoming new employees to your company is the perfect way to educate them on the brand values and expectations while making them feel personally bonded to the company.

These videos help new recruits to get to know the culture of your company, know who they can talk to and the procedures for getting things accomplished internally. 

For a great example, check out this Recruitment Video from Listrak.

12) Webinar Videos

A webinar is a live online meeting, conference or presentation. 

They tend to be interactive, with customers able to participate via a chat function or even with their voice in a dedicated Q&A portion of the seminar.

Companies use webinars as a way of reaching out to new customers, establishing their expertise on a certain topic, building their brand awareness, or as a means to promote the launch of a new product or service. 

Sometimes they are aimed purely at existing customers, or for training new recruits. However, a webinar can be targeted at virtually any audience, and is a great way to help get them involved and interacting with your brand. 

13) Tips and Tricks

Similar to how-to videos and humorous content, tips and tricks are a great way to produce digestible content for your audience, without seeming overly ad-like. 

Check like this short video on woodworking tips by a company called Handicrafts. 

14) FAQ Videos

When it comes to promoting your brand as a reliable source, there’s almost no better way to do so than by answering your customers’ most pressing questions. 

In fact, FAQ video can benefit your brand for two main reasons. 

For starters, an FAQ video will provide valuable information to your audience, which they’re already likely looking for, and at the same time, it’ll help establish your brand as being knowledgeable on the given subject matter. 

For instance, check out this FAQ video by The Institute of Personal Care Science, which answers their audience’s most pressing questions about cosmetic formulas. 

15) Current Events

Typically, current event videos are used by larger news and media outlets. However, there’s no reason that your brand can’t capitalize on current events in the world to make your videos more up-to-date and relatable. 

For instance, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of businesses around the world started making videos to highlight their response and reaction to the news. 

16) Solutions

Similar to How-to videos or FAQ videos, a solutions video is all about offering a solution to your customers’ problems. 

In content marketing, when a brand wants to create content that’s going to be effective with their audience, they first work to learn about their potential customers, i.e. who they are, what they do, and more importantly, what they’re problems and pain points are. 

In turn, by focusing on creating content that addresses and offers solutions these pain points, you can be sure that your videos will actually be valuable to your viewers. 

17) Press Releases

Often created by larger agencies, firms or corporations, a video press release will be made to resemble a news report, announcing some type of news from the company. 

Maybe your brand has recently launched and succeeded in meetings its goals for Q1 of the year, or maybe the company is being bought out by a much larger company, either way, any internal company happenings are ideal opportunities to create a good piece of video content. 

18) Holiday Videos

Every holiday on the calendar is a potential opportunity to create a good promo video for your brand. 

Whether we’re talking about Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, or even Halloween, creating topical videos about current happenings is a sure-fire way to have your videos resonate with viewers. 

19) Ask Questions

A company promo video can also be a great opportunity to get to know your audience better. 

For instance, you might create a video where you ask questions or conduct a poll for your audience. This gives the audience an easy and helpful way to interact with you, while you get the benefit of learning even more about your potential customers. 

20) Thank You Videos

Finally, this list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that it’s important to empower your audience and ensure that they know how important they are to your brand or business. 

Thank you videos, for example, make great follow-ups after company events, conferences, or meetings. 

Promo Video Ideas: What’s Next?

We listed 20 ideas for your next promo video to support your brand. What are you waiting for?

For additional resources, check out these promo video guides:

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