subject: Video Marketing Tools - The 3 Best Video Types [print this page] When it comes to using your videos for marketing purposes, especially when putting them on YouTube, there are three primary categories of videos that they can fit into; almost all effective videos are a riff on one of these themes. These categories of video are the ones that generate traffic, which is obviously what you want when posting your videos on YouTube to begin with -- especially if they are intended to market your product or business.
The three categories are entertainment videos, educational videos, and informational videos.
Entertainment Videos: These are the videos that most people go to YouTube to watch. The entertainment video's primary purpose is for people to simply enjoy watching it. You can always use this in your marketing techniques as well. Like using the educational video as a marketing ploy, if you can get people to watch, then they will remember your product and (hopefully) your website too. Remember that your marketing video shouldn't really be a commercial -- especially not when it is on YouTube. There are thousands of commercial-like videos already on YouTube, and you should stand out from that pack.
Educational Videos: These videos are supposed to show you how to do something. Educational videos can show you how to do almost anything: change your car oil, change the vent in your heating unit, even hang a picture correctly. Give it a little thought, and you can actually market your business using an educational video. As an example, say your business is selling Mary Kay products. You could create a video to show the world how to do a perfect "at home" microdermabrasion. This can pique interest enough to bring visitors to your website where they could purchase products for doing the procedure. People like to learn how to do things, and a video feels less like an advertisement if they are actually getting something out of it by watching.
Informational Videos: The informational video gives your viewers, well, information. These are similar to educational videos, but the emphasis is providing information on a subject rather than a "how-to" tutorial. To be most effective, you want to be sure that you don't forget the entertainment value of your marketing video. You can always give information without being too dry or technical, or worse, sounding preachy. Watch a few late-night infomercials -- to see how not to do it!
Now, generally you will host videos on YouTube for exposure with an eye towards the type of people who go there looking for videos. Still, you must investigate the possibility to self-host videos on your own blogs or sites; you have a lot more options in your video formats and how long your videos can be when you do this. When you consider hosting video on your own sites, you open up a range of options for video marketing tools to make the most of your content. There are plenty of tools available, so don't be afraid to pull up Google and find the sites out there to find out more.
