Every business has a video these days! They can promote your products, services, and entertain your followers! But a quick bit of research will bring up multiple promotional videos, each with their own varied approach, some companies even have more than one video to do this.

But while your marketing assistant might be going on about the benefits of multiple videos, your accountants might be complaining about the associated costs.

So, let us answer the question of whether you need multiple videos:

Before we begin, there are four main questions you need to ask yourself, and your marketing department if you have one:

What are you going to use the video for?

This could sound like a silly question; you’re going to use it to promote your business, right? Yes, but what is it about your business that you want to sell? Is it to promote a product? Do you want to educate people? Are you trying to entertain?

Each of these will require a different approach, and videos to effectively convey the message.

How long does it need to be?

People say less is more, and while your promotional video shouldn’t be even close in length to the extended cuts of Lord of the Rings, getting the length right is essential.

Striking a balance to ensure it’s long enough to convey all desired information without feeling prolonged and short enough, so it keeps the audience engaged, is essential if the video is to succeed.

If it’s getting too long when you try to include everything, then you can opt for one of two approaches:

1. Have the video cut into smaller, more digestible segments.
2. Have several videos filmed, with each focusing on an element?

There’s also no point segmenting the video into smaller parts if it all works well as one unless you’re planning to distribute it via channels that have a runtime limit, or are more suited to shorter form videos.

Who’s the intended audience?

Here is where the differences matter even more. Will the video be aimed at current or potential investors? Is it to draw in new customers, or update and please your existing customers?

All these audiences have different expectations and standards of what is appropriate. You wouldn’t ordinarily show a humorous video involving your staff telling corny jokes and referencing internet culture to potential lenders. Similarly, your existing customer base wouldn’t benefit a lot from a promotional video detailing the specifics of your company.

Where are you going to share it?

It’s vital you carefully consider this step in today’s social media dominated world. While it may be tempting just to put any video you make on all the same platforms; this would be a HUGE mistake!

As we addressed in our Blog about using video in your social media output, each of the platforms requires a different approach in content posted and who views it.

For example, your Facebook page’s primary audience will most likely, be people already aware of your company’s existence, and who are presumably fans of you and what you do. A big promotional video, while you can share it on Facebook, Twitter and most other platforms, may not reach its primary audience on social media.

If you choose more than one option under each heading then we’d advise you have more than one video. This means your message is conveyed in a concise, effective way. It will also extend your campaign, provide more content to share, and increase your reach.