The Secret to Positive ROI Video Marketing | Video Importance Pyramid

The Video Importance Pyramid or V.I.P. will clarify the way you look at marketing with video in your business.

If you have been on social media, watched the news, or been to a live event, we know video marketing is important. But you may be wondering, ‘Which types of videos should I be making?’

Years ago I created a framework I coined ‘The Video Importance Pyramid’ which is a visual that has helped my clients understand the importance of each type of video they should be using for their businesses.

The pyramid looks similar to the Food Pyramid we used learn about basic nutrition in grade school. When I was in school, the bottom layer was carbs. But I am fairly certain the USDA has changed their pyramid structure since then.

Similarly, the base or foundation of the pyramid are the essential parts to a balanced and healthy diet. And at the very top of the pyramid is the sugar, sweets, and things that will give you a burst of energy with no real benefit to your health. We will take a very similar approach with our Video Importance Pyramid. Stick to the foundational layers towards the bottom for substance, long lasting health, and you will be on the road to success.

Anchor Videos

First up and most importantly, Anchor Videos.

An anchor video is the lifeblood of your marketing on all platforms and tells everyone that watches it who you are in less than 2 minutes. It's the first thing visitors see when they come to your website, walk into your waiting room, start a sales meeting, or walk by your booth at a conference. It can be used for years to come and it answers the who, what, where and why of your business.

Murphy Tower - Anchor Video by Snaadt Media Group

Anchor videos have a few different names like Video Business Card or General Promos, but all of these terms are synonymous. And regardless of which term you use, they are essential to your marketing and sales efforts, having consistent branding across the board.

It tells viewers who you are, what your business does, and why you do it. The Why is key, looping in the company origin story, mission/vision/and values behind the work you do. We also give viewers an inside look at how your company operates. Showing behind the scenes of building products, performing services, and engaging with customers.

These videos usually showcase your people at work, your customers' enjoyment and how that process is super smooth. Good Anchor Videos are usually 2-3 minutes in duration and keep viewers engaged the whole time.

Great Anchor Videos capture the essence of your culture and make people feel like they want to learn more. This can be done logistically using the proper music, camera angles, transitions and more to create this unified message.

Sadev USA - Video Business Card by Snaadt Media Group

The beauty of anchor videos is that they don't sell, they tell. They tell the viewer everything they need to know at a 10,000 foot glance of who your business is. It intrigues viewers enough to reach out through your contact form or keep looking around on your website to learn more about you.

Anchor Videos can be used as a welcome video on your website, pinned social media video posts, sales presentation openers, automated emails that go to new leads, hyperlinked in email signatures, digital displays at expos or conferences, and much more.

Aside from just the main video, there are other uses for the footage collected as well. For most clients, I take this Anchor and deliver multiple video files to them. This added benefit of having a ton of assets you can get from a single video production adds even more value to it. Some of these extra assets could be a B Roll loop (footage without sound) for website and Facebook page banners, mini clips for social media posts, or other variations so you get as much mileage as possible out of a single video.

You can use this video in so many ways and every business needs one of these!

Sales Videos

Next up on the level of importance on the pyramid is a sales video.

Sales Videos are evergreen sales tools that can be used to persuade bottom of funnel prospects to close a deal. Whether your sales process involves someone clicking a button on a website or shaking a sales reps hand in person, these act as a sales tool to convert prospects.

They can be used in live in-person presentations, on the bottom of a funnel landing page when somebody is convincing them to buy or even an automated email sequence when you know they are warm leads and on the fence of buying. These are perfect if you are looking to automate more of your sales process or increase your ecommerce sales.

Schutt Sports helmet release by Snaadt Media Group

Sales videos are also highly effective as retargeting ads on Facebook. If a lead was on one of those lower funnel pages of a website and showing intent to buy, you can hit him again with this type of sales video, send them back to purchase, and close the deal before they are gone for good. If you are like most Americans who are addicted to online shopping (like my wife) you have likely fallen victim to Facebook/Instagram retargeting ads convincing you to buy something after leaving an ecommerce website. Compelling sales material at that point in the buying process works very well.

Sales videos are high on the priority list because they drive the most results.

Plain and simple. They're not the absolute most essential thing, because they're not used in every single application for your brand. You typically use a sales video in 10% or less of the interactions an audience member would have with your business. But they are very helpful for you because they will make the most results happen no matter how your marketing or you're selling your business.

Share the benefits of the product or service, how it’s helped customers’ lives improve, or a success story from a happy customer all work well.

A sales video focuses on comparing the key differentiators of your business to your competitors why you are the better option than other things out there. So we are confronting common questions, rebuttals, and objections prospects have when they are about to pull the trigger. It's a lot of comparison with a clear call-to-action at the end to make the next step in the sales process.

What Makes Us Different - Danielle Seifert Real Estate Team by Snaadt Media Group

They are great to warm leads before your sales team reaches out to them, clarify any big questions your prospects usually have, and establish thought leadership. If your marketing team is struggling with properly warming leads prior to a sales call, this can be a great tool to automate lead nurturing and prepare leads for a sales team member to reach out and answer more questions.

A word of caution: I often have to coach my clients on the most optimal places to use this video.

If you overuse this sales tool, you will be doing your brand a disservice so use sparingly! Again, great places to use Sales Videos are on the bottom of funnel sales pages, in email marketing and automation, during a longer sales process as a follow up piece, in sales meetings in person, and so on.

Think of Sales Videos like red pepper flakes in a recipe. When used in small amounts, it can amplify your dish’s taste. Use half the bottle and your dinner guests will be bolting for their cars, spitting their food out in disgust.

Social Proof

Next up is social proof videos. These are most commonly seen as case studies and testimonials from happy customers.

Social Proof videos tell prospective customers that there are droves of happy customers that have already bought and defuse the risk or fear that prospects feel prior to purchase. A prospect can see how you make a difference in your customer's life and they can imagine what it's like on the other side of working with you and the results that you get from them.

Phase Marketing Testimonial - Tom Fowler Law by Snaadt Media Group

There are some different approaches to showcasing ‘social proof’ that your business is a favorable one.

These could be interviews post-mortem after the project is done with a client. This could be behind the scenes videos of a service in action (pressure washing, ) or you're behind the scenes process of how you build your products (manufacturing, restaurant kitchen preparing food, home building, etc.). There's a lot of different ways you can spin these, but the main thing is showcasing and eliminating doubt in your viewers mind of any reason they don't want to work with you.

Social Proof videos are also great for throwing facts and figures but then also talking about the emotional experience of your customers and why people would consider being one.

In terms of buying cues, make sure to showcase bandwagoning (everyone is buying), divert risk (‘you have nothing to lose’), and speak to the emotional desires of purchasing. Social proof videos hit on both logic in the mind, and emotion in the heart.

For example, I have used these a lot with gym clients since many possible members have doubts about joining a new gym and want to be assured before they pull the trigger. The common fear for someone at this stage is the fear of commitment. So using this type of video, we want to snuff that doubt and fear so they feel comfortable becoming a member.

Taking Yoga Class for the First time - Power Life Yoga by Snaadt Media Group

You can interview a current member or even an employee and talk through differentiators that make them unique, recollect their first experience at the gym, or how they transformed their body and health since coming in.

Avoid talking about features and specs here. Make sure to go deep on the fears, concerns, and personal story of customers who have been where a prospect is. Their story will be the ammo you need to convince leads to move forward and buy.

Educational/Informative Videos

Next up is long-form educational or informational videos.

These are videos that are usually over 5 minutes in duration that a brand publishes on a consistent basis to attract ideal prospects organically. So think YouTube training videos, podcasts, blogs, email newsletters or long form videos on social media.

The goal is to have a strategy around search so when people are looking for content organically including Google and YouTube, they can find your videos and find your business. This helps the businesses' SEO rankings, bringing more traffic to their sites and ultimately selling more product. With search as the focus, these types of videos allow for newcomers with little SEO clout or brand to quickly access viewers searching for answers to their questions or topics of interest.

LinkedIn Headshot Tutorial (130K+ views) by Ryan Snaadt

Long form educational content is great for B2B companies trying to build brand awareness and fish for clients looking for related information. This form of video is heavily used in businesses with long sales cycles where customers do research prior to purchase.

Knowing you are meeting viewers at the bar…search bar not the local watering hole - you can be intentional with what you create and how you present information to collect leads/drive sales/etc.

While this approach can be time consuming by publishing consistent videos, tactics can be employed to make the most of the video on multiple platforms.

My personal favorite tactic is shooting a long form educational YouTube video or video podcast that you can cut up and use multiple different ways with one long form recording. Commit to publishing on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis to start. Then you have consistent content that goes out on your social media platforms and your email newsletter and is a great way that people can find you in search.

Full Power Sculpt Express Yoga Class - Power Life Yoga by Snaadt Media Group

This approach is called a big rock content approach and this one long-form recording can be diced up in about 9 to 12 different ways to get the most out of it. You can also create graphics, tweets, and transcriptions of the conversation that can be pumped out. I love doing long form recurring content for clients because I see the uptick in their organic search results every single month and it helps to drive new interested leads to their website and go down there sales funnels. Not to mention, it takes minimal effort for maximum results. This is great if you are scratching your head wondering how the heck you are going to create content on a consistent basis

For long form, we tend to focus it on education, entertainment, or inspiration.

Those 3 elements are what will encourage people to continue to come back and is all about the audience. If your 60 minute podcast is all about how great the client is, people will not pay attention. So keep viewer centrism at the front of your mind when shooting. Why should people care and how does this help the viewers? Those are the questions you should ask yourself.

A strong long form strategy often falls under platforms that have organic search and clients that can benefit from being found. I love YouTube and podcasting for long form organic content. Both of these mediums allow a client to build an audience and for a good video of yours to continue to get views years after it is published. Some of my videos from 3, 4, and even 5 years ago have hundreds of thousands of views because viewers find them in search every day.

Knowing this virality is possible, make sure to have prevalent calls to action and ways to benefit from that many eyeballs on your content. We will cover this in greater detail in future chapters.

Micro Posts

At the top of our pyramid and the lowest level of importance is micro content. Ironically this is the type of video that most people focus on when they start doing video marketing. A one-off social media video that has about two days of shelf life. You put a bunch of time into it, possibly spend thousands on it, it gets published on social media and…..crickets.

I'm not trying to be harsh, but that's the true reality of solely investing in micro content that doesn’t move the needle.

Behind the scenes post for social media by Snaadt Media Group

Yes, being in front of prospects on social media is important, but not more important than the other video types that we have covered in this chapter. Similar to Sugar on the top of the food pyramid, micro content videos will give you a short burst of energy for a day or so and then they fizzle you out and you crash leaving you hungry for more. They are also fun to share for businesses with few creative assets to share, so the lack luster performance can leave you having mixed feelings about the success or presumed failure of your one-off social media post.

These micro pieces I see underwhelming businesses everywhere are Instagram stories, posts, and reels, Facebook page updates, Tweets, or even TikToks. This is assuming your brand doesn’t have a captive, large audience on any of these platforms. I’m not claiming you should avoid posting on social media but there are more strategic ways to leverage your video resources to get the most leverage possible.

The cool thing about the Video Importance Pyramid is that you can take shorter versions of every type of video I just outlined and use it as micro content. Micro content is a byproduct of doing the foundational pieces.

In the words of Adam Sandler, ‘Yesterday’s meatloaf is today's Sloppy Joe’.

Instead of putting time and resources into creating a little video for your Facebook page, getting sub par results, and shake your first at the sky - swearing off video marketing for the rest of your life… consider taking a strategic approach. Look into having some social proof videos, a sales video, or even an Anchor Video produced and have micro content edited from the footage collected during the larger video shoots.

This provides much more value to the business while still giving you multiple assets to share on social media.

Only making one video?

So now that you understand where certain videos fall, you can imagine that the ‘Anchor’ videos make the biggest difference long term for a business. Focus on the highest impact videos and you will be well on your way to crushing your marketing goals. And if you can only have one video for your business, make sure it’s an Anchor Video.

The problem with companies that use video, is that most of them focus all of their efforts, resources, and money on micro posts. Which is a move that will get low engagement, results, and is setting a campaign up for complete and utter failure.

Stick to the core ‘food groups’, leverage your video in multiple ways, and use your Sales Videos sparingly so as to avoid leaving a bad taste in the mouths of non qualified leads.

-Ryan Snaadt

Owner of Snaadt Media Group