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Within the confines of video marketing, the promotional video can a difficult format to define. As the name implies, the objective of a promotional video is just to raise awareness and promote something…anything! It could be an event, an product, a new initiative or just an exercise in brand building. This makes it difficult to ascertain what a promotional video should necessarily imply, especially as people and clients use the terms promotion and corporate video interchangeably. In this article we’re going to attempt to clear away some of the misunderstanding of what a promotional video is. be far-ranging in content and style with the only real objective of informing the viewer of something…anything! It doesn’t necessarily have to sell or persuade, but just raise awareness of a relevant item. It might be an exercise in brand building, or the benefits of a product. In this article we’re going to take a look at defining the promotional video format a little more.

A promotional video really can take any form, however the way I see it, is that the objective is to create a return. To do this, it must be universal enough to appeal to as many people.

To achieve this level of universal appeal the video content should be light enough to avoid alienating or confusing your audience and ensure you include some sort of call to action at the end to encourage response. It could be argued that promotional videos are not unlike television adverts albeit not constrained to the 30-second timescale. In this way promotional videos have more opportunity to include further information, interviews, talking heads and testimonials.

However, one mustn’t get too carried away with the lack of enforced timescale – attention spans online remain short and indulgence in branded and commercial video content is rare. This is why it is important to retain a light, soft sell approach in order to capture the attention of online audiences and where possible entertain while promoting.

So, the promotional video is designed as a maximum reach tool (within your chosen demographic), light-hearted at least and entertaining at most. It should revolve around a clever concept where possible in order to maximise share ability and attempt to encompass as large a swathe of your key audience as possible.

In the next set of articles we’ll take a look the structure and definition of alternative video marketing formats that you can use to raise the profile of your business online, engage with new customers and of course, sell more.

This information and much, much more is all in Ryan’s Video for Business video marketing course, or for examples and articles on effective video marketing, try Retina Burn, Ryan’s video marketing blog for your needs.