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The 7 Types of Video Marketing, and When to Use Each One
Types of video marketing are the formats you reach for to do a specific job: warm up a stranger, prove you are worth trusting, teach a skill, explain a hard idea, or ask for the sale. There is no best type of video. There is the right type for the job in front of you. Pick the format that matches where your customer actually is, and the video works. Pick by what looks impressive, and you spend a budget on something that lands nowhere.
The case for video itself is settled. By Wyzowl’s count, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 84% of consumers say they want to see more video from brands. So the real question is not whether to make video. It is which video, for which job. Seven formats cover almost everything a business needs. Read the one that matches the problem you have right now, or read all seven and learn to tell them apart.
Why does it matter which type of video I make?
Because each format does a different job, and a video aimed at the wrong job is wasted money.
A person who has never heard of you needs something different from a person sitting on the fence about buying. A stranger needs a reason to look. A skeptic needs proof. A buyer needs a reason to act now. One video cannot do all three at once without doing each one badly. The companies that get the most out of video are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones who match the format to the moment, so every video carries a person one step closer to the decision instead of restating the same pitch to everyone.
That is the lens for the seven below. Not “which one looks the most polished,” but “which job am I trying to get done.”
What is a teaser video and when do I use it?
A teaser is a short, curiosity-first clip built to do one thing: pull a stranger toward you. A tidbit, not the meal.
Use it at the very top, when the person does not know you yet and owes you nothing. The teaser’s only job is to earn the next click, usually to your site or a longer video. It works because it withholds. You show enough to make someone want the rest, then you make them come get it. Resist the urge to explain everything. A teaser that answers every question has nothing left to pull anyone forward with.
What is a testimonial video and why is it the most persuasive?
A testimonial is a real customer, on camera, saying you delivered. It is the single most persuasive format you own, and it is the one you make the least of.
Here is why it carries more weight than anything you could say about yourself. People trust other people far more than they trust the company selling to them. You claiming you are great is marketing. A customer who looks like your buyer saying you came through is proof. Use a testimonial for the person who is interested but not yet convinced, the one comparing you against two other options. Let the customer talk in their own words about the problem they had and what changed. The unpolished, specific version beats the scripted, glowing one every time, because the audience can tell the difference between a person who means it and a person reading a card.
People trust other people far more than they trust the company selling to them.
Tyler Kelley
What is a brand story video?
A brand story is the video that answers who you are and why you exist, told as a story rather than a list of facts.
This is where you paint the picture: the reason the business started, what you stand for, the kind of customer you are here for. People connect to why you do the work, not to a roster of services. A brand story is not a commercial with your logo at the end. It is the closest a video gets to the feeling of meeting you in person and deciding you are someone they want to do business with. Use it when you want a prospect to feel something about you before they ever weigh a price, because the decision to trust gets made on feeling and defended with logic afterward.
What is a tutorial video and how does it grow my business?
A tutorial teaches your audience how to do something useful, and in doing it, sets you up as the expert they call later.
The move here is generosity. You teach the thing for free, with no gate and no pitch, and you become the name a person remembers when the job gets bigger than they want to handle themselves. Give away the how, and you earn the who. Someone you taught to do the small version of a job is exactly who hires you for the version they cannot. Tutorials also keep working long after you post them, because people search for how to do things constantly, and the business that already answered is the one that shows up.
What is an explainer video?
An explainer takes a new or confusing idea and makes it land in plain words, fast.
Reach for it when what you sell is hard to grasp at a glance, or when you live in a category most people do not understand yet. If a prospect cannot explain what you do to a friend, they will not buy it. The explainer’s job is to close that gap: take the concept that loses people and put it in language a customer actually uses. Keep it short, keep it concrete, and cut every word that belongs to your industry and not to your buyer. The test is simple. Could someone who watched it once turn around and describe what you do correctly. If yes, it works.
What is an FAQ video and where does it perform best?
An FAQ video answers one real question your customers keep asking, directly and on its own.
These do their best work on open networks built for search, where people type a question and want an answer now. Answer the questions your customers actually ask, one video per question, and you meet them at the exact moment they are looking. This is the discipline behind the best content strategy in the business: they ask, you answer. Do not bundle ten questions into one long video. Make a clean answer to each, and let each one get found on its own. The business that answers the question is the business that earns the next step.
What is a highlight video?
A highlight shows your product or service in action, the proof-in-motion version of what you do.
Use it to let the work speak. A walkthrough of the result, a before and after, the thing performing in the setting a customer would actually use it. Show the work doing its job and you sidestep the credibility problem entirely, because nobody has to take your word for it. A highlight is strongest late, for the person who already likes you and wants to picture what they are actually buying before they commit.
So which type of video should you make first?
Start with the job you most need done, then pick the format that does it.
If strangers do not know you exist, make a teaser. If interested people keep stalling, make a testimonial. If your category confuses people, make an explainer. The format is never the strategy. The job is the strategy, and the format is how you get it done. Most businesses do not need all seven at once. They need the one that unsticks the place they are actually stuck, made well, then the next one.
For the companion cut on the formats that move the needle hardest once you are ready to scale this up, read the 9 most effective types of video. And for the thinking that makes any of these land, read our purpose-driven marketing breakdown on why people buy on feeling first.
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