Video marketing is a powerful marketing strategy that allows you to portray an advertisement in the form of a story, which can be more compelling than a copy. So, as a video creator hoping to engage more viewers, it’s essential to know the different types of video styles and when to use them.
When it comes to video, the style you choose dramatically impacts how well your message is communicated. Therefore, using an inappropriate video style to convey a message could ultimately alter the information and tamper with your video’s perception.
This article will address the different styles of videos with comparative examples to help you understand what style is most suitable for a particular type of project, when to use them, and where to apply them.
9 Types of Video Styles
Given below are 9 unique styles of video creation and when best to use them:
- Live-Action Videos
A live-action video is a short or long video recording of real people in real locations, capturing people or objects in action. It’s an excellent way for your business to connect with customers by showcasing your brand spokesperson or office culture while being humorous, instructive, educational, or captivating.
How to Utilize Live-Action Videos
Tutorial Videos: A smiling face is inherently more relatable than a picture, so adding footage of a natural person into your video can help you connect with viewers on a deeper level. This video style yields excellent results when utilized in the creation of tutorial, testimonial videos, and “How-to” videos.
Introductory Videos: An effective way to make your website more personable is by providing a welcome video where the business owner welcomes visitors to their site. Adding live-action videos can also serve as an avenue for customers to get to know you and your products better.
Sales Videos: Live-action videos work great for product sales, too, because your sales videos are uniquely positioned to demonstrate your brand through your actions. After all, your customers aren’t just buying the physical product.
“About Me” Videos: The beauty of making a video yourself is that you get to tell your story. The creativity and originality of your content make people want to read more of what you have. Live-action video is the perfect medium to tell your story in an engaging way.
Live-Action Video Tools Include:
- Camera: To capture live-action, you’ll need to have a camera that can capture live-action footage. You’ll need to use your phone, a video camera, or your computer. This depends on the quality you want.
- Animation
When producers want to depict something or a scene that can’t be captured with a single camera, they use animation. The animation video type puts your innovative capabilities to the test.
For example, if you want to film a fantasy scene or science fiction setting, it’s usually better to rely on computer animation than to build a setting in reality. One of the advantages of the animation style is that it’s often a low-cost solution compared to real actors and filming.
Animation comes in three styles. These include:
- The 2D animation style. This is like a cartoon or comic book.
- 3D animation is computer generated and has depth.
- The Stop-Motion animation style. This is made of real-life objects that are captured one frame at a time.
When and Where to Apply
Commercial and Advertisement Videos: If you want to be taken seriously in your industry, it’s critical to have professional promotional and marketing videos. Instead of using boring static pictures and messages, animated marketing videos incorporate music and graphics that create an entertaining experience.
Tutorial Videos: This type of video is used for business. It can also be used for a variety of purposes. Creativity is vital, and animation can be a fun way to add some visual flair.
Tools For Creating Animated Videos:
- Biteable: Biteable is an animation platform that lets you create simple, affordable animations quickly. This application works only when an amount of $20 per month has been paid.
- Animaker: Animaker is an online animation creating tool that offers users the ability to create animations with various styles and techniques. With Animaker, you can easily make your live-action videos combined with animated elements for many purposes, such as storytelling or advertising campaigns.
- Whiteboard Video Style
Whiteboard animation is an approach to online video content that combines whiteboard art with a storyline. Whiteboard-style animation is a creative way to tell a story through pictures drawn on a blank whiteboard.
If you want to make it clear how a new or existing product works, and you need to distill it down to its most essential elements, whiteboard videos are exactly what you need.
When and Where to Apply
No matter what your topic, this video style is essential to help you better communicate ideas visually. You can even use them to make heavily detailed or a lot of visual presentations which are more entertaining and engaging.
Tools For Creating Whiteboard Animation:
- Doodly: Make impressive whiteboard videos that will capture your audience’s attention in just seconds. Doodly is a whiteboard tool that lets you create animated videos without any design or video-editing skills.
- Animation Studios: This animation tool is straightforward to use, and you don’t need any prior knowledge before using it. With animation studios, you have access to different collections of animated characters.
- The Motion Graphics Video Style
Motion graphics video is an exciting way to express ideas. When combined with text, shapes, or movement, sound, music, and a voiceover finally creates a new form of media that can communicate a sizable amount of different messages in ways traditional media cannot achieve.
When and Where to Apply
Motion graphics can help explain complex ideas, making them ideal for product demonstrations and instructional videos. They can demonstrate the sense of direction and purpose you have or show how a specific goal was achieved.
Tools For Creating Motion Graphic Videos:
- Biteable: Biteable is an animation studio that provides animation services to businesses and individuals. The studio offers monthly subscriptions for convenience.
- Powtoon: Powtoon is an online platform that lets you create animated videos for marketing your products. You can make your slideshows, explainers, banners, and more with a few clicks.
- Kinetic Typography Videos
This type of video creation technique incorporates words and actions to convey ideas. The integration helps the viewer more readily comprehend what’s happening in a short amount of time, which makes it perfect for today’s fast-paced society.
However, since people differ, it’s only regular for some persons to relate better to visual presentation, while some respond better to physical write ups. This type of video style is surely an awesome way to get the unwavering interest of the two parties.
When and Where to Apply
Typography is an excellent technique for making data-dense information much more digestible. While your audience might have difficulty remembering every word, eventually they’ll have a basic understanding of what you’re trying to get across.
Tools For Making Kinetic Typography Videos:
- Animaker: Animaker is an online service for making presentations. It costs $39/month, with a 14-day free trial available.
- Moovly: Moovly is a cloud-based platform that enables users to create and generate multimedia content, including animations and graphic videos.
- Screencast Videos
A screencast is a tool that lets you make a self-recording of what’s on your computer, remarketing campaigns, and voiceover narration. This is an easy way to show people how a product works and demonstrates software, but they also work well for marketing campaigns.
When and Where to Apply
Gone are the days of explaining how an app works over the phone or in person. Nowadays, many companies and individuals prefer screencasts to show their customers exactly how to use the product.
A screencast video does this by delivering a precise process of how it’s done, allowing your viewers to follow along interactively.
Tools For Making Screencast Videos:
- Camtasia: Camtasia is software that can be used to make video tutorials and presentations directly from a screencast or PowerPoint. They have a free plan available.
- Screenflow: Screenflow is an inexpensive and user-friendly product for creating quality screencasts. It can record your computer’s audio and video.
- Live-Action Screencast
Live-action screencast videos are a new and exciting way for brands to reach out to their audience. They offer the in-person feel of on-camera or onscreen videos while also giving audiences something extra unique with live-action footage captured via your computer’s webcam.
If you’re going to do a live demonstration, then you might as well do both the real thing and a computer simulation. It can be advantageous to incorporate both formats, depending upon your goals, and live-action screencasts offer both.
When and Where to Apply
Live-action screencasts, also known as video blogs or vlogs, are an effective tool for video bloggers and YouTube video creators. However, it’s essential to note that live-action screencasts are not so engaging, so that’s why it’s being used with another interface.
Tools For Making Live-Action Screencasts:
- Zoom: ZOOM is an easy cloud software service for video conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars that works not only on computers but also on mobile devices, telephones, and meeting room systems.
- YouTube Live: YouTube live lets you broadcast your videos over the internet. When we share our videos with the world, we can connect and engage with people interested in what we do.
- Google Meet: Google Meet is a free video chat application. You can make voice and text calls, share your screen, as well as photos. It’s easy to use with adjustable settings for things like camera mode on the fly or recording quality if you want to save something special that happened during a conversation later.
- Live Streaming
Live streaming is a great way to connect with your audience and share information in real-time! You can use live video chats on platforms like Facebook, Instagram Live, or YouTube.
Live Streaming allows you to build trust quickly by interacting seamlessly with followers. It also enables incentives for potential buyers without having them leave their homes.
When and Where to Apply
If you want your audience to be actively involved and participate in your current event, live streaming is a perfect technique to use. This technique should be undertaken only if you have a large group of reputable clients or followers.
Tools For Video Streaming:
- Open Broadcaster Software: Often abbreviated as OBS, Open Broadcaster Software is a free and open-source streaming software for video playback via the RTMP video protocol.
- Social Media Live: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, telegram, and several others offer video streaming features, allowing users to create video content freely.
- Photomontage
Photomontages are an excellent way to bring back memories. The best thing about them is that they integrate pictures with voiceover and music, which creates a uniquely emotional experience for the viewer. They’re also great for sharing a story from multiple perspectives.
When and Where to Apply
Photomontages are to be used for emotional content. Emotional content makes your prospects feel something, and it might be sympathy (in a welcome video), or hope (an “about me” video), or trust (social media posts). All of these feelings can lead to conversions.
Photomontage Tools:
Animoto: Animoto is a service that allows you to transform your photos and videos into professional-grade video slideshows. If you sign up for an account, the first 5 projects are accessible which can be used on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.
How to Choose a Video Style
Now that you know the different types of video styles out there, it’s crucial to decide what type of video content you want to produce and ponder these questions to determine what style is right for your project.
What Do I Want to Do?
Ask yourself if the purpose of your content is to help people understand something or get them to take action.
Each type of video is most effective for a distinct task. For example, if you want to build an audience, you can do it using animation. If you want to teach people something, try using a whiteboard video. Have something worthwhile to say? Use live-action.
Who Am I Talking to, and What Am I Talking About?
It’s essential to determine what kind of message you’re hoping to send. The same message can be expressed in many different ways. Knowing your audience helps you decide how to communicate best with them.
This is especially important when determining whether the copy should be storyboarded as a live-action video or if it would be more attractive as a visual that changes (e.g Live-action screencast) or even if a younger demographic animation style video is best.
How Much Can I Spend?
There’s a misconception that videos must be expensive to be professional, but the truth is that many effective videos can be created quickly and cheaply. It’s possible to make great videos on budget, but you’ll have to limit your video content.
The price for live-action, for example, is relatively high considering the number of actors and the various locations you need to cover to convey your advertisement to a broader audience efficiently.
Motion graphics and animation also require graphic designers and animators. The more complicated your idea is, the more it will cost, so think of simplifying your concept while still communicating your message.
When you do it yourself, always strive to achieve the highest quality possible, or else it defeats the whole purpose.
What Works With My Brand?
Your video strategy needs to match your brand to be authentic. Take, for example, a restaurant with mascot characters and corresponding TV commercials.
If they released a series of web videos that focused on the characters, it could feel like an entirely different product to their core demographic. Therefore, make sure that your content reinforces your brand.
Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve learned the 9 best types of video styles and when to use them, you’ll be able to reach your audience more effectively. Find a look that matches your company’s personality. For example, if you’re starting an ad agency, find a creative and bold aesthetic.
What kind of a video should you make? This decision is totally up to you and your video marketing team, but to enjoy the benefits of video marketing, it’s essential to strive for quality, regardless of what kind of video you make.
