10 Promo Video Ideas To Inspire Your Next Campaign

A promo video is a short video that you can use to promote your products and services. A great promo video will not just share a marketing message but will tell a story to engage, educate, and entertain potential or existing customers.

Now that you know what a promo video is, let’s check out 10 promo video ideas and examples that you can use as a guide to creating your own.

1. Demo Your Product

Product demo or product tour videos give consumers insight into the benefits your product provides. They show your product in use but aren’t focused on how the product works. Instead, a product demo video shows consumers how to use the product to improve their lives. Here’s an example of a great product demo video from Beauty Bakerie:

Why We Love It This product demo is great because viewers get a chance to watch the product in action. Beauty Bakerie’s Cashmere Nicole Carillo starts off without any makeup at all so viewers can watch and listen as she walks through the process of applying the new concealer (the product she’s highlighting in the video) along with other Beauty Bakerie products. The effect is a product demo that gives consumers a realistic view of what the product can do for them.

Customer testimonials are powerful enough in written form. When you can get a customer testimonial on video, though, it truly packs a punch. Customer testimonials are an excellent form of social proof and can go a long way toward convincing potential customers to trust you and your products. In fact, BigCommerce reports that 72% of consumers trust brands more after seeing positive testimonials and 88% of consumers trust online testimonials and reviews as much as recommendations from friends or family! In terms of promo video ideas, customer testimonials are a must. Here’s a touching example of a customer testimonial from meditation app Calm:

Why We Love It Customer testimonials are a promo video idea that lets brands easily make personal, emotional connections with viewers. And, since the person in the video is a real user of your product, it’s completely relatable.

Similar to testimonials, product review videos feature someone offering their honest opinion about your product. While customer testimonials focus on customers, product review promo videos might feature an influencer in your niche. Third-party reviews are becoming increasingly trusted and sought after. Here’s an example of a product review video from coffee influencer James Hoffmann for the Ember mug:

Why We Love It This doesn’t appear to be a brand-sponsored review, but it really should be. This product review is candid, funny, and engaging. It’s nearly 10 minutes long and you just don’t care because it’s entertaining. And, it gives an honest review about the mug: ridiculous, but you might want it anyway.

4. Show off Your Company’s Culture

This promo video idea is all about showing off what makes your company a great place for employees. Of course, these types of videos also let potential customers know if you’re the kind of business they want to support with their hard-earned dollars. Company culture promo videos make your brand more personable and give people a glimpse into the people who make your brand run. Here’s an example from customer support software Zendesk:

Why We Love It The video is hilarious. Zendesk shows off its personality by fully embracing the stereotypes rife in company culture videos for most businesses. You know the ones. Footage of a bunch of happy people, smiling in meetings, smiling while walking through hallways, smiling while doing just about anything. All with that casual voiceover you’ve heard everywhere. This tongue-in-cheek approach to the traditional company culture promo video does a great job at still highlighting Zendesk’s company culture, showing off their team members, the offices, and, of course, the perks of working at Zendesk.

5. Promote Your Events

Event promo videos are perfect for generating buzz about an upcoming event, inspiring FOMO (“fear of missing out”) in your target audience, and driving attendance higher. You can even share clips on social media of what’s going on in the moment to let those not in attendance see what they’re missing so they don’t miss out next time. Here’s an example of an effective event promo video from Coachella:

A post shared by Coachella (@coachella) Why We Love It This promo video for Coachella features one of the performers (Billie Eilish) talking about their new album, implying that Coachella will be a chance for people to hear new music for the first time. This generates a ton of interest in the event—even if viewers aren’t particularly Billie Eilish fans. Plus, the imagery is super hype and exciting. How could you NOT want to go to Coachella after seeing that?

6. Show Viewers How to Use Your Products

Explainer videos help your customers and potential customers understand how to use your product or a specific feature of your product. In these videos, you’ll want to make sure that you highlight how your products and services and brand are better than your competitors. This doesn’t mean outright talking trash about your competitors, but you should definitely highlight what you do best. Here’s a stunning example of an explainer video from FiftyThree for their Pencil mobile stylus (the video contains some quick back-and-forth camera work so if you’re motion-sensitive, view with caution):

Why We Love It This explainer promo video shows consumers exactly how Pencil works without any words or text at all. It’s just music and people using the product. The video shows the different functionality and use cases the tool is right for and the final frame, the only time text is used throughout the video, is powerful.

7. Promote Your Latest Sale

Another great promo video idea that can drive sales is promoting your latest offer. No matter what you’re selling—online courses, copywriting services, mattresses—a video highlighting your latest sale will generate interest and get you more paying customers.

8. Talk About the Causes You Support

According to a 2017 Cone Communications CRS study, 89% of US consumers would switch from a brand without a cause to one that supported a cause, if pricing and quality were comparable. And, according to McKinsey, 90% of Gen Zers believe that companies should address environmental and social issues. If your brand believes in a cause, talk about it. Ben & Jerry’s has long used its platform to push social justice issues. Here’s an example of a cause marketing promo video from the brand:

Why We Love It Ben & Jerry’s used the “Democracy Is In Your Hands” campaign to introduce its Empower Mint ice cream flavor. But if you’ve followed the brand for any amount of time, you’ll know that this campaign wasn’t just lip service. Ben & Jerry’s consistently highlight social justice issues in its marketing strategy. While Ben & Jerry’s is an ice cream brand that wouldn’t seem to have anything to do with social justice issues (outside of fatphobia, perhaps), the brand is able to highlight its beliefs in social justice issues and democracy by naming its products accordingly.

9. Entertain Your Viewers

There’s a lot to be said for being funny. And, as we saw earlier with the Zendesk company culture video, poking fun at promo video stereotypes is an easy way to be funny and entertaining. Here’s a tremendous example of an entertaining explainer video from stock footage company Dissolve:

Why We Love It Dissolve created this video entirely from stock footage. Since they’re a stock footage business, this is a brilliant way to show consumers how the platform works. The narrator even sounds like Sam Elliott, an actor whose voice graces commercials for brands from Ram to GEICO to Doritos. It’s a humorous nod to the stereotypes present in most promo videos.

10. Leverage Holidays

Holidays are the perfect excuse to create a promo video. There are many different ways to present your brand through holiday video promos, but this example from Apple is magnificent:

Why We Love It We’re not sure there’s a brand that does advertising better than Apple. In this short video promo, Apple tells a complete story, only mentioning its products through product placement in the video and in its logo at the end of the video. The message is clear: Apple products will help you share your creative gifts with the world.

Creating a promo video for your brand doesn’t have to be complicated. You can even do it with just a smartphone and a video editing tool. Of course, there are best practices that you can use when creating your video marketing strategy. These promo video best practices will help you create high-quality promo videos that hit the mark. Here are four promo video best practices to keep in mind as you consider the promo video ideas you want to use.

Choose a Goal

It doesn’t matter which of these video promo ideas you’re going to use or what you’re going to promote. What matters is that you decide right at the start of your planning process what you want your promo video to achieve. If you’re promoting a new product, what do you want users to know about the product? How can you best convey that information? What do you need to ensure your video covers? You’ll want to include all relevant details in your video, weaving them throughout your story.

Script and Storyboard Your Video

You could be the best improv artist in the world and you should still script and storyboard your video. Sometimes, video marketers think that speaking from the heart will make their message come across as more authentic and heartfelt. Really, though, it opens up the door for you to say the wrong thing, forget to include something important, and just generally miss the mark with your message. Write a script, even if it’s just a bare-bones script that you’ll then improvise to expand on as you record.

Add Quality Graphics

Promo videos are a visual tool. Not surprising, right? Since they’re such a visual tool, it’s important to include lots of attention-grabbing graphics like discount codes, banners, text overlays, etc. The graphics should serve to highlight the important information that you want your viewers to retain and recall.

Edit and Refine

It’s not likely that you’re going to record and publish a promo video in a single shot. Video production is important and creating powerful promo videos will require edits. Your promo videos are important, after all. Along with editing and refining your main promo video, you’ll want to create different versions that you can share on multiple channels like social media platforms, your website, and more. Social media platforms love native content, so it’s much better to create a different version of your promo video that’s specific to whichever platform you’re publishing it on. This doesn’t mean you have to use entirely different content for each platform, but it does mean that you should create a separate video file for each platform and edit them to match the expectations of the audiences on each platform.

Conclusion

Some brands shy away from video marketing because they aren’t sure how to get started. With the promo video ideas on this list, you won’t have to worry about that anymore. Plus, there are promo video makers on the market, like Promo.com, that make the process of creating your own promo videos so easier that there’s no reason not to leverage this powerful marketing tactic.