4 Effective Ways to Use Video Messaging For Your Business

Video has become a dominant form of communication in recent years, so it makes sense that it will be increasingly used in new and interesting ways.

Easy-to-use tools such as BombBomb, Covideo, Loom and Vidyard let you shoot short videos that you can easily email or text to your customers, employees or associates, or put on your website. Some tools also let you film your computer screen, so you can use video to create tutorials.

“Video helps people connect the dots quicker, increases engagement tremendously, and it saves a lot of time—which to me is the biggest piece,” says Christian Velitchkov, co-founder of Twiz, a Los Angeles-based digital marketing firm that produces short video-based email messages for its clients.

Here are four effective ways businesses can utilize video messaging technology:

1. Replacing very long emails

Writing emails—especially long emails—can be an enormous time sap, and many people won’t read all the way through them anyway. Video messages are often less time consuming to send because you can simply hit the record button and start talking. Moreover, many people prefer watching videos.

“Instead of sending a very long block of text messages and emails, you can far more quickly send video messages,” says Liam Johnson, CEO of The Hitch Store, an internet retailer in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

One recommendation: When sending a particularly important long message, it can make sense to write a script, Johnson says. “A script helps you avoid unnecessary fillers (‘umm,’ ‘you know,’ ‘ah,’ basically’), which do not sound good and may weaken your message.”

2. Creating video testimonials

Many small businesses have customer testimonials on their website, because they add credibility by showing that your customers are happy with your product or service. But you can kick them up a notch by including video.

Some video messaging tools are designed to help you collect quick customer testimonials.

David Adler, CEO and founder of The Travel Secret in San Diego, an online members-only discount travel firm, uses VideoAsk to ask his clients to record testimonials for him and provides the platform for them to do it—with a simple push of a button.

“Video creates a more personal connection,” Adler says. “There’s this authenticity because you can see the customer and know that it’s not scripted.”

3. Offering a more personal or sincere message

Video can be better for delivering more personal and emotional messages. MillenGroup, a healthcare consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia, uses BombBomb when it wants to send clients a message that’s more personal than email can provide.

“Video messages can be used to convey a difficult topic—like an apology,” says John Millen, the company’s managing partner. “Maybe someone on my team messed up. I can convey in a video that ‘Hey, we’re really sorry. This was not intentional. My team member feels horrible.’”

4. Communicating with employees

As more businesses adopt a hybrid workplace, video messaging can greatly improve internal team communications. It’s particularly useful for teaching another employee how to do something and demonstrating new processes, says Jack Miller, a San Francisco-based pest control business owner and blogger who manages a hybrid team.

“Let’s say you want to show your new remote employee how the content management system of your website works,” he says. “If it’s a unique and complicated system, a video message through a platform like Loom works effectively. And, in this day and age of very few face-to-face interactions, it’s refreshing to see an actual human conversing with you, even through a recorded video.”