How to Get the Most from an 'About Us' Video

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A recent article from Entrepreneur highlighted the 3 types of videos every business should have on their website: a highly produced marketing video, an 'About Us' video, and testimonial videos. In this post, I'd like to expand on the 'About Us' video and how you approach making one for your business or organization.

An 'About Us' video is a typically a three to four minute video that details who you are as an organization, business, or entrepreneur. Where a commercial would give specific details about a product or service you offer, the About Us video is a chance to introduce yourself to prospective clients and let them know who you are as both a company and as people. So, with that in mind, here are the things you should focus on in your About Us video that will help maximize the impact with your website's visitors.

1. Build Trust

All things being equal, people prefer to buy from people they know. When they don't know anyone selling a product or service they need, they ask their friends for referrals or they go online to research. Your About Us video is your primary tool for quickly establishing a relationship with a new potential buyer and making them feel like the 'know you'.

Therefore, like it or not, you and your staff need to be ready to be on camera. If someone is looking to buy from you, they want to see you!They need to see they people they are going to be doing business with. A faceless narrator and pretty pictures are not going to cut it.

We understand that not everyone is going to be great on camera, but a great video producer and director will be able to help you through the process and the editing process means only the best bits will be used.

2. Tell Your Story

Why do you do what you do? What made you get into your line of work? What was the 'A-Ha!' moment that made you start your business?

Those are just a few of the ways you can frame your story, but it's important to share how your business came about because it weaves you into the community. Your story, even if you're a new business, should demonstrate how you've always been part of the community or been working on the problem your product or service is looking to solve. Your story should establish that you've got a history that started well before a new customer first found you. Again, people prefer to buy from people they know, and establishing your story is a great way to get them to feel like they know you.

3. Get Customers in on the Act

This point blends the first two points a bit. Ideally, you want to have stand-alone client testimonial videos on your website that serve as word-of-mouth referrals. But don't forget to include them in your About Us video as well. A few well-placed statements from happy clients will only help you build trust and help enhance your story.

4. Show Off

But not in a braggy way. Make sure your production company is going to get high quality, well-lit shots of your store, your products, and your staff in action.

An tried-and-true adage in film and video storytelling is 'Show! Don't Tell!' Don't tell us you have great customer service; show it with smiling staff members helping clients! You video production company can help you create scenarios that will look and feel natural.

So, there are four ways that you can focus your effort into a stellar About Us video for your company or organization's website. If you can blend those elements into your video, you'll take a big step forward in converting website visitors into customers.

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Patrick Kirk

No one knows the exact day Patrick Kirk was born, because he was carried into town by a pack of wild coyotes, but the end of March seems to have some consensus built around it. The townsfolk hadn’t much need for a coyote-raised wild boy seein’ as they already had a town idiot. So, they set Patrick off with the next traveling circus that rolled through town. It was there that the young boy learned of books and math and writing and other cultural offerings from Martha, the kindly old bearded lady, and her husband, Harold, the world’s tallest midget. In between shows, he would explore each new town, never having the chance to make friends with children his age, mostly because they didn’t speak coyote… However, it was on one such trek in his later teen years that Patrick happened upon a small cinema playing an engagement of Major League II. From then on, he knew that he must dedicate his life to motion pictures. The members of the circus were sad to see him go, some angry calling cinema ‘beneath them’, but Patrick took his leave and headed off to university to study the filmic arts. Over nearly half a decade of study, Patrick learned from notables such as Fritz Kiersch, director of Children of the Corn, and Gray Fredrickson, producer of the Godfather Trilogy. Patrick has worked locally in the Oklahoma City market as a grip, camera operator, and editor. He has directed a number of short films and commercial projects and aspires to do more. When not in the editing suite or on set, Patrick can be found relaxing at local sporting events or playing a round of golf. He is particularly fond of poker and has been known to frequent the local casinos. Patrick also experiments with cooking and can make a mean batch of tacos. Among things he still would like to accomplish, Patrick hopes to fly to the moon one day and get into an old fashioned pistols at dawn duel; preferably both at the same time.