What type of marketing videos do craft companies use and how do you create something close to the same on your limited budget? Let's take a look at a few examples and dissect these videos to get an idea of how they feature product images.

The slide show type video is one of the easiest and low cost marketing video because it only requires some product images and background music. You don't need to pay an actor to read a script or create a voice over.

However, if your budget can afford some extras, you might want to include some video clips of the product and add a narrative over the background music.

Let's take a look at some YouTube examples from various craft and hobby companies.

Carlson Craft

A well established company for wedding and stationary printing, Carlson Craft offers many beautiful stationary products for weddings and other occasions. Each of their "Trending" marketing videos are a simple slide show type, featuring their beautiful product images and background music. The still images in their videos show their stationary along with matching accessories in a themed or styled display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWrRXTrPhYg

Michaels Stores

Michaels Stores has several types of marketing videos on their YouTube channel. One that really caught my attention was their "Explore Our Holiday Decor Guide" from 2013. This video features the still images from their catalog. This is a great way to reuse content, as the images from the print catalog are reused in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51HjGCvq1go

Yankee Candle Company

I love candles and Yankee Candle has captured the ambiance of their candles in their videos. Their "New Year, New Pure Radiance" video is a simple 15 seconds video clip of a lighted burning candle with background music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFdMDfjT1U

On thing that these marketing videos have in common is the large sized product images. As most YouTube videos are created at a 1280 x 720 HD resolution, the images must be larger than 1280 x 720. You will notice that these still images don't just stay static on the screen. The animation of the images is created using the Ken Burns effect. This slow panning and zooming effect is created by moving the still image across the screen or changing the zoom level on the screen. As you would expect, in order for a still image to be moved across a 1280 x 720 pixel screen and not end in showing an empty area, that image must be much larger than the screen. If you are considering using product photos in a slide show marketing video, set your camera accordingly.