Did you know that about 72% of consumers would rather learn about products or services through videos?
More than 84% of people have been convinced to purchase brand products and services simply by watching brand videos. This in itself makes it imperative for you to capitalise on video marketing to grow your small business.
It gets better because, in 2022, videos are predicted to take up as much as 82% of consumer internet traffic. Now, the daunting part still remains. How do you start video marketing in such a saturated market, and how do you come up on top?
We’re going to address all the basics of video marketing that you must know to advance and grow your small business, so keep reading.
The Importance of Video Marketing for Your Small Business
The video marketing statistics we just mentioned above are solid proof that video is a powerful medium when it comes to promoting your small business. It’s no wonder then that video has become such an important part of the digital marketing campaign.
Using video as a part of your online marketing strategy can result in increased brand awareness, website traffic, and sales.
Additionally, video also helps to create an emotional connection with your target audience, which can be especially beneficial if you’re looking to build a loyal customer base.
How Video Marketing Works
Before starting video marketing, you need to understand how it works. Video marketing can be used in a number of ways. The most common are creating awareness about your product or service, generating leads, increasing brand loyalty, driving website traffic, and converting website visitors into customers.
Each video you create should have a specific goal in mind. When creating your video, keep in mind your target audience, brand’s voice and style, and what you want the viewer to do after watching the video.
Once you know what your goal is, it becomes much easier to craft videos that help achieve it. If your goal is to increase brand loyalty, you might create a video that showcases how your product or service has helped others improve their lives.
If your goal is website traffic, you might focus on creating funny or interesting videos that people want to share.
Types of Videos You Can Use for Marketing Your Small Business
Given all these benefits video provides, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if we say that video can really help grow your small business exponentially in time. What types of videos work best? Let’s take a look at some examples:
- Product Videos
- Customer Testimonial Videos
- Explainer Videos
- Event Recap Videos
- Behind the Scenes Videos
- Company overview videos
- Brand awareness videos
Just to be clear, video doesn’t have to mean professionally-produced videos with expensive equipment. With the advent of smartphones and affordable handheld devices, you can now create decent quality videos even on a budget.
Video Strategies for Small Businesses
Start by explaining what your business does. This is especially important if you’re targeting new customers who might not be familiar with your product or service.
An explainer video is perfect for this and can help increase conversions by showing people how your company can benefit them. A video featuring customer testimonials is also an excellent way to show potential customers that others have had a good experience with your product or service. It also helps build trust and credibility.
From here, host video contests or giveaways. These serve a great purpose in getting people interested in your video content, while also driving traffic to your website or social media profiles.
Overall, use video as a part of your marketing strategy. Rather than just using video as a standalone tactic, use it to supplement other online marketing strategies for best results. For example, if you’re running an email campaign, include a video in the email that encourages subscribers to watch it.
How to Create Videos That Convert
Now that we’ve established the importance of video marketing, it’s time to learn how to create videos that convert. The first step is understanding what makes a video successful. Here are some factors to keep in mind.
To begin with, the video should be relevant to your target audience, high quality, and professional looking. The video content should be interesting and engaging, and the video should be short and concise. The video should be about your business and what you offer, so try to explain what you do in a clear and concise way.
You can also use customer testimonials or case studies to help illustrate your point. Now, creating videos doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. In fact, there are many ways you can create high-quality videos without breaking the bank.
You can always use your smartphone for video recording if you’re on a tight budget.
For video editing, use various online tools like Animoto or Adobe Spark Video, then post your videos on your website or various platforms. If you have the budget, hire a professional videographer to create the videos for you.
Video Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
Now that we’ve discussed video marketing strategies for small businesses, let’s look at some tools you can use to help produce and promote your videos. Here are a few popular options.
YouTube
This video-sharing website is the second largest search engine in the world and one of the best ways to get your videos seen by a large audience. With consumers watching over five billion videos daily, you can never go wrong here.
Vimeo
A video-sharing site that allows you to host HD video content, upload video easily from mobile devices. You can share video content privately with specific groups or individuals.
Wistia
An integrated video platform for businesses looking to build their brand through engaging and high-quality marketing videos. It provides analytics tools so you can track how many people are watching your videos and where they’re coming from.
Animoto
Another online tool that allows users to create animated slideshows using photos and video clips, then add music tracks and transitions. It also offers video marketing services for small businesses who want to create video ads and share them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Snagit
This is an online screen capture and annotation tool that allows users to create videos through the simple process of recording their screens during live demos or tutorials, then add custom captions and annotations directly onto those videos, so they’re easy to follow along with at a glance due to visual cues.
The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing for Small Businesses
These are just some of the video marketing strategies you can use to promote your small business. Remember, video marketing isn’t something that should be taken lightly. It requires time and effort to get results. Once you start doing video content consistently, it becomes much easier over time.
If you need help creating a strong video marketing strategy, please get in touch with us today!