It is estimated that the average person will spend close to an hour and a half per day watching online videos in 2021.
With people consuming so much video content, it’s no surprise that video marketing has exploded in popularity. 86% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool. Moreover, when asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, 69% of consumers prefer to watch a short video.
Benefits of Using Videos in Your Marketing
As a small-to-medium size business, you’ll find that incorporating video into your local marketing strategy provides many significant benefits.
Grow Brand Awareness
YouTube is the second most visited website in the USA (and Facebook is number six). Furthermore, people are two times more likely to share videos than any other type of content. By publishing video content on these platforms, you can get your business in front of thousands of viewers every day. You can also optimize your videos for local search (via keywords and location tagging) to ensure your video appears before the right audience.
Improve Website Traffic Quality
Due to user demand, various studies have shown that search engines seem to prioritize relevant video content. For instance, Google has an entire Featured Snippet dedicated to video. Embedding a video on your web page can also help reduce bounce rate, keeping people on your website for a longer period of time.
Make Selling Easier
Video content can be an incredibly effective way to showcase your business and convince people to make a transaction, According to a 2021 study, 84% of respondents said that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.
8 Smart Tips for Creating Videos
As part of the ongoing Digital Transformation, video making has become more accessible to small business owners. Gone are the days of needing expensive equipment and complicated, specialty editing programs. That said, a lot still goes into ensuring your videos are providing value to your audience. Here are some smart tips for creating and publishing video content for your business.
Plan Your Video
Before you record anything, it’s important to consider how video will fit into your marketing plan and the role video content can play for each part of your customer journey. When planning a new video, think about your target audience and business goals. For instance, do you want to increase brand awareness? Launch a new product? Once you know what the video will be about, come up with a list of points you want to cover to make sure you stay on track during filming and editing.
Be Authentic
Reading straight from a script can make your video sound artificial and stilted – which can be a turn-off for viewers. Think about a good presenter. They don’t read straight from their notes or slides. Rather, they prepare their speech beforehand, so they know what points they want to hit, but then they engage with their audience in a conversational way. Do the same with your video.
Record a Continuous Video
Don’t restart recording after each stutter or “um”. This wastes a lot of time and will get you off track. Instead, keep recording and repeat what you wanted to say. You can then cut out the mistakes during editing.
Get the Audio Right
Your phone is an incredibly powerful video creation tool, but it’s a good idea to enhance the audio a bit. Fortunately, there are now plenty of affordable mic options available on the market.
Think about the Backdrop
Before you hit record for real, look at a quick test clip to check the camera positioning, angle, lighting, etc. Depending on your budget, you might want to invest in a basic lighting system. This can be as simple as three clamp lights which you can place around your video subject. When picking a background, you want something that has a little visual appeal, but without being too distracting.
Start with Basic Editing Software
When you’re first getting started, edit your video using free software available on your phone, Mac, or PC. If you’re posting to YouTube, you can also make use of their built-in video editor. You might want to add background music or text overlay to your video, so make sure these features are supported in whatever program or app you use.
Include Your Business Logo
As with any other form of marketing, you want to include your branding in your video content. This can be done by adding your business logo as a watermark. You can also include other types of information, such as reminding people to share and subscribe or your social media handles.
How to Use Videos in Your Marketing
7 Types of Videos to Create for Your Local Business
There are many kinds of videos you can create depending on your marketing goals. Here are seven types of videos that will be particularly useful to (and easily made by) small businesses.
- Brand Videos: Brand videos provide an overview of your business, showing your high-level vision, mission, as well as products and services. They usually have a goal of persuading your audience to see your business in a positive light and consider you for their needs.
- Customer Testimonial Videos: Customers can be powerful ambassadors for your business, especially within your local community. It’s why it’s so important to have good online reviews. A video where a customer describes their experience with your business in their own words can help persuade prospects who are on the fence by providing a relatable point of view.
- Case Study Videos: Case study videos are a great way to demonstrate how your product can solve a viewer’s specific issue. It provides a real-world example of a challenge faced by one of your customers and walks viewers through what your business did to solve the problem.
- How-to Videos: You can use instructional videos to assist viewers by answering questions and instructing them on how to do something. They are a great way to build the foundational knowledge prospects need to better understand your business and solutions.
- Explainer Videos: The purpose of explainer videos is to help describe the unique attributes of a particular product or service in a short amount of time. Generally, they use a fictional example of your ideal buyer persona to breakdown seemingly complicated or abstract concepts around your business offering.
- 360° Videos: 360° videos let viewers navigate around a scene, helping them experience a location or event as though they were there. They can also give prospects a sense of what it’s like to use your product or service. 360° videos are particularly well-suited for sharing things like tours, test drives, special events, and other unique experiences.
- Personalized Follow-Up Videos: Lead nurture, customer communications, etc., can all be enhanced with a well-made personalized video message. This kind of video should contain information and details that are relevant to your prospect or customer. For instance, a short video conveying a thank-you message, or giving personalized recommendations for addressing a pain point a customer has mentioned to you.
Where to Use Your Videos
Here are some of the ways you can use your videos online, so that your audience can start viewing, sharing, and engaging with them.
- YouTube: As previously mentioned, YouTube has a massive audience. It’s free to create a channel, so you can start building a dedicated audience of subscribers. YouTube also offers a host of useful features to optimize videos for search.
- Website: Adding video content is a great way to enhance your website. For instance, you can include a customer testimonial or 360° video on a related product or service page.
- Blog: Adding video content is a good way to change up your blog and keep your regular audience engaged. You can also share snippets from blog videos on social to drive more traffic.
- Google My Business: This is one of the most important tools to have in your marketing toolbox, and adding videos to your Google listing can help your business appear in more searches across Google search results.
- Social Media: Video posts often get the most organic reach on social media. Just be careful to follow best video practices for each platform. For instance, you should upload videos directly to Facebook instead of sharing a YouTube link.
- Email Campaigns: Email is an ideal channel for sharing more targeted content, such as explainer videos or personalized videos.
- Paid Ads: In addition to posting on your brand account, you can also run paid video ads on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to increase your reach within target audience segments.
Request a Demo of the Surefire Local Marketing Platform
The Surefire Local Marketing Platform can help small businesses easily incorporate video into their local search and paid advertising campaigns. From a single place, you can publish new video content to your website, blog, and social media channels. You’re also able to view engagement metrics to determine the content that resonates most with customers, and set up alerts when someone mentions your business.
Book your free demo today to see how Surefire Local can take your video marketing efforts to the next level!