What can small businesses do to stand out from the big players?
Small businesses often face challenges such as limited resources, but they also benefit from their ‘smallness’. One way they have an advantage over monolithic brands is that they don’t create an impersonal impression the way large businesses do. They are agile and can make a closer connection with their audience more easily.
Businesses need to leverage their strengths and to reach out to their audience effectively. In this post, we’re going to look at how to do that with video marketing.
The reason why video marketing needs to be a key effort by small businesses is that technology has transformed how people consume content.
Mobile phones and the internet are prevalent today and video content is the easiest content format to use on mobile. It’s also the most engaging.
Here are some video marketing statistics for you to consider:
- More than 70% of all YouTube videos are consumed via mobile
- 87% of video marketers say that video marketing increases traffic. Another 80% find that video marketing increases sales
- People view an average of 16 hours of online video per week
- 84% of people have been convinced to buy a product because of a brand video
There are many more reasons showcasing why video marketing matters. It’s essential for you to make it a significant part of your marketing efforts.
Types of Videos to Make
Now, let’s explore the kinds of videos you can create and to what effect. When planning your video marketing, you need to think about the different goals you’d like to achieve and how videos can make them happen.
Here are a few different ways to create videos that will work for different goals.
Instructions and Product Demonstrations
For many people, a video is the only way to understand how to use a product and solve their problems. When you create videos showing users how to practically work with your solutions, you achieve several things.
- Users understand how to use your solution which leads to higher conversions
- They find it easier to consume your content
- It creates an SEO signal that can boost traffic to your site since search engines will give users videos for ‘how-to’ searches and for queries that need a practical demonstration
- It will build trust and authority for your brand since you’ll provide a solution to important problems
Product videos and instructionals are necessary to provide support to your customers and to land more conversions. Make them an important feature on your website.
Social Proof Videos
Building trust online isn’t easy because your audience can’t make use of a physical location or real-life interactions to determine your product’s usefulness.
You can overcome the initial reluctance and trepidation that people feel when learning about a business for the first time with social proof. Social proof shows your audience that other people are happy with your business. And this will help them bridge the gap between doubt and trust in your business. Here are two ways to use videos to do that.
Ask for testimonials: Getting a video testimonial from your current customers will add a face, a name, and a real-life example of how your brand can positively impact people. It can engage viewers and give them clear evidence that your business is legitimate.
Add user-generated content: People often share their experiences with your brand or product on social media. This is a source of user-generated content for your website and social media platforms. All you have to do is find content using your brand hashtag and see what people are saying about your business. You can feature videos on your site and on other platforms to showcase how real people are benefiting from your product.
Educational Content
This is different from product and instructional videos since you’ll address topics related to your industry or your target audience’s issues.
Educational videos serve you in a few different ways.
Authority: When you create video lessons and explain important concepts or solutions to problems in your industry, you can become a thought leader. You’ll stand out as someone to listen to and will gain recognition online as an authority.
Community: People are online looking for real and helpful information. By creating educational content that answers questions, you’ll build a community that looks forward to learning more.
SEO signals: With more engagement and by becoming an online authority-figure, you’ll boost your credibility online, getting better signals from search engines.
It’s clear that educational content will create goodwill and increase your audience size.
Videos for Social Media
People are on social media to get entertained. They spend hours every week if not every day browsing through video content. This is a significant and active platform that you need to be present on.
This is something you already know. But what’s really important is that you feature video content as a regular part of your content plan.
Today, Facebook and Instagram have taken after Snapchat and offer ‘Stories’ as a major feature. Stories are truly different because they make use of the virtual orientation to create content, making use of the way a mobile phone is built.
They are easy to use and extremely popular with Millennials. Stories last for just 24 hours before they disappear and create a compelling desire to view them.
As a business, you can use Stories to achieve your organizational goals. You can improve conversion rates by creating the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Since Stories appear for just 24 hours, adding an offer or a discount instantly creates a sense of urgency. This creates a psychological effect that can compel people to sign up, buy your solution, or follow you online.
Use Emotion to Drive Engagement
As a business, you might think that you need to create content that’s professional and formal. However, that’s just not effective and relatable, especially to your younger market. You need to make sure that your video content isn’t ‘cold’ and that it reaches people by creating emotions.
Viral content is often correlated with emotion, especially positive or complex emotions. Here are a few examples of how you can create emotional video content to excite users and generate shares.
Behind the scenes: One way to create curiosity and excitement is to create a behind the scenes video. You can feature your business, your staff, and the work you do. This can be informative and also lets our audience feel like you’re sharing something intimate and special.
Social causes: If your business has a link to social causes, then it’s the perfect way to build credibility, share positive news, and build heightened goodwill.
Also, remember to add humor as a significant way to create entertainment and to win people’s attention. By leveraging emotions, you’ll get better engagement on all platforms, which will lead to better business performance.
Conclusion
What’s great about the widespread availability of mobile phones and the internet is that it gives businesses many opportunities to reach people.
There’s no need for a high-end production set up to create videos today. All you need is a smartphone and a clear plan.
You need to focus on really connecting with your audience with videos. Is your content informative? Does it engage them by sparking emotions?
Just make sure that your answers are ‘Yes’ and that you’re producing video content regularly. With the tips given here, you’ll be able to boost your video marketing and your business growth too.
video marketing concept -DepositPhotos
