The importance of video marketing cannot be overstated in today’s world. It is the most engaging type of content marketing. Just think about it, YouTube gets over a billion unique viewers every month, which makes it the second website right after Facebook in terms of reach. And the same video can be easily posted on various social media platforms, including Twitter, Pinterest, or embedded in your own corporate blog and any other website.
Video marketing is the perfect way to establish a connection with your audience and warm up leads. People see the face of your company, hear the voice and see the style. Traditionally, video marketing was always a prerogative of mid and enterprise-level companies. And the reasons for this are quite simple: making a video is hard, time-consuming and costly.
Think of all the work and expenses that go into a corporate video: purchasing high-quality equipment, renting a studio, shooting a video, post production, animation, and so on. But over the past couple of years, video trends have changed a lot, letting small businesses step up and play this game.
Today, you can create an engaging video showing off your brand with just a smartphone. The audience got tired of typical advertising videos. Studio quality and flashy animations are no longer guaranteed ways to get a viral video. Some of YouTube’s largest stars are simple people who express their personality in an authentic way and therefore gain public approval. Authenticity is one of the greatest modern video marketing techniques for small and large businesses alike.
Ways to Use Video Marketing for Your Business
In order for any business to grow, it needs to win the loyalty of its audience. Small business is no exception, and in fact, such companies have sometimes even better chance to do so effectively, because they can employ a very focused approach. And ultimately, small businesses are much easier to relate to, when compared to large corporations, there is an element of authenticity that you can play with.
There are certain ways that stand the test of time and you can utilize video in your marketing campaign to grow business reach and engage with your audience. We’ll take a look at 3 of them.
Video on your landing page
Improving landing page conversion rates is always a priority, no matter how large or small your business is. The video is a simple and elegant way to introduce your brand and give customers a clear look at what you offer and why they should choose you over the competition.
Videos on a landing page can increase conversion rate by more than 80%, as was shown in the research by HubSpot.
But as always, personality is the key. You can take a look at some of the most popular YouTube vloggers or viral marketing campaigns and surprisingly you will not see Hollywood-level of quality. Users are mostly put off by videos that don’t explain the product enough. Mediocre quality isn’t something that leads to failure, it’s lack of authenticity. So, main video marketing techniques for small business will be establishing a connection with your audience.
Demos & tutorials
One of the benefits of video marketing for small businesses is the possibility to introduce your audience to your product through demos and tutorials. Especially if you have a unique product on your hands.
Sometimes it can be difficult to imagine how a product is supposed to work just by looking at screenshots or some stock photos. You can provide clear tutorials that show your product in action. Additionally, this will eliminate a lot of unnecessary customer service questions and save you time.
And what if demo and tutorials don’t apply to your business model? Not a problem. You can always demonstrate your working process and introduce the team that stands behind your product. Employ a storytelling aspect to make the video more engaging.
Share your story
People tend to identify with a brand, when there is a story behind it. It doesn’t have to be a particularly exciting one. Just sharing your vision and a dream as well as showing how you got to the place where you’re right now will be enough for people to see the person behind the product.
There are no concrete video marketing techniques that will guarantee your success in storytelling. There are your typical drama tricks and methods that you can employ, in order to make the video more compelling and properly structured. Pick up any 101 drama class and you’ll be able to create a cohesive story.
Benefits of Video Marketing for Business
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s move on to the main question. Why even bother with video marketing?
- Boost conversions and sales. As we’ve already mentioned briefly, videos tend to increase the conversion rate by a significant amount if done right. But it can also affect sales directly. Customers are more likely to buy a product if they’ve already seen it in action. This is why demo and “explainer” are so useful. These sorts of benefits shouldn’t come as a surprise to any marketer out there. If simple use of pictures can boost sales, why wouldn’t video do as well?
- SEO. Search engines are looking for content that users are engaging with, and videos contribute to longer pageviews. Uploading your video on YouTube in addition to your website will increase the visibility. You can go even further and promote video through social media, making your chances of getting found even higher.
- Mobile views. Video and mobile is a match made in heaven. Video views from mobile devices keep rising year after year. In addition to that, mobile viewers are more likely to watch ads and branded content and pay attention to it.
- Great ROI. Despite videos being one of the most expensive forms of content marketing, they show great returns on investment in both short and long run.
366 Degrees and Vidyard platforms
We have discussed how to approach video marketing and its benefits. Now let’s talk how you would implement it from the technical standpoint and integrate it with your overall marketing campaign.
366 Degrees is an application developed by OMI, designed with the purpose of helping small and midsized businesses automate and improve their online marketing. The app can be integrated with leading CRM platforms, including Salesforce and other platforms like Vidyard.
Vidyard is software that allows you to host and analyze video performance. A single interface includes all the tools necessary to manage video library. With the correct use of this software, your business will be empowered to turn videos into leads-generators and accelerate your pipeline. Using Vidyard for sales boost is only one possible option for small businesses. The software provides also features like transcription and captions, allowing you to reach an even broader audience abroad. And on top of that, you’ll receive SEO features that automatically create a sitemap to ensure proper indexing.
With 366 Degrees at your side, you can accelerate the growth of your organization by incorporating an efficient video marketing strategy together with other campaigns. And with powerful automation and analytics tools, you gain deep insights of campaign metrics with customized dashboards and reporting.