Wondering whether video marketing is worth thinking about and developing into your marketing strategy?
According to the Social Video Trends: Marketer Insights for 2020 report, video ads were the number one way consumers discovered a brand they later made a purchased from.
What is more, 94% of video marketers say that video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service.
If you’re considering using video marketing, these statistics will hopefully highlight why this is a development worth making. With 84% of people surveyed in this report saying brand videos convince them to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video, changing up your online marketing content by using video content is definitely worth your time, as it might be the key to unlocking a larger online audience and a significant boost in sales.
But, if you’ve never attempted video marketing before, you may be wondering where to start. If so, this blog will break down everything you need to know about getting started with video marketing. We will cover:
- What video marketing is,
- How you can create videos for your platforms,
- How and where to use videos for your business marketing.
What is video marketing, and what are the benefits?
Video marketing is the process of creating video content and sharing it with your consumers. Whilst the majority of your content is static (i.e – graphics and images), video content is engaging and interactive as your consumers are likely to be watching and listening rather than simply reading.
We’ll cover the endless options for using video content later on, but for now let’s consider the major advantages of using video in your marketing strategy. According to a report from HubSpot Research, over 50% of consumers would like to see videos from brands more than any other type of content. This highlights the necessity of video content in capturing your audience and showcasing the best of your business in a format that your consumers are engaged with.
What about the results? The tangible benefits of video marketing are clear: in this report, it transpired that 86% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic to their website, 84% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads, and 78% of marketers say video has directly helped to increase sales.
If we’ve convinced you to start using video content, read on to find out where to begin…
The creation process
Firstly, let’s think about what videos you may want to create. Here are our top five ideas to help you get started:
1. Introduction to your business:
If you’re a new business who has recently started trading, get your ideal customers on board by sharing an insight into who you are and why you’re on the market.
What are your business goals? What is your vision for the future? Why did you create your business? Where can people find out more about your business?
Creating video content around these ideas will give your customers the perfect introduction to you and your business. If you’re the business owner, why not be the face of the video, so people know who’s behind the business and you can instantly develop a connection with your consumers? Think about how you can create a relationship with your ideal audience and ultimately get them interested in you and your brand so they consider becoming a customer.
2. Meet the team:
Why not create a series which features all the people behind your business? As well as sharing more unique insights into your brand, these videos will contribute to the nurturing process between you and your customers so you can build more meaningful connections with them. This is with the intention of humanising your business and encouraging people to see you as a business with integrity that they can trust.
3. Spotlight a product/service:
This is a great option for when you launch a new product or service. Show the best of your brand by creating a slick, professional video showcase featuring the product/service that is new to your business, highlighting the main features, the production process, and why you believe people should care enough about your product/service to go ahead and find out more.
4. Demonstrate how something works:
Leading on from suggestion #2, you can also create a ‘how to’ series that showcases how your products/services work.
If you’re a product-based business, you’ll want these videos to act like an instruction manual. The videos will level up your marketing game as they make it super simple and easy for your audience to see how your products work, as it’s always more beneficial to the consumer to visualise how they should use your products rather than reading about it (this is especially the case if your products have a layer of complexity to their use).
If you’re a service-based business, why not create a montage-like video series of how your services operate? For example, if you run a spa business, you could take your audience through a typical spa-day programme or specific treatment, interviewing previous clients about their experiences and spotlighting the way your spa-days work. This gives a potential customer a great insight into what is in store for them and, if executed correctly, will hopefully encourage them to go ahead and book their spot!
5. Share a customer testimonial
Building on from the suggestion to interview previous clients about their experiences with your business, you could create an individual series about why they love your business. This is a great way to encourage more customers to join your community, as hearing about a positive experience from a consumer is always helpful when people make decisions about purchasing from and investing in a business.
If you’d like to know more about testimonials, check out this blog which has everything you need to know about finding and using them!
Using your video content for business marketing
You’ve created your videos and they’re ready for the world to see them – but where do you share them?
Before you decide where you will showcase your videos, have a think about your intended audience. Knowing who you’d like to market your videos to is the first stage in deciding where you think it is best to place them. Your intended audience may be active on social media, or they may turn to your website for updates on your brand; spend some time discovering where your audience interacts with you online through consumer research, and subsequently use this to figure out the best places to publish your video content.
Here’s a list of some of the places you can consider publishing your video content…
1. Social media:
The obvious choice for publishing your video content is social media. As 58% of consumers visit a brand’s social media pages before visiting their website, it is definitely worth prioritising your social media pages as the location of your video content.
Just as you create static content for your Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, why not switch up your content calendar and add video content to your feeds? Tweets with video are proven to attract 10 times more engagements than Tweets without video, and as only 15% of all Facebook content was video in 2020, there’s definitely a market for introducing more video content to your Facebook page.
2. Website:
The next place you may want to add your video content to is your website. Having videos across your website sets the precedent for what customers can expect from you: dedication, commitment and interaction. The videos are not necessarily a replacement for website copy, but merely compliment the text and add a visual aspect.
The homepage is a great place to add your ‘Introduction to your business’ video, as rather than reading lots of information, your audience will be able to sit back and learn about the business from the person who knows it the best: you.
3. Instagram stories:
Instagram stories are an excellent place to host your video creations. According to this report, 1 in 4 consumers made a purchase after seeing a story on Instagram. As approximately 60% of millennials publish or watch Instagram stories, they’re hugely popular. Stories are also the first thing people see when they click onto the Instagram homepage, so make sure to utilise the story feature by posting video content on there regularly.
4. Live streams:
Your video content does not solely have to be a video you film and create yourself as such; it can be any sort of video material, including live streams! Facebook live streams get double the engagement that pre-recorded video posts get, so why not spend some time planning a live series on your social media?
You could do many different live stream topics: interviews with business owners within your industry for mutual business promotion, discussions based on recent developments in your industry, or Q&A streams for your audience to ask you questions about your business and products/services.
Live streams are super interactive and allow you to chat to your audience directly whilst putting your brand in the public eye. They’re a fantastic opportunity to take your business that extra mile.
Final thoughts
Before you go ahead and create your amazing videos, take some time to think through these matters…
- Budget: If there is going to be a financial cost to your video creation strategy (i.e – if you’re interested in hiring a team to do this for you), think about this in advance and prepare for this so you know how much you can set aside to support your video creation.
- Deadline: Is there a specific time/date you’d like to start publishing your video content? If so, make this clear to the people who are managing this aspect of your business and ensure they can meet the deadline.
- Equipment: If you’re creating a video independently without the aid of a specialist team, you’ll need the correct equipment and software. Research the best camera and recording equipment to use, and think about how you’re going to edit the video. It’s definitely worth considering this in advance, as you need your videos to be of a professional quality if they are going to make a positive impact on your brand.
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Video content is a crucial element of any business marketing strategy; it gives you more exposure and allows you to take your brand in another direction online.
70% of businesses say they are creating more videos now compared to the same time last year, so don’t lose out on the opportunity to find more customers and boost your business sales!
Are you looking for help with your video content creation? Let us know what we can do to help by dropping us a message on our social media @WeAreCandescent!
Photo Credit: © Mateus Campos