Online video has been used effectively for a while as a marketing and promotional tool by businesses both large and small, no matter what niche or industry they are in.
Sites such as YouTube, Vine and Instagram are readily available and simple to use which makes it easier for small businesses and entrepreneurs to reach potential customers quickly and affordably.
Whatever your market is, video gives you lots more opportunities to expand your brand by gaining it visibility and establishing credibility within your niche. Establishing a good video marketing strategy should be one of your goals if you want to target a wider, global audience.
To give you a clearer picture of video marketing and why it’s such a powerful promotion strategy for your business, let’s break down it’s main features:
- It is cheap and easy to get started. Online videos require very little investment to create. Essentially what you need are a web-cam (or your smartphone) and a YouTube account and you are ready to go.
- Online video allows you to convey strong, compelling messages, establishes credibility and enhances your trustworthiness. People are much more likely to trust you and relate to you when they can see you and hear your voice. It establishes trust and loyalty.
- Like social media, online video allows you to make a stronger personal connection to your clients and prospects, making sure you build a personal connection even before you meet them face-to-face.
- It’s very good for your search engine rankings. According to a study conducted by Forrester Research, a stronger presence on YouTube can get you higher rankings because video has up to 50 times better chances than plain text to get to the top of search rankings.
All this makes online video the best solution for when you want to increase awareness for both you and your product, as well as accelerate the sales process.
So now that you can see the benefits of video marketing, you might be wondering how video can be used on your business. Let’s quickly go over main business uses for video:
- Website: The home page of your website needs a welcome video. This is where you explain the who, what and why statements, making sure the visitor gets all the relevant information regarding your business and how it can help them.
- The sales page: In addition to crafting effective plain text on your sales page, you also need video if you want to get more conversions of visitors into buyers.
- Blog: Just as you use your blog to provide product reviews, expert tips and so on, you can turn the blog into a Vlog (or video blog) and create video that offers useful information such as explaining products and services, sharing tips, etc.
- Product demonstration: Just about all businesses use video when introducing a new product to the market as a way to introduce the consumer to the product and demonstrate its usefulness and features.
- Video e-mail: You can turn your messages into a video postcard by including video (or a link to a video) in the e-mails, and in the process engages your subscribers.
- Client testimonials: These can be very effective in business. Ask your clients and/ or colleagues to create video testimonials for you.
- Tutorials: These are important for when consumers need step by step instructions on how to use specific products and services. They have a high conversion ratio.
- Video coaching: Lots of large companies use video to enhance service delivery and the trick is to make the sessions more interactive, personal and dynamic. Keep the viewer interested in what you’re saying.
The Benefits of Video Marketing
Now that you have a better idea as to what video marketing is, let’s take a look at the benefits in more depth.
We’ll look at how exactly video benefits your business, and tips on how to get in on the action but first though, here are some interesting statistics on video.
- YouTube is the second most popular search engine, right after Google, which of course owns YouTube.
- YouTube gets more than 4 billion views per day
- Over 80% of marketing executives include video content on their marketing strategies
- Online video accounts for more than 50% of all mobile traffic
- Just about everyone watches online video everyday
Looking at these statistics, you can see why video content is such a crucial element of your marketing efforts. Let’s look at some other ways online video benefits both large and small businesses:
- Video is easily searchable. Consumers are always looking for products and services. Where do they look? More than likely, they conduct an online search. Search results can be affected by your social media presence, where your official social network pages act as an entry point to your website. YouTube is the second most widely used search engine and popular videos get high rankings on Google rankings. Other elements such as graphics, photos, Twitter, LinkedIn and other similar networks are also searchable but you’ll have more customers coming in from your YouTube videos.
- Video makes it easier to share your brand or service. About 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute. This can make or break your business, depending on viewer sentiment. Video sharing is an integral part of social media and this can have a tremendous impact on your brand’s visibility if used properly. Majority of the videos shared from YouTube are short, fun and informative; and they pull in droves of web traffic to the respective websites, leading to growth.
- It levels the playing field. Traditional TV advertising is very expensive; which is why it is reserved for the larger more established companies or organizations. But online video can be accessed and used by anyone, regardless of the size of their marketing budget. The trick is to be more creative and target your audience more specifically.
- Real-time feedback and interaction. A lot of people leave comments on videos, which is an excellent way to learn more about your consumers. When you create videos that captivate and present the viewers an interactive platform to post views or comments, you’re basically giving the consumers a voice; allowing them to pinpoint specific areas of your business that require improvement. In the process you gain a lot of useful information about tastes, likes and preferences, and you learn to engage with your audience.
- Video is easily measurable. Analytics exist in the form of simple tools you can access online and they do a great job of measuring every aspect of the video marketing campaign. You need to know which videos are getting good views, which aren’t and how the views translate into new customers. There are dozens of nifty tools available for measuring video analytics and they should help you get a more accurate report on the performance of each video.
- Videos don’t expire. The videos you upload on YouTube will play a part on your marketing strategy for a much longer time than other forms of content.
- Video is always one click away from the BUY button. 34% of apparel shoppers are likely to purchases after viewing an ad online: only about 16% of consumers make a purchase after watching an ad on TV. When properly set up, online video allows a consumers to quickly access your product or service by following links to your website or sales page, where they can make a purchase. TV viewers typically have to log on to the site using a separate device in order to make a purchase, which undermines the effectiveness of TV adverting in relation to online video.
- Videos engage with your audience. When a consumer stops by your website and watches a video they usually stay a little longer than intended, which is one of the main reasons video is used in every part of the marketing campaign. Every video on your website should captivate the viewer and have them spend more on your services or products. Even simple ‘how to’ videos can have a great impact on sales provided you keep the content customer oriented.
- Video is about selling. Or at least it should be. Far too many people miss out on opportunities by uploading videos that are either so boring they put the customer to sleep, or ones that are so vague they leave the customer completely confused. Another interesting scenario is where marketers focus so much on creating entertaining videos that ultimately they miss the bottom line. Remember you’re trying to sell, don’t focus entirely on entertainment, and instead try to communicate clearly, and make sure the customers know exactly what they’re support to purchase and how.
Mobile video brings with it more opportunities for short, funny videos to advertise their products. 30-second mobile videos have an 83 completion rate according to Rhythm Insights. More involvement has to be centered on mobile video so you can find new ways to get people talking, sharing, and more importantly, buying your products.
Hopefully, you can see why your business needs to embrace video marketing. It is a very powerful marketing tool. Faster Internet speeds, and faster lives in general, mean that video is one of the dominant ways in which people want to digest information, whether that be on a desktop, tablet or mobile device.
Using the power of video in conjunction with other social media outlets to show your business off to the world has countless benefits and will have a huge impact on your online sales.
If this is a marketing strategy that you think will work well for your business why not contact us and see how we can help you to create a profitable video marketing campaign.