As a small business owner, your budget for marketing is advertising is most likely tight. Hence, the need to justify the funds you will be spending, no matter what the marketing strategy you later settle for. There are a host of marketing strategies these days, making it increasingly difficult for small businesses to determine which would produce the best ROI for them. A Review42 study says that 83% of businesses admitted to video providing a good return on investment.
As a small business owner, it is highly important that you take advantage of developing trends and stay woke to the most current methods and marketing strategies used by businesses. One of such is video marketing.
It is a relatively new, yet fast-developing tactic employed by businesses of all sizes. Video marketing provides an engaging and relatable avenue for small businesses to relate with their customers and consequently increase online presence and sales.
Video marketing has carved out a niche for itself as one of the most effective content marketing strategies – if not the most important – and has produced loads of benefits for small businesses that have embraced it.
Did you know that YouTube is only second to Google as the most popular site on the web? This spells how important videos are in general.
The idea that video helps in lead conversions is further buoyed by a study that says nearly 50% of Internet users look for videos related to a product before proceeding to a physical store to get it.
Videos have shown to be great tools in improving website design social media marketing, email marketing and indeed any other marketing channel.
There is a long list of ways video marketing can help your small business. Let us have a look.
When at your local store, it is easy to convince customers to buy your products by presenting to them its values. This is, however, more difficult online. When selling via the internet, the absence of that potent face-to-face interaction can make selling pretty much tricky.
It is at this junction that videos come in. Visual content, especially videos, do a great job at compelling prospects to buy your products. They surely do better than written content online.
These days, customers would rather see your product in action that read long descriptive texts. If you’re introducing a new product, make use of product demos to show to prospective customers how it works and its benefits in general.
Videos can help you tell a relatable story to your customers, hence, humanizes your brand. People relate better with your brand when you share with them the details of how the business came about.
Can you still remember that video ad that caught your attention from when you were a kid? That is what captivating videos do to their viewers. 80% of users recollect a video ad they saw in the last 30 days. It is genuinely mind-intriguing how exciting ads create memories in the minds of viewers.
It is undoubtedly true that most of these viewers cannot say the same for the blog they read or come across. Not even the most catchy headlines stick like videos.
In a crowded and noisy online world, making outstanding videos single you out and put you on a higher pedestal.
Mobile users have a longer attention span than desktop users. While desktop users tend to only watch videos for a minute or two, mobile users have a longer attention span at 2.4 to 5 minutes, depending on the device. 90% of customers watch videos on their mobile.
Consequently, as a small business owner, you should pay more attention to the mobile audience. In doing so, you do not only get the attention of several customers who can spare more time watching your videos, but you also prove to them that you always keep yourself abreast of trends and care about their experience when they pay a visit to your site.
Creating and publishing mobile-optimized videos can ultimately lead to an increase in consumer’s trust of your small business and hence, improve sales.
For the most part, online marketing methods would usually need you to tailor your strategy to suit the demographic you’re trying to reach. Things like age, sex, and social status would usually influence the tone, language, and context of your content.
Demographics would usually also influence where you share your content. Take, for example, teenagers and content would often be more inclined to content shared on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat since they mostly use these social media platforms.
This isn’t the case for videos. Videos fit just fine into every demographic. Everyone loves videos. Even Google!
Using videos, your content can reach its audience, no matter the demographics. In the case that you pivot your business and its target audience shifts, you need not worry about building your presence on an entirely new platform. There is a high chance that your new demographic would still respond to your videos, just like the old ones did.
Videos allow small businesses to reach their target audience in a quick, personalized manner, and the more creative the messages passed across are, the more likely the videos will be shared by users from different demographics.
Adding videos to your emails can increase your click rates by 300%. Embedding video in your emails can improve your mails in numerous ways. It increases the open rates by 5.6% and click-through rates by 96%.
The videos you embed in your emails need not be complicated or feature special effects. The simplex of them all can do the magic you need.
Video tracking would help you determine what kinds of content to embed in your emails. Tracking would help you see how users interacted with the video (opens, replays, etc.).
The videos could just feature a simple message saying thanks to your customers or highlighting an upcoming sale or promo.
Ever heard the phrase, Google love videos? This saying stems from the fact that you’re 53 times more likely to show up first on Google if you have a video embedded in your website.
Video increases the overall time spent by internet users on your website. This dwell time by internet users indicates to Google that your site has quality, valuable content that internet users would love to see. Consequently, your website’s rank on Google’s search engine is increased. Videos can help your small business’ website rank higher for keywords than you would ordinarily consider possible using traditional SEO.
That said, fetching traffic and improving your Google ranking isn’t only down to just making videos. You should put descriptions, tags, and titles. Make sure they are creative and that your descriptions highlight the content of the video embedded in your website.
This, in turn, helps to add backlinks so that interested customers can trace their way back to your website.
Emotions are contagious. It is for this reason that the small businesses which become great are those which owners show so much passion about their work and hence attract attention from their local communities.
There’s no better way to let this infectious passion get through to your prospects than through videos. Let your videos reflect your brand and personality. Use them to your advantage and help these prospects feel like they are a part of your small business.
This way, they stay loyal to your brand and remain customers!
With so many marketing campaigns out there backed by colossal funding and whatnot, it can seem a bit difficult for small businesses to stand out. You can imprint your name on the minds of leads by featuring articles on topics that interest the audience.
Since nobody wants to feel like they’re being sold to, great small businesses become successful because they produce content that satisfies their customers and prospects.
You can become an authority in your industry simply by educating your audience on several topics, and there’s no better way to do so than through videos. Your mannerisms and gesticulating will do better than writing in dishing out evocative contents.
For small business owners, trust in your brand can go a long way. Videos help connect you and your audience in a more personal way than against other forms of content. It allows the viewer to get to know the face behind your small business, your personality, and style, getting them to like you, and finally trust you.
They promote brand awareness, improve online presence, boost engagement, build trust, and humanize a brand. However, its ultimate benefit for small businesses is creating sales, and it does just that.
It is indeed a vital tool in the hands of small businesses and can help them compete favorably with the bigs in the industry.