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Are you ready to spread the word about your business to the world and thinking of using video for marketing your product or service? A steady 86% of businesses plan to use video content marketing as a tool to generate leads, hire new employees and increase sales. A whopping 92% of marketers state video marketing is an important part of their marketing strategy.
In this article, we dive into how a video marketing strategy can help your business and which types of video marketing have the most impact. No matter the goal of your business at the moment, this article will simplify why video is important for business and how you can get started using video marketing as a tool to increase brand awareness and conversion rates with high user engagement.
Why is video important for business?
Video marketing is important for business as it captures the attention of the viewer longer and more thoroughly than copy or image marketing. Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook prioritize video above image ads. It requires less effort from the user to watch the video and, in some cases, a 15-second video is all you need to draw a viewer in — more on that later.
Since the launch of Vine in 2013, influencers have created millions of hours of footage within the 6-second time frame to promote their personal brand. In the same year popular music artist, Daft Punk, used a Vine video to release the tracklist of their new album Random Access Memories. It wasn’t long after that, that other brands used Vine, and later on, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Tik-Tok, to promote their products and services. YouTube has been around for years and accept the long-form of video ranging from a couple of seconds to 10+ hours of video and audio. Since Google bought YouTube in 2006, videos posted on the social channel can drive high traffic as it increases your Google search ranking and doesn’t require a landing page to rank.
Using video to increase brand awareness is a cheap medium to advertise your business. Many mobile devices have fantastic cameras (think about the Cinematic mode on iPhones), and offer video editing apps to make the video production process from shooting to sharing, seamless. As we’ve learned above, Vine started out with 6 seconds, Instagram had 15 seconds, and Snapchat only 10 seconds. You don’t need to create a long video with a professional camera to get a message to your target audience and those watching.
Types of video marketing
The goal of your marketing department will determine the type of video marketing you’ll use. The constant increase in the number of smartphone users makes video marketing even more accessible as almost all social media channels have mobile apps. In 2021, viewers using mobile devices accounted for more than 50% of traffic to websites. Below, we explain 4 types of video content we see and work with most often:
Explainer videos
Explainer videos are used as educational content for both potential customers and current clients. If you’re a SaaS company, for example, educational content like a video is a great way to show how your software product works. Not only does it show potential customers the layout and design of the software they’re looking to purchase, an explainer video also assists current clients with troubleshooting and educating their teams. These videos can be shared on YouTube to increase search rankings and don’t forget to have the video embedded onto the website. By creating longer videos, like product videos with an explanation will help you decrease your bounce rate and increase a conversion rate. Marketing campaigns that explain a product or service with video builds the confidence of those watching making visitors more likely to fill out a form or add to cart.
Spot videos
These short videos are often 10 to 15 seconds long and perfectly fit into the YouTube ad space, and Instagram and SnapChat’s 15-second stories. Your video marketing strategy should include a couple of these videos highlighting benefits of your small business to new customers while spreading brand awareness. Spot videos are also often preferred by social feeds increasing your chances of reaching new customers and increasing shares while working on your small business’ social proof. By creating short, quality content, your brand can create meaningful product videos to not only live on social channels but on websites too.
Customer testimonials
Customer testimonials are a great content marketing tool for small businesses to educate customers and increase conversion rates. Instead of a small business only marketing products and services, testimonials and case studies in the form of video marketing are a fantastic way to personalize a brand. People relate to other people, not words and stock imagery so the next time you work on your marketing strategy, include customer testimonials to the content creation list. Be sure to tag the customer on social media to increase the chance of them sharing the video with their friends and followers.
Company culture videos
This type of video marketing is perfecto to showcase your employees, what makes them tick and shows the emphasis your business places on a healthy company culture. If you’re looking to hire more people in your teams, a video is a quick way to showcase the great things about your company. Giving viewers an insight into your business fosters long-term relationships and gives potential buyers the confidence to invest in your products. Do you allow dogs in the office, are you 100% remote and embracing a work-life balance, use technology to streamline operations or want to highlight team members’ hobbies outside of work? A video is the way to go!
We hope you’ve learned more about how video marketing can help your business and why it’s so important for your small business. If you want to step up your video game, consider reaching out to a full-service digital marketing agency that offers comprehensive social media optimization services. They’ll have an abundance of resources and technology ready to help you get the best ROI, increase conversion rates, and spread brand awareness.
