In all likelihood, you’ve patrolled your own Instagram or Facebook feed in your personal time and noticed your favorite brands reaching out to followers through the method of video. Particularly from the perspective of a marketer yourself, it’s impossible to not recognize when and how these posts are appealing to your sensibilities. You might then turn to the number of likes or views the post has and simply nod, understanding full well that this is the type of content that brand influencers strive towards: sleek, artsy or evocative imagery with a carefully articulated message, all packaged up in a fifteen second video.
Which brings us to our question: why not you? What’s keeping you from diving headfirst into the video marketing game? The answer we most commonly hear revolves around the idea of working for a small business and not having the time or resources to dedicate to such an endeavor. After all, many marketing personnel for small businesses are responsible for so much more than just marketing, and if you’re not well-versed in video yet, it’s easy to mistake sleekness in the videos you see as equaling big budgets.
The reality is that video is so much more welcoming to small businesses working on even the most shoestring of budgets, and once you get started in the world of video marketing as a small business, the benefits will return tenfold. Time and energy expended will quickly diminish as you learn the tricks of the trade, with a plethora of apps and software tools that make even the least experienced video editor a pro in no time.
Ready to turn your cubicle into a Hollywood production lot yet? Just to add the cherry on the top, here are eight reasons your small business should be embracing video marketing.
1. Create a More Dynamic and Connecting Brand Relationship with Customers
The benefits of video stem from a deep psychological connection that humans have when both their audio and visual stimuli are engaged simultaneously. We’ll spare the science behind it for now — the important thing for you to know is that it brings so much more to the table than just an infographic or just a text-based email ever could. The benefits of both audio and visual spectrums being brought together in harmony are exponential.
What this means is that video provides marketers an excellent opportunity to connect with their customers on a deeper, more human level, one that an email simply can’t pull off. Having a face and voice to attach to the words of a brand are essential elements, especially for a small business that is striving hard to build long lasting loyalty with a developing client list.
2. We Can’t Emphasize Enough: The Return on Investment Far Outweighs the Start-up Costs of Video
As stated, a lot of marketers that are unacquainted with video might assume that there are significant barriers to entry. The thought of a quality video conjures imagery of expensive cameras, personnel holding lavish boom mics in the faces of highly-paid actors standing in front of green screens and set pieces on a soundstage. It can seem nothing shy of daunting when you’re making budget decisions on a day-to-day basis that simply have no room for a camera that costs well over a grand.
Here’s the good news: odds are that you or someone in your office has access to a fully-equipped camera built in to the device that they’re texting their spouse on right at this very moment. The explosion of technology in cell phone cameras means that the average cellular consumer in 2019 owns a camera with capabilities that only Hollywood big leaguers and National Geographic photographers would have laid eyes on twenty years ago. And that device you’re punching in spreadsheet data on? There is more than likely some form of accompanying video editing software eagerly awaiting you to just click and open.
The videos you see on Facebook and Instagram that leave you in awe, 9 times out of 10 they’re shot on an iPhone. And 9 times out of 10, you’re going to be working in an office with somebody that has an iPhone. You can do this.
3. If You’re Not Doing Video, You’re Not On One of the Largest Search Engines in the World
Sitting square behind Google in the number two spot for most used search engines is none other than YouTube. Every day, over a billion users venture over to YouTube to search for videos. One of the most popular genres are ‘How-To’ videos.
Do a quick exercise right now: search for a common question you get from customers about how to use your product on YouTube. Depending on the size of your company (although we’ve absolutely seen this happen for businesses with less than a dozen employees), somebody else has already made a video explaining their workaround for an issue common to your product line. Why let anyone else be the authoritative voice on how to operate your product? Use video and get on YouTube; it’s one more layer of marketing that you need to be involved with.
4. Better Understanding Means Better Conversion
You want customers to get your products, as in really get how they work. Yet another reason why video is crucial for your marketing team is the ability to use it for explainer videos. Research has shown that when customers interact with a product video on a company website, they’re somewhere between 60%-85% more likely to make a purchase. Use explainer videos to show-and-tell, and your customers will tell you what they think with their wallets.
5. Customers Are Practically Begging for Video!
…so give them what they want! A recent marketing survey showed that over four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. That’s a major, game-changing number that shouldn’t be ignored. It’s clear that video is the medium that you should be leveraging if by nothing more than that fact.
6. Video Metrics Give Another Set of Buyer Data to Analyze
…and we love love love data! As video has proliferated, the options to measure metrics within video has seen similar growth. Being able to analyze not just when videos were skipped, paused or re-watched, but also diving deeper into the locations of viewers, where they clicked-through to your video from and a mountain of other analytics gives every marketer a major snapshot of their customer composition.
7. Push that Top-Ranked Search Engine Up a Notch
We already talked about the benefits for your business to have video on YouTube’s search engine, but what about the King of King’s, Google? Studies have shown that Google calculates video presence in their algorithm, and having video on your site will push your rankings up a level. The fact is that most people never go beyond the first page of results on Google, meaning you absolutely need your business to occupy those top spots. Video has been demonstrated to elevate Google rankings by over fifty times than those without, making it a necessity for small businesses to grow their brand.
8. Expand Your Web Presence to the Social Media World
Social media is dominating how users interact with the Internet, and on many of these platforms, video is king. Sharing and connecting with video on platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are necessary for small businesses to build out a presence in their community and pivot towards the coming decade of web-based marketing.
Video may seem daunting at first glance, but when you take into account how frequently you interact with it on a personal level, it becomes apparent that it’s a critical factor in growing your small business. Give it a go and watch the growth!
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