Video marketing has become an essential tool for small businesses aiming to connect with their audience and drive growth. This guide covers the strategies and types of content that can help a small business owner harness the power of video marketing. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to implement an effective video marketing strategy for your small business.
If you’re looking to boost your engagement and build a stronger online presence, keep reading. You’ll discover the benefits of video marketing, the types of videos that work best, and how to measure your success.
If you want to talk with someone about implementing a video marketing strategy for your business, click here.
Understanding Video Marketing For Small Business: What Is It?
Video marketing involves using video content to promote your brand, products, or services. For small businesses, this means creating videos that engage your audience, convey your message effectively, and encourage viewers to take action. Whether it’s through social media, your website, email campaigns, or, ideally, all of the above, video marketing can significantly enhance your reach and engagement.
Benefits of Small Business Video Marketing
Before discussing the moving parts of video marketing, you should first understand how video content can benefit your business. Creating videos for your business can involve a lot more extra work, so it’s important to know why you should implement a video strategy.
The main 2 advantages of video marketing for small businesses are reaching a broader audience on the platforms they already use, and video can increase engagement with your site’s pages, improving rankings in Google.
Meet Your Target Audience On The Platforms They Already Use
Your potential customers are already spending time on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. By creating video content, you can meet those customers where they already are and capture their attention. Videos are more likely to be shared and engaged with than written content, making them a powerful tool for expanding your reach.
Video is more effective than text at building trust as potential customers feel more comfortable knowing who they’re working with and having a face to place with your brand. Spreading your reach through social media and YouTube with video content starts building that trust earlier, which can mean your customers are ready to convert sooner.
Increase Audience Engagement & Build An Online Platform
Videos are generally more engaging than other forms of content. They can convey emotions, tell stories, and provide valuable information in a way that text alone cannot. Additionally, giving viewers a face to connect with encourages them to interact. This increased engagement helps build a loyal audience who are more likely to follow, share, and become advocates for your brand.
A more recent revelation regarding website engagement is that Google uses user signals in determining organic rankings. Basically, the more users engage with your website, the more inclined Google will be to rank you higher in their search results. Embedding videos on your pages is a fantastic and easy way to increase engagement for 3 reasons.
First, users will need to click on your video to play it. This plays into the user signals mentioned above; a click on your website is an interaction that shows Google that users are engaging with your site. Simply by including a video that doesn’t autoplay, you can easily increase interactions with your content.
The second reason is that video can help reduce bounce rates. Essentially, “bouncing” is when a user clicks through to a page and shortly backs out to Google. Bouncing shows Google that your page didn’t provide the experience a user expected, which means you probably shouldn’t be ranking as well as another site that does meet user expectations. Video helps reduce bouncing as users see a video is available to provide or clarify the text information.
The third reason to embed videos on your pages is to improve time on page. Again, how long a user spends on a page and your site indicates a better experience, something Google will consider for rankings. Videos help keep people on your pages, as they’ll be more inclined to stay while the video plays, even if they scroll past it.
Create A Comprehensive Content Strategy Incorporating Video
A well-thought-out video marketing strategy can enhance your overall content plan. Videos can be used to support blog posts, enhance social media campaigns, and provide deeper insights through tutorials and behind-the-scenes content. This variety keeps your audience interested and coming back for more.
Your video content strategy should cover the range of your buyer’s journey which means informational and transactional topics. Essentially, you want to capture potential customers at every stage as they move from problem-aware to solution-aware in your products or services.
Types of Video Content That Boost Engagement for Small Businesses
Like other forms of content, you need to map out your video content strategy to hit different stages of your buyer’s journey. The types of video content you should produce depends on the products and services your business offers, but you generally have 5 general kinds to consider:
- Customer Testimonials: have past or current clients or customers tell their own experiences with your business
- Explainer Videos: break down your products or services so potential customers or clients have a better idea of what to expect
- Educational Videos: position yourself as an expert in your field by educating viewers on relevant topics within your niche
- Product Demos: demonstrate how your products work or show off how they look to alleviate hesitations to buy
Customer Testimonials
Showcase your satisfied customers by creating testimonial videos. These videos build trust and credibility, as potential customers see real people endorsing your products or services.
The purpose of customer testimonial video content is to work as a form of “social proof;” essentially using other people’s comments and experiences to overcome future customers’ hesitations to choose your product or service. People are more inclined to trust unaffiliated voices when looking into the validity of a business, and giving those voices a face goes even further to demonstrate your business’s merits.
The important thing when creating customer testimonial videos is to ensure authenticity. You don’t want future customers to think your real clients are paid actors. This can be tricky, as your videos can’t seem overproduced, but they also need to look and sound professional so as not to damage your business’s optics. Find what works for you if you have customers willing to appear on camera.
Explainer Videos
Explainer videos help you explain complex concepts or features of your product in a simple, engaging way. They are especially useful for introducing new products or explaining how your services work.
No matter what product or service you offer, customers will have questions about it. Explaining how your products work or the steps in a service you provide help in clarifying these questions which can help in improving lead or sales generation. Sometimes, you’ll answer questions before customers even have them, which simply means you “cut them off at the pass” before they can object to committing to their purchase.
For example, a home care agency might have a series of videos explaining each type of care they offer, from personal and companion care to respite and overnight services. The different types of home care someone may receive can seem more or less the same, so explaining the differences in video format can help potential clients better understand what they need.
Additionally, if customers have future questions regarding your product or service, you have ready-made content to help them, which might make your customer service experience easier.
Educational / Informational Videos
Position yourself as an expert in your field by creating educational videos. This type of video content serves a greater purpose in building your authority within your market which is important in establishing trust in future customers or clients. Share tips, industry insights, or how-to guides that provide value to your audience and establish your authority.
While explainer videos address your specific products or services, educational videos are meant to answer questions and address topics around what you offer. These types of videos are better for reaching a broader audience that may not know you by name and are instead looking for a solution to a problem.
For example, a car accident lawyer might make a video answering the question, “Who is at fault if I’m rear-ended while backing out of a parking spot?” This video might not directly contribute to their overall leads, but featuring it on social media and in blog articles shows potential clients that the attorney knows what they’re talking about and has the knowledge and expertise to address these kinds of cases.
Product Demos
Demonstrate the benefits of your products through demo videos. These videos help potential customers see the product in action, understand its features, and envision how it can benefit them.
This is more for businesses that have a product to sell, but certain services, like med spas or home care agencies, can benefit from showing what their product or service does. Having a visual aid helps potential customers better understand why they might need a product and how to use it best if they make their purchase.
Building A Video Marketing Strategy: Where To Start
All of this said, the act of starting a video marketing strategy for your small business can seem daunting. However, like any other content marketing strategy, you simply need to outline the steps.
- Step 1: Know who your target audience is and where they are
- Step 2: Establish clear goals to measure success
- Step 3: Plan and script your content
- Step 4: Find the best time to post on social media
- Step 5: Monitor performance and adjust your strategy
Step 1: Understand Your Target Audience
Before creating any content, it’s crucial to know your target audience. Understand their interests, pain points, and where they spend their time online. This knowledge will guide your content creation and distribution strategy.
Social media is more homogenous than in years past, but there are still fairly clear differences in demographics between various sites. Younger users tend towards TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, while older users are on Facebook, and Twitter is somewhere in the middle. Likewise, know the gender demographics of these various sites if your product or service caters more to one in particular.
Essentially, you don’t want to waste effort focusing content for a specific audience if that audience isn’t going to see it.
For example, while it might make sense to target home care services toward an older audience on Facebook, it might actually be more effective to target the adult children of elderly clients on Twitter.
Step 2: Clearly Define Your Goals
What do you want to achieve with your video marketing? Whether it’s brand awareness, lead generation, or sales, having clear goals will help you measure your success and refine your strategy.
Clearly established goals will guide your content creation from start to finish, as you will know which direction to take your video content. Increasing brand awareness will mean more educational content; lead or sales generation will mean more product explanations and client testimonials; and leadership will mean more case studies or complex information breakdowns.
Step 3: Planning & Scripting Content
Plan your content ahead of time by identifying the topics you want to address and creating outlines to guide you. Develop scripts that align with your goals and resonate with your audience. This preparation ensures your videos are concise, focused, and effective.
Improvising video content can work, but it’s inadvisable if you’re just starting out producing videos. Even having an outline of topics to address in your videos better guides your content to prevent rambling or drifting off-topic.
Step 4: Finding The Best Time To Post
Timing can affect the success of your videos on various social media platforms. Analyze your audience’s online habits to determine the best times to post. Experiment and track results to find the optimal posting schedule.
This goes hand-in-hand with understanding your target audience. Users on different social media sites will have different usage habits. Posting your video content at a less-ideal time will mean less viewers and more wasted effort.
That said, embed your videos on your own site as early as possible. Timing is less important when it comes to your site’s content, so ensure your videos get added to your articles or pages whenever possible.
Step 5: Monitor Performance
As with any marketing strategy, you need to track the performance of your video content. Views, likes, shares, and comments are all good indicators of success but you’ll also need to track referrals back to your site and conversions from your posts.
Experiment with content length, editing, and post times based on your content’s performance to better dial in and make progress towards your goals.
Best Practices for a High-Quality Video Production Process
Video follows some general best practices similar to written content but comes with its own set of rules to succeed, of course. Generally, videos should be short, include a clear call-to-action, and be consistent with your brand. That said, diversifying videos for different stages of your buyer’s journey and remixing for different platforms are also integral to a successful video marketing strategy for your small business.
Keep The Videos Short & Engaging
Attention spans are short, so keep your videos concise and to the point. Aim to capture interest within the first 2 seconds and maintain engagement throughout.
Easily, one of the more difficult parts of video content is to capture the attention of users. The first couple of seconds are crucial for stopping users from scrolling past you in their feeds. You need to get them to stop and then keep them around for the duration of your content.
Don’t Forget A Hook & Call To Action
Start with a hook to grab attention and end with a clear call to action. Whether viewers should subscribe to your channel, visit your website, or make a purchase, guide them through the next steps.
Your hook could be something like making a seemingly counterintuitive claim, starting with “how to,” or stating a number of “things” or “tips” for whatever the topic of your video addresses. There are endless ways to start a video, but grabbing a user’s attention in the first second can be difficult.
Your call to action or CTA needs to clearly outline what you want a viewer to do. Now, you might think the logical CTA would be “Visit our website for more information” or “Call us today,” but we generally actually recommend you encourage users to comment or view your other videos on the same platform. People are generally less inclined to leave the social media platform they’re currently using, so your CTAs that direct them to your site are likely to be less effective. But, asking users to engage with your content on that platform is more likely to succeed, which still benefits you for a couple of reasons.
First, engagements on that platform will help boost your visibility within that ecosystem, which means more people see your content. Additionally, your content will then get fed to users who engage with your account more often, which helps keep you present in their feeds.
This leads to the second point: the more someone sees your content, the more likely they’ll go to you should they need your product or service.
Consistent Branding & Storytelling
Ensure your videos reflect your brand’s personality and values. Consistent branding and storytelling create a cohesive experience that strengthens brand recognition.
Even if you use different types of video content, you need to maintain consistency regarding your brand identity. This helps establish your business with potential customers or clients when they make a decision.
Diversify Your Content
Mix up your video content to keep your audience interested. Use a combination of testimonials, tutorials, behind-the-scenes footage, and live videos to offer variety.
You need content to address different stages of your buyer’s journey. This way, you can capture potential customers or clients regardless of their decision-making process.
Remix Your Content for Different Platforms
Tailor your videos for different platforms. What works on YouTube might not be suitable for Instagram. Adjust your content to fit the format and audience of each platform.
Video requires more effort than writing content, including scripting, recording, and editing. Use your content on different platforms. For example, you can post long-form videos on YouTube and then cut them into minute-long snippets for YouTube shorts, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. While focusing on a primary social media platform for your ideal target audience is advisable, broadening the scope of your content with minimal extra effort can benefit your business’s end goals.
How To Select The Right Platform For Your Video Content
Choosing the right platform depends on your audience and goals. YouTube is great for long-form content, while Instagram and TikTok are better for short, engaging clips. Analyze where your audience spends their time and focus your efforts there.
Measuring The Success of Your Video Content
To understand the impact of your videos, track key metrics such as views, engagement, shares, and conversion rates. These metrics will help you assess what’s working and where you can improve.
Marrying Your Video Content Strategy with SEO
Optimize your videos for search engines to increase visibility. Use relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and tags. Also, consider creating transcriptions and captions to improve accessibility and SEO.
Embedding your videos on your site is an easy way to implement that content into your SEO strategies. Likewise, you can use your existing content, like blog articles, as outlines for your videos, which then support those pages when you embed them. Increasing engagement on your site through video embeds also improves your SEO, as stated by how Google looks at user signals in their rankings.
Common Challenges You May Face with Video Production
Producing videos can come with challenges like budget constraints, technical issues, and finding the right talent. Plan ahead, invest in good equipment, and consider outsourcing to professionals if needed.
Time management often arises as a major hurdle for small business owners. If possible, set aside an hour or two each week to record videos. You should be able to record two or three pieces of content in that time to then be edited.
Sagapixel Creates Video Content Strategies That Actually Convert Leads Into Customers
Small business video marketing can transform your brand’s online presence and drive significant growth. By understanding your audience, creating engaging content, and optimizing your strategy, you can harness the power of video marketing to achieve your business goals. Start today and watch your small business thrive through the dynamic world of video content!