Every business, every brand and anyone who wants to connect with an online audience needs a video marketing strategy. Video remains the most effective medium to convert browsers to clients – This idea is not new. Everyone knows it. What has changed over the years is how important video marketing as an Omni Chanel tool.
It is not only another cog in your marketing strategy. It has become a central piece on all levels of communications. This is why global brands are scrambling and spending the big bucks on video marketing.
Video is much more than a social engagement tool. Video is a versatile tool for marketers, and sales people throughout the entire customer buying experience. Video analytics can help with calculating ROI, and to create new leads.
Video can become helpful for human resources as well. Onboarding videos, knowledge-based videos, company introduction videos, and employee stories are just a few ways that video can create a more thorough, personalized experience for any organization.
According to HubSpot Research, consumers and customers prefer lower quality, “authentic” video over high-quality video that seems artificial and “inauthentic”. Global brands have realized this and are churning out more “authentic” videos and are enjoying more success than ever before. So… What does this mean for startups and small business owners? Video is very much within your reach, and it does not require big budgets. Video is within reach of any business regardless of size.
So… Before you begin filming, you need to determine what kind of videos that can yield more results and what kind of video marketing that works for small businesses.
Here is a list of 10 Ways Global Brands Adopt Video Marketing That Works for Small Businesses
1. Demo Videos
Demo videos show how your products work. It can be an instructional video, an unboxing video, or describing the unique qualities it has as against similar products on the market. If your business is a service, let your clients know, what is unique about what you do and how you can significantly make a process easier and elevate the lifestyles of those who work with you.
For an example, if you are a dentist and want to talk about the services you offer, do it in a way that benefits the patient. Talk about the options when it comes to straightening crooked teeth, and talk about the pricing of each option and how you could arrange payment plans if insurance does not cover them.
2. Brand Videos
Brand videos are typically advertising campaigns carried out with much success by global brands. It is meant to create awareness of an organization’s mission and vision. Brand videos also help create credibility and build trust with your consumers. While you may not be able to match the impact of what the global brands are doing, you as a small business owner can create videos that involve your community. It could be a charitable event, a fundraiser, taking part in a local event or better yet organizing a local event or sponsoring a local event. Remember those ice bucket challenge videos we saw back in 2014, where people dumped a bucket of ice and cold water over someone’s head? Most small businesses who did this challenge and put it on video said they got positive social vibes.
3. Event Videos
Event videos are different to the brand videos explained earlier. If your business is hosting a conference, a round table discussion, a fundraiser, or another type of event – Film it. Then produce highlight reels of the best moments, interesting interviews and presentations and make it available to your audience. This will surely build your credibility as a business, and give you enough material for future communications.
4. Expert Interviews
Many of the global brands are churning out videos interviewing the internal experts in their organizations. Every business has experts related to the field of that business. As small businesses and startups you may not have much of a staff to do this. Find a way to put an expert who knows about what you do in front of a camera and ask them to talk about how your business can help customers, the process of how you do business or simply talk about what they do as part of the business. If they are camera shy, do an interview style video. Even if you are a freelancer there is one subject you know best. So put yourself in front of a camera just like how I am doing right now. Capturing interviews with internal experts is a great way to build trust and authority with your target audience.
5. Testimonial Videos.
Your prospective clients and customers want to know how your product and services will solve a specific problem. This is in fact what most global brands marketing strategies are based on. Take any product or a service. One of the BEST ways to prove this is to feature your most loyal and satisfied customers. Make them the champions of your cheer team. Let them tell the world how fantastic it was doing business with you and let them tell how you solved a problem and significantly improved their lives. It is far easier to get a video testimonial of your customers. Just ask them how they overcame their challenge and how your company was able to solve them.
Below is a video testimonial of one my very first clients. In it he talks about how I was able to solve a problem he had through video marketing.
6. Case Study Videos
Case study videos are almost similar to testimonial videos, but instead of your customers raving about you… you do the raving yourself. A case study is a self-study of an outcome to a solution you have provided. In the business world all case studies which are shared publicly are success stories. While in the scientific world it is not. If you have conducted business with a client or a customer, and if you provided a successful solution to them, then make a case study video and share it with your audience.
7. Explainer Videos
These types of videos are often made with animation and animated characters. These videos are designed to help convince your audience as to “why” they need your product or service. Many explainer videos focus on two fictional animated characters who want to overcome a certain problem they have. One character chooses your company while the other chooses a competitor. In the end the character who chose your company overcomes their problem and are enjoying much success, while the other character is still stuck on first gear.
In the video below I have shared an explainer video we did for an Australian startup back in 2014. If you do not want to spend a lot and want to create a 2 minute explainer video, leave a comment on the comment section below and let us know your intentions.
8. Live Videos
Live video is the trending medium most global brands are now using. Viewers spent up to 8x longer with live video than with video on-demand for most global brands – a significant jump compared to on-demand videos. Live-stream interviews, presentations, and events, and encourage viewers to comment with questions.
9. Personalized Messages
Video is a creative way of sending personalized messages within any origination. Internal communications are a large part of global companies, and they adopt a lot of video to send personalized messages from the top brass. These videos can be welcome videos, training videos, or videos to communicate special milestones achieved by the company. Although it may seem that a small business may not have a need to adopt such a strategy, why not start that culture? To get started why not plan on sending a thanksgiving message to your employees? Let them know how they have contributed to the success of the company. Same way you could create a separate video for your customers.
10. 360° & Virtual Reality Videos
With 360° videos, viewers “scroll” around to see content from every angle — as if they were physically standing within the content. This spherical video style has allowed global brands to experience a location or an event from a mobile device. These videos are very expensive to create, and I understand that most small businesses does not have the deep pockets to invest in such a collaboration but I am simply stating this as Global brands have used this types of videos.
The above concepts have been tested time and time again by global brands, to maximize their image. While you cannot really emulate what they did with your limited resources, it helps to know what the BEST is doing to stay on top. If you are a small business owner and want to compete with your local competition then it helps to know “how” to use video marketing to your advantage. I hope this article will help you do so. Good luck – Vijith.
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