As more of us move towards video on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and we tuck into 15 seconds of guilty pleasures with TikTok, we’ve quickly become a generation obsessed with video over written communication, but how can your business tap into video marketing?
So, you’ve just scrolled through Facebook and watched the 3rd video in the last 2 days from Pete’s Perfect Plumbing telling you how to tighten the leaky faucet you noticed in the kitchen on the weekend. You decided to search for some help on Facebook, trawled through the endless lists of groups, had your friend Tina offer her opinion, but nothing clicked.
Somehow, miraculously, you’ve had this video pop into your timeline, without any clear reason, but all you know is that it’s done the trick.
Weeks later your sink’s u-bend is in trouble and no amount of Mr Muscle does the trick, but you remembered that Pete’s Perfect Plumbing was pretty helpful when it came to your faucet. You look up his Facebook page and find yet another tutorial, but this time you can’t sort the problem yourself. 30 minutes later you’ve found Pete’s Perfect Plumbing’s site, asked for a call back and Pete’s set to come round.
This is the beauty of video marketing. It’s growing in popularity, and it’s the best strategic decision your business could take to generate more sales, but what is it, and why is it a smart choice? Read on to find out…
What is video marketing?
You don’t need to be Scorsese, Hitchcock or Tarantino to create a video that people are going to want to watch. In fact, the beauty of video marketing is its simplicity – the more raw the video, the more authentic it is, and that’s what we all want – to trust the people and businesses we buy from.
Creating video content has never been easier. Nowadays, all it takes is shooting on your smartphone, and you’ve already got a high-quality, 4K, beautifully straightforward message you can share. Not to mention things like Facebook Live, which is instant!
Video content can be used to send out messages to your customers as a thank you, offer guides on how to tackle their problems (thanks Pete’s Perfect Plumbing), go-viral or anything you can imagine. If it provides value to your audience, whoever they are, go forth and create that video.
Once you’ve established what your audience wants to know, have a clear message you want to convey, and a call to action (the next step from watching the video), such as subscribe, comment or visit your website, you’re all set to choose the promotional tools to spread the word.
This could be putting the video on your site, posting it out to your Facebook page, live-streaming, running a webinar, or it may be creating an advert on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram etc.
The options are endless.
Why video marketing?
Video marketing isn’t new, but we are becoming more open to the idea of watching videos outside of television. Just take YouTube and Netflix.
YouTube brought to the forefront the idea of creating our own content and firmly shook the idea that video was an expensive promotional tool.
Netflix, on the other hand, is a great illustration of how we’ve shifted away from sitting down and putting on our Sky, Freeview etc. to watch a show. Instead, we can watch from the comfort of our own phones, tablets etc.
The point is, we’ve never been more open to watching all sorts of videos.
If that isn’t an invitation to create a video, consider that over 50% of consumers are eager to see video content from businesses, more than blogs, lists etc. Need more convincing? Just look at this:
- Video is the number one way we discover new businesses
- We understand 95% of a messagethat is shared through video
- 1/4 consumers make purchases after watching an Instagram story
- Businesses publish 18 new videos a month
- 78% of people watch videos each week
And what does this boil down to? In all honesty, our attention spans are shortening, we want to find out the answer to our problems in alarmingly short amounts of time, and those businesses who give us what we want are, ultimately, those who get our money.
What does great video marketing look like?
We could continue to write about what video marketing is, but then that misses the point of this blog. Great video marketing is all around us, but take a look at these:
Why? Apart from the miracle of tying a bow tie? Well, humour, practicality and clarity is what makes this a video marketer’s ‘how to’ in making great instructional videos!
Keto diets are getting popular, and it’s easy to see why a simple list of different foods could amass over 2 million views in a year. What’s not to like about this?
A kitten, a fireman and a tree walk into the camera frame… not only is this an adorable video, but it shows off GoPro’s product perfectly, all the while winning our hearts…
We also have another blog on choosing to recruit in-house or outsource which you can read here.
How can you get started with video marketing?
Reading this blog is a great start. So is checking out the likes of HubSpot who pulled together everything you could possibly want to know about video marketing.
But, in all honesty, it has to start with an idea of the challenges your audience faces, how you can help them, and then wrapping it up in a delightful video.
If you want some help putting together some videos for your business, give us a call on 01926 350 040. It’s a service we offer, from team/corporate videos to vlogs and informative/educational videos.