Making videos for your start-up or small business can seem like a daunting task when you first set out.
We’re often asked about what the tangible benefits of having videos for your business actually are. As a result, we’ve composed a list below that can help give you focus and provide you with the underlying reasons why you should consider video marketing.
1. Increase brand awareness.
It’s obvious really, but videos provide a great opportunity for more people to actually know about your brand. More importantly, it allows you to TELL A STORY about your brand, create a PERSONALITY and establish your MARKET POSITION much quicker than other means.
2. Moving your site up the search rankings.
Google’s algorithm considers the amount of time visitors spend on your site, which is called dwell time. So, in order to give yourself a better chance of moving up the rankings, embedding several videos into your website can only be a good thing for your SEO.
3. Generate Broader interest.
When uploading your videos to YouTube or Vimeo, you’ll get people watching on the hosting platform in addition to the people watching on your site (as long as you don’t set them to private). This is another opportunity for people to understand your business offerings.
Quick Tip: If you post your videos on YouTube AND Vimeo, you’ll be able to access the huge consumer/social audience available in YouTube and the professional marketers and film makers in Vimeo. Even though the later may not be your target market, it’s still more people discovering you and your brand.
4. More likely to buy product.
People are between 65%- 85% more likely to buy a product once they have seen a product video (comScore). Let’s face facts; online shoppers are savvier than ever before in the digital age, and they want to know as much about the product before their purchase. Having a product video will help your customers to understand your product and allow them to move forward with the purchase with confidence.
5. Professionals actively look for work-related videos.
According to Forbes, executives have said that they watch business related videos at least once a week. So they’re continually looking for partners and services! Approximately 50% watch business related videos on YouTube each week, while 65% will visit the company’s website after watching the video.
6. Gives your brand a kick up the butt.
A bit crude, we know. However, having a video can really liven up the interaction your customers have with you, and how you move forward. Once you’ve made your first video, and you’ve seen how it has increased the engagement and knowledge of your brand, you’ll probably want to push forward with new video content to help serve your clients, in turn, creating a better service all round.
7. More Shareable & opportunity to create something viral.
A good explainer video or brand piece will pull the audience in and engage them much better than copy ever could. So, you have the opportunity to make something that people can actually REACT to. Whether this is excitement, intrigue, or the odd tattle of laughter, a video can make them much more likely to share your brand message.
The ideal scenario for any marketer is to have video go ‘viral’, but beware, this isn’t something that can simply be ordered up. A viral video will usually take the form of something that’s outlandish, cute (thinking kitten here!), very entertaining, or really touches people emotionally. So, some of these triggers may not be something that your brand is about, and could harm your reputation if you went for something viral that actually bear no resemblance to you or your product.
8. There’s a preference for people to watch a video.
Clearly, watching a video is much easier for anyone to do than wade through copy (but we’re happy you’ve made it this far). A video naturally focuses the viewers’ attention, and can thus make it easier for your audience to retain key information.
Quick Tip: For explainer and brand videos, your opening 15 seconds are perhaps the most important when engaging an audience online (not so important if your audience is forcefully engaged and video is playing at an event). So open with something that grabs their attention, explains the problem you solve, or simply entertains them.
9. Great for pitches.
Get out of that monotone, drip drip introduction cycle and start your pitches and meetings with a bang. A well-executed explainer video will cover all the key USPs and allow everyone in the room to settle into the meeting. You won’t then have to cover everything your business is about yourself, so you can focus on steering the conversation towards why you’re actually in the meeting.
10. Have control over the key focus, much better than copy.
If you’re promoting one specific area of your business, then a video will enable you to focus on this point numerous times in one video. If the video is clear and concise, this will be much better than having Bob standing up in front of a projector.
11. Social Ads. ROI.
Social advertising is booming, with various paid advertising with the likes of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. If you have a bit of money to spend, they’ve shown to be a good way to target your audience and customers accurately. This enables you to not just rely on organic traffic, but you can actively pursue customers. This serves as a real bonus for the small business owner. In some markets, they can be a real pinch, but you can be looking at about $30-40 for 1,000 views.
Quick Tip: On Twitter, you pay for an interaction, but you don’t pay again if that person retweets your promoted post.
12. 100 Million users watch online videos each day.
Yes indeed. Almost everyone moving into the fully digital era will actively watch videos online through YouTube and the like. That’s a huge potential audience, and your customers will be amongst them!
We hope you have found this blog post useful. If you want to learn more about video marketing production, then please head over to www.produsive.com where they’re ready to help. Produsive is a free video marketing production blog with the sole aim of helping you make better video content.
