We are now a generation of video watches. 49% of people watch more than five videos every day. That’s because most people enjoy visuals and learn more about a topic via video than other mediums.
It’s 2021. Is your business not using video yet? If so, you’re way behind! Videos can drive engagement more than other forms of content. It’s also easier to create videos now than ever. You also have many platforms where you can post your videos and gain views.
But are there any other reasons to use video marketing for small businesses? Here are 10 reasons you should know.
1. Increases Brand Awareness
Video marketing does more than boost sales. If your videos are engaging and attract a large audience, they may increase your brand awareness.
As a small business, you’re likely competing with larger brands for the same audience. Since content marketing (specifically videos) improve your brand awareness, your audience will identify your brand over the competition.
Videos do more than promote your services or a product. You can make a deep connection with your audience, enhancing their interest in your brand.
Even if you don’t have the biggest budget, a well-made video and great ideas will dominate over other forms of marketing. This is why you should add video to your marketing campaign.
2. Sell Your Product Quickly
There are many tools that video marketers use to attract a wider audience. You’ll be able to identify your audience and know who’s showing interest in your products. With the right technology, you’ll be able to measure how your videos impact the sales pipeline.
In addition, the platforms you use may also help you sell your products quicker. For example, it’s expected that YouTube will have 342 million users this year. Uploading your videos to YouTube and similar platforms will help you reach a larger audience, selling more products.
3. Better Represent Your Brand and Your Products
With video marketing, you’re in control of the video content and the information you share about your brand and your products. Your audience will have a better understanding of who you are and what you sell.
For effective marketing campaigns, some brands also conduct in-depth research into their audience. They do this to understand what drives buyers to a sale and how product videos can drive that emotional connection.
If your videos are engaging enough, your audience may come back and re-watch your videos. Their interest will increase, relating your brand to your videos.
4. Communicate With Your Customers
With that being said, videos offer a great way to communicate with your customers. As stated in the previous section, many businesses conduct audience research so you can make an emotional connection with your audience.
Great videos also convey different responses. These may include action, conversation, and more. Brands can measure these responses to ensure their video marketing strategy is successful.
Whether you make videos for entertainment or to promote your brands, videos provide a great opportunity to communicate with your audience.
5. Customers Prefer Videos Over Text
Because of the facts mentioned previously, customers would rather watch a video than read about a brand or a product. Why is that? Videos provide instant gratification.
There are many amusing factors of videos over text. For example, brands can add beautiful visuals and exciting music to make the video more engaging. In other words, watching a video is more fun than reading text.
The best videos are also very short — a couple of minutes at the most. All the audience has to do is hit play and they will learn everything they need to know about a brand or a product.
6. Certain Types of Video Help Customers
What if a customer already bought a product? Can you still use video marketing to drive their interest? Sure you can! Certain types of videos help customers, keeping them in the sales pipeline even after they made a sale.
Let’s take instructional videos as a great example. If a customer struggles to use a product, all they have to do is look up your brand on YouTube and see if you offer any instructional videos. These videos offer plenty of value, answer customer questions, and the right videos are engaging.
7. Post Your Videos on Various Platforms
While we’ve given YouTube plenty of attention, you can post your videos on so many platforms.
For example, Facebook and Instagram have made their platforms video-friendly over the last couple of years. Facebook offers a great platform for sharing videos and IGTV revolutionized the way we view videos on social media.
There are some challenges with posting your videos across social media platforms. All outlets require different video lengths, video and file sizes, and more. In addition, most social platforms mute videos by default, so it’s recommended you add subtitles to videos.
8. Improve SEO
Did you know video content can improve your SEO? This is especially true if you upload your videos to YouTube — Google owns YouTube, so your videos may appear on Google search results as well as YouTube.
There are many ways to use video marketing for SEO results. On YouTube, you can optimize your videos by adding keyword-rich titles and descriptions. If your videos get a lot of views, this tells YouTube that your videos provide a lot of value.
9. Videos Are Easy to Make
While all of these ideas are great, you may not make videos because they seem hard to make. Creating high-quality videos is easier and more accessible than you think.
For example, most people have a great camera built into their smartphones. There are also many video editing apps available for free.
What if the ideas you have are more advanced? It’s worth it to try making and editing videos DIY before hiring a video production team. For example, if you want to add a time lapse to your video but don’t know how to make a time lapse video, there are tutorials you can find online so anyone can learn.
Video Marketing for Small Businesses Is Effective
As you can see, there are many reasons to use video marketing for small businesses. Make sure to add video marketing to your strategy in 2021.
Do you need more business advice? We offer many resources that businesses will find helpful, as well as content for all audiences. Continue reading our blog!
