Take the top spot with video marketing

Introduction

Video marketing, in its many forms, is the next best thing to being in the room with your intended audience. And since you can’t be everywhere at once then using videos as part of your online marketing toolbox is going to help you get your message across more effectively to more people.

Reasons to Use Video

Here are 10 reasons why video marketing is worth considering as part of your digital marketing:

1. Video builds trust
   • When people see and or hear you they are reassured that you actually exist
2. Video creates awareness
   • With a video you can let your audience know about your values, about what makes you tick and what your brand stands for
3. Google loves video
   • Videos keeps people longer on your website and social media accounts and this send positive signals to Google
4. Videos are easy to view for mobile users
   • Videos viewed on smartphones has increased by 400% at the time of writing
5. Videos can show much more in a shorter time than just words alone
   • You can explain all about your services or products in a video
6. Videos can be entertaining
   • If people don’t feel like they are being sold to they are more likely to warm to what you have to offer
7. Entertaining and helpful videos encourage sharing
   • More sharing equates to more people seeing what you have to offer
8. Videos tell stories and shares emotions
   • Buyers are triggered by emotions. By using a video you can move your audience from one emotive state to another
9. Videos improve your SEO
   • Using an optimised video on an optimised web page will increase the chance of that website page appearing on the first page of Google
10. Video increases customer conversions
    • Videos convert more prospects into buyers that text or images

The good news is that your videos do not have to be perfect. Just have a look on YouTube to see that there are brands out there using less than perfect videos that have thousands of subscribers.

7 Types of video marketing that you can use

Explainer Videos

These are short videos used to explain a product or service you offer. For instance, you may be a yoga teacher and use an explainer video to give your potential audience a glimpse of how and where yoga started and how it can help them.

Educational Videos

These types of videos can be used to show people how to do something. For example, if you you are counsellor or psychologist your educational video may be a 2 minute breathing exercise.

Product Videos

Product videos are very effective in showing and convincing your audience that they really want your product. Imagine you are a painter or perhaps a textile artist; your product videos would be really effective if they showed off your creation in the home setting. Let people see what your work will look like in their home.

Testimonials Videos

Testimonial videos are really easy to do and of course effective. There can be nothing better than a 30 second video of one of your customers to build credibility and trust. If you are a business coach why not ask for testimonials at the end of a session that you then use online.

Demonstration/Instructional Videos

I went to the Wolverhampton Women’s Business Forum networking event recently and they had 2 demos: the first was from Flower Power, a florist in Wolverhampton and the second was from the Cake Maker in Sandwell. These types of demonstrations are used by many successful businesses and they will continue to be used because of how effective they are as a marketing tool. Again they show that you can actually do what you say you can.

FAQ Videos

FAQ videos are great to send to someone when they are close to making a decision to buy your service or product. They can allay any last minute questions and fears for instance. If you are a business coach one of your FAQs may cover offering a money back guarantee or perhaps an answer about payment options. Many people find it hard to ask questions about money and payments so you could cover those in your FAQ video.

Live Videos

Sam Warner of Get your Message Across introduced me to Facebook Live last week. Twitter has Periscope. I did my first Facebook Live last week at the Wolverhampton Business Forum networking event. I didn’t even have to show my face on the video to get more comments than many image or text only posts. I will be experimenting with Facebook Live again as I can see many marketing uses for it.

Conclusion

You don’t need to spend anything to get going with some of these types of video marketing if you have a smartphone. But if after you have made a few videos you decide that you want to use them regularly for marketing then for under £200 you would be able to setup a mini studio in your usual workspace for videos where people are involved.

You can see now I hope why video marketing is so effective, and really not that hard to get into. Choose 1 type of video and see what you can do.

Why not create a presentation in PowerPoint and save it as an MP4 – Hey Presto! You have made your first video.It can be as easy as some photos of your work or some text-based testimonials. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect.

How to save your presentation as a video