A little over 10 years ago, video marketing for small business wasn’t really an option. YouTube wasn’t the thing it is now and TV ads were expensive to buy and create. Fast forward and now small businesses with local customers or clients have a great opportunity when it comes to using video because of the rise of social media and social media advertising. While most, if not all, businesses have some sort of competition, often times there is less competition in your own city or town than if you were competing for clients on a national level.
I recently talked to a company that had decided that they were not going to use video because it didn’t convert for them. However, they hadn’t taken the time to figure out why it wasn’t working for them. As someone who helps companies develop video marketing strategies, it was easy to see why their video wasn’t converting. Unfortunately, they were not interested in asking the question and probably will never make another video, giving their competitors a great advantage.
How can you make sure that your video does what you need it to do? Here are 4 tips to help your small business succeed with online video:
Marketing vs Advertising
It is important to know the difference between video marketing and video advertising. Video marketing is the use of video as content on websites, landing pages, social media and email as part of your marketing strategy. Making a video and putting it on YouTube is not video marketing. Video advertising is buying ads across all screens, using advanced audience and market targeting. Your strategy might be online, TV, or a combination of both. Online video advertising is more cost effective for small businesses that are targeting a local area and specific buyer. With proper planning, you can reach more of the right people.
Know your brand
Know the rules for your brand and business size. The size of a small business can vary from one person to just under 500 people. It can include businesses that have one or two people and work out of their home. At times, it might be okay to use a cell phone to create your video, if it fits the brand. However, if you are a professional brand, such as CPA, doctor, HVAC you need to put away the cell phone and get professional help. You need people to take your brand seriously and you need your video to look professional. The more professional your brand, the more professional your video needs to be. If you are a luxury brand, your videos need to reflect that. There are many different levels of video production. Keep in mind that just because you paid a lot of money for it, it doesn’t make it professional or high quality. There are a lot of people out there selling and making videos that don’t know the first thing about making your business look good, so make sure that you are careful.
Video length
Keep the videos as short as they need to be. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to video length. If you are building a new audience, it doesn’t hurt to keep things short, say around 2 minutes. Now, that being said, if you can make a 10-minute video that people want to watch, go for it because sites such as YouTube find that people are willing to watch longer videos that are relevant and engaging. However, most companies don’t have content that will keep people interested for more than 2 minutes. With the increase of people watching video content on their cell phones, they are more likely to watch a shorter video than a longer one. If you have longer content, consider making a few short videos. At the end of one video, lead them to the next video. If you have an established audience, save the longer content for them.
Use paid ads
Use video advertising. YouTube, Facebook, twitter, and Instagram all allow video advertising. It can be hard to get your business’ social media post to show up naturally in the feed of your followers. Video ads are one option that you can use to reach your current followers and gain new followers. You can also target people who have expressed interest in your product or service in the past if they have provided you with some contact information, such as an email address. You can put their email address into Facebook and Facebook can serve your ad to them. You can also remarket to them if they have been on your website by using tracking options that Facebook supplies.
