For years now, you’ve been hearing that video marketing for small business is on the rise. Perhaps you’ve been ignoring this trend for a variety of reasons:

• I don’t like myself on video
• I don’t understand video
• I don’t have the equipment for video
• My customers aren’t going to watch a video

This was me. Personally, I don’t watch a lot of video. I hate myself on video, and I don’t have any fancy equipment or editing experience with video. So I’ve been ignoring it.
This is a mistake. Video trend keeps moving forward. Take a look at some of these statistics from smallbiztrends.com :

According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (PDF), by 2019, the global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80 percent of all consumer Internet traffic, and this doesn’t even include video exchanged through peer-to-peer (P2P). (Click to Tweet)

This data is backed by the increasing number of views video social networks are experiencing. During the 2015 Q3 call, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social network is generating 8 billion video views daily, and while Snapchat has 15 times fewer users, it generates almost as many video views at 7+ billion. (Click to Tweet)

It’s clear. Video isn’t going away; it’s only going to become more ubiquitous. The good news in all of this is that it’s also becoming more natural and organic. The combination of social media and video is giving companies more access to their customers. And mobile platforms are providing more access because of the flexibility they provide in capturing and streaming live events.
This means that your customers don’t need fancy, high-dollar productions. Let me restate that: your customers don’t want high-end productions.

What your customers want is a glimpse into who you are as a person, as a brand. They want the feeling of knowing you and being in relationship with you. — Ivana Taylor

This means that regardless of how you feel about video, there is a way to make it uniquely your own without spending a lot of time or money. So the biggest obstacle in using video today . . . is you .

The Difference Between Video Marketing and Video Advertising

Part of the reservations people hold towards video come from seeing video marketing and video advertising as synonymous. They’re actually quite different.
Here’s a simple explanation from The Difference Between Video Marketing and Video Advertising :

Video Marketing: The use of video as content in websites, landing pages, social media and email to inform, educate, and engage.

Video Advertising: Running video commercials online across all screens, and using advanced audience & geo-targeting to reach precise markets.

Video advertising gives you the potential to reach a huge audience that would be difficult to reach through traditional advertising channels. YouTube advertising has the potential to reach over 800 million visitors worldwide!
The key distinction is in the “intention” of the video. Video marketing is more content, education, information, and engagement focused. Video advertising focuses more on the more traditional brand building and call to action that we’re all familiar with. So with millennial eye-balls moving away from traditional television and over to social channels and on-demand video viewing, the use of video marketing and advertising to reach your ideal customer will only go up.
And while a lot of that content is cat videos and blooper reels, video marketing also presents a golden opportunity for your businesses to capitalize on the video marketing boom. Even if you know nothing about video, it’s not too late to get familiar with this strategy.
Feeling excited about the possibilities? Why Video Is Winning The Internet And Why Your Business Needs It has a list of wonderful pro tips for creating some DIY videos for your small business.

You Need a Video Marketing Strategy. What is that?

According to an Adcend2 survey cited in Is Video Content Right For You? , nearly 48% of companies stated that the most challenging obstacle to video marketing success was lack of a video strategy.
Here are a few tips from 62 Easy, Valuable Tips to Rock Your Video Content :

1. Who is your audience? I know, you’re tired of hearing this, but understanding your audience will get your video content in front of the right people.
2. What do they want to see? Focus on the questions they want to be answered, or focus on the top 5–7 problems you know they are dealing with.
3. What do you want to accomplish? Are you building awareness, or are you looking for customers? You may want customers, but you may not have established your brand well enoughtthat potential customers comfortable with you. If that’s the case, create videos that will prove your expertise, or create videos that will quickly solve customer problems.
4. Focus on creating an emotional response: While your product or service may have some awesome features, what emotion do you want your customers to feel? Frustration? Relief? Think about what emotions you want to trigger in your customer and then create video that triggers those emotions.

Don’t overcomplicate this part of the process. Just focus on your ideal customer. What’s important to them? Educate, entertain, and help your customer find the right solution to their problem.

Ignoring Video Marketing is Like Ignoring the Internet

Sooner or later, you will have to find a way to incorporate video into your marketing. Here’s a quick summary from 7 Tips to Leverage Videos for Your Small Business that will get you excited about what’s possible! Here are 5 of the 7 tips:

1. Get some video testimonials. Make the testimonial valuable to your customers by making the video a mini commercial for them. Let them tell their story and highlight how your business helped them grow.
2. Establish Yourself as an Expert. You know a lot about your industry. Why not create a series of videos where you share your expertise? Share where you think the future of the industry is going or any technology that will impact your business. Or focus on your customer with short, actionable tips. For example, if you run a hair salon, you could create a series of videos illustrating how to create the latest hair trends or techniques.
3. Juice up your email. If you use email marketing to reach your target audience or want to extend your relationship with existing customers, consider sending a video email. Studies show that including the word “video” in an email subject line can increase the open and click-through rates as much as 65%.
4. Interview thought leaders. This is one of my favorites. You can build relationships with key people in your field by interviewing them. You will reap three major benefits by doing this. First, you give your audience new perspective and information beyond what you can provide. Second, you always elevate your expertise to the level of the person that you are interviewing. Third, the person you interview will help you promote the video, which will help your brand reach a wider audience. This is especially helpful if they have a bigger social media footprint than you do.
5. Livestream. Social media is currently riding the video wave with tools like Google Hangout, Periscope, and Blab. And these services are creating raving fans of live streaming. It’s still in the early days for these tools, so be an early adopter and establish yourself as a live streaming pro.

Even More Video Marketing Ideas

Check out this infographic featured on marketingprofs.com (made with and by Venngage). It offers you a long list of video ideas you might try while avoiding four or five-figure expenditures.

Don’t Be Scared. Just Jump In!

Don’t let all of these stats and ideas overwhelm you. Take a look at all of the info provided here, then choose one idea you’d like to try. Maybe you want to do an interview with someone. Or maybe you want to ask for a customer testimonial. It doesn’t matter. Just do one thing today, and do a nother thing tomorrow. Take one step at a time and before you know it — you’ll be a video star.
This article is by Ivana Taylor from diymarketers.com .
Originally published at jive.com on August 15, 2017.