Should My Business Invest In Video Marketing?

No matter where you look, you see videos. They pop up in your Google searches, appear on your Facebook feeds and even enter your email inbox. Companies pay Facebook advertising costs just to increase their video marketing reach. With the addition of better cameras in smartphones and more companies realizing the power of online video marketing, they’ve become more popular than ever before, even for smaller businesses.

Most businesses use video marketing in some form to reach customers and potential leads. If you aren’t already using video marketing, you risk falling behind the competition or missing out on potential clients.

If you’re getting ready to launch your first video marketing campaign, you might wonder what steps you should take and what your focus should be. We have nine strong tips for first-time video marketing newbies that will help you navigate the waters and get a good return on investment (ROI).

Know Your Purpose

Before you make videos, you need to understand your business model. What is your purpose as a company? This might tie into the reason you started your enterprise in the first place. For example, if you were a single mom struggling to pay the bills and you started an online site that offers side jobs, then your purpose is helping women financially or giving them a leg up. Once you know your goal, you can shape your video marketing campaigns and promotions around why you do what you do.

Research Your Audience

You’ve likely heard this advice over and over again in marketing circles: To market to your target audience, you must first know who they are. Dig into your internal data about your clients. What is the average age of your customer? What do they do in their spare time? Where do they live and how much money do they make? The more details you can gather, the stronger the buyer persona.

You may want to conduct some polling to figure out what your typical audience member wants most from you. Marketers say video helps them find new leads, but you must make sure they are highly qualified and who you actually want to reach. Perform customer research to improve your video marketing strategies.

Study The Competition

Spend time looking at any videos your competition produces. Go to YouTube and search for competitor names. Go to their website and see what videos they have posted there. Check their social media pages. Many marketers feel video is becoming even more important in marketing efforts.

Keep in mind that you aren’t studying the competition to copy what they do — you want to stand out from them. However, you can learn who their target audience is and the best places and ways to reach them. The more you understand audience and competition, the better you’ll be able to pull ahead of the pack.

Set A Budget

Video is an area where it’s easy to spend a lot of money and not have much to show for it. You should set a video marketing budget that fits within your overall promotional spending. Because you likely have limited funds, it’s important to ensure every dollar has an impact. What results do you want from your videos? Set firm goals and track results so you don’t waste money and learn how to better budget your video dollars over time.

Offer Something Of Value

What is your unique value proposition (UVP)? This is what you offer to people that no one else does. It is what helps people make money on YouTube through video content. Maybe you run a business-to-business (B2B) service, but you have 24/7 live agents who answer calls. If none of your competitors offer that, you can provide instant access at all times to your customers, which is quite attractive to some company owners.

Think about what you offer that no one else does and whether it’s of value to your customers. For example, you might have the best company culture in the business, but your clients don’t particularly care as that doesn’t directly impact them. On the other hand, if you have the fastest delivery times, customers will care because that affects them.

Write A Script

When you get ready to shoot your first video, you’ll realize how time-consuming it can be. Anything you can do ahead of time to expedite the process saves you money because it requires less time. Write a script of how you want the video to go. Make it as detailed as possible, including angels of shots and other details.

A storyboard that lays out a visual representation of each scene is helpful to the videographer. Finally, spend time running through the script with any actors or people being interviewed. Even a narrator should practice ahead of time before recording audio.

Shoot And Edit The Video

Once you’ve prepped and figured out what shots you need, shoot the video or hire someone to do it for you. Make sure you get more footage than you need, including any aerial or still shots you’d like to include in introductions or transitions.

The editing phase of the video process may be one of the most time-consuming. Either learn how to edit videos yourself to save money or hire an experienced editor. You can find them on websites and get them for a fraction of the cost of more in-demand editors. Just make sure you aren’t sacrificing quality in the process.

Embed The Video

Once the video is ready, upload it to your platform of choice. YouTube is a good place to upload videos because it’s one of the largest social media sites, with well over 1 billion users. You can also embed the video from YouTube onto your website, social media or even in an email. Figuring out where and how to do this is simply a matter of figuring out where your target audience hangs out most often.

Promote Like Crazy

One step some small-business owners forget when first dipping their toes into video marketing is promotion. If you upload a video to a streaming platform and then walk away, you aren’t going to get much traction. Instead, make sure you send a link to your mailing list, post one on your social media pages, ask your loyal customers to share it and even take out a few advertisements. The more eyes you get on the video, the more success you’ll have.

Is Video Marketing Vital?

Do you have to have video marketing to move your business forward? You might find some success without using videos as part of your marketing platform, but you’ll also miss out on one of the most effective ways of reaching new leads. Try just one video campaign and see what the results are before choosing to mark them off your list of marketing methods.