A beginners’ guide to video marketing

Is your business ready for its close up? If not, it should be.

The concept of online video marketing can be overwhelming for small to medium business owners. Thoughts of studios, film crews, clapperboards and spiralling budgets can sometimes be the first things that spring to mind when SMBs contemplate the topic.

They shouldn’t be, though.

Today, even start-ups can add video to their online marketing offering for relatively little effort and expense.

In this article, we look into why SMBs need to embrace online video marketing and how they can implement it quickly and cost-effectively.

What are the benefits of online video marketing?

Let’s say it in stats…

• Research by Cisco suggests that more than 80 per cent of all Internet traffic will be video by 2021. If you’re not offering video, then there’s a good chance your marketing efforts will miss a huge audience.
• Marketing researchers believe that viewers retain 95 per cent of a message when they view a video, compared to 10 per cent of it when they read it in text format.
• Studies suggest that adding a video thumbnail to an email can increase click-through rates by between 20 and 40 per cent.
• It’s thought that 64 per cent of internet users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it.
• Experiments by Eye View Digital suggest that embedding videos in landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 80 per cent.
• Video also plays a vital role in the creation of snackable content. Not familiar with the term? Read all about it on our blog ‘Why SMBs need to know about snackable content’.

Where do you start with online video marketing?

Of course, it’s all well and good evangelising about the benefits of adding video to your online marketing efforts, but it’s another thing knowing what to film and where to share your clips.

The truth is, though, you don’t have to move mountains to add video to your marketing output.

Video marketing on social media

If you want to test the water, the best place to start is with your social media sites.

Look at your social media output and decide where video clips would work harder than the words or images you currently post.

Remember that social media videos should be short. Ideally, Instagram videos should be 30 seconds long, twitter should be 45 seconds, and Facebook footage should last one minute.

Try to create content that entertains, helps, informs or offers users insight.

Cold, dry sales videos aren’t going to cut the mustard on social. Instead, create a helpful how-to video, share footage of your company sports day, or create a video linked to a topic that you know your users love, even if it’s not directly linked to your own products.

Video marketing on your website

There are a few places on most websites that lend themselves naturally to the addition of video content.

• Add a video to your homepage that gives viewers a sense of what you do and what problems you solve.
• Include videos in your case study or testimonial pages.
• Add video to your product pages.
• Insert video into your meet the team pages.
• Add video to your blogs.

Video marketing best practice

No matter whether you’re sharing your video on your website or on social media, a few dos and don’ts almost always apply…

DO… include subtitles. You can add subtitles to any mobile phone video for free using Kawping’s subtitle service.

DO… include a call to action at the end. For example, ask viewers to like your video, comment on it, or tell them how to visit your website.

DO… be personable. Offer clips on things like behind the scenes peaks or interviews. It’s believed that the average retention rate for information contained in a video is 35 per cent greater when the content is personal.

DO… schedule your video content. Embed it into an editorial calendar and make sure you produce it regularly along with your blogs and social media posts.

DO… put some thought into choosing a thumbnail for your video. It has to be one that instantly draws the attention of viewers, so experiment.

Thumbnails that work well include those that include close-ups of expressive faces, feature a keyword or phrase or contain an interesting action shot.

DON’T… wing it. Take half an hour to script and choreograph what’s going to happen in your video. It will make it appear much more professional.

How do you physically produce video content?

And now for the elephant in the room. How do you actually manufacture video content?

The truth is, you can produce perfectly acceptable video content today with nothing more than your mobile phone and a well-lit corner of an office or outdoor space.

If you only invest in one bit of kit, make it a tripod to hold your camera steady.

Before you do anything, you’ll need to set up a YouTube channel. YouTube owner Google offers detailed set-up advice in its Support pages.

Of course, other video streaming sites do exist. Vimeo is another option. One of the main benefits of Vimeo is that is doesn’t add advertising to your videos. The downside, though, is that you have to pay a subscription to access most of its services.

So what about editing?

The good news is there are a number of free video editing apps out there. If you’re filming using an iPhone you can edit using the free iMovie app.

For Android users, free options include PowerDirector and KineMaster.

If you do have the time to edit your videos, there are a couple of techniques you can implement to make them more engaging.

Stop your talking to camera clips becoming boring by playing around with shot changes, sound effects, and B-roll – secondary footage that you add to your video to complement whatever you are talking about.

Also, consider adding music to your video. You can source royalty free music from sites like Audio Jungle and YouTube’s own audio library.

So with all that said… isn’t it about time you got the camera rolling?