Let’s face the truth that when your customer will come across your web page overloaded with text, he will for sure ignore those texts and move to your competitor’s page where he will find something interesting. But, when he will see interesting and exclusive videos on your web page, he will pause and watch those.
Being bombarded with web content every second, people now don’t have enough patience and time to go through those long and boring content. This is the reason marketing through videos in today’s competitive world is very essential. Videos can be consumed easily as well as people enjoy watching them. Hence, it won’t be wrong to say that video is a crucial tool via which you can drive in heavy traffic towards your website and engage your website viewers. As per the data, by the year 2019, 80% of the entire internet traffic has been driven by the videos.
If you are running a small business and are of the belief that only big companies can afford to create entertaining and high-quality marketing videos, then you are completely wrong here. Today every small business entrepreneur too can market through amazing videos, which the internet users will gobble up on the web and social media. Neither you need expensive, fancy equipment nor any videographer; all you must have is a Smartphone and a computer.
Being a small business entrepreneur, you may not have an adequate budget, plenty of time and skill to promote for your business and may have to face multiple business challenges.
Marketing through videos can here prove as a savior for you. Videos are having their own magic and have the caliber to attract the human brains smartly. Hence, how could you as a marketer resist the magical power of videos – a magnificent engagement hook?
All set to drive in heavy traffic, boost engagement and increase your business conversions with videos? Look into these 10 resourceful video marketing tips for small businesses.
#1. Repurpose popular blogs into videos
You need not bother about presenting something fresh and new concept to allure your viewers. You can recycle your content and reach new viewers by repurposing into videos those blog posts that are very popular and have performed pretty well. When you repurpose those blog contents in the form of videos, audiences who have ignored those blog posts in the past can be attracted efficiently.
Using the tool Lumen5, your articles can be transformed easily into videos by you. This tool makes use of artificial intelligence for automating video creation. What you will have to do here is to enter RSS feed or the blog post and the Lumen5 software will summarize the entire content for you and help you in matching scenes with the relevant music, videos, and photos. You can also customize your every video with your business brand so that it attracts new audiences more effectively and introduce your business to them.
#2. Set the video on the landing page of your website
Videos can not only increase traffic and audience engagement but also can help in increasing your business outcome too. Surprisingly, when you set the video on the landing page of your website, you can boost your business conversion by 80%. When a video is incorporated on the landing page of your website, visitors visiting your website will notice it instantly, view it and understand the message that you want to convey to them. You need not have to invest much effort to make them understand about your services and products as the video will efficiently do this work.
Note that the videos on the landing page must have great thumbnail and of superior quality, unique as well as well-linked with an individual player like Vimeo or YouTube. The landing page video can either be about your business, about you, about your services or products or customer reviews. Whatever it is, but the main intention of the video must be to entertain your users and make them understand your company’s value so that they buy your services without a second thought.
#3. Make use of live video for interacting with your visitors
When you speak to your visitors directly, you connect with them in a much better way. You can make use of live streaming and interact with your customers and visitors whenever you want. Follow the new trend, like going live on Instagram, YouTube or Facebook, receive tons of engagement and enhance your business.
You can also schedule a Q&A session which is one of the greatest ways of using live video. Notify your audiences beforehand about the session so that the interested ones can join the session and get the answers to their questions instantaneously.
#4. Teaser videos for sparking interest
There are situations when the audiences get bored and forget about a particular company and during that period those companies experience lulls. Interest can be sparked in your visitors when you add some excitement or mystery to your company’s promotional videos. You can shoot short teasers about your new product and release them in two or three continuation parts. When an audience watches the teaser videos in parts, he gets even more excited to know what will be in the next teaser and will wait eagerly for that.
Even a three to five-second teaser video can be much more effective. You can also add a small twist to the teaser by adding a small contest and making your audiences guess what the video is all about. This will boost the engagement of your audience.
#5. Post screen recordings for tutorials
To make your customers know about your products and services, you need to teach them, and videos made by screen recording today is the best way. When you post written content on how your product works, most of the visitors will not understand and a few among them will leave your page without reading the tutorials. Hence, to boost audience engagement and make them retain adequate info, you can post tutorials in the form of screen recording videos.
Software demo can be recorded to show your customers how they can use certain software features. There are many paid and free screen capture software like Snagit and Open Broadcaster through which you can easily record HD videos and edit them as well as add audio or text to them.
#6. Keep the video duration short
Normally, we get attracted towards anything online for a short span from three to five seconds. These are the seconds within which you need to grab the attention of your viewers before they leave your page. Try to make the video as short and precise as possible and keep it free from fluffs. The opening video scene should be shocking, intriguing or super funny so that it gains the viewer’s attention.
Though there aren’t any guidelines on how big or short the video must be, but in general, videos that are used for advertising on YouTube must not exceed the two-minute mark. On Facebook and Instagram, the video must be of a maximum 60 – 90 seconds. With the help of snappy – a video editing tool you can effectively and quickly keep your videos’ duration within the permitted limit.
#7. Make use of copy pull-outs
As per a survey, from all the Facebook videos almost 85% are played mute due to which your message cannot be heard. This can become a big matter of concern. Certainly, you can make use of subtitles or CC but that too won’t convey your message properly.
Instead of relying completely on the audio of the videos and using subtitles, you can add highly animated and catchy copy pull-outs with the help of which you can pass your message in a more engaging manner despite any sound.
Obviously, copy-pull outs in comparison to subtitles are not your video’s full transcript but can present your message and make the viewers understand your video easily even if the sound of the video is in mute mode. And when the audio is turned on, the text placed on top should complement your audio message adequately. With the availability of numerous video editing tools, you can insert copy pull-outs. Adobe After Effects is the best editing tool among all.
#8. Target platform
The biggest mistake that we all make is post the same video on every social media platform. Though you may get some results, it’s not the best way to handle the videos.
YouTube works just like a search engine. People hit YouTube for getting answers to some specific questions like they watch product reviews, how-to videos, tutorials and many more. This means that they visit YouTube to get educational and informational videos and if you are planning to run your advertisement on YouTube then bear in mind that you make your videos informational and if possible a little funny to entertain the viewer.
In comparison to YouTube, Facebook is totally opposite. Most of the Facebook viewers log into the page just to chill and relax from the workload. On Facebook people enjoy watching comical pictures and videos. The videos that they like to share with their friends and family. And that is the thing you need to consider if you are targeting Facebook.
Yes, shooting and editing different videos for different platforms might be expensive for you, but the ROI that you will derive will also be almost double.
#9. Don’t ignore video quality
Everybody will prefer to launch his campaign with unique and extraordinary videos. We all know that today fancy cameras are available in plenty at affordable rates that can shoot tremendous pictures with the feature of adjusting the colors as per the needs. Also, there are Smartphones that can shoot amazing HD videos with incredible effects.
But, if the video that you are going to make demands for plenty of camera movements as well as different shots that you cannot film comfortably, then you must hire one of the best videographers. Being a professional he will do justice to your campaigning video.
To be very clear, audiences will have a negative impact on the product if it is promoted with a video of poor quality. So make sure that the quality of the video is exactly like what is required, otherwise, the campaign might mar your brand despite promoting it.
The easiest, most convenient and less expensive thing while shooting a video is to shoot it with a green background and after that outsource the video to an editing company so that they can add perfect backdrops and do the necessary editing.
#10. Optimize your video for every screen
When we talk about the current scenario, almost 60% of the videos are watched on mobile devices. Hence, make sure that the videos that you are going to make could be easily watched irrespective of the handset. Not every individual has the same screen size, some have smartphones with a wider screen and some have regular mobile devices with small screens.
Font size and typography can greatly bounce the ratings of the webpage. Therefore, it is essential that you make use of bold and big texts that can be read without much effort on every screen. The viewer will get annoyed if he will have to struggle to read those small texts flashing on the video.
If your video is created for product review, then make sure you include sufficient close-up shots. The basic fundamentals of filmmaking and cinematography teach us how tight, wide and medium shots can work best on every type of screens to keep the attention and interest of the viewers on the video subject.
Wrapping Up
Now, when you are having some resourceful video marketing tips for your business, you can avoid those normal sales pitch and promote your products via videos. Start shooting content so that your viewers can just tap the play button and get to know about your product in an interesting manner. Make sure that you get the right storyline, make your video funny or emotional and share on various social platforms so that your product reaches thousands of viewers.