Video Marketing For Businesses: Why And How To Do It

Promoting your business in the online medium using video marketing is currently the best way to improve your brands’ traffic and reach.

Since most social media channels have started to prioritize video content over any other type of content, social users have started leading less and started watching more.

What does that mean for your business?

Regardless of your company’s current state of affairs, video marketing should become an important factor in your digital marketing strategy.

The vast majority of the clients using our video editing services are looking to double down on creating video content in the next 12 months.

It doesn’t really matter if you like the idea or not. It also doesn’t matter if you have a good professional camera or not… What matters is that you find a way to add videos in your content marketing plan and observe the results.

And by finding a way, I mean that you can always find a way to “upgrade” your content’s quality and diversity. However, if you have no idea how to create professional videos, outsourcing them is probably the wisest choice.

That doesn’t sound too good, right? More budget, more work, more energy – is it truly worth it?

Well, as you finish reading this post, you’ll acknowledge and fully understand the amazing potential ROI (return on investment) of video marketing for your business.

Take a pen, a piece of paper, offer me your unconditional attention, and let’s discuss.

The Power of Video Marketing for Businesses

The power of video marketing is pretty huge. Don’t believe me – look at the stats:

• As of 2020, 81% of businesses leverage video as a digital marketing tool. When you think about the fact that in 2018, the approximate number was 63%, you’ll immediately understand what kind of trend we have here.

• If Google is King, then YouTube is Queen. The video marketing platform is the most popular site in the world after Google (yet it’s the same corporation)

• 72% of customers suggest that they’d rather learn more about a product or service by watching a video instead of reading a piece of text.

• Video content is truly a priority of social channels. A social post with a video attached receives 48% more total views, or, it has a 48% improved reach potential.

• Mobile video usage grows by 100% every single year.

• Videos improve your organic traffic by 300% and improve the lead acquisition process.

• Videos can boost your conversion rates by 80%.

• By incorporating videos in your email marketing campaigns, you can achieve an absurd 200-300% Clickthrough Rate increase

• 85% of consumers crave for more quality content from brands.

• It is predicted that video will make up for 82% of the entire web traffic before 2021.

What can we conclude from here?

Video marketing is at its peak. As marketers, entrepreneurs, or webmasters, it’s our duty to never fall behind the marketplace. Does that mean that your entire strategy should revolve around video marketing?

Not at all. What it means is that you shouldn’t neglect videos and that you should do your best to adapt them to your current marketing strategy. Small steps, slow and easy!

Always be learning and implementing new tips in your video creation process.

The Benefits of Business Video Marketing

Creating a video marketing strategy and shooting videos is surely more difficult than writing an article. However, as you may figure, the benefits are totally compensating.

Generally, a high-quality branded video will improve your company’s awareness, reputation, and performance.

More specifically, here the primary benefits of video marketing.

Video is the best attention drawer

Think about the times when you simply enter a social media app to “see what’s new”. You’re scrolling, and you’re stumbling upon all sorts of information. My question is… what grabs your attention most?

1. A written social media text post that is full of information…
2. A video post that automatically loads once you reach it…

Basic common sense tells me that it usually option B), and studies confirm it. By acknowledging this benefit, you’ll be able to constantly improve your social engagement by drawing more attention upon you.

Video marketing improves your social presence.

If more people watch, like, and share your videos, your social media presence will naturally grow. Every new share generates unique views, which in turn can generate more reach and engagement.

Additionally, videos always tend to go viral. Text and audio – not so much. Of course, your videos must be of high quality and should send a “shareable” message.

Generally, anything that motivates and inspires people, anything funny, and anything really “cute” or controversial has the potential to reach virality. Oh, let’s not forget about the controversial pieces – they’re good too as long as they don’t become racist or anything that would hurt your brand’s reputation.

Video builds reputation and trust.

Talking of reputation and trust, video marketing seems to be a true reputation booster. Some people say that a picture is worth a thousand words. If you agree with that…then how about a video?

I’ll tell you. A video is basically the closest representation of real life. It shows what people want to see, and it gives everyone specific clues. Writing, on the other hand, forces people to use their imagination.

If you have a strong message that you want to send and you successfully represent it through a professional video, the impact will be truly worth the effort. As your video gets shared around, your brand’s awareness and reputation will immediately skyrocket.

Video makes people remember your brand.

You’ve heard of that very popular study … 70% of people are visual learners, which means that your traffic is much more likely to recall your brand’s name if you know how to effectively promote it throughout your videos.

The best example is the Coca-Cola ads. Think about those Christmas ads. They bring so much joy, happiness, feelings of holidays, and they help you remember how important family time is.

The thing is… this has nothing to do with Coca-Cola because as we all know, drinking Cola is not the healthiest thing for you, and especially not for your children.

However, the advertising campaign is absolutely brilliant because it manages to spark high-intensity emotions, just like these Valentine’s day marketing strategies. Those emotions and states are immediately associated with Coca-Cola, so the customer will rarely understand the strong urge and desire to buy and drink Coca-Cola in the nearest future.

The lesson is simple: humans are emotional beings. If you know how to feed high-frequency emotions (love, compassion, contribution) to the right target audience and then connect those emotions to your brand’s name and principles, your video marketing is going to rock!

Video marketing improves SEO

Since AI became a thing, Google’s algorithm has considerably improved. It is now an extremely sophisticated process that “connects the dots” and immediately tells whether a website is relevant, useful, and qualitative.

SEO is the best source of organic traffic. If you’re currently focusing on it, video marketing can boost your rankings to the top. How?

First of all, social signals (likes, shares, etc.) are an important factor in Google’s algorithm. However, the two most important ones are backlinks and content.

Videos can get you lots of backlinks if you know how to properly design them. They’re extremely shareable, and they’re good educational materials. Blogs can link to your “how-to / what is / why is” type of videos, and so your search engine rankings will grow.

Lastly, if a video becomes viral, your site will be flooded with traffic. That’s always a good thing unless your hosting plan can’t handle it. Google will like it, and you will like it too!

Video helps you better educate, inspire, and motivate your prospects

Nowadays, eBooks are replaced by video courses. Why’s that?

Well, the Millennial generations and the Gen Z generations are totally into “technology”. Students from all over the world like to learn from educational videos rather than educational texts, people relax watching movies and YouTube videos rather than reading books, and the VR and AR technologies are soon becoming “the next big thing”.

If you’re selling to people who grew up with a mobile phone in their hand and a PC on their desk, you should understand that these individuals prefer video education over anything else.

Why? Because it’s more interactive, more flexible, and more enjoyable. To some, it is also more effective and productive. Creating a landing page video to explain how to use your website can help you turn visitors into leads. You can create more types of educational videos:

• “How To…”
• “What Is…”
• “Why Is…”
• “Top 10…”
• “Step-by-Step Guide to….”
• “X Ways to…”
• “X Mistakes…”

Videos help you improve sales performance.

Let’s draw the line and see what we’ve got until now:

• Some really significant video marketing stats that prove a thing or two…
• Some really impressive benefits of video marketing…

Now – if you connect the dots yourself, you’ll realize that effective video marketing will significantly boost your sales performance.

All those shares, backlinks, direct linking, and reach will bring more people to your site, and make more individuals remember your brand’s name.

You have to remember, though, that each video marketing campaign can have different goals. You can aim for brand awareness (which will bring more sales in the long term), or you can aim to improve your leads and sales performance directly.

Either way, by consistently developing and publishing content that people enjoy, you’ll generate effects that all lead to the same place: better business performance.

Tips & Tricks to Improve Your Video Marketing

Well, nobody can question the real power of video marketing. If you agree that video marketing should become one of your top priorities and want to get started as soon as possible, here are some relevant tips & tricks that should help you with the basics.

Nevertheless, video marketing is truly a process rather than a result. One or two “failed” videos are simply one or two “lost battles”. However, the journey continues until you’re satisfied with everything your videos have achieved. Here are the tips:

Focus on the Script and the Message it Provides

When you publish a video – whether you make it yourself or outsource it – you must always focus on the message you want to send. The script of your video is the one piece that makes the difference between average results and amazing results.

Whether you write the script on your own or have someone do it for you, focus on the subliminal message that you want to leave people with. Ask yourself – what will the viewer gain/learn/understand after this video? Start the script by figuring out what you want to achieve!

Improve Your Titles by Using Power Words

If you want your videos to be successful, you’ll need to draw the initial attention with a relevant title. When you think of a new topic, assess the following things:

• Is this topic truly relevant and useful to my target audience?
• Is this topic aligned with my video marketing goals? (sales/awareness/reputation/etc.)
• Is this topic generating emotions?

As I’ve said, you need to perceive your customers like what they actually are – emotional beings. If your titles spark curiosity, controversy, love, compassion, inspiration, motivation, or any other strong feeling, your videos are likely to benefit from more traffic and engagement.

The best way to improve the quality and impact of your titles is to constantly leverage the so-called “power words”. These are words that tend to reach the subconscious side of your customers, thus generating positive effects for your brand. Here’s a big list of power words that you can use to improve your video titles’ quality.

The First Few Seconds are Key

Videos load by default on every social media channel. When you post a new video, ensure that the first one or two seconds are grabbing enough attention.

Usually, a person will instantly read your video’s title and continue to watch a few seconds in case the topic is interesting. However, the very same person will scroll down unless your first two seconds are grabbing his attention.

Therefore, you can often start with a question. Ask a meaningful question and promise the answer at the end of the video. Make your point by delivering the solution throughout or at the end of the video. If you’re going to focus on YouTube, make sure your thumbnail is attractive.

Use Tags and Hashtags

If you’re focused on YouTube, adding relevant video tags to every single upload is a truly recommended practice. Tags are simply descriptive keywords that help YouTube understand the intention, content, and relevancy of your content.

There are 4 types of tags you should combine when posting new videos:

• Specific tags (words that specifically describe your video topic – always a single keyword)
• General tags (words that broadly describe your video topic)
• Compound tags (tags that are made of more keywords or small phrases)
• Misspellings (a good strategy to put your videos in front of the people who misspell some letters when searching)

Concerning #hashtags, that’s a different thing that needs to be addressed separately. Hashtags can be used on every popular social media channel. However, each social network has certain “preferences” when it comes to the number of hashtags posted.

If 8-9 hashtags per Instagram video post are ideal, you should stick to two when you post videos on Twitter for example. Before establishing your hashtag marketing strategy, make sure you understand the primary differences when hashtagging on social networks.

Once you know how many hashtags you should post, it’s time to consider what type of hashtags to post. Here are a few options:

• Specific hashtags (just like specific tags – short and concise)
• General hashtags (more general descriptive terms for your video’s message)
• Branded hashtags (these are related to your brand’s values, motto, or mission. E.g. Nike’s #justdoit
• Trending hashtags (these are popular hashtags that receive organic traffic simply because they’re popular – you should always use a few in every post)

Don’t Be Afraid to Invest in Professional Tools and Services

Nowadays, you can create all sorts of videos without knowing any code, without having a professional camera, or any extensive knowledge in the field.

How?

Digital tools. Just like in every field, you can find helpful software that satisfies various needs and solves various problems. For example, you can find plenty of free/paid video animation tools that help you create professional animated/whiteboard/explainer videos from scratch.

Adobe After Effects and Premiere are often a must in case you want to take your visual marketing quality to the next level on your own. Canva, for example, is a truly useful resource from which you can “borrow” stock photos and videos. It also provides a simple-to-use dashboard that helps you create personalized images.

Regardless of the type of video you are looking to create, there are at least a handful of tools that will allow you to create them.

Anyway – my point is that you should never start your video marketing journey without “collecting” the proper resources first. Do your homework and find out which video marketing tools are suited for you, then start using them!

Don’t be afraid to invest in the “PRO”/”Premium” versions of the software you use and make sure you pick a music licensing platform that allows their songs to be used in the type of video campaign you are working on.

Takeaways

Video marketing trends are at their peak. As a smart entrepreneur, marketer, or freelancer, your job is to stay up to speed with the present marketplace trends and constantly adapt.

As you can probably notice, there’s nothing better than video right now, so your consistent efforts should be pointed in that direction as soon as possible.

If you’re not convinced yet, you will probably have to test it on your own. If you are, then let the planning, strategizing, and hard work begin!