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Are you using video effectively to engage new customers, enhance your SEO, and drive profits for your business? No? Then keep reading!
In this article I’m going to show you ways to optimize your videos for massive growth.
Video is more engaging, more wanted, more liked and more useful to consumers – and most importantly – it is what the majority of consumers want to see as part of their buying cycle (see the graph below).
Just ask yourself, if you could choose between reading a blog post or watching a video about the same topic, which would you pick? Video most likely!
Based on statistics (Wyzowl 2019) 68% of consumers want a short video from a brand to find out more about a product or service.
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The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing for Small Business
The power of video
Let’s dive a bit under the surface to understand why video is so darn important.
Video is like a super-magnet for the eyes and mind. Video also builds communication and connection. These are vital ingredients to building the key item we need most to convert leads into customers – TRUST.
How does video do that you ask? I am getting there. Stick with me.
Your customers want to watch a video to learn about your products or services. And most importantly, they make decisions to buy from you based on watching one or more videos.
There are some astonishing facts about how the human brain is wired for video – we humans process visual information 60,000 times faster than text!
Let’s consider your website for a minute. Statistics from a Stanford University study found that people form an opinion about your brand in 50 milliseconds. That’s .05 of a second!
If you don’t want to lose them, you need to have something “sticky” on your website to capture attention. Video is sticky! Humans love video.
How to use your videos to increase traffic and conversions
We have no choice today but to be our best spokesperson for our brand. No matter if you are a dentist, an attorney, a coffee shop owner, car repair shop, watch maker, salon owner, restaurant owner or veterinarian, it is time to start getting good at video to tell your story and sell your solutions.
Consumers need to see you, hear your voice, and learn about your business from the source, aka you! That’s how you will win their trust. By utilising video, you will make them feel like they know you before they’ve ever met you in person.
Now that you know why you need to use video, let’s get into the strategy. Putting your videos in the right places will help you gain a profitable return on your investment.
9 places to use your marketing videos
- YouTube
- Website
- Email Blast
- Email Signature line
- Introductory Emails to Possible Customers or Clients
- Facebook (Natively Posted)
- Sales presentation
- Trade show or convention booth
I’ll break down details of the how and why for each of these below.
1) Upload your video to your company YouTube account
If you haven’t got a YouTube account, make one.
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and billions are on it every day to find information, buy products and be entertained. Every business needs a YouTube channel.
If you don’t have a Youtube Channel set up yet, the first step is creating a Google account. You probably already have a personal Google account where you may have set up a gmail account for email.
From there go to YouTube and create a Branded YouTube channel. Google owns YouTube, so setting up your YouTube channel is done through your Google account.
Once you have your account set up, you can optimize it with keywords and tags and a well written “about” page. Add links to your social profiles like Facebook and Instagram. You will also want to put up a well branded YouTube header image. Once your video is hosted on YouTube it becomes easy to share and build attention for your brand.
Take for example this client, Walker Mobile Homes. She didn’t think anything much about the value of a YouTube channel to support her work.
I convinced her to set up the channel and share her story of renovating and selling mobile homes. Heck, the world loves HGTV and so this may just work, I told her.
She’s had her channel for a bit over a year. She’s posted 30 videos so far. With almost no promotion she has 502 subscribers and almost 50,000 video views. She regularly gets calls from potential customers who saw her on YouTube. She ranks as the #1 leader in her niche for her geographic region on YouTube.
2) Embed your video onto the landing page of your website
On average, people spend 1.4x more time on pages with video than without . If you want people to watch and read the information on your website, place the video on your home page.
Put it right below the top title information. Google algorithms check if people are spending more time on your site. Video helps to keep them there longer.
And if you have a testimonial video, place it lower down on your home page, and/or on the “Testimonials” page of your website. Testimonials are fantastic sales tools on your website, in emails and for use in social media.
3) Place your video in email blasts to new and existing customers
You probably have email lists of people you’ve done business with, the people you’ve met, or the people you want to sell your products and services to.
Hopefully these lists are in email software such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact. If not get something like this set up so you can send out good looking bulk emails.
Put your video into an email to your list. Incorporate it smartly to help sell your brand and get people watching it, sharing it, commenting on it, and reacting to it.
4) Add a link to your web video in your email signature
By adding “Watch our video here” to your email signature, you’ll be able to reach the clients that don’t have a social media presence or haven’t already been directly targeted.
It means you’ll be able to subtly reach out to existing clients and anyone you email, without coming across as pushy. Check out the example below. You can copy this design for your own email signature if you like! (Make sure and change the photo and links to your own)
5) Introduction emails
The first contact with a customer must pique their interest to stand any chance of response, especially if you aren’t already connected. An initial email with a video receives an increase click-through rate of 96%. A video can quickly and effectively deliver your message and connect with that new potential client. Use the video link in your introduction emails.
If you need a new unique video as an introduction, I often use tools like Wistia’s “Soapbox” to record a video for a client or new prospect and then embed that unique video directly into an email.
6) LinkedIn
Visual posts on a LinkedIn feed catch the eye more than a text-based post, and with auto-play, videos hook people in pretty quickly. Post your video from YouTube to your LinkedIn feed for the company and any personal LinkedIn account.
Again, I just did this with a video I produced to support shopping at local businesses.
7) Upload your video to Facebook
Sure, you could share your link from YouTube in a Facebook post, but Facebook is designed to give preferential treatment to videos posted to your company Facebook page.
You may have heard this called “native” video. What native means in this case is that the video is uploaded to and posted directly on that network. No clicking. No linking.
8) Embedded in a proposal
If you do sales presentations, a client could be suitably impressed that you’ve gone to the effort of producing a video to help them understand your offer. Consider this: if you were to get a text-based offer or video with the offer, would you want to watch a video rather than simply read text?
Most people are more likely to choose to watch a video. When your video has done the talking, use your written content to fill the gaps and nail down the finer details.
9) Trade show/Conference
If you’ve got a stand at a trade show, you’ll be packed in with competitors and trying to reach as many potential customers as possible.
By playing your corporate video on a screen you can grab people’s attention, keep them at the stand for longer and get an on-brand message to your audience, regardless of who you’re busy talking to.
And a final point that I feel must be mentioned is that your friends and family can be great ambassadors for you! Tell them about the video – share it with them and get their help in spreading the word about how awesome you are.
Getting started with video
I want you to get started with video. I don’t want you to feel like you must have a professional video crew to start.
Getting going can be done with a mobile phone. Then you can add a lapel mic that plugs into your phone and a sunlit window for “lighting”. You can do it “selfie-style”. Then upgrade further to a tripod to hold your phone.
I’ve coached multiple clients on how to start with their office manager or their wife or husband being their “cameraman.” In fact, one veterinarian had her 11-year-old son be her cameraman as she did educational videos about how to care for puppies. He edited her videos on iMovie!
Check out this blog for a list of simple equipment you can purchase at low cost: Doing Video on a Budget.
When you are ready, you can hire someone. Have a trusted agency produce a set of premium videos, testimonials and educational content for your website, your YouTube channel and your social profiles.
In summary
Jumping into the video world can be fun, refreshing, and exciting for you and your business. And let’s not forget profitable, because the more profitable you are, the more freedom you have to create more of the things you love.
Use the information above to create videos and get them used in the right places to generate massive exposure for your brand and engagement with your target audience.
Best of luck to you in building an extraordinary online presence with video.
Guest Author: Cebron Walker is a Marketing and Public Relations specialist with 30 years’ experience. He is the founder and CEO of Walker Kreative, a digital marketing agency with offices in St. Petersburg, Florida and Sacramento, California. Walker Kreative serves small business owners and healthcare practice owners across North America. The Walker Kreative team uses the latest tactics in video marketing, SEO, social advertising and content creation to grow new customer numbers and help businesses achieve leadership positions in their regions.
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