The goal of digital marketing is to create brand awareness and generate sales among a highly targeted audience. Video content is a useful addition to any SME digital marketing strategy, for various reasons:
1) Your audience gets to know you
Videos are a powerful form of direct communication. As such, they are very effective at conveying the human side of your business if you or your staff appear in them. Through video content, prospective customers can meet the men and women who deliver your products and services, strengthening the real-world credibility of your business. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, the video helped sustain and develop personal business relationships at a time when no face-to-face contact was possible. It was a lifeline for many businesses. Post-pandemic, video content can support your sales by starting the relationship-building process before you’ve even met – letting you capitalise on the time spent in person and reducing the number of meetings needed to clinch a sale.
2) Trust and transparency
Nothing conveys trust better than open body language and eye contact. You can use video content to describe your products and services in a personable and conversational way, replicating and supporting your blog content and lending greater credence and authority to your other sales material. Video can capture the attention of customers if your content solves a problem they have post-purchase, too. Many businesses find that a series of informative YouTube videos is a more effective channel for aftersales care than an intimidating user manual, serving to reduce customer service calls, and increasing repeat business.
3) Better search ranking
High-quality videos keep site visitors engaged, so Google takes this type of content into account in their ranking algorithms for relevant content. Research shows that websites with video content are 53 times more likely to be listed on the first page of Google search results.
There are several best practices for incorporating video into your digital marketing campaigns:
Ensure it’s optimised for mobile
Video content appeals to a wide range of viewers, but only if videos play smoothly – and that includes on mobile devices. For B2B companies, it’s safe to assume that most of your marketing videos will be viewed on mobile devices. It isn’t always possible to watch videos on an office PC or laptop, which is one of the reasons why written and static visual materials (e.g infographics) are still more popular with office-based buyers.
Back in 2017, 90% of Internet users watched videos on their phones, and the past five years have done nothing to diminish this trend. With these figures in mind, you want to ensure potential customers have a great experience when watching your videos on mobile devices. How do you do this?
- Keep videos short and to the point. How short is “short”? The optimum length depends on the funnel stage you’re targeting and the platform you’re using. Short-form content is best for sales material – 20-90 seconds.
- Add full on-screen text to get your message across even if viewers are watching with the sound off (very important for B2B videos intended for office use).
- Ensure your videos can be viewed in landscape full-screen mode – essential for accessing videos on small smartphone screens.
Make sure video content is shareable on social media
Video content is the most commonly shared form of content on social media. You can encourage this by adding social share buttons and by uploading your videos to your social media accounts or a third-party hosting service (e.g. YouTube or Vidyard) and not hosting them on your own site. Each video will have its own URL, which in many cases can be long and unwieldy. Use a URL editor or a compressor app, like Bit.ly to shorten your video URLs into something discrete and sharable.
Use your video links in email marketing
Including relevant videos in your email campaigns is a good strategy if you’re dealing with low email open and click rates. Video content appeals to a broad audience and can reach subscribers who don’t have the time or inclination to read long emails or articles.
Surveys show that click rates can improve by up to 65% when you include a link to a video, and open rates can be even higher when you add a video to your welcome emails.
Add a call-to-action (CTA) to your videos
All content should have a purpose and a clearly defined CTA, and that includes your videos. Whether your videos are purely informative (awareness) or promotional (consideration, decision), they should always guide the viewer towards the next step. Think about what you want to achieve with your video: is it a demo request, a newsletter sign-up, a referral, booking a consultation, or something else?
Never assume your audience knows what to do next, so spell it out for them with a clear and compelling call to action, either at the end of the video or in text format.
Choose the right content platform
Video content creation can be time-consuming, especially if you’ve never done it before. It can also be prohibitively pricey for small businesses without the time and budget to invest in studio equipment. This is why we recommend choosing a platform that’s easy to use and makes the task as painless and cheap as possible.
Vidyard is an excellent video content platform for small businesses, and here’s why:
- Monthly fees are low, even for packages with unlimited video uploads.
- You don’t need to buy expensive studio equipment.
- It’s SEO and mobile-optimised.
- Editing and customising your videos is fast and simple.
- It integrates with email tools and other business software.
- It features valuable analytics so you can see where you’re doing well and where you need to improve.
- You can push videos to social media with just a click.
- It’s a secure platform.
- It supports various call-to-action formats.
- It supports on-page replies so you can interact with viewers.
Find out more
To learn more about video sales and how you can incorporate videos into your content marketing strategy, please call one of our video team today on 01332 343281.
Image source: Pexels
