6 Tips To Get Your Small Business Succeeding In Video Marketing

by Startacus Admin

People love videos; People watch videos, even marketing videos. Unfortunately, many small businesses find video marketing tricky and challenging to achieve any level of success.

CISCO found that online videos will make up over 81% of all internet traffic by 2020, so there’s never been a better time to get your small businesses video content production up to scratch and maximise the benefits you could be reaping.

These six tips will help to make video marketing more achievable for your small business:

1 . Plan

Planning is everything as a small business, with limited resources, preparation is critical to maximising your results, and this holds true with video marketing. You’ll need to plan the following:

1. How will you test and measure

2. The content and style

3. Dissemination channels

4. Regularity

5. Video purpose and goal

6. Target audience

7. Branding style           
   

At this stage by figuring out the parameters and making these choices, you simplify the process moving forward.

2. Keep it Simple

If you haven’t got the budget to pay for an agency to manage all the intricacies of an elaborate video campaign, then keep it simple. Create simple visuals, simple audio and don’t hold yourself to an over-eager production plan. Simplicity is critical for small business video marketing as it’s easy to get carried away with grand ideas, but these will only lead to bloated costs and timescales with a minimal extra payoff. 

When you’re starting out with video content creation, it’s best to stick to the basics. Create and settle on a strategy of what types of videos you intend to make, what mediums you plan to use them for and, of course, who you mean to reach with them.

Consider here if you’ll be better served with pre-recorded videos or live 1 take videos on services such as Facebook or Youtube. 

You can then move on to researching what hardware you’ll need as a minimum to achieve the video’s you’ve outlined in your strategy. You won’t have invested in the most expensive DSLR camera or state of the art lighting. You may have decided on animations over live-action style videos; this will have a direct effect on the hardware required.

Focus on the achievability of the strategy, and the regularity of production. As a small business your resources will already be stretched, keep your video creation process simple, as well as your dissemination.

3. Get some help

The odds are, even if you keep it simple, at some point, you’ll need some help if video marketing is a content stream you’d like to maintain or grow. Support doesn’t have to be expensive though. Consider using services such as Upwork to engage freelancers who have the experience to help with the process; you can find writers and creatives to help with different aspects of your videos. 

You could also hire an intern, which is, of course, more affordable than hiring a full-time more senior member of the team. Target recent graduates with a degree or experience in creative industries, they will more than likely be able to handle video creation and will benefit from the experience your business can offer.

4. Reuse, Recycle, Reduce

The content you’ve created can easily be used repeatedly. Videos content you make for one channel can be cut and edited to suit another channel. This could be as simple as making videos shorter to fit in or stripping back branding. Video content should be disseminated across as many channels as feasible to maximise the benefits gained from the resources spent on them.

You can also update older videos where content is still relevant and holds true, but the look or part of the script has made it out of date. Also, consider reusing existing blog content for video, these are existing ideas that you’ve already spent time researching and creating. Why not reuse this content in a new way.

5. Video length

While researching you will more than likely get bombarded with stats on viewership and drop-offs about video length. However, remember this is not a golden rule.

Focus on creating short, concise videos, but remember that these can be cut and edited once complete. While it is true that video’s over 3 minutes perform poorly in general, this doesn’t take into account the channel. Longer videos can play well on some platforms like Youtube so not much time should be spent worrying and re-creating videos if they run too long.

6. Use Stock Footage Where Needed

This won’t work for live-action videos or one-take style videos but for nearly everything else, use or create stock. Using stock video that plays during voiceover to keep viewers engaged and watching can save you time on creating visuals. Many sites offer free stock videos that can limit the need for time spent creating videos or editing them. This is a particularly useful method when turning old blog posts into video content; as you won’t need many changes, the blog post itself can be used as a script. 

If you’re not the biggest fan of stock video, consider creating some yourself by creating a video database. When attending events, conferences and industry meetings or product releases, take a camera and create some video content. Consider filming yourself and if appropriate team members or your offices. This can serve as stock video to be used in the future and has the benefit of being original to your business.

Video marketing can have a direct positive impact on your small business. It can help to improve the interactions the public have an awareness of your brand. Using these six tips, you’ll be able to make video marketing an achievable endeavour and a useful part of your overall marketing and content plan. 

Happy Small Business Marketing!


Tosin Yussuf is a marketing specialist and Founder of Marketbl the first startup marketing platform, based in the UK. A former Web and App developer, when she's not helping startups grow, she's tinkering with tech.

and happy to add the two social links too

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Marketbl_

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tosinyussuf



If you liked this digital marketing themed article, you might also want to read: 

• The State of Digital Marketing 2018: 5 Trends To Look Out For

• The impact of Video Content - Show Don’t Tell! 

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Published on: 26th March 2018