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When it comes to digital marketing in the modern age, old tactics are no longer considered best practices. In order to reach an increasingly sophisticated audience, small businesses must find ways to cut through the noise, grab attention, and cost-effectively conjure up high levels of engagement. And though it might not be the same traditional approach that small businesses have used in the past, video is the answer that many are looking for.
The Staggering Growth of Video Marketing
Curated data reveals that 100 million Americans watch YouTube each month (and the platform has 200 billion active monthly users). In total, 1 billion hours of YouTube streams are viewed each day. And that’s just one platform!
Zoom out and you’ll see that Facebook gets 8 billion views per day, while Twitter receives 2 billion daily views. Throw in Snapchat, Instagram, and social media’s newest darling, TikTok, and the numbers are staggering.
In total, people watch an average of 16 hours of online video every week (up 52 percent over the past two years). And when it comes to virality, social media videos generate 1,200 percent more shares than text and image content. Best of all (from a marketing perspective), 95 percent of viewers retain a message after watching it (compared to just 10 percent when reading text).
We could spout dozens of similar statistics, but you get the point: Video works. It leads to increased brand awareness, better social media engagement, stronger trust, and far greater reach. And thanks to the democratization of video, the emergence of cost-effective video production services, and the rise of user-friendly publishing platforms, video marketing is something that small businesses have access to as well.
3 Video Production Tips for Small Businesses
It used to be that you needed thousands of dollars worth of video equipment, an entire creative team, media connections, and a full-fledged, comprehensive advertising strategy to generate any sort of ROI on brand video production. Today, it’s much simpler.
Having said that, you can’t just swipe open the camera on your smartphone and hit record. There are certain details you must get right in order to win with video.
- Know Your Target Audience
While this really speaks to a much larger marketing concept, it’s certainly important within the context of video. If you want your video to penetrate the right people and leave a lasting impact that eventually moves them to action, you have to know who your target audience is and what makes them tick.
It’s not enough to know the basic demographics of your audience – like single moms between the ages of 25 and 40. You have to know what they’re thinking about, dreaming about, etc. What gets them excited? What are they most fearful of? When do they watch video?
A detailed understanding of who your target audience is will give you everything necessary to plot a strategy that resonates with the right people. (Messaging becomes easy when you know your product and your audience. At this point, it’s simply a matter of connecting the dots.)
There are obviously different video content strategies. Some small businesses invest most of their annual budget into a single video and then shape their entire digital strategy around that video. Others take a more relaxed approach, disseminating video on a daily/weekly basis. And though it’s tough to point to a one-size-fits-all strategy, consistency appears to be the best strategy of the day.
The internet moves faster than ever, and algorithms reward recency and freshness. If you want to reach your audience, you need to post fresh content regularly. This includes occasional professional video productions, as well as more casual content, like Facebook Lives or TikTok videos. If you’re unsure about which avenue to take for your business, best to engage the services of a company specializing in video production Sydney, who will be able to walk your business through the best video strategy.
- Align Video With Your Sales Funnel
It’s important to align video with your sales funnel. And as you probably know, buyers go through three main stages when researching and buying something online. There’s the awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage. Each video should be aligned in such a way that it intentionally addresses one specific stage – ultimately pushing viewers further down the sales funnel.
Video Gives You Wings
With all due respect to a certain energy drink brand, small businesses would argue that it’s video that gives you wings. And for companies that are willing to invest the time, money, and energy into doing video production well, a robust ROI is always a possibility. So if you’ve been indecisive about whether or not to take the plunge, let this be a sign that it’s a worthwhile investment.
