What type of content do you use to promote your small business? Content is an important part of all marketing strategies. It allows you to engage prospective customers so that they are more likely to choose your small business over its competitors. Instead of relying on text content, though, you should diversify your marketing strategy with video content. Video marketing can help your small business succeed in several ways.
1. Builds Trust
Creating high-quality video content will make prospective customers trust your small business a little more. According to a survey cited by Biteable, in fact, 52 percent of marketers believe video marketing is an effective way to build trust with their audience.
It takes time to produce and edit video content. When prospective customers see high-quality video content published under your small business's name, they'll perceive your small business as an authoritative industry leader. Therefore, prospective customers will trust your small business more if you perform video marketing.
2. Drives Product or Service Sales
Video marketing will drive product or service sales for your small business. Whether they are shopping locally or online, prospective customers often watch video content. A HubSpot report found that video content influences over four-fifths of all purchases.
Prospective customers may watch video content to learn more about products or services. Assuming the video content is compelling, they may purchase the featured products or services.
For more product or service sales, you should consider using explainer videos. Explainer videos are defined by their purpose. They explain how something, such as a product or service, works. Other types of videos can drive product or service sales as well, but explainer videos often come out on top because of their educational nature.
3. Increases Brand Awareness
Video marketing will make more prospective customers aware of your small business's unique brand identity. A study conducted by OptinMonster found that marketers who use video content achieve 54 percent greater brand awareness than those who use don't use video content.
The visual format by which video content is defined promotes brand awareness. Prospective customers will likely remember your small business's brand after watching a video about it. They may or may not remember your small business's brand after reading an article about it. The human brain is hard-wired to respond more actively to visual content. You can create video content that depicts your small business's brand, resulting in increased brand awareness.
4. Increases Customer Loyalty
In addition to brand awareness, video marketing will increase customer loyalty for your small business. Just because you convert a prospective customer into an actual customer, there's no guarantee he or she will stay with your small business. Some customers will part ways with your small business by switching to a competitor.
The good news is that video marketing will increase customer loyalty by encouraging them to stay with your small business for a longer period. You can create educational video content, including explainer videos, that are valuable to your small business's customers. You can also create customer testimonial video content to further increase loyalty.
5. Fosters Higher Search Rankings
Video marketing fosters higher search rankings. You can score higher search rankings for your small business's website by publishing high-quality video content on it. Websites with engaging video content typically outrank those with only text and image content.
It's unknown whether Google uses video content as a ranking signal. Nonetheless, video content will align your small business's website with numerous confirmed ranking signals. It will attract backlinks, for instance. Bloggers, influencers and other online users may link to your video content.
Video content promotes a higher search dwell time. Search dwell time is the length of time a search engine user stays on a website after discovering it in the search results. Like with backlinks, Google uses search dwell time as a ranking signal. The longer users stay on your small business's website, the higher its dwell time will be.
When optimizing video content, follow these tips:
- Prefix each video with a relevant title.
- Publish video content in a high-definition (HD) resolution.
- Add a transcript of the spoken dialogue to the bottom.
- Reference video content in a sitemap.
- Use schema markup to describe video content.
- Assuming commenting is enabled, ask users to share their thoughts in the comments section.
- Focus on creating videos that are at least two minutes long as opposed to shorter videos.
6. Free and Paid Options Available
There are free ways to perform video content, and there are paid ways to perform it. You can create video content for your small business's YouTube and website for free. To maximize your view count, though, you may want to consider paid advertising.
Paid advertising isn't limited to text ads. It encompasses all types of content, including video. You can create video ads for YouTube. Because the platform is owned by Google, video ads for YouTube are available in Google Ads. You can also create video ads for Facebook. Facebook video ads can appear in users' personalized feeds, stories and within other videos.
7. Strengthens Social Media Presence
For a stronger social media presence, look no further than video marketing. Video is the most engaging type of content on social networks. According to a G2, video-based social media posts are shared a dozen times more frequently than text- and image-based social media posts.
To create a stronger social media presence for your small business, you can create video-based posts on social networks. Most social networks support video-based posts. Whether you're targeting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, you should be able to create video-based posts. As other users discover and watch these video-based posts, they may share them with their followers. Posts containing video content generate more shares than those containing text or images.
When planning a marketing strategy for your small business, don't ignore video content. It will build trust, drive product or service sales, increase brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, foster higher search rankings and strengthen your small business's social media presence. Besides, there are free and paid options available for video marketing, making it worth the investment.