The past year and a half have been revolutionary for digital marketers. Companies made a sharp digital pivot towards Digital Marketing trends and production skyrocketed with much more consistent video marketing projects in the social media spaces for businesses.

As of February 2021, Hootsuite reports that 74 percent of adults in U.S. use YouTube and that 16.4 percent of YouTube’s traffic comes from the U.S. Those numbers speak volumes and are a clear sign that business can succeed with the right video marketing strategies.

From YouTube to Facebook to Instagram stories and IGTV, there are so many different ways to promote your business with video now. With most companies currently having a presence on popular social media platforms and interacting with their customers, it may seem as though it’s getting difficult for small businesses to find a way to stand out; try using a more effective method such as social video marketing campaign to get yourself noticed.

Video marketing is engaging, visual and interactive. Thanks to widespread mobile use, creating a video marketing campaign is now within the reach of small businesses too.

Hootsuite also mentioned that viewers 18 and over spend an average of 42 minutes a day in Youtube and that 70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube (February 2021). Video marketing has created a huge opportunity for exposure, visibility, engagement, and interactions between businesses and their customers.

At 828, we have been working with YouTube and integrating video in to websites, social media, and email newsletters for awhile now. Working with partners like Sean Cannell and Video Influencers, we also find ourselves being exposed to high quality production, extensive use of other platforms such as Vimeo and Wistia, and a variety of video marketing strategies and tactics that have been helping our small business clients see rapid growth in lead generation and customer acquisition.

5 Video Marketing Tips For Your Small Business

1) Incorporate user-generated content

According to digital marketing experts, user-generated content will increase engagement and consumer trust and will ultimately drive sales. As a smart marketer, you may be a good storyteller, but customers can sometimes be more effective. The user-generated content can be more convincing and powerful. You should encourage your customers and fans to create appealing content. You can ask them for this by hosting contests, giveaways or by incentivizing involvement.

2) Explain your business concepts and products to your audience

A video is considered to be the best platform to explain a concept or product to your audience and users. These types of videos are helpful, easy to digest and help people succeed in using your products and services.

3) Use customer stories in videos

Your happy and satisfied customers are your best advocates. So use successful stories, case studies and customer testimonials to inspire your video content. This will be helpful for your customers. They will learn about the similar success they can obtain with the products or services. Video testimonials can be a strong pice of your business plan to grow potentials customers

4) Post your videos on your Website and Landing Pages

We have always understood the importance of video within your website, especially because you can control the user experience, unlike YouTube where you may be at their mercy. This hasn’t changed, and the most effective video marketing strategies create a shared relationship with these two platforms which becomes your baseline. So most of the time you are going to start by creating your video, uploading it to YouTube, and then sharing it on your website.

Consistent branding and YouTube channel customization occur in 63% of the most effective business-oriented YouTube channels. 61% also embed their YouTube content on their website. This is like having 2 doors to your office and gives people multiple ways to watch the same video.

Enhancing your landing page design allows you to engage your audience more because visitors are 10x more likely to engage, embed, share, and comment on videos than blogs or social media posts. Engagement is key. Plus, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google, and Google owns both of them, so there is a definite Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit!

Similarly, your Landing pages are a digital storefront designed to push prospective customers through to your home page or your mailing list. Putting a video on the landing page creates an implicit call to action when customers click “Play” to view your pitch. It will keep their attention fixed on your content and make them more interested in your content.

5) Don’t Just Post on YouTube

While YouTube is a top-ranking platform, your website will need to gain an even larger reach. Not only can video no longer be contained just within your website and YouTube, but now it’s time to explore using that video content on multiple social media platforms in their native environment.

Especially in 2021, all major social media platforms are focused on accommodating to businesses with visual media as video content remains relevant and integral on these platforms.

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as creating a video, uploading it to YouTube, and then sharing it on your website and social media pages. Each social media platform has its own user base, demographics, style and rules, and needs to be handled differently.

Getting Started With Video

With marketing in general, our job is to reach our target market where they are. Video marketing has that power.

Don’t let the graphic design elements or production of video content intimidate you; try and crawl before you walk. Consider the audience you are trying to reach and who your target customer is. Start with your 80/20 rule. Now think of video content that is relevant to them that you could take on your own without much trouble. Maybe it’s showing them a DIY Oil Change. Maybe it’s video from the Kids Karate class. Someone wearing some of your clothes while cheering at a sporting event. Try and be creative, but don’t go crazy.

Think value first. Help them solve a problem and further to see past that problem to the feeling they get when it’s been solved. Video allows you to show that much better than print. Up to 93% of all daily communication is nonverbal, and a smiley face only goes so far.

Once you start creating marketing videos, you will be hooked by this exciting and efficient strategy. So, it’s a good idea to incorporate them into your marketing mix to take your small business to the next level.