Gone are the days when video was considered a nice-to-have asset in a marketer’s toolkit. Today, small and medium businesses must connect with their target audience by using video. Social media channels like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook offer customised video features to help you create great content.Here are the three types of video that you can incorporate into your marketing strategy to drive engagement and generate leads:
- Product/service explainer videos
Video content is not only useful for product marketing. If you are selling a service or a mix of product and service, you can still harness the power of video. Focus your money (FYM) is a small business based in Canberra that offers expert advice to young families wanting to get on top of their finances. About a year ago, the founder of FYM, John de Ridder, shared a video on Facebook to explain what his business does. This resulted in 946 views, 7 likes and 4 shares on his Facebook page and increased website traffic. Not bad for a small business with limited resources. Later, John engaged reliable freelancers to develop a steady stream of video content.
- Storytelling videos
Tekron is a medium sized business with a strong presence in Australia and New Zealand B2B tech market. As a Marketing Specialist, I helped the brand establish an online presence through video content. With the help of a seasoned videographer, we created engaging videos that resonated with our tech-savvy audience. By using stop-motion technology, we developed a compelling video that showcased the company’s fun culture and its agile way of working. This video increased engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter and raised the profile through award wins.
You can use Facebook Live to connect with your online followers by sharing exciting videos in real-time to:
- tell a compelling brand story
- answer frequently asked questions
- share a live event with your online fans.
And your videos do not always have to be completely polished. Here’s a brilliant example of a clever video idea that went viral and helped PwC win the Shorty Award for its BallotBriefcase campaign.
- Use case videos
Sharing real client stories in your videos works like magic. Two years ago, I envisioned and promoted a video case study series using social media. While the phone rang with hot leads referring to the video content, the company’s website traffic increased and so did the e-newsletter open and click-through rates. This initiative also placed the sales team in front of the customers and prospects alike. BambooHR also does a great job of featuring their own employees in their videos.
Where to from here?
If you want to try video marketing, you can use tools like Social Bearing and Instagram’s Explore feature for generating content ideas. Then, draft a simple production plan for your video to ensure that you have a well laid-out process in place. Your plan should outline video requirements including purpose, type, content, environment and equipment.
You can use tools like GoAnimate, Animoto, and Legend for creating videos. And manage them on social media by using popular platforms like Hootsuite, Hubspot and Sprout Social.
Or you can let us take care of it all while you focus on other business areas.