How to Get Started With Video Marketing for Small Businesses

Video marketing for small businesses is not as complicated (or expensive) as you might think.  If you’re reading this with a cell phone, you’ve already found your camera. With some research, planning, and a sprinkle of creativity, you can create marketing videos that “wow” your audience. If you’re still on the fence about the value of video for business, especially small business, here are some facts that might convince you to put on your director’s hat. 

Benefits of video marketing for small businesses

Video grabs people’s attention.  In fact, video grabs attention at a rate 10 times greater than text.  Not enough proof for you? Video marketing for business doesn’t just open people’s eyes to your company. It opens their wallets. One survey reports that 90% of people use video to help with purchase decisions.   Even if you’re not focused on driving revenue, video can make a difference for your business.  Statistics show that videos used on landing pages can boost conversions by 80%! So whether you want to keep people on your website longer, increase sales, or improve conversions, video can help you achieve your goals. 

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3 simple small business video ideas you can create

You know that small business video marketing can positively impact your company, but where do you start?  Let’s dive into 3 kinds of videos you can easily make for your small business. 

Behind-the-scenes videos

Behind-the-scenes videos give people a peek into your small business’s operations. When you create marketing videos like these, you can show off your facilities, how your products are made, your company culture, and so much more.  Behind-the-scenes videos help establish trust between you and your customers because they’re transparent. Infuse these videos with personality and people will be hooked.  Here’s a more specific example of a behind-the-scenes video you can create:

Concept: Meet the team

Summary: Introduce your audience to your team, so they know who they’ll work with if they become customers. 

Plan: Choose a happy employee to follow around for a day, or ask them to record snippets of their day throughout their shift.

Record them working with customers, making your products, interacting with other employees, or anything else that captures the defining aspects of your business.  Just make sure everyone in your video has agreed to be in your video, especially customers.  Check out this real-life example of a behind-the-scenes video from kitchen supply retailer, Everything Kitchens.

In this quick video, you not only get to meet the people who keep the business running, but also get a tour of the facilities.  Plus, all you really need to recreate this video is one camera and a willing host.  The next type of video marketing for business owners in this blog post also helps establish trust but uses different tactics to do so. 

Educational videos

Educational videos use your industry expertise to educate your audience. These small business videos establish you as an expert in your field and help potential customers understand more about your industry.  Ultimately, educational videos keep your company at the top of people’s minds when they make purchase decisions.  Let’s look at one specific example of an educational video for your small business: Concept: Tutorial video

Summary: Show customers how to complete a project related to your business. 

Plan: Ask customers (either in person or online) what they want to learn from your business. You can also search through forums like Reddit and Quora for inspiration, or type your idea into YouTube to see the most popular tutorial videos in your industry.  If you sell gardening supplies, customers might want to learn how to plant flowers. If you sell software, people might want a tutorial of different features. Once you’ve researched your video topic, get in front of the camera and show people how it’s done! That’s exactly what online bulb retailer Longfield Gardens does in their tutorial on how to plant tulips. 

https://youtu.be/ewKiHhQZG-Y

If someone is researching how to plant tulips, they’ll probably need bulbs.

By creating this video, Longfield Gardens not only establishes their expertise, but also advertises their products to people who will likely make a purchase.  Just like the behind-the-scenes video example, you really don’t need more than one camera and one host to create this type of video.  Let’s move on to the last small business video idea in this blog post. 

Product videos

What better way to flaunt your products than with a video? A photo can show different angles, but a video can show things in action.  Which would you prefer if you were in the market for a new lawnmower?  A photo of someone posing with a new lawnmower, or a video of all its features in action?  It’s safe to say you’d choose the second option.  Product videos build hype around what you offer if you showcase different features with enthusiasm. If you include product demonstrations in your videos as proof of how well your product works, you’ll also gain your audience’s trust.  Here’s an example of a product video you can create for your small business video marketing:

Concept: Product demo video

Summary: Show your customers how easy their lives can be if they use your products. 

Plan: Put your products in the spotlight. Choose either one product or a few related products to demo.  Explain what your products do, and include close-ups of the various features. Then, put your products to work. Show off how well your products perform and explain how this can impact your customers’ lives.  If you haven’t seen Blendtec’s unique take on product videos, check out the video below.

Blendtec uses comedy to show how powerful its blenders are.

They’ve blended everything from Apple products to glow sticks, so anyone who watches their videos knows that their mixers are no joke. This example, like the others mentioned above, only requires one camera and someone willing to demonstrate the product. Now that we’ve covered different types of small business videos, let’s move on to some tips that will help you create marketing videos of your own. 

6 tips for producing awesome videos for small businesses

Plan, plan, plan. 

It’s easy to get excited about a video, whip out your phone, and start recording.  PAUSE.  Step back. Do not pass go.  Do not move forward without a plan. No matter which type of video you create, you need to follow a plan.  If your video is unscripted, you should still have some bullet points or a rough outline of what you’ll cover. Otherwise, you may end up rambling — and boring your audience.  While a script might not work for every video, it can certainly organize your points and keep the topics focused. A scripting software like Celtx might be a good investment if you plan to make regular videos.      How you plan your video is completely up to you, so plan wisely. 

Find the right video talent. 

Being on camera is not for everyone.  Don’t force team members into the spotlight.  Choose someone who you think would represent your business well in your videos.  Look for people with a positive attitude and a lot of energy.

It’s okay to choose yourself. You want your audience to be excited about your company, so whoever stars in your videos should bring that excitement!

Steady yourself. 

Shakiness doesn’t belong in any video — but especially not in a video for business.  Whether you use a phone camera or a video camera, you should invest in a tripod. You can find tripods wherever you buy cameras, so they’re easy to come by.  If you don’t have a tripod, you can get creative with tables, stacks of books, or anything that lets you prop your camera up and record.  It doesn’t matter how you get a steady shot. It only matters that you get a steady shot. 

Don’t forget about the audio.

Audio can make or break a good video.  No matter how fancy your shot is, people probably won’t stick around if the audio is bad. Captions can help people understand your video, but they don’t excuse bad audio. If your video features someone speaking, choose a quiet location to eliminate background noise.  If you don’t have a lot of control over your environment, keep your recording device as close to your video talent as possible.  Record video on one device and audio on another device for the cleanest audio.   You can use two phones to achieve clean audio (as seen in this tutorial from Wistia), or you can invest in a dedicated audio recording device and microphone.  Once you have everything recorded, prepare for the editing phase.  

Edit, edit, edit. 

No matter how much you’ve planned, planned, and planned, you still need to edit, edit, and edit. If you record your audio and video separately, you need to sync them up in a video editing software.      For less experienced editors, Apple products come with iMovie built-in, and the Photos app on Windows computers allows you to make a basic video. You can also check out your respective app store for other free editing apps.  Once you have your audio situation sorted out, go through your content, and see if you can trim anything.  If you plan on sharing videos to social media, you should keep them under a few minutes each, or split them up and share them as a series.  Research the video format guidelines for each social media platform before you finish editing.  If your video will go on YouTube or your website, you can probably get away with something longer.  That leads to this last tip.

Track your video marketing performance. 

Use data provided by analytics tracking software to inform your small business video marketing strategy.      Platforms like YouTube and Wistia let you know how long people watch your videos, what percentage of people clicked play on your video (also known as click-through rate), and more.  While views are helpful for measuring a video’s success, engagement metrics like watch time and click-through rate tell you more about the quality of your content.  If people don’t click through at a high rate, you might need to change your video thumbnail or video title.  Low engagement can tell you two things about your video:

• People don’t find the content interesting
• People don’t get the information they need

The latter reason applies mostly to educational videos. If you don’t pay attention to how your videos perform, you’re doomed to keep making the same mistakes.

And that’s it for how to use video marketing for small businesses! 

Creating videos can take time, so feel free to contact our video experts for help.  We would love to create marketing videos that keep your audience engaged and help you grow your business. Don’t hesitate to give us a call at 888-601-5359. We look forward to making stunning videos with you!