Research shows that over 86% of companies use video ads as their marketing strategy. An overwhelming number of people say that video ads have helped in increased sales and positive interactions with their customers.
With this kind of data, it is clear that you have to use videos to grow your business to beat your competition. Without video ads, you will not attract sufficient video traffic to be successful. This is especially true if your business depends on online sales for its success.
Small businesses and startups have to be smart about their operational costs. It can be tough to execute a strong marketing strategy with a limited budget. However, it is possible to efficiently turn video views into sales if you focus on video quality.
You can do almost everything these days with a simple mobile phone. These phones have powerful cameras, interesting filters, and you can enhance your videos by using a good online video editor.
Why Are Quality Videos Essential to Grow Your Small Business?
Data clearly shows that quality videos drive traffic to your website. Videos must encourage customers to visit your site. When you achieve that, your customers are already in the second stage of the marketing funnel. Marketing strategy focuses on three stages of buyer behavior, branding, consideration, and sale.
The Three Stages of Customer Behavior
The first stage of the marketing funnel is branding. This is the stage where you introduce your product to prospective customers. The objective at this stage is for people to remember your brand.
The second stage is a consideration. This is when a potential customer clicks on your ad or video and visits your site. This shows they are beginning to consider you for their buying decision.
The third stage is the actual sale. When the user moves an item to the shopping cart and pays for it, all your effort in creating quality videos has paid off and converted into a sale.
High-quality videos have a minimum drop-off at each stage. An example of a drop-off is a customer showing consideration by clicking on your video and visiting your site. However, they end up not buying your product and never return. You can enjoy watching your favourite videos in high quality, you can always choose video quality preference in youtube.
Using Data Effectively
Create videos with care and a deep understanding of customer behavior to avoid this. Use this data to identify your weak links and fix them. For example, if several people visit your website but do not buy anything, something is wrong with your site. Check if it is organized logically, driving your customers to the wrong page, or making the buying experience too complicated.
Losing customers at this stage is a sign that your videos are of high quality, but your website is not. Poor-quality videos cannot convince enough people to click and visit the site (or take relevant action that your videos intend to drive)
How Are Startups Using Videos Today?
Since the advent of advertising as a tool to drive sales, all strategies have centered around the marketing funnel. It is still the case today. What changes are where your potential customers spend most of their time. If you are having a small business, then you can use these helpful tips to grow your small business with the help of youtube.
The Ubiquitous Social Media
Your videos will have to target the platforms where your potential users spend the most time. These days it is social media. This automatically means that high-quality videos are the ones that are optimized for social media viewing. Another advantage of social media videos is driving organic traffic without always spending on ads.
Social media users reward creative content by making it viral. Use a good creative director and build content that stands out. If your video goes viral, you will make up for the money spent on the creative direction through free publicity.
Video First Culture
The current generation is going to become your future customers. Notice how their brains are wired to be mobile-first. Build a culture in your company where everything you do shows a video-first attitude. This ensures you are constantly churning out fresh content for your video ads without spending on it.
Creative ways of doing this are by encouraging sharing any information internally through video. Training happens through videos, and videos accompany celebrations, announcements happen through creative videos, etc. You will soon turn every employee in your company into a creative director.
Cater to Mobile Users
Most Internet users use their mobile phones to consume content. Videos make an excellent format for mobile. Look up research on how people consume video content. You will notice that most of the content consumed on mobile is video.
You can also do a quick experiment installing a screen time app on your phone and evaluate data after a few days. These apps show how much time you spend on mobile and what content you see the most. You will be surprised by the data, especially the time spent and the content format you viewed.
Use Proven Tactics
When people create their video content to grow their small business, they immediately hire expensive equipment. The definition of high-quality video does not mean you have to shoot your video content with a 4k camera.
Real high-quality video is one that successfully conveys the message you want to convey. It turns viewers into loyal customers. It spreads positivity and counters negative opinions of the company, if any.
There are many tried and tested tactics to create high-quality video content that you can use. Most of them boil down to a few simple things to keep in mind:
- Be clear and concise in your message. Remember that many social media platforms allow users to skip video content.
- Share the best part of your video in the first 5 seconds.
- Focus on video basics like good lighting, a good script, and good music.
- Do your research and use music that will not get you into copyright controversies later. Making mistakes like this will impact your company’s reputation and cost you dearly.
You are Now Ready
With these simple guidelines in mind, you are now ready to create high-quality videos to grow your startup. You do not need a large marketing budget to create a successful video campaign.
High-quality videos are less about the video itself and more about sharing the right message with the right audience. Instead of spending on expensive equipment, spend your time and money collecting the right data about your audience.
Conclusion
Once you can make that perfect pairing, make sure that the message is clear and relatable. Use music your target audience may like, and show your video on platforms you know they spend most of their time on. Optimize your videos for the devices your target audience is most likely to use.
Keeping things simple and focusing on precise targeting will cost you less and take you far.
