Competition out there is fierce!
From business consultants, health and wellness coaches, Facebook ad managers, and course creators of every stripe—the population of online entrepreneurs has exploded in recent years. Customers are bombarded with choice in almost every niche.
That doesn’t mean there’s no space for you. It just means you’ve got some work to do. Getting attention from your target market is the first hurdle; the next is convincing them to choose you over competitors!
Enter video marketing for business. Done right, it’s an effective strategy to rise above competitors, build trust, and attract paying customers and loyal clients.
You might be new to video marketing or you’ve dabbled in it with less than impressive results. In this post, we’re going to give you a beginner’s guide on how to do video marketing, so you can start getting noticed online, connect with your target market and turn on that tap of revenues.
Here are the broad strokes of what we’ll explore:
- The Importance of Video in Marketing—without video marketing, you’re putting yourself at a major disadvantage in a video-driven age.
- What is Video Marketing—get to grips with video marketing and how it can help your business.
- Why Video Marketing Works—top reasons why video marketing is so powerful in today’s digital world.
- How Video Marketing Works—the mechanics of video marketing and how it connects businesses with consumers.
- How to Get Started with Video Marketing—easy-to-follow steps for using video to market your business.
Video can help build a steady, reliable source of income that can make your business vision a reality.
In the world of entrepreneurship, it’s never been easier to strike out on your own; to wrangle ideas into a source of income that can change the course of your life. Getting started is one thing, successfully building a business is another matter entirely. Miss out on a few key steps and you can find yourself enslaved by the very business you created to liberate you!
No one wants to be on a dreadmill of endless exhausting hours in a business that feels like a newborn constantly crying for attention. Every entrepreneur wants to wake up each morning with new customers beating down their doors. We want a fulfilling life with the bills behind us and the winds of profit filling our sails. Sounds almost like a fantasy, right? It really isn’t, but the scenario we’ve just spelt out doesn’t happen accidentally.
To build a business like the one that lives in your mind, you need a marketing strategy that stimulates sales, repeat business, a dependable income and consistent cash flow. These are the gears and sprockets of a business that delivers the returns you expect. Video marketing can help get you there.
So, are you ready to learn how to do video marketing? Great, let’s get started!
Video has become a must-have tool for business. So, understanding how to do it well is crucial to achieving success today.
1. The Importance of Video in Marketing For Your Business
Trust, respect and credibility are the foundations of a strong, viable business. These elements, however, all flow from one important source—communication.
You build trust, respect and credibility by connecting with people and showing them how you can help solve their problems or make their lives better.
Communication has always been a critical component of success, it’s just that communication tools have evolved. No business can thrive today without modern communication skills. If you want to connect with your target audience in a meaningful way, you have to use the language of the digital age—video.
1.1: Video and social media; a match made in revenue heaven
It’s impossible to cruise any social media platform without stumbling onto a video fairly early on. Video is the oxygen of the digital spaces where we spend our time.
Educational, entertaining, long, short, funny or eye-opening—this is how we’re choosing to consume the information that keeps us connected to our world. The meteoric rise of video is no fluke. It’s tailor-made for this on-the-go age of smartphones and tablets.
Social media platforms have all become champions of video. On these platforms, ordinary folks can go live or do video stories to build a following. People are making more video content because audiences are consuming more videos. The potential it holds for your business is limitless.
1.2: Video marketing helps you find customers where they are
Here’s a quick dive into some stats on the value of video marketing.
- There are more than four billion internet users in the world today. Of those four billion internet users, three billion use social media often.
- People watch an average of 18 hours of online video per week.
- 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
- 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.
- 79% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app by watching a video.
Any business that means business should find itself in that statistical stream. Video is simply an inescapable feature of doing business in the digital age.
The balance in the business-customer relationship is far more dynamic today. You can’t simply sit and expect customers to search you out.
Successful businesses prosper because they find customers where they are and communicate with them in a way that works best for them. If you don’t adapt to changing consumer behaviour patterns in the digital age, your business will be left behind.
2. What is Video Marketing Anyway?
Granted, the term ‘video marketing’ does have a somewhat starchy or stuffy ring to it.
Truth is there are loads of entrepreneurs who’ve probably never used those words in describing what they do. It has simply become second nature for them to make videos to communicate and connect with their target market.
That’s what video marketing really boils down to. It is the means by which you nurture relationships with online audiences using an organic form of business outreach that finds customers where they are and uses a language they understand.
2.1: Video marketing and advertising aren’t the same thing
Today’s audiences have a finely tuned sales-o-meter. They’re always wary of being sold something, so they have permanently activated defences against the traditional sales pitch.
Who can blame them? They’re being pulled in different directions both offline and online, bombarded with all kinds of sales gimmicks. That’s one of the reasons video marketing works so well. The best videos don’t even look like there’s a sales pitch coming. That’s where it’s entirely different from conventional advertising.
Now just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with a sales pitch per se. Revenue, after all, comes from sales. Video marketing, though, is more focused on mirroring and serving customers’ needs or wants more directly, rather than plugging away at the product or service.
Effective videos resonate with audiences, reflecting their needs and making viewers feel something about the content.
2.2: Video marketing makes you indispensable to your audience
Many entrepreneurs have achieved success by using video to give audiences something they need.
One of the defining characteristics of effective video marketing is that it involves a generous sharing of expertise or knowledge. It delivers information or wisdom that often improve viewers’ lives.
By feeding viewers with the answers and solutions they’re searching for, you make yourself indispensable to them. In establishing your usefulness and expertise with audiences, they’re more likely to complete the buyer journey, graduating from viewer to loyal customer!
3: Why Video Marketing Works
Video can be educational, engaging, entertaining, easy-to-digest and efficient—all the things you need to be successful at marketing your business. Most importantly, video allows you to reach online audiences on a human and emotional level.
3.1: The power of images
Our brains are hardwired to gravitate towards images.
Humans are visual creatures. There are many studies that show visuals are much more powerful and easier to understand than mere text. Video marketing takes visuals a step further with moving images, thereby, increasing its appeal to the brain.
Good video incorporates a range of imagery. You can include pictures, graphics and slides in your videos. Adding these extra elements will help keep the brain engaged.
3.2: The crucial human element in marketing
Video is the closest thing to one-on-one interaction with customers because of the way it combines images, movement, sound and emotion.
As we’ve pointed out, video marketing is not advertising. It’s not about the bombardment of sales videos and commercials.
The one thing that will distinguish you from rivals in your field is YOU. Video can really help the consumer see you, connect with you and relate to you. It adds a personal element that simply isn’t there in conventional advertising.
4: How Video Marketing Works
Social media platforms, e-commerce and the powerful review culture have put more choice and power in the hands of the consumer. The buyer holds more of the cards.
With so many entrepreneurs trying to get online audiences to buy from them, video is a key factor in helping people decide whom they should choose to spend their hard-earned money with.
4.1: Enables personal connections
There’s an old cliche that says people prefer to do business with people, not businesses.
Video marketing puts the ‘people’ into business. It identifies the people behind the products and services—their values, motivations and humanness. In that sense, video marketing is less about marketing and more about relationship-building.
The entrepreneurs who rise to the top today are the ones who build connections with customers in their marketplace. It’s those connections that make buyers out of browsers.
4.2: Persuasion through expertise using video marketing
A competitive atmosphere, one in which consumers are bombarded with sales messaging like a meteor shower, has created an unfortunate evolutionary adaptation—people are more sceptical about the claims of products and services.
Many folks now react to marketing with almost impenetrable doubt. There are doubts your product can do what it promises, or that you can deliver as advertised.
Video marketing is a powerful antidote to doubt for one important reason: you treat scepticism with expertise.
Video allows you to reach out to audiences and show them you know what you’re talking about inside out. Your competence and expertise help remove barriers to the sale, barriers built by scepticism. Video can erase the doubts that stall the buyer journey.
5: How to Get Started with Video Marketing
One of the biggest roadblocks to getting started with video for many entrepreneurs is the question of where to begin.
You see videos all the time on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Still, there are many people without a background in video who are intimidated by the medium. Then you hear things like, ‘The best way to get started with something is to just get started.’ That kind of motivational spam looks good as a meme, but it’s actually the opposite of what we’d recommend for your video marketing.
No one, particularly a busy entrepreneur, wants to jump into something that turns out to be a costly waste of time.
To get the most out of video, you’ve got to have some sort of game plan. It doesn’t need to be anything overly elaborate, but you do need a plan. With that in mind, here’s a quick glance at how you might get started.
5.1: Start with recorded videos
You’ve probably seen fellow entrepreneurs in your niche using live video on social media platforms. It is a cost-effective way to consistently reach out to audiences and forge lasting bonds.
Live video, though, might seem intimidating for first-timers. After all, you’re going live in front of potentially thousands of people. Not everyone is ready for that kind of exposure in the early stages of video exploration.
As a video marketing newbie, we’d recommend getting your feet wet with recorded videos. You can rehearse what you want to say until you’re comfortable with the material.
The big appeal of the recorded video for any beginner is quite simple. If you’re not happy with your recording, you can reshoot it or use simple editing to hide minor mistakes.
5.2: Make customers the reason behind your videos
When it comes to video marketing that hits the target, there’s one simple rule to follow: it’s about the customer, not you.
Put yourself in customers’ shoes and that will point you in the direction of the kind of video content you should be creating. Understanding their needs will tell you how to make your videos.
Sure, you want people to know all about your company. It’s more important, though, to frame this information in the context of what your customers need. The best videos are built around the viewer, not the person or company making the content.
5.3 Begin with a modest toolkit
When choosing your camera gear, keep in mind that these are merely tools. The true power of connecting with audiences lies in your message and content.
You can start small with your smartphone. Perhaps, you might be able to buy a consumer camcorder or a DSLR camera. Whichever camera you choose, you will need a dependable tripod.
Good audio is also a crucial element of effective video. Depending on the camera you choose, you can purchase an inexpensive microphone that’s compatible with your video gear.
Camera, tripod, microphone; these are all you need to get started. You can check out our blog, Video Making Equipment for Beginners, to get specific recommendations.
5.4: Work out your content ideas and draft a content calendar
If you enjoy getting a) frustrated and b) nowhere, then don’t do what’s recommended above.
It’s all well and good to say you’re going to use video to boost your income. If you don’t put in the planning, though, your video marketing won’t ever get off the ground.
Compiling a list of video ideas saves you the trouble of racking your brains every week to come up with a fresh concept. You’ll also want to create a video content calendar that schedules your videos on your online platforms.
5.5: Create a production schedule
If you think you’re going to make a big splash with one or two videos, think again. When it comes to video marketing, consistency is critical.
Juggling video content creation and your business calls for discipline. Identify and set aside specific days for your video shoots. You also want to consider recording your videos in batches. As a busy entrepreneur with lots going on, there is nothing quite like the feeling of dipping into your content bag of tricks and pulling out already completed videos ready for upload.
A video production schedule ensures you strike the right balance between your day-to-day business operations and your video marketing.
Video in Marketing: The Key to Success in an Evolved World
You made the right move when you decided to learn how to do video marketing. It is going to pay off for you big time.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- The coronavirus pandemic which emerged in 2020 dramatically increased our use of video, both as entrepreneurs and as consumers.
- Video is now a deeply rooted part of doing business in the digital age.
- Video marketing doesn’t have to be expensive.
- You and your message will always be more important than equipment.
- Videos should be more about the needs of your audience, than what you sell or do.
- For video to work, it must be supported with strategy.
- No, you are not too late to get started!
Video is indispensable to business success today. The good thing is there are more learning resources than ever to adapt to this video-first world we live in. All you need to get in the game and win at it is to be willing to tap into those resources.
To get ahead in today’s video-driven age, you have to be a powerful communicator on camera. Grab this opportunity to master the on-camera skills that win over online audiences to achieve the success you deserve.
