Competitive Videos For Small Businesses - 7 Ways To Boost Your Brand

By now you’ve probably heard all about how video can help your business. You might already be making videos, or at the very least, you know why you should!

If you’re wondering how to use video to market your small or any sized business, Jam Shakeshaft Video is here to help you get started. We’ve rounded up a list of seven different ways your business should be using video, so you can get started on receiving the benefits from professional video content.


INTRODUCTION VIDEOS

Part one of the Curvabilis yoga course held by Megan Marcelle Yoga.

1. Introduce Yourself and Explain What You Do

Some of the best small business videos are a simple hello. Not only are you adding a face to your business, but you can add a video to your homepage or social media platforms simply outlines what you do and what problem you solve for your customers. Even better, keep it under 60 seconds so your message, sale or service is absorbed by the viewer.

You’ll find this is a lot more effective than trying to cram the same explanation, sale or services into the headline and first paragraph of your home page. all while struggling to keep everything above the fold.

The combination of both audio and visual stimulation in short introduction video makes describing complex concepts much easier—and easier to understand to the viewer.

Take advantage of this by adding a few in-depth videos that explain the details of your product features or the different services you offer for viewers to discover once they’re hooked. These can live on a separate section of your website, drawing viewers in for further education to help them decide to buy or commit to a service.


TESTIMONIAL VIDEOS

Johnson & Boon's Legal Guard - Recommendation from Naked Media

2. Highlight Social Proof with Video Testimonials

If you’re doing your job right, your biggest brand advocates should be your customers or clients. Why not get them in front of a camera and share what it is that makes them love your product and your company so much?

First-hand accounts are much more effective for your audience than hearing the same people from your company do the same pitch over and over again. In fact, 46% of adults in the UK say they trust consumer-written online reviews, while only 10% trust ads on websites and 9% have faith in written messages from brands, according to research from Forrester.

Video customer testimonials are way more believable and affective than the standard, one-line blurb.
It’s the difference between this:

“I couldn’t believe what ABC company did for my wedding!” – Sally, NYC

Johnson & Boon's Legal Guard - Recommendation from Naked Media

And this… (the video above) This video provides the connection from meaningless words on a page to something thats heartfelt and meaningful.





EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS

A short, punchy icon animation to fit in time with the voiceover. This animation was to explain why to choose Sykes Holiday cottages in a unique and captive ...

3. Educational videos

Providing education to address a problem/pain point for your target audience is a great way to get noticed. Start with a little keyword research to find high search volume keywords in your niche. There are a variety of content formats to help you create educational videos including live-action videos, whiteboard videos, and webinars.

The key to these videos is that they’re short yet very informative. Whether you are in the business of selling business tools or consumer products related to health and beauty, educational videos are a great way to start building a long-lasting relationship with your audience. Businesses that are cause-related can use educational videos to explain their cause in an interesting way.

A short animated video containing property content and animated facts and figures. This education video is used by Sykes Holiday Cottages at networking events and PR shows.

Educational video content is critical for spreading awareness about your products and services. You should regularly produce quality educational videos. The strategy will fetch you more attention for your brand and a growing subscriber base for your content. They are equally helpful in capturing and nurturing leads.


PROMOTIONAL VIDEOS

A business promotion video for The Mucky Paws Club. Nikki at The Mucky Paws Club is a huge lover of all breeds of dog. Not only does this video portray this,...

4. Business Promotion & Corporate videos

Corporate and business promotion videos serve to showcase your company and its vision to your audience. It is the ‘About Us’ page of your website converted into a live-action video!

A corporate or business advertisment video includes details like:

  1. Strengths of a company and its team

  2. Details about the business infrastructure and quality standards

  3. Awards and achievements

  4. products or services we offer

Corporate videos build trust among your audience and focus more on the corporate brand, its values, and its objectives. These videos can be very influential in converting prospects who are considering a variety of options.

Here is a very cool example of how you can use your corporate video to advertise space, office, or building to rent. Using motion graphics within your corporate videos are a cost-effective way to create impactful business videos (which can be a huge plus).

The Capital is the largest office building in Liverpool extending to over 410,000 sq ft with an occupier mix including UKBA and RSA. Situated within a prime ...

EXPLAINER & DEMO VIDEOS

5. Explainer, informative, installation and demo videos

An essential part of marketing your products and services is to explain their unique value proposition.

91% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn about a product or service. - Strategic

An explainer video is an animated video that illustrates the core features of your products and services in simple terms. It uses animated characters, text, graphics, and a narrative to tell your product story. Just note: You must use a professional voiceover and music while creating an explainer video.

Explainer videos are extremely beneficial for startup companies and businesses selling complex technology products.

Such videos are helpful in the capture stage of the buyer’s journey. You can put up your explainer video on your landing page along with a relevant Call-to-Action, to collect some qualified leads for your business.


EVENT HIGHLIGHT & MARKETING VIDEOS

The Wirral Life™ Awards 2019 Highlight Video Here are the best parts of the event. a huge congratulations to all the Wirral businesses, both the winners and ...

6. Event videos

Promoting your events on social media is a great way to strengthen your relationship with your fans and followers.

Video of a live event increases brand favorability by 63%. - Twitter

You can get professional videographers to record corporate event videos and then post them up on your social pages. Live streaming on social media is a trend that’s proven to work and requires minimal resources. You can live stream short snippets of your business events as stories on Instagram or as live videos on Facebook and Twitter.

Event promotion videos are very helpful in nurturing your existing leads and building deeper relationships with them. They do this by creating hype around your brand and its newly launched products, and spreading the word! If you are a big brand with a large, geographically dispersed audience, then videos like these are a must!


‘THANK YOU’ VIDEOS

7. ‘Thank You’ Videos

Thanking your customers is a great way to make them feel special.  These type of videos also work equally well in helping you to retain your existing clients and get more business from them. You can use any video format to thank your customers, but creating a very personal video would surely add more value.

Here is an example of a striking ‘Thank you’ video from Talbots, a US-based women’s fashion brand.

In this video, the whole executive team of Talbots comes together to thank their customers. The video gives the audience a sense of being a part of the Talbots community - of women who love to dress well. Videos like these help in bringing out your brand values and making your audience feel connected to those values. All types of B2B and B2C brands can make use of ‘Thank You’ videos for higher customer retention. Make sure you have a large customer base and you’ll definitely benefit from such videos.


If you are considering video to help promote your business, then why not contact Jam Shakeshaft Video today for a creative approach and competitive quote.


8 Reasons You Need to Use Video Marketing In Your Business

Videographer Wirral video creator video editor business video marketing video jamshakeshaftvideo.jpg

1. Video Boosts Conversions and Sales

First things first. Videos can make you some serious money. Adding a product video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%. And Treepodia team has made it sure that video works well regardless of the category in which you deploy it.

Video can also lead directly to sales. Studies show that 74% of users who watched an explainer video about a product subsequently bought it. So better start crafting your exciting product videos now!

If you think about it, the effectiveness of video is not even that surprising. After all, vision is our most dominant sense. Most information transmitted to our brain is visual. So if already pictures can boost engagement massively, imagine what moving pictures can do to your business.

2. Video Shows Great ROI

To get you even more excited, 83% of businesses say that video provides good return on investment. Even though video production is not yet the easiest nor cheapest task, it pays off big time. Besides, online video editing tools are constantly improving and becoming more affordable. And even your smartphone can make pretty decent videos already.

Another good news is that your videos don’t have to be perfect. It’s the content that matters! Latest research shows that users are mostly put off by videos that don’t explain the product or service clearly enough. Low quality and poor design didn’t matter nearly as much. So it’s fair to say that video is like pizza – when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good!

3. Video Builds Trust

Trust is the foundation of conversions and sales. But building trust should be a goal on its own. The whole concept of content marketing is based on trust and creating long-term relationships. Stop selling and let the people come to you by providing them interesting and useful information. I couldn’t have said it better than Mark Schaefer, the Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions:


Video does it all. Video content is likely to engage us and ignite emotions. And when we talk about elite people in the audience, YouTubers have become the most powerful social media figure to promote your brand. So, if you are serious about content marketing, you must be serious about video, too.

Promotional videos can foster trust as well. Some consumers are still skeptical about buying products and services on the internet because they fear fraud and cheating. But effective marketing videos present your products in a conversational form. That creates a sense of individual approach which is why 57% of consumers say that videos gave them more confidence to purchase online.

4. Google Loves Videos

Videos allow you to increase the time spent by visitors on your site. Thus, longer exposure builds trust and signals search engines that your site has good content. Moovly gives us whopping statistics: You’re 53 times more likely show up first on Google if you have a video embedded on your website. Since Google now owns YouTube, there has been a significant increase in how much videos affect your search engine rank.


Make sure to optimize your videos on Youtube for SEO. Write interesting titles and descriptions. Add a link back to your website, products, and services. Give potential customers the way to take the next step. And explore the world of interactive videos, to encourage actions even more.


5. Video Appeals to Mobile Users

Video and mobile go hand in hand. 90% of consumers watch videos on their mobile. From Q3 of 2013, mobile video views have grown more than 233 percent. YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year. Since people like to watch videos on the go, and the number of smartphone users is growing, your video audience keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Also, Google tells us that smartphone users are twice as likely than TV viewers and 1.4 times more likely as desktop viewers to feel a sense of personal connection to brands that show video content or ads on their devices.

The growth of mobile video means, brands need to be sensitive to the personal experience people have on their smartphones. For example, give them a better choice in the video content they consume.

6. Video Marketing Can Explain Everything

Are you launching a new product or a service? Create a video to show how it works. 98% of users say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service. That is why 45% of businesses who use video marketing said that they have an explainer video on their home page. Of those businesses, 83% said that their homepage explainer video was effective.

Trying to explain a difficult concept? Create animated videos. Animation can bring concepts to life that no text or live video can. Besides, boring talking heads are not enough anymore to break through the clutter. Animated videos are a perfect combination of entertainment, nostalgia, and simplicity. And they work.

Make sure you use a process that will get you results. Use these 20 pre-production steps to make your video content stand out from the rest. Check out the essential tips and examples of best practices on how to make a product demo video.

7. Video Engages Even the Laziest Buyers

Video is a great tool for learning, but it’s also super easy to consume. Today’s life is too busy to have time to read long product descriptions or dig deep into services. The modern customer wants to see the product in action. Video preference is one of the most important driving forces of using video in your content marketing.

Video marketing can capture a wide audience, and it works on many levels. Even the laziest ones. Make sure you target not only to the eyes but also to the ears of the potential client. Your competitive advantage gets double power!

8. Video Encourages Social Shares

In the 8th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report Michael Stelzner stated that 60% of the social marketers used video content in 2015 and 73% of the total respondents planned to use it in 2016. And they sure did.

Social networks also encourage video content with their new features. Facebook has launched 3600 Video, Live Video, and Lifestage (A Video-Centric App for Teenagers). Instagram put in place 60-Second Videos & Instagram Stories, Twitter has Periscope. And YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world.

However, in a social media context, video marketers must remember that people share emotions, not facts. 76% of users say they would share a branded video with their friends if it was entertaining. So create fun entertaining videos to encourage social shares. Emotions are not exactly ROI but social shares can increase traffic to your site, and you can take it from there.

Bonus Tip 1: Video Ads Work Wonders

Hear this: the average click-through-rate of video ads is 1.84%. That’s the highest CTR of all digital ad formats! And for a 15-second non-skippable YouTube video ad the completion rate is 92%. For skippable video ads, the rate is 9%.

Video ads are also highly effective on social media platforms. Facebook, clubbed with Nielsen, projected the value of video ads on its platform. They learned that 74% of the total Ad Recall can be achieved already within the first 10 seconds of the video. So, fight against banner blindness by making video ads instead.

Bonus Tip 2: Video Is Rocking Email Campaigns

When you’re creating videos already, make sure you to incorporate them into your email marketing campaigns. An introductory email that includes a video receives an increase click-through rate by 96%! That’s a great way to stand out from competition and get your message across.