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.


Property advertising and walk through videos: What are my options?

So you’re selling properties online and want to add property videos to your listings. Brilliant! Here are 3 options.

Have you noticed that more and more websites are incorporating videos into their content? Videos provide engaging, bite-sized chunks of information, which pretty much any type of web content can benefit from.

Is it fair to say that we’re becoming lazier online? The herculean effort required to raise a tired arm and swipe an exasperated finger to move between property photos is just too much for some. Or maybe the majority.

Perhaps we’re just busier than before and doing stuff like eating the freshly ‘deliverood’ Pad Thai whilst checking out property listings on the iPad is the norm. Property videos facilitate the lazy and busy amongst us to sit back and simply absorb the property pixels, no hands needed.

It might sound too fancy, too complicated or too expensive, but there really is a video option for everyone. If you’ve never considered property videos, read on to see what your listings are missing!


Why should I add property videos to my listings?

Making your listing as engaging as possible will help you to stand out from the crowd, generate more interest and more viewings. That’s what it’s all about, right?

Property videos are a great way of doing this, and there are several ways to make videos that really showcase and sell your property.

Whilst a Tony Stark-style mansion will have the budget for a high-end 3D 360° Virtual Reality or Pro Video Tour, your average 3 bed semi won’t. But that doesn’t mean that your bread-and-butter properties can’t come to the video party!

If you’ve read our stuff before, you’ll know we believe that great property photography is essential and that there are some strong arguments (3, actually) for why you should include a floor plan in your listing.

But with lots of agents now having both, video is another way to make your listing stand out. Property videos are engaging—and they look pretty fancy, too! Still not convinced? Here are some things to consider…

  1. People LOVE video: By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic. Showcase your properties in a way that people want and expect to see.

  2. Stand out from the crowd: A branded video can be the icing on the cake of your listing! Are your competitors using videos? No? Then your listing will be all the more enticing!

  3. Win more instructions: When pitching for your vendor’s business, just drop in: “Oh yeah, and we’ll be marketing your property with a beautiful 1080p HD video on the portals and our social media channels”. See what happens.

  4. Better for your SEO: Google loves engaging content and pages with videos often rank better than ones without. Property videos are good for your audience and good for SEO.

  5. Tyre kickers: Some kinds of property video will give an excellent overview of the house, weeding out people who would have booked a viewing and wasted your time but now, after watching the video tour, know not to bother.

Starting to come round to the idea of property videos?

Take a look at our rundown of the various types of video to learn how to give your listings that wow factor!


#1: 3D Virtual Reality Tours

This one feels a bit sci-fi but it’s pretty impressive. 3D Virtual Reality Tours allow potential buyers to explore the inside of the property through a full 3D 360° walk-through. If you’ve ever looked at a company’s internal Street View on Google Maps, it’s just like that.

People can navigate through the house, going from room to room as if they were actually there! They get a good feel for the property’s size and layout, and can view the rooms from any angle. If you’re feeling particularly fancy, you can use a VR headset for a totally immersive experience.

Matterport is a popular technology/company providing 3D Virtual Reality Tours, click here to see a real life example >

What properties is it for?

A high-quality 3D 360° property tour isn’t cheap, so they’re better suited to luxury properties with a higher return on investment.

VR tours also work best on properties that are well presented throughout, rather than those trickier ‘viewing strongly recommended’ listings.

How is it done?

The property is photographed using 360° cameras. Special software is then used to stitch the images together, creating a virtual property. You can also highlight areas of interest like hardwood floors or brand-new fitted appliances that you don’t want people to miss!

Pros

A VR tour is a really impressive way to show off a property and adds prestige to your brand. As this technology gets cheaper and more accessible, 360° tours may become the norm, so now could be a great time to get ahead of the trend!

Cons

You probably won’t be able to make a VR tour if you’re not a professional, and hiring one can be expensive. It might be out of your price range right now, but costs could drop as the tech becomes more common.

The software required for viewing 360° tours isn’t supported by Rightmove or Zoopla. You’ll have to host the tours on your own site and link to it from the listing—though this has the added bonus of getting more people onto your website!


#2: Pro Video Tours (aka Virtual Tours, Property Walk Through)

A Professional Video Tour is a recorded walk-through of the property, taking viewers into each room individually. You can even include the surrounding area in your video, giving a flavour of the location.

Specialist camera and recording equipment is used to keep the camera still and smoothly glide around the house. The footage is then professionally edited in software like Adobe Premiere Pro with music and graphics added.

What properties is it for?

Pro Video Tours are, on the whole, still for the higher end stuff, but this will depend on what area of the country you’re in (which determines the value and therefore your commission and budget).

These professionally made property videos (yes, you’ll need to hire an expert) give a clear idea of size and layout, allowing viewers to feel as though they’ve already visited. And, to be honest, on a nice house, they look incredible!

If you want to ditch the ‘Pro’ aspect of the video tour, then you could do it yourself by just walking around the house and record it on your smartphone. However, the difference between your video tour and a Pro Video Tour will be, err, kind of noticeable.

How is it done?

Someone physically walks around the property, filming their point of view as they go. Usually performed by a professional videographer.

The video can be a simple walk-through or something with higher production value, using tracking shots or even drone footage. The video footage can be edited with branding, music and narration if you like.

Pros

Professional Video (or Virtual) Tours give a great idea of the property and can look phenomenal in a nice home, definitely ramping up the ‘warm tingly feeling’ someone gets when they just have to book a viewing!

Plus, they’re doable for anyone with basic camera skills if you go down the DIY route (but these don’t look phenomenal).

Cons

Depending on your skills and what you want the end result to be, video tours can take a long time to make. Hiring someone who know how to do it properly can get expensive, especially if you opt for all the bells and whistles.


#3: Video Slideshows

A Video Slideshow is the easiest and cheapest way to make a video tour. They simply transform property photos into video, playing them one after the other like a slideshow. While these may now sound pretty basic compared to the other 2 options, they can still look very cool!

Photos of the property are displayed alongside various transitions, motion effects and music. You can also encourage people to contact you by adding your own custom branding and a CTA. Good video slideshows are much more dynamic and engaging than photos, and can help you to get real people through those doors!

What properties is it for?

Video Slideshows are perfect for properties of all shapes and sizes, both low and high value, as they can be created very quickly (Like, a few hours after taking the photos quickly). They’re also extremely cost-effective.

How do I do it?

You can use software like Adobe Premiere Pro, or there are companies that can do it for you (that’s where we come in!).

You’ll need to take the pictures of the house first, then either add them to Premiere Pro or send them to us to do it for you. The example Video Slideshow above is one that we made.

To make sure that your videos look awesome, the images need to be awesome as well. Download our Ultimate Guide to Property Photography for our simple tips to help you to capture sensational shots! You may also fancy enhancing your images first to show the property in its best light.

Pros

Video Slideshows are a really affordable option suitable for a wide range of properties. They’re quick and easy to create, and don’t require expensive equipment or time-consuming video shoots.

A slideshow can be just as engaging and informative as a walk-through tour, but at a fraction of the cost, giving a great return on investment. If you’ve got a nice set of property photos, you’ve got what you need for a great property video!

Video slideshows can also be displayed in the ‘Video Tour’ tab on Rightmove.

Cons

A Video Slideshow can’t display the precise layout of a property in the same way as a VR or pro video tour; they can only show what the photos show.

They are less immersive and less impressive compared to other types of property video available.


Property videos by Jam Shakeshaft Video

If you like the idea and look of a property video and want to learn more about what Jam Shakeshaft Video can do, head over to Jam Shakeshaft Video’s property page for more info and to see further examples, or get in touch if you’ve got any questions.

Simply send Jam Shakeshaft Video an email today or call on 07709 627 634 for a free competitive quote. standard turnaround for a professional property video is 48 hours after the property has been captured. More urgent properties can be completed for the very next day.

North West England Property Video & Photography Company

Having a video tour of your property for sale or a video of your holiday home will help it stand out from the crowd.

It’s been proved that 40% of prospective buyers & renters find virtual video tours or property promotion videos to be very useful when browsing online. 73% of homeowners and holiday homeowners would be more likely to list with an estate agent or a letting company that uses video to market their homes.

One crucial statistic is real estate listings and holiday lets with video advertisements receive 403% more inquiries than those which do not include a promotional video or walkthrough video. So really, why would you not consider having a professional marketing video produced for your property, holiday home, or your clients properties?

The whole idea when you put a house on the market is to sell it as fast as possible, photographs taken by a non-professional never do a property justice. By adding a 1-5 minute professional video gives your property that ‘WOW factor’ and will directly appeal to your target audience or your future buyer. 

A short inexpensive property video helps promote your house for sale and visualize it as someone's next home.

Contact Jam Shakeshaft Video today for a competitive personalized quote.

Photography by Adam Kenrick Photography

What Does It Cost For A Professional Property Video?


1. Basic Property Walkthrough Video

HD stabilized property video tour comprising of up to 120 seconds of video, professionally edited and colour graded with licensed music. Giving a complete and fast exploration of a property.

Cost: from £220

2. Creative Property Walkthrough Video

4K HD stabilized property video tour comprising of up to 120 seconds of video, synchronized to licensed music, professionally and creatively edited, colour graded and exported in multiple file formats and sizes. giving a more complimentary end result.

Cost: From £300

3. Property Showcase Video

4k HD stabilized property video tour comprising of up to 180 seconds of creatively produced video, licensed music, drone video footage, creatively edited, colour graded and synchronized to music with additional overlay text animation, logo animation, and Instagram and Facebook 15 second-story edit.

Cost: From £380

4. Property Video & Photography Offer

Property tour video as per 1 above and professional photography (2 photographs per main room, externals including street and garden, hallways, etc.) providing up to 20 professionally produced and processed property shots.

Total Cost: £420