Success demands change, and change is the only constant. The 21st-century businesses call for modern-day innovative ideas to reach new heights. There are various verticals on which a business depends—one of them is marketing.
Marketing is the core of any industry, including SMEs, or you can say, especially SMEs. A broad classification of marketing gives two ways: traditional marketing and digital marketing.
With the presence of the internet, digital marketing is prevailing and evolving. Video marketing is one type of digital marketing.
What is video marketing?
Video marketing is the most popular strategic marketing technique. Currently, it is used by 86% of businesses to increase website traffic and hence the sales. (This is a finding of a survey conducted in 2015). The best example of it is Instagram Reels. The trend has spread through YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Facebook Stories, etc.
Reels are a shorter version of videos. Long-duration videos with a perfect hook in the first three seconds can also get the audience hooked.
Why opt for video marketing?
In this fast-paced world, time is money. Traditional ways of marketing, like a sales call, e-books, emails, texts, etc., are now outdated. They are preferred by less than 30% of customers.
You can understand this better by the content you share on the internet. Does it not include more videos than any other form of marketing?
We are attracted by something which gives us true visuals for a product. For instance, many brands and online selling platforms like Myntra have included a short video of products on the product description page.
How do you think this makes a difference? Let us find out.
As said earlier, the human brain becomes attracted to video content more than written ones. But, video content is effective only when appropriately made. Video marketing plays a significant role in attracting customers to businesses. The challenge here is to create catchy videos. There is an additional tab for writing captions on most video marketing sites. A company that can use this feature wisely will surely have a higher success rate.
As per the current trend, short videos are quite effective for marketing a product. You can use long-form videos to showcase the entire product description.
For instance, assume you make five products in your home bakery. You can make a short video to introduce these items, with appealing visuals and their names. A long video for the same content can involve individual descriptions of each item. You can also tell a bit about how the items are baked.
Read further to find out how videos can influence your customers.
Increased dwell time
The duration a customer spends on your website is known as the dwell time. When an item catches customers’ attraction, they make sure to explore all the products or services provided by the business.
Videos can increase the dwell time on your website and bring potential customers one step closer to making the purchase. You need to be careful about the information you put in your videos.
Better service/product understanding
The content in a video may be in written, caption, or audio format. In any form, it plays a crucial role in effective video marketing.
When customers stop by to see the creativity you have showcased, they might also consider jumping to the website to get more insights. That’s how videos increase the level of understanding in your customer. It gives you two more benefits—fewer customer support calls and increased sales.
Fewer support calls
A person in business will always be more excited to attend a sales call than take a support call. It is not that companies hate query calls, but they do not confirm sales. There are alternatives to solve customer queries in a hassle-free and time-saving manner.
Videos are the greatest asset to your business as most of the product/service-describing videos do not require any subscription. Customers can learn about your services and products anytime and conveniently revisit the videos for their reference. Video marketing has lowered the frequency of support calls from potential customers.
Increased brand awareness
Improved SEO practices bring more traffic to websites. Video making is just one task. From making a video to marketing it with SEO, keywords, and proper platforms, decide its reach.
For example, the Instagram algorithm for reach and engagement largely works on specific timings and hashtags. Data analysts are required to analyze public engagement.
Similarly, a set criterion needs to be followed for all other platforms to gain popularity and reach the target audience.
Every business reckons about ROI before starting investment. Video marketing has proved to generate sufficient ROI in all sectors. The points mentioned above cumulatively help in increasing sales.
Do you notice how often you decide to buy a product or service by watching its videos and clicking the purchase button?
There are several ways in which video marketers create trending videos and help in sales. Each internet technology platform has a different algorithm to make a viral or trending video.
Where to post videos?
This question is a struggle for freshers in the market. We come across many people who can start a business but cannot compete in marketing with the already set-up businesses.
According to a survey, 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound. It gives an understanding that even an accurately curated video with infographics, pictures, animations, or action videos can deliver the required information. Such videos are also easy to make.
With time, you can move ahead and try different sound effects and various creative methods to engage your audience better.
Here are a few methods to improve your video marketing strategy:
- Social media: Social media is widely used by SMEs, and now, by large-scale businesses. It includes platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
- Live streaming: Take an example of a small-scale business. If it sells hair accessories or decor items, its marketer can live stream how the product is made, what raw materials are used, and how an order reaches its customer. Such videos give an insight into the manufacturing process and help build trust. Through such videos, the business can also help resolve real-time customer queries.
- Webinars: Webinars are pre-recorded or live sessions containing detailed information about a service or product in a video format. Businesses can have such videos made at a price or for free.
Videos are hence an essential unit of content strategy of businesses of today. They help to flourish in this digital world and are the easiest way to reach your target audience.
Make high-quality videos and publish them on the right platform to expand your business.