“Video is everything. According to Google, 70% of B2B buyers and researchers are watching videos throughout their path to purchase.”
Now more than ever, video is the single best way to reach your market and it’s never been easier to create effective, compelling videos that spread your business message.
Video should not be considered just another part of your marketing strategy, it’s the key to best target your audience and engage potential customers with your business.
If you’re not creating videos for your company you’ll be soon left behind your competitors that are.
The good news is video production is now so simple and cost-effective to create, we can shoot in high-quality HD on our smart phones, which means, it’s available to all businesses! We’ll go through some tips and tricks a bit later on how you can set up your own super affordable home studio.
Before that, there are various types of video campaigns you can use for your business. To start we’ll go through some of the most effective video campaigns that we create for our clients that you might find useful for your business.
Brand Awareness videos are essential for any business, you can use it to target your specific market to get your brand out there and in front of potential customers. If you don’t have someone in your company that is comfortable in front of a camera don’t fret, you can also use a voiceover, text or animation to get your brand out there. A really well produced brand awareness video will target your customer, bring in leads and generate revenue. Video is still the most popular form of content for all customers.
Instructional and Explainer videos; these videos show the customer exactly how to use your product or what your service can provide. 74% of people who get to see your product in action on video will buy it. Those 74% can then lead to better retention and customer referrals. Not all business owners think it’s needed, if you’re the owner or creator of a product you might think it’s easy to use, but chances are your customers will connect better when seeing it in action.
Testimonial videos are invaluable for every business. We all scroll through every site to find reviews when we’re looking to buy something, meaning they are worth their weight in gold. Transferring these reviews to testimonials would be even better as it adds that personal and relatable element to the review. If you know a customer has been happy with your product or service, there’s no harm in asking could you shoot a short 1 min testimonial for your site. Why not make it easy and enticing for them by offering a discount off their next booking or product?
If you know an influencer or someone with a big following that have their own audience, approach them to ask if they could shoot a short testimonial video on their phone to add to their stories, it’s another great way for your brand to reach a new customer base and grow your business.
Story Ads are a fantastic way to show your offer within 15 seconds on Facebook and Instagram. We love creating story ads for our clients. You can play around with fun animated ads with swipe up links that are connected to your sales funnel, meaning they land straight in your cart the minute they swipe up! They’re a great way of targeting your customers with offers and really effective for brand awareness too.
“The granularity of video analytics on platforms like Facebook is one reason why, in 2018, 93% of businesses reported getting a new customer on social media thanks to video.” Hubspot
Re-Targeting Ads allows you to target anyone that has been on your website, your social platforms or anywhere that someone has engaged with you online. By setting up a re-targeting ad on google or your socials you can re-target them with really creative and engaging video ads based on their previous searches through your company. Using video as part of your re-targeting campaigns are proven to be a lot more responsive than static graphic ads. They’ve already seen your product or service, so it allows you to offer them a discount of 10% or 20% off to get them to click on that ad and make that sale.
Don’t be afraid to get personal
Now onto our top tips for shooting powerful videos inhouse!
Don’t be afraid to get personal on video, video production doesn’t always have to involve camera crews and big budgets. Authentic personalised videos can help you connect with, surprise, and delight your sales prospects and customers.
If there’s a simple message you want to get across about your business, get it down on paper and practise it in front of a camera until your happy with the outcome. That’s the beauty of having a camera on our smartphones, you can take the time to practise it and shoot as many takes as possible until you feel confident enough to get it out.
A top video that we ALWAYS recommend businesses have is a ‘Your Why’ video. We ask every client to ‘Brainstorm your why’ to explain why you started your business, that’s what makes you unique to your competitors. If you can get this on camera your audience can relate and will connect to your story, this will help with growing your brand and your customer base.
Camera Equipment - Inhouse set-up tips & tricks
Here’s some tips and tricks that we found work a treat when shooting videos from the office or at home.
Sound Equipment
The production value of your content will go up another level if you have the right sound equipment. If you’ve professionally shot a video that looks great and the sound isn’t right no-one will watch it. You can buy road or clip on lapel mic’s for as little as £30 online.
Tri-pod
A Tri-pod for your camera is also very beneficial, to allow you to set it up high to shoot downwards at an angle.
You can also buy these online for under £30
Lighting
Lighting is also hugely important and will make your shoot look super professional. We have used these lights you can buy on Amazon for £70
Editing your videos
If you don’t have the budget to pay a company to edit your videos. There’s are loads of YouTube explainer videos that show you how to edit videos on your phone or laptop. There is so much free content online on how to do it yourself. Check it out!
If you are unsure where to begin, reach out today for more advice on supports that may be available to help you during these times!
Listen to our Podcast for more on ‘The Power of Video Online’ with CEO and Founder of Bankhouse Media.
