Last week I went over two of our six essential guidelines for how to use video to market your small business online. And if you want to know what I talked about last time, click the link in the description. That way you can be up to speed for when you come back! You can find it here., or you can watch the video version here.
In part 2 I’ll cover the final four marketing videos for small business guidelines that will help you in your content marketing efforts.
And without further ado, let’s jump right back into where I left off last time.
Number 3: Start your small business video with a hook.
Now, statistically speaking, the majority of online traffic that will view a video will click away from visual content within the first 10 to 15 seconds of video.
If the video seems irrelevant or dull to the audience, then that back button starts to look pretty friendly.
Usually, a good “hook” within the first 10-15 seconds of the video can improve the likelihood of someone staying on your video for much longer. And that can increase engagement and increase conversions.
This hook can be anything from a hypothetical question that asks the audience about a specific problem that they may be having — a problem that your product or services can help fix — to a customer telling the audience about a problem that they were having before your business stepped in to offer a solution.
Is your business a mom and pop restaurant? A good hook for your audience could be showing off some of that delicious food, heck, it would probably work on me.
Number 4: Make the structure and flow of your video more of a narrative and less of a sales pitch.
Yes, you do want to sell a product. But video is naturally a storytelling tool that should be used to your advantage.
People like to hear interesting stories and these stories can range from customer testimonials, to even your CEO telling the tale of how your company was formed.
Usually, when creating an online video, have a specific aim in mind based on three different narrative archetypes.
These three archetypes include:
1. Educating
A video that’s educates your target market usually falls into the lines of explaining what your products or services do and how they benefit customers, this is less trying to get someone to buy and more about providing the customer with insight into what you have to offer them. It could be a live action or animated how-to video, or a video explaining case studies and original research.
2. Entertaining
An entertaining video might be something like opening a video with sock puppets or having a duplicate of yourself on screen. You can either wow your audience or make them laugh, and this type of video usually can offer a lot of creativity when attracting potential leads. These are the types of videos that people might share on social media and might have the potential to become viral content.
3. Inspiring
An inspiring video could be when you tell a touching story of a customer’s testimony, or even create a video marketing campaign to inform the community of a nonprofit that your organization has partnered with. It’s to give people the inspiration to act, to not only sign on with your business but to make them feel connected to the stories you tell.
Moving onto point number 5: Research what your competitors are doing.
In many cases this ties into our 10x content video message. It is important to study and understand the quality of the digital marketing videos that your competitors are creating.
Ask yourself things like:
How high quality is it?
How does it sound?
Is it well edited?
Now, along those lines; this point follows the same principle of when you are out-running a hungry grizzly bear. Just as you have to only be faster than the guy next to you, you just need to have better content than your competitors.
If they don’t have any video content whatsoever; then you already have a huge advantage with a video shot on an iPhone. It doesn’t need to be Citizen Kane or be a high budget viral video. It should just be better than the competition. You are free to go above and beyond in this principle, but you don’t need to.
Okay, finally we have point number 6: Make your video SEO friendly.
This one is important for all marketing strategies in this day and age. Especially with the existence of search engines like Bing, Google, and YouTube.
When publishing your video, is your video going to be easily found on these search engines? And how can you avoid having your video drowned out by all the white noise of the monster known as the internet?
One of the key aspects to help you get found on these search engines is something known as Keywords.
Keywords are specific words that people will search for in order to find services that pertain to your business.
Now, keep in mind that these keywords are based on what the majority of people will be searching for. Because more people will be searching for that specific topic and in turn, you will likely generate more traffic to your business.
The goal is to increase traffic to your website, your videos, and in turn, gain more potential clients. And that’s why you need to add SEO and keyword research to your video content marketing plan.
These keywords for video purposes can be placed in the title, video description, video transcript, and even in the hashtags for the video itself.
Just don’t overdo it.
Well, there you go! Six guidelines to follow when constructing a Marketing Video.
1. Always start with a marketing strategy and content marketing plan.
2. Make your online videos about what you know.
3. Always start your videos with a hook to keep your audience engaged.
4. Don’t always be selling in your marketing videos. Tell stories instead.
5. Do your competitive research and make your small business videos ten times better.
6. Don’t forget about video SEO and use keywords.
Hopefully, these guidelines help you in directing and molding high-quality and compelling video content for potential customers and clients.
Need some advice on marketing videos for business?
If you have any more questions about video production or more direction on how to make a video for your small business, drop them in the comments below and I may address it in another future video.
Thank you, my friends! Don’t forget to leave a like and subscribe to the BizIQ Channel. I am Alex Taylor with BizIQ signing off.
