Small Business Videos: How to Go Online?

When it comes to bringing your brand’s presence online, especially if you own a small business, your best bet is to create and market a small business video that represents your services or products. The popularity of visual content sharing apps and platforms shows the explosive rise in interest of people in watching video. Videos for small business are one of the most efficient and convenient ways of making your online presence noticed.

According to this research 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. It can help you start and grow your small business exponentially by attracting your potential customers by building a connection between your brand and the audience.

In this article, we’ll look into the benefits of building a digital home for your business and how you can create great videos to promote your small business without investing a fortune. So, stay tuned!

1.What are the Benefits of Creating Video for Small Business?

Although video making may seem to take a lot of effort, time, and cost, using the right techniques, tools, and video sharing platforms can make them worth your while. Here are some of the reasons how creating a compelling content of a few minutes can help you boost your business:

• Videos are the most alluring form of content
• They can engage your potential customers on social media
• You can have access to mobile users through marketing videos
• They can enhance SEO, conversion, and sale of your products
• You can boost return on investment with less expenditure on ads
• They can help you earn customers’ trust and loyalty
• They can educate and motivate your potential customers

2. What Type of Videos Can You Create?

It can be challenging to choose the right format because there are so many ways to do it. Here are a few types of result-driven business videos you can opt from for your small business:

• Brand Introduction or Story Videos

The purpose of creating a brand story video is to build a connection between your brand and the customers by offering them more insight into your brand’s history, mission, and values. These videos can also help your audience understand what sets your business apart from the rest. Consumers are more probable to be drawn to companies that communicate their purpose and represent an idea bigger than their products or services. Hence, aim for videos with information about your values and background to spark a sense of affiliation or association in your audience.

• Product Videos

The aim of making a product video is to help your customers learn how your product or service will solve their problems. They explain what your product/service is, what its benefits are, and how it works. They can be great for showing your products or services in action and grabbing the attention of your potential consumers. No matter how great your products/services are, if your customers don’t know how it can be beneficial for them, you may not be able to sell it.

• Educational Videos

Educational videos are an important marketing tool that allows you to establish yourself as an expert or authority in your field, educating your audience on topics in your niche. It can be a guide, tutorial, Q & A, and tips and tricks related to your product/service. Instead of explicitly selling your product/service, you provide value to your audience by teaching them something new about the product/service you sell. This helps build trust with your audience and gain more credibility for your brand.

• Social Proof Videos

This type of business video is based on the notion that the views and actions of others can affect a person’s behavior. They help to turn your potential buyers into enthusiastic customers of your products or services. They employ the authority and influence of people to form positive brand perception based on social proof.

Twitter has released a report showing consumers seek product recommendations from influencers almost as much as they do from friends.

3. Small Business Video Examples

Below are some examples of impactful and fascinating small business videos to help you come up with ideas and identify different aspects and elements of product/service videos by other brands.

• WARE Company Introduction Video

This introduction piece shows the incredible work done by the brand showing its audience the company’s values, goals, and culture. They have shown their team members describing their products to build an emotional connection with their potential buyers.

• Tiny Mobile Robots Small Business Testimonials 

A product review based on the current client testimonials. Documentary-style interview and aerial footage.

Produced by AD.JUST Production

• Humidifier Explainer Educational Video

If you’re interested in creating an explainer video to promote your small business, here is an excellent example to motivate you: Airrobo is trying to teach the audience about one of their products to build foundational knowledge that will help them understand the product and the way to use it.

Produced by AD.JUST Production

4. How to Use Video Marketing to Promote Your Business? 

Visual marketing has become one of the most popular and useful ways of boosting your business over the last few years. Here’s how you can follow this trend:

• Capitalize on Available Platforms. The most suitable and effective method of promoting your marketing videos is to use video platforms that are already available, such as Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Users of these platforms are already primed for marketing content, and it’s up to you to utilize it as an opportunity to market your product/service.
• Deliver Quality Content. Although the future of video marketing is promising, you need to carefully develop your brand’s video rather than just jumping headfirst. Since users are already exposed to countless videos from numerous brands, you’ll have to provide high-quality content in order to get noticed.
• Present Value of Your Product. It’s important to demonstrate to your potential customers that you value their attention and time. The best approach to earn their respect and attention is to establish the value of your product/service by focusing on its key elements. 
• Tell the Story. Marketing videos are probably your best shot at telling your story, especially if you’re using platforms that support long-form content. Brands that use storytelling aspects of things related to their products or services are more likely to move their viewers to their customers.
• Follow the Three “E”s. Three simple yet highly effective and failsafe steps toward promoting your marketing videos are following three “E”s: engage, energize, and educate. Aim to keep your potential buyers engaged by presenting your content at the right time and place, energizing your audience to stay engaged with your brand, and educating them by providing information about your product/service.

5. How to Get Started with Making a Video?

Now that you know why you need to create quality videos for your small business and how these videos can be helpful for your brand let’s move on to the important steps in making a video.

• Define Your Goals

The first and most fundamental step while creating a successful business video is to set a clear target or goals you are aiming to achieve. One way of doing this is by asking yourself, “what is the purpose of this video?” This question will help you determine what to include and what not. Some ideas for establishing your goals are:

• Increase brand awareness through storytelling
• Boost sales through product videos
• Build reliability through social proof videos
• Educate your buyers through educational videos

These are some ways to create videos that will help you achieve your desired outcomes. Remember that whatever decision you make should be consistent with your goals.

• Brainstorm for Ideas

The next step involves coming up with ideas for your videos and taking inspiration from your competitors, peers, and well-established brands in the market. You can use social media platforms, especially Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, to get more information about bigger bands. This can help you recognize their strengths and weaknesses, so you can decide how you can do better. Another way is by using your website analytics and identifying top-reaching posts to repurpose these posts for creating your content. Lastly, if you already have social media presence, use analytics to spot top-performing posts as well as keep track of comments and queries from your customers. This can give you some ideas about your videos.

• Write a Script

Preparing a script will help you build a clear story, map out the entire flow for your video, and establish strong points that you can hit throughout. If you are camera shy, having something written out may also help reduce nervousness. You would also need to include an introduction, CTA’s (call-to-action), product features, etc.

• Choose a Location

Finding the right location for shooting your video is an important step. If you choose to shoot your product or subject indoor, make sure you do it in well-illuminated conditions. While shooting an outdoor video, be careful about the shadows and glare. Moreover, no matter if you decide to shoot indoor or outdoor, the place should be free of unwanted distractions and background noise.

• Contact local Video Production Teams

Finally, now that you have done all the prep work, it’s time to look for local video production teams to help you get on your feet and start recording your business video. Choosing a video production team instead of filming your business video yourself is particularly recommended if you have minimal or no experience creating videos, are going to be on camera, or have enough going on and need professional help for this step. Getting help from a video team or pro can create your business video to build and promote your business more effectively. A video production team can create content that assists in marketing your business more efficiently and establishing your brand more rapidly

6. Best Practices and Guidelines for Creating a Successful Video Campaign

After you’ve successfully completed production for your small business, now is the time to shift all your focus to starting a video campaign for the promotion of your business. Here are some small steps and guidelines you can follow to achieve your desired outcome:

• Share on Social Media

Based on a study published by the Pew Research Center, seven out of ten people are on social media. It indicates that social media is a powerful and appropriate place to promote your business videos. You can opt for tools, such as Buffer, for sharing your videos on different social media platforms quickly without any hassle. Use tools like Rapidtags to optimize your video titles and tags on Youtube.

• Use Video on Landing Page

You should use video on your landing page because it makes people want to purchase your products. In fact, 84% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a brand video. Video ads help drive traffic and sales. So why not add one about your business to your landing page?

If you’re a new small business, you can use our Start page to create a mobile landing page. It’s easy to link to your favorite videos from YouTube on your page. Just click “Create Video” on the video’s player and select “Link to YouTube video.

• Work with Influencers

Collaborating with influencers is a popular and effective way to expose your brand to more people and get more social proof for your brand. It is estimated that around 49% of consumers rely on influencer recommendations, while 40% have made a purchase after coming across something on social media platforms, including Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

If you’re just starting out and you’re looking to work with influencers, look to work with micro-influencers because they’re often the most engaged and best to work with. They are willing to do partnerships in exchange for free products.

• Use Paid Social Advertising

Using paid social advertising will help your video for a small business gain more views, particularly if it’s already getting a lot of views organically. Ads on Facebook, or Instagram, are the most common type of ad platform used by small businesses. Either type of ad platform has its own benefits that only you can determine.