The Small Business Video Marketing Manual To Success

It’s no surprise that many small businesses ignore video marketing altogether.

It’s expensive, time-consuming and requires a set of complex skills, right? Where on earth would you find the hours?

At Viddyoze, we know how easy it is to think that way. But as video marketing experts, we know a simple truth: small businesses can’t afford to miss out on video marketing.

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be a struggle.

With a solid strategy and the use of affordable and easy-to-use tools (like those we have created at Viddyoze) you can deliver a powerful video marketing campaign for your small business – without taking off any of your most important hats.

So, we’ve put together this comprehensive step-by-step guide to turn you into a small business video marketing expert without the need for lengthy courses, expensive tools or outside hiring.

Video marketing is such an expansive and all-consuming medium that it can be difficult to know where to start.

We’ve compiled a list of eight basic ideas to help you create videos and kick off your new video content marketing strategy.

1. Promo Videos

A promo video is a creative piece of video used to promote your product or services – without being an overt sales pitch. Promo videos tend to be used to quickly draw attention to your brand; think of them as a teaser trailer.

Promo videos are the perfect means of getting the word out. Whether you have a new product, service or even an upcoming event that could use a little widespread anticipation, a bespoke promotional video can make all the difference in generating excitement and brand awareness.

Make them short and shareable and get them on socials, or spend a little more time detailing exactly what people should be getting excited about – either way, your launch will benefit.

2. Product Videos

Product videos are designed to show off your product and its features. Use them to break down your product in detail, provide use-cases and explain what sets your product apart. SaaS and service businesses shouldn’t neglect product videos, either – they can be a great way to demonstrate what you’re offering even if there’s no physical product to shoot.

It’s important to provide a product video for each thing you’re selling so that customers are never lacking the information they need. Product videos are fantastic for answering a customer’s immediate questions; they often meet customers who are interested but not yet sold, and providing clarity on your product’s transformative qualities can help seal the deal.

3. Informational Explainer Videos

Informational explainer videos are light, educational videos that directly answer commonly asked questions about your product, service or industry.

They’re often a few minutes long, and many businesses weave storytelling through them to better illuminate the pain point their audience is feeling, and how their product can solve it. There are plenty of examples of explainer videos going extremely viral thanks to their carefully crafted stories.

This viral potential makes informational explainer videos excellent at building an audience while establishing your brand’s thought leadership with potential customers.

They’re also handy SEO tools; in short, thinking of explainer videos purely as a means to deliver information is a mistake. They’re a brilliant way to capture new customers as well as keep your current ones informed!

4. Case Studies

Nothing demonstrates your expertise, and the qualities of your product or service, like a well-presented case study of your best success stories. Showing your audience how your product has solved problems in the past will convince them it can solve theirs in the future; establishing credibility, eliminating any lingering doubts and transforming a lead into a sale.

Like many of the entries on this list, case studies have the potential for a lifespan well past their intended use, and a well-crafted case study designed to be shareable can make excellent social content and be repurposed for months to come.

5. Staff Introductions

People make every industry tick, whether you’re selling a product or delivering a service. Introduce your new hires to the world with a quick video, so people can put a face to the job title. This makes great content on a social media platform like LinkedIn, where users are looking for the human element behind each company page.

It’s also a great way of warming up cold leads. You can establish trust with prospective customers just by introducing the sales team behind the emails before they’ve even had a reply.

Staff introductions can also serve as great stories if the staff member has been with your small business a while – run through your successes via behind the scenes videos and establish the expertise and authority of your sales team.

6. Video Testimonials

Customer testimonial videos are modern word-of-mouth marketing. Put your happy customers front and center with a video testimonial that tells the story of the success you’ve enjoyed together – and, most importantly, the problem you solved for them.

This is a great way of turning your marketing from cold and informal to warm and approachable. Not only will this seem more credible to your target audience, but it’ll also be memorable and stay with them thanks to video’s unbeatable information retention. If they run into a problem you’ve proven you can solve in the future – they’ll think of your business.

7. Tutorials

Video tutorials might seem like they’re useful only to current customers, but they’re also an excellent way of winning new customers. Think of tutorials as a series short of videos that highlight the USPs and strongest features of your product. For people in the latter stages of the buying cycle, this video content could be what persuades them to buy from you.

That said, tutorials are primarily for existing customers, and are a key means of retaining their business. Show them a simple means of solving any problem they might run into and you’ll take pressure off your hard-working support team.

8. Sales Announcements

Because of the unbeatable benefits of video marketing, like information retention and ROI, it is undisputedly the best way to drum up interest for an upcoming sale. A short, well-produced announcement video – perfect for Instagram stories, where you can offer a simple pathway to the sale page – can be the difference between a successful clear-out and unwanted stock taking up space and budget.

Get creative and encourage your audience to share the video, too: sales are the perfect entry point for new customers, and could land you a host of long-term leads.

And don’t forget to use product videos on your sales landing page, too.

By now you’ve realized how crucial a strong video marketing effort is and have a host of ideas to apply to your own small business. You can almost taste the impact it’ll make.

But that niggling thought remains: how? Video might be the surefire solution to boosting your online marketing but it comes at a price: a huge time investment, expensive video marketing resources, professional equipment, and skills you simply don’t have.

Luckily, none of this is true.

Here at Viddyoze, we’ve worked tirelessly to create the solution for small businesses that think they lack the skills to create marketing videos. You don’t need video experience, fancy lighting or professional microphones – you just need Viddyoze.

With our simple-to-use animation templates and editing tools, you’ll have a visually stunning piece of video content in minutes. Plus, Viddyoze will empower you to produce video at scale – meaning entire marketing campaigns have never been easier to produce.

All you need to do is sign up to the Viddyoze app, choose a video template from our library, customize it with your branding and messaging, then download and post.

Engage more customers and watch your small business thrive through the power of video, without breaking the bank.

Click here to get started or watch the video below for more info.

Focus On The Benefits Not Product Features

Most people don’t want to know how many fancy buttons your product has, or how much more power it can output compared to your competitors’ product. Those things work well as hooks for highly technical audiences, sure – but those audiences are niche and are unlikely to form the core of your demographic.

Most customers will have only one question on their minds: what’s in it for me?

Make sure that’s the question you answer most prominently. Explain how your product can make a tangible difference in their lives or work. Demonstrate your understanding of the problem they’re facing, explain how your product or service solves that problem, and detail the dream outcome.

Your customers will find your messaging irresistible – and remember, it’s all the more effective when wrapped up in a demo video.

Call Your Viewers To Action

One of the many benefits of video marketing is that it can offer direct and accessible routes between your video ads and store. Often, customers watching your video content are only a click or two away from making a purchase. With this knowledge in hand, make sure your messaging pushes them towards doing just that!

There are other calls to action that can be just as valuable. For example, ask your audience to share your video content to enter the draw for a giveaway. This can spread your video far and wide, and ensure it delivers it maximum possible impact. Failing that, it’s hard to go wrong with old-fashioned email capture.

Add Multiple Brand Touchpoints To Your Content

We know how valuable video content can be to small businesses when it’s not designed as a hard sell: think case studies, explainer videos and testimonials.

These types of content can be wonderful for promoting brand awareness and establishing your thought leadership, but make sure your audience comes away with a relationship to your brand, rather than just the information presented.

Using your logo to transition between elements can serve as a kind of subliminal reinforcement of your brand. Make sure to use intros and outros that double down on this: the goal is to have your audience think of your brand next time they run into the problem you’re solving. At that point, they’re more likely to be ready to buy.

Subtitle Your Videos For Social Media

Studies show that 92% of viewers watch video with the sound off, and 50% regularly rely on closed captions. If you don’t want your painstakingly produced audio to go unheard, make sure to include subtitles that stand out.

This is also a good exercise in producing enticing hooks: make sure the first line of subtitles is so engaging that your viewer couldn’t possibly click away.

Add Videos To Your Google Business Profile

A Google Business profile is a crucial tool for any local small business: 86% of people find the location of a small business via Google. It’s the new high street.

When searching by location, Google will present its users with a map pack (see example above), which includes brief details on the three businesses it deems most relevant. Click-through rates are sky-high for these businesses, and competition is fierce.

Adding videos to your Business Profile will help boost your ranking with Google and ensure you capitalize on the leads you’ll get – educate your customers before they visit, and you’ll increase your chances of landing a sale.

Use Videos To Increase Your Organic Reach On Social Media

Social media platforms love video. Of all social content, video is proven to keep social media users around the longest. In fact, organic reach on Facebook is 135% higher in videos compared to photos. So platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will boost business video content that performs – it’s a win-win.

Use this to your advantage and game the algorithm by producing world-class video marketing specifically for social media. Your reach will explode, you’ll get more impressions on your pages – and if the video is done right, generate lots of new leads and social media followers for your small business.

Don’t Simply Repost The Same Videos Across All Social Platforms

Each social platform is unique, and the kind of video content that goes viral on Facebook won’t necessarily have the same reach on Twitter. Don’t make the mistake of creating a generic ‘social’ video and then posting it everywhere.

Instead, spend some time studying each platform’s user base. Learn each platform’s quirks and personality, and make content that fits.

Your content doesn’t need to be bespoke – repurposing is a great way to ensure your existing content goes further – but make sure you’re what you’re uploading fits the platform. If it doesn’t, adapt it – or leave it out.

Embed Videos To Your Landing Pages

EyeView Digital conducted a study that showed they increased the conversion rate of their landing page by 80% just by adding video.

That doesn’t mean it’s as simple as slapping any old video on your landing page and calling it a day though – create a video that’s relevant to the page’s content, and tailor-made to answer the questions the visitor is likely to have.

For example, make product videos for your product pages, and use your staff introduction videos on your staff pages – these things are no brainers, and will massively increase your visitor retention and conversion.

Use Videos To Increase Your Email Open Rates

Did you know that simply adding the word ‘video’ to your email subject line increases your open rate by 19%?

Promising video content can be a superb way to make your email marketing strategy more effective, and there are lots of creative ways to synergize the two. Perhaps lock your most informative training video behind an email list signup and use it as a lead magnet.

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. 62% of global consumers say they use YouTube, and over one billion hours of video are watched on the platform every day. Not having an effective YouTube strategy means missing out on the gluttony of potential leads.

Although competition is fierce, local small businesses have an advantage: honing in on a local strategy means competing in a less saturated market, but can still be a game-changer.

So, putting together a strategy that covers your services and location is a powerful way of dominating your locality.

Here are some ideas for your video titles:

• Best [Product or service name] in [location]
• Buy [Product or service name] in [location]
• Cheap [Product or service name] in [location]
• Where to get [Product or service name] in [location]

Improving your video SEO by using these keywords can trigger Google’s SERP spiders, meaning your video could land at the top of a relevant search and double-dipping your traffic sources.

Make sure the content you’re promoting this way conforms to best practices and Conversion Rate Optimization – you want the work that’s most visible to potential customers to be your most effective.

Recommended Reading: How To Build A YouTube Marketing Funnel That Wins Customers

Facebook Video Ads are a solid option for expanding your video reach.

Here are a few ideas on how to use Facebook as a digital marketing tool for reaching new leads and ensuring your content goes the distance.

Step One: Boost Your Top Performing Video Posts For One Month

To start, it’s crucial you pick the correct content to boost.

Log into your Facebook post analytics and find your top-performing content. Those videos with the most engagement – via likes, shares, impressions and comments – are ripe for boosting.

Boost these top performers – pick up to five – for as much as you can afford. Facebook doesn’t have a minimum spend limit, making it the perfect platform for smaller budgets.

The goal here is to get your best, most engaging content in front of internet users who aren’t already familiar with your brand.

Step Two: Create A Custom Audience For Watchers Over 50%

A Custom Audience is an ad targeting service Facebook offers that allows businesses to find their existing audiences among the platform’s users.

You can use all sorts of sources to create Custom Audiences, including customer lists or traffic from your website. Here, we’ll focus on creating a Custom Engagement Audience using data from Facebook itself.

Once your boosted posts have finished running, create a Custom Engagement Audience for those who viewed them. We recommend targeting those who watched 50% or more of your content, as this is generally enough to hook them.

75% is better but runs the risk of reducing the number of people you can capture.

Step Three: Run An Exclusive Offer Just For Them

Once you’ve put together your Custom Audience, it’s time to market to them.

These already engaged users are qualified leads at this point – they’re aware of your brand, they know what you do and they’re likely only a nudge away from making a purchase.

So put together some creative video ads with offers specifically for them. Think discount codes, free shipping, or whatever else you can offer to help push sales over the line.

Run these ads at your Custom Audience, sit back, relax and let the orders roll in.

By now you should have a bunch of ideas to create your own small business video marketing strategy.

Hopefully, you should understand that all of this can be achieved without the need for professional equipment or training.

In fact, you only need one tool: Viddyoze.

Viddyoze makes video marketing a breeze. Our simple-to-use tools will guide you through creating professional video in a few easy steps: just choose from our library of video templates, upload your text and branding, then download, post and watch the power of a video content strategy unfold.

With Viddyoze, it really is that easy. Learn more here.

Will Video Marketing Help My Business?

Yes. Video marketing is an excellent way to demonstrate your product or service, capture your target demographic’s attention, and convert leads into sales. 72% of customers say they’d rather learn about a product or service by way of video, and 79% say video is a key factor in their buying decisions.

Beyond sales, nothing beats video when it comes to visually presenting your expertise. People trust what they see with their own eyes; a well-presented slew of video ads can do wonders for promoting brand recognition and growing your social media channels.

How Do Small Businesses Create Video Ads?

Small business owners can create video ads by storyboarding and filming the content themselves or by using a service such as Viddyoze which removes all of the headaches.

How To Use Video For Social Media Marketing For My Small Business?

It’s no secret that video generates more engagement and conversions on social media than any other content format. Hence, prioritizing video posts makes sense for small businesses.
Small businesses can utilize a varied content strategy on social media. Firstly, consisting of self-promotional posts such as product videos, customer testimonials, and sales announcements. Secondly, posting entertaining informational content such as exclusive tips, expert interviews, and ‘how to’ videos.