Are you using video for your small business? If you answered yes to this question bravo! You are definitely doing the right thing. If you answered no, don’t fret yet, but do know this. Video consumption is going to continue to rise in 2014. Now is the time to start adding video to your marketing arsenal.
146 million people are consuming video content on their desktop for a total of 6.5 hours a month. While this might be peanuts compared to the amount of TV people watch, this number is still quite considerable, especially if you take into consideration that most videos consumed on the web are relatively short. So that 6.5 hours a month can actually mean thirty-nine 10 minute videos each month. Or seventy-eight 5 minute videos. Or even 390 one minute videos. That’s a lot of content and shouldn’t be ignored.
Add in mobile and tablet video consumption and we’re likely to see those numbers increase even more.
If you are active on any social network, you’ve probably already noticed an increase in video shares on your social media feeds as well. Facebook just changed the way video is shown on your feed with autostarts. Twitter plays YouTube and Vine videos in your feed and Instagram added videos as part of their platform.
Video is here to stay. As a business you need to take advantage of consumer habits and you’ll see results.
6 Benefits Of Using Video On Your Website & Online Properties
1. Video Can Increase Site Visit
2. Video Can Increase Page Views
3. Video Can Decrease Bounce Rates
4. Video Can Increase Branding
5. Video Can Increase Visual & Audio Recognition
6. Video Can Increase Engagement
How To Create Video For Your Business
The most important thing is to deliver a message that resonates with your customers, fans, and visitors. When going about creating video and any type of content, you’ll be best served when you deliver the content within the context of the site you are sharing it on. Also think about where your visitor will consume this content. The larger the screen, the longer the content, is a good rule of thumb.
5 Ways To Start Utilizing Video
Not only does video enhance a user’s experience on your site, it makes you sticky and memorable. It also puts a voice, face, or animation to your business. Here are some ways you can start using video to make your website’s experience better and turn your site into a lead magnet and a converting machine.
1. Subscribe/Unsubscribe Video
Think about offering a video to people who subscribe to your newsletter. This can be a thank you, an introduction to the team and yourself, a product demo, or anything else of value. This is likely to be the first video they see and you want it to give the subscriber a good impression. On the other end of the spectrum, you can offer an please don’t go message for those wanting to unsubscribe. This too should add value and hopefully get them to re-engage with you and your business.
2. Video Sequence
If you are signed up for the ConvertWithContent newsletter than it is likely that you’ve already been taken through our video sequence on blogging, SEO and Social Media. This is a great way to engage your audience and determine which leads are the best for your business by how often and how quickly the finish the sequence. Of course, we use Infusionsoft for this and we highly recommend it.
3. Customer Testimonials
Everyone loves a good testimonial. It’s social proofing and shows that you have success in what you do. It also shows that people like your product or service enough to create a video for you. This one is really a no-brainer.
4. Sale or Special Event Promotion
Think of this as a mini advertisement for a sale, special event, or even a webinar you are having. You can use the video to showcase a new product, you can use it to notify customers of an upcoming sale, and you can even include video specific coupons for viewers only. If you want to double up on the video in this category you can think about live streaming the actual event for extra oomph.
5. Social Media Sites
Social media is the perfect place to share a video. Plus, you don’t have to worry about production quality as much as you would for something hosted on your website. Social media is supposed to be accessible and this is one way to do just that. Just remember to keep within the context of the site you are sharing on.
Each social site has their own benefits for sharing video. Facebook videos have a high engagement rate and longer shelf-life due to tagging and location in your photo gallery. YouTube has great search benefits and SEO results. YouTube is the second largest search engine after all. Vine is great because it can be connected to Twitter and you can use it as a customer service tool. Instagram has a built in following and growing user base. G+’s video platform is connected to YouTube and hangouts are a great way to engage your audience on different platforms. You can stream the G+ hangout on your blog, your YouTube and your G+ page simultaneously. I’ve posted videos on G+ and I must admit, I love the action they get.
There are tons of other ways to incorporate video into your marketing campaigns and we’ll be testing a lot of them. How are you using video?
