The Importance of Video For Small and Medium Businesses
There are many ways to market and advertise products in the industry. Whether you're using social media to reach out to your customers or are attempting to engage your audience through email marketing, both radically different strategies can be equally effective when used properly. Have you considered using videos to engage your audience? Adding the power of video to these strategies? Not only is it a great way to interact with customers — especially today where everyone has video in the palms of their hands — it's essentially the future of content marketing. Here are 3 simple reasons video for small & medium business is important for your marketing strategy.
#1. Video Creates a Sense of Trust
Before we discuss this, let's make a comparison, and see how the following two marketing strategies fall short when compared to the use of video: social media and email marketing.
While social media and email marketing can certainly be engaging, your audience may not know you personally. One of the downsides of these marketing types is that they often lack face-to-face interactions. This is especially true if you're using social media. Even if you have a large following on Facebook, much of your audience may only know you from your online persona, not from personal conversations or in-store meetings. With the use of video, however, that's a different story. People can "meet" you. People can get a sense of who you are as a person, as an entrepreneur, as a community member.
One of the benefits of using video for marketing and advertising, is that it creates a stronger sense of trust with your audience. It's not just the fact that you're personally engaging them that creates this trust. When you appear in a video about your business, your audience identifies you as a person instead of a "virtual persona." Not only does this put a face and personality behind your brand, but more importantly, it lets a customer get to "meet" the person responsible for the business. We're social beings by nature, and we enjoy interacting with others. Even if they haven't met you before, their interest has been piqued by your presence in the video, your greeting them, and your interaction with them on screen.
The team at Rex Forge. Photo by Miceli Productions
#2. Video Creates a Better Sense of Engagement
Using video as a marketing tool also creates a better sense of engagement, especially with a product that's being advertised. Seeing a product unwrapped and in a best-use case puts it in a positive light. Not only can your audience see what's being discussed "live" on-screen, they get a better sense of how it's to be used and they can visualize themselves using the product. If you offer a product demonstration, it can clear up questions regarding product usage from customers before they even know they have those questions!
Your videos don't just create a stronger sense of engagement because your customers can see what's being marketed — you can also create visual impact with your content. Not only does using video grab their attention, but statistics show that the visuals in video content communicate and appeal to our human emotions. Between creating a sense of trust with your audience, and allowing your customers to better engage with the product, you have two advantages which show how essential it is to use videos for your business.
#3. Video Allows For Creativity
Lastly, videos are important for your business, because they allow you to be creative. There are a wide array of visual tools that you can incorporate into video content that email marketing and social media strategies just don't allow for.
Not only do you have the ability to market your product through spectacular story telling, unique transitions, eye-catching graphics, and clever editing, you can also fit the tone of your video to what you know will appeal to your target audience — your customers. Think about the following: Will your message be taking a more serious, direct approach? Or will your video mostly be humorous and slightly informative? Will your video be flashy with lots of fast-paced graphics? Or will it be a simple talking head with a humanistic message? Designed properly, the tone of your video will resonate with the customers you are seeking.
Video For Small & Medium Businesses is Important.
There are plenty of opportunities for creativity, and the sky is the limit when videos are a key part of your content marketing strategy.