Why Video Marketing Is Invaluable For Small Businesses

Any small business owner knows that customer engagement is often vital for long-term success.

It’s not about how many emails you’ve collected, how many social media followers you have, or even how well your last sale performed. Instead, what matters is building a community of people who will support your business and spread the word to their social circles.

And while that interaction can take a lot of forms, one of the most common methods of creating engagement is through social media content — specifically video content. Social media is a huge driving force in any industry, and that makes video marketing an invaluable tool that every small business owner should keep close at hand.

The good news is that you don’t need a full production team or a million-dollar video budget to create video content that works. With tools like free editing software, online video templates, and royalty free music, you can craft video marketing pieces that get your message and your brand in front of your ideal audience.

Even better, you can use this channel to make your small business look, sound, and feel just as authoritative as the big-name competitors in your industry. And that’s the kind of impact that can help your business turn its “niche” into a connected and engaged community.

Power Of Online Video Content

Sure, that all sounds magical. But for a lot of marketing teams that work on a budget, investing money into a new sort of content is impractical.

However, the underlying numbers show that video content is one of the most valuable things you can invest in. So while it might be a hard conversation to have with investors or owners, video marketing has a proven track record that can bring a lot of benefits to small businesses in particular. 

Let’s take a deeper look at what this looks like. Last year, 55% of people in the U.S. watched videos online every single day. The same study showed that 78% of people watched videos every week, which paints a clear picture: Watching videos is as much a daily habit as a cup of coffee.

 Source: Oberlo’s 10 VIDEO MARKETING STATISTICS THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IN 2020

But it’s even more than that. In addition to most people seeking out video content, the average viewer internalizes what they’re watching. The average person retains up to 95% of a message they saw in a video, compared to only 10% retention when reading the same content in a text version.

Those are big numbers. And as a small business owner, you know that every sale you make is like a trophy at the end of a race. You’re going up against all sorts of national chains and online competitors. That means any advantage you can find could be a game-changer.

A driving force behind a successful marketing strategy is visibility. You want your customers to know what’s going on — that might be new offerings, product updates, or helpful tips for use. But you also want potential customers to see your content and pay attention, to be intrigued enough to want to learn more.

And that is exactly what video content does best.

Video As A Social Engagement Tool

We’ve already talked about how video functions as both a daily activity and a sort of recurring social event, especially with the rise of Instagram. The truth is that those things are intrinsically tied together.

People have access to so much video content that we end up relying on friends or influencers to kind of curate that content for us. That same mentality applies to video marketing as well.

 Source: Hubspot’s The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing

62% of people admit that they become more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story. And you can imagine how much higher that number could be on YouTube or Instagram where videos are a more central piece of content strategy. 

But the concept of “word-of-mouth marketing” isn’t a new thing. You could say those two terms are synonymous. Business and advertising only exist because our ancestors talked about goods and services to other people. (Try to imagine what marketing looked like in the days before the printing press.)

74% of consumers consider word-of-mouth marketing a major part of their buying habits, and 82% of people seek out referrals before they’ll even consider a new product or service.

The truth is that word-of-mouth carries more weight than traditional advertising. Sure, your ads and blog content and SEO strategy will help establish your brand. But it is referrals and social shares that push people to legitimately consider making a purchase decision.

As we mentioned earlier, video content is a whole lot more shareable, which means your marketing pieces will have a better chance of reaching the widest possible audience. Videos get 1,200% more social media shares than text updates or even static image posts.

You don’t have to understand why our brains prefer video to see that those kinds of numbers are things you can’t afford to ignore. And with social shares driving organic growth, that means a focus on video marketing might just be the healthiest way to grow an audience in 2020 and beyond.

What Makes Video Marketing Effective

Okay, the obvious question is, “But what makes videos so effective?” The science of film and visual media is still something that is being explored, so it’s a topic that remains somewhat shrouded in mystery.

Video provides a combination of different sensory experiences. A well-produced video leverages a combination of images, music, sound effects, on-screen text, and narrative to tell a story. That enables video creators to lead their viewers on an emotional journey, whether the specific content is educational or a testimonial or a powerful advertisement.

When you combine those benefits with that 95% message retention we talked about earlier, you get a much stronger sense of what video brings compared to other mediums.

And that brings a little more light to why video marketing is so effective, and particularly so much more effective than “traditional” text- or image-based marketing.

Want to put video to work for your business? Try a 90-Day Scale or Bail Campaign.