6 Reasons Your Small Business Should Invest in Video Marketing

Marketing is a vital part of growing any business. But creating successful marketing plans isn't always easy. You must have many skills, understand what drives potential customers, keep up with competition and technology, and be able to touch hearts and minds.

One tool that can help with all these needs is video. Do you utilize video marketing to its fullest? Could you use it to fill gaps in your current branding? Discover a few ways that added video usage can boost your business.

1. It Displays Professionalism

A scrappy, fly-by-night approach to your business can build a following when it's small and new. But as you grow, you'll need to develop a more professional marketing plan appropriate for your size and market goals. Well-made videos and motion graphics make you look like a real business — one that customers can rely on, develop a relationship with, get plenty of products from, and be proud of. 

This doesn't mean that you must lose your homegrown, hometown vibe, though. You'll just create it with more sophisticated tools and professional media rather than with handmade flyers and casual social media photos. And marketing professionals will use their experience and skills to better craft the brand identity you want.

2. It Engages People

Video is often more engaging that words or static pictures. While all these elements have their place in a marketing strategy, you'll only get so far without the action and movement of video. Video comes alive, it's exciting, and it catches attention. If your website, social media, or print advertising don’t create engagement and retention, you may need to work harder to draw people in.

The more you can engage the senses and make scrolling customers stop and watch, the more likely they are to share your advertising material with friends and family. Sharing is a valuable marketing tool, as it's essentially free advertising as well as free recommendations by trusted sources. So if you can boost sharing, you'll spend less money to get the same reach.

3. It Can Be Clearer

Whatever you need to get across to people, video often helps do so. For marketing purposes, this usually means convincing customers that your products or services are most assuredly what they need. But it can also help you reassure customers and improve satisfaction by making sure they understand more complicated parts of the process.

For instance, a video may demonstrate how to use your product, how to navigate setup, or how to do maintenance. Explaining things like these in words might make buyers frustrated and can drive them away. Pictures may be an improvement, but they're not always very clear. Video, on the other hand, lets people see — slowly, quickly, or repeatedly — exactly what they need to understand.

4. It's Expected by Many

We live in an increasingly interactive, moving world. Customers have grown up or spent decades in a video-filled environment. They now make their own videos, share videos on social media, and often watch more than they read. Companies who fail to meet the expectation that they will provide interesting and meaningful videos are likely to fall behind their competition.

Understanding what your pool of customers wants from you is key to successfully marketing to them. And even if your customers tend to be older — and therefore less driven by modern trends — future older customers are younger ones now. So you must adapt to their ways for future growth. Learn more about video statistics and marketing trends.

5. It's a Multimedia Investment

If your small business invests money on a big project, it needs to get as much value from that as possible. This is where both professional photos and video really shine.

Although you create a photo shoot or video production for a specific reason — such as to make a television commercial — you can then use these images and snippets for many other situations. They may be reedited into things like social media posts, other commercials, trade show videos, employee orientations, website content, or displays in the reception area.

6. It Doesn't Feel Like Marketing

While your goal is to make sales and increase customer retention, customers don't want to feel like they constantly hear a sales pitch. Because they're short and exciting, videos have the luxury of being able to present many different stories and vibes.

Videos of various types and lengths can entertain, provide helpful tips, create a mood, show your company's ethos, visualize uses for your products, or make personal appeals. They're an important part of building your brand in customers' eyes, which can then lead to more sales through other media.

Learn more about How to Create Engaging Instagram Videos: Tips & Tricks for Marketers