Yelp, YouTube, Facebook Shops, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms host billions of users who potentially have—or know someone who has—an interest in your product or service.
Each of these platforms also hosts video, which means if you create just one video, you can use it across all platforms to attract leads and bring customers to your business.
Regardless of the platform, video marketing efforts can help small businesses expose their products and services to more people, convince potential customers to purchase their offers, and form stronger bonds with existing clients.
1. Customer testimonials project social proof
Customer testimonials and reviews—videos where clients share their feedback around your offer—act as social proof for potential customers. Social proof is a psychological occurrence where we let other people’s opinions influence our decisions. A testimonial gives potential customers access to a client’s opinion of your product. As long as the feedback is positive, leads will be one step closer to buying your product.
Notion, a digital workspace tool, generated social proof for their product by featuring employees from one of their customers, Loom, discussing the numerous benefits that Notion provides for their team.
To create a high-quality customer testimonial video, you first need to acquire customer testimonials, so contact previous customers and ask if you can record them speaking about your brand. To entice them to agree, and in exchange for their time, offer them something that benefits them—like an extended warranty on your product or a discount on their next purchase. If they’re unable to record a video testimonial, ask them for a short interview in which you record their responses.
Once you have gathered input from several previous clients, present them individually or combine them into one video and finish with a compelling call-to-action, so you remind potential customers what they should do next in their purchase decision process.
2. Explainer videos introduce your product
Explainer videos are a video format where you thoroughly describe your offer to a potential customer. These marketing videos are typically sales-oriented, so companies use storytelling, concise takes, and fast-paced visuals to increase the likelihood of someone watching the entire video.
Explainer videos familiarize strangers with the benefits and features of your company’s products. The point of an explainer video is to give the customer information about what makes your product unique, so they make a purchase.
In the example below, Sophub uses a whiteboard animation style, happy characters, and lively music to explain their business forecasting service. This makes for a good explainer video because it helps the narrator describe the product by visualizing what he’s saying.
Having a basic knowledge of your product’s features isn’t enough to create an outstanding explainer video. According to Lee LeFever, co-founder of Common Craft, these types of videos require you to understand your audience and their needs and critical aspects of your products that solve those needs. This information will become the foundation of your explainer video’s script, which you can learn how to write here.
3. Case studies prove the benefit of working with you
Case studies are narratives that describe the results one of your customers achieved after working with your company. They feature qualitative and quantitative data to prove their narrative. Video-based case studies generally start with a problem to show how difficult your customer’s life was without you. Eventually, the video introduces a solution you provided, emphasizing how much better your client’s life is now, thanks to you.
Google used a case study format to tell the story behind their interaction with one of their customers, L’Oreal. While short, the video discusses the issues L’Oreal was facing, Google’s approach to fixing them, and the quantitative results from the partnership between the two companies.
Most comprehensive case studies share three sections: background on the company and their needs, the context of your client’s struggles and situation before working with you or purchasing your product, and the data-backed results of the interaction.
Graphics, data, and expert insights from your company and your client add credibility to your case study. You can pair these elements with sound effects and motion graphics to avoid losing viewers in the middle of your video—just before they perceive the value of your offer.
4. Q&As answer questions and preempt doubts
Question and answer (Q&As) videos are a format where brands address doubts from existing or potential customers either live or from a list of questions that customers submit beforehand. You can use Q&As to preempt questions during future interactions with your customers.
Airbnb held an event where Airbnb homeowners presented their concerns to a company member and received a real-time response.
If you plan to host a Q&A, first decide if the event will occur in a physical space or through social media.
A real-life Q&A requires you to assemble team members with a deep understanding of how your company operates. Picking team members capable of answering any question is crucial. Otherwise, the customer will leave the session unsatisfied with the session and your brand.
Suppose you can’t assemble staff members and customers in one place. In that case, you can gather questions through website forms and social media surveys and then record your employees answering these questions. These videos are less personal than a live session and don’t allow customers to expand on their questions. However, they are an excellent alternative for companies looking to craft the perfect answer for each concern that their customers have.
5. Behind-the-scenes humanizes your brand
Behind-the-scenes videos show your staff’s passion and values by filming your team during work, interviewing employees, or presenting them in roundtables where their personalities can shine.
These videos humanize your brand, too, so that customers can associate your company with qualities that a friend, colleague, or family member would have. Brands that invest in displaying human qualities rather than just a logo or slogan connect on a deeper level with customers. According to Accenture, 63% of worldwide consumers would rather purchase from a company that reflects their values and beliefs than from one that doesn’t.
Webflow, a no-code website building tool, used a behind-the-scenes roundtable format to introduce customers to the faces that make their startup’s operation possible. Staff members sat down for close to an hour, presented themselves, and dived into the details of the changes in their lives after joining Webflow.
Filming a behind-the-scenes video can be as simple as producing a casual video that takes your customers through your company offices, day-to-day tasks, or internal contests.
Whether you are filming a roundtable or recording one of your marketers outlining an email marketing campaign, it’s vital to protect the core ingredient of a great behind-the-scenes video: informality. Humans laugh, stress over details, and make mistakes before landing on the perfect version of a product, so instead of using editing software to cut unpolished sections during video production, highlight them through zoomed shots or sound effects.
Attract new customers through small business video marketing
Video content is a versatile content format that you can use as part of your marketing strategy.
You can post explainer videos on search engines like YouTube to create brand awareness among your target audience, optimize the videos for SEO, and attempt to send them to your website or landing page. Once they are on your page, you can welcome them with a customer review, as research from BigCommerce shows how consumers are “58% more likely to convert” and “generate 62% more revenue per site visitor” after interacting with a review.
Whether you are creating a product video, tutorial, or case study, Vyond’s intuitive set of animation tools and templates can help you produce compelling online videos that attract, entertain, and educate existing and potential customers.
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