What Is Video Marketing? A Guide for Beginners + Small Businesses

You might be wondering how a small business can compete against behemoth competitors to capture a larger market share. The truth is, it all starts with visibility. We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, right? If that's true, then a video must be worth a million words, which is why a well-executed video marketing campaign is an invaluable tool for your small business, brand, or organization.

When it comes to the large budgets and resources that it takes to create captivating video content, it may feel like small businesses are at a disadvantage. Things like outside agencies, expensive equipment, and professional experience your competitors might have are far out of reach when it comes to investing in your marketing plan.

While it is now more common than ever, many people do not know how to operate equipment, edit videos, or upload them to the web. After all, small business owners already have to wear so many different hats – who has time to make videos, too? Others might know the basics or have poured money into expensive productions but still feel like they are wasting their ad budget on ineffective videos that no one sees. How can you maximize your return on investment with video marketing?

With all of the different channels now available to any business and the high barrier-to-entry of video production, we understand how difficult it can be to approach this tremendous opportunity. Competing with massive marketing budgets and Hollywood-level production may seem impossible. But with right tools and guidance, you can actually face them down to achieve your maximum return on investment with little to no effort.

PowerDirector for Business 365 and its powerhouse app version Promeo are the only tools you need to create lasting, high-quality marketing videos in just minutes. From creating Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ads to tutorial videos, brand videos, product demos for your website, PowerDirector for Business and Promeo feature all of the tools and resources you need to maximize your exposure with video marketing with minimal effort.

With pre-made templates designed for businesses of all types for promotions year-round, a massive stock library, and all of the editing tools you need to customize, PowerDirector for Business can cut your video production time and costs to a fraction while empowering you to create effective videos right away, all by yourself.

And we're not only here to help you create effective marketing videos, we're also here to guide you in using them effectively. From developing your story, to a streamlined edit that takes only minutes, all the way through developing your content strategy and sharing it across different channels, PowerDirector for Business can help you to increase awareness, drive sales, and engage potential customers.

If you're not familiar with video production or the broad scope of sharing video content, it can be challenging to know where to start. Fortunately, we've done the research and development to deliver powerful editing platforms that allow users to produce video ads on any budget perfectly optimized for any platform. Even if you are new, PowerDirector for Business offers The Ultimate Guide to Creating Marketing Videos for Your Business as well as many other resources to guide you on your path to profitable video marketing.

Video marketing may seem complicated, but it doesn't have to be. With PowerDirector for Business 365 and the Promeo mobile app, you'll be ready to make successful video marketing campaigns. In this article, we will show you how to maximize your time, energy, and money as a small business owner and publish professional-grade marketing videos in just a few clicks.

Welcome aboard! Here's an outline of what we will cover:

1. Benefits of Video Marketing for A Small Business
• Connect with Your Customers
• Boost SEO
• Increase Information Retention
• Improve Sales
2. How Video Marketing Works and Developing a Strategy
• Set a Goal
• Create a Budget
• Identify Your Audience and Platform
• Plan Your Story and Messaging
• Keep It Short and Simple
• Creating Marketing Videos the Easy Way
• Publish and Share
• Engage
• Analyze
3. Examples of Successful Videos and the Challenges of Video Marketing
• Examples of Video Marketing that Work
• Finding the Right Equipment
• Finding the Right Software or App
• Finding Your Audience
• Converting to Sales
4. Best Practices for Video Marketing
• Make a Plan
• Test
• Analyze
• Repeat

1. Benefits of Video Marketing for A Small Business

In the internet and social media era, it's harder than ever to stand out from the crowd. Video marketing provides a way to position yourself in front of other marketers vying for customer attention.

While the benefits are endless, below are four key advantages of incorporating video advertising into your marketing campaign.

Connect with Your Customers

It's not a coincidence that more and more marketers are relying on video marketing for business. That's because humans receive 90% of information visually. You don't even need to use sound for a video to communicate details about a product's style and benefits.

Video helps you engage better than using text-based ads. It takes the brain 60,000 times longer to process text than image, so consumers can scroll right by an ad without giving it any thought. Considering that the median view time for a business ad is only 0.7 seconds, video provides a shortcut to connect with customers that text cannot.

Boost SEO

Search engines love videos — Google, Yahoo!, and Bing reward companies and organizations that develop high-quality content that engages visitors. If you leverage video marketing for your small business, you may find yourself trending upward on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Landing at the top of search engines can make a significant difference for your profitability. According to Neil Patel, 75% of people never make it past the first page of Google, with nearly 30% of individuals clicking on the first result.

Translation: The higher you rank on Google, the more traffic your website will see.

Increase Information Retention

As we mentioned earlier, humans are visual learners. We learn the most about our surroundings through sight. Videos supercharge our learning ability by consolidating a lot of information into a short time.

Videos reduce the friction that shoppers experience as they move through the purchase funnel. It eschews long descriptions in favor of to-the-point visuals. A video ad that quickly lays out an item's value can persuade even the laziest buyers to add your product to their cart.

Improve Sales

Higher profit is one of the best video marketing benefits. You can make some serious cash with a YouTube channel or by posting Instagram story ads. According to Insivia, a landing page with a product video will see 80% more conversion than those without one.

Here's the beauty of video marketing — you don't need to hard-sell customers to improve sales.

Something as simple as a YouTube video ad that shows how to use your product can increase conversions. This video content provides real value to your consumers and doesn't pressure them with a sales pitch. Best of all, data shows that 74% of users who watch explainer videos end up buying the product.

2. How Video Marketing Works and Developing a Strategy

Video marketing takes many forms. Regardless of how you incorporate it into your marketing strategy, the overall goal is to promote your products and services, increase online engagement, and educate customers. A refined video marketing strategy enables you to reach new demographics in no time.

Set a Goal

Before you start planning your video production, it's important to know what you're trying to accomplish with your video. While some videos are created to promote a particular product or brand, some may be designed to inform and educate. It's important to establish what you want your customer to feel and know after watching your video as well as what you want them to do next.

Do you want them to sign up for a mailing list? Take advantage of a promotion you are running? Make a phone call to learn more? Visit your website? Each video should have a single ‘call-to-action' that the video should be planned to compel the viewer to complete. It is important to plan your video around creating an impact that drives the call-to-action or the next step you want the customer to take in their journey with your company.

Identify Your Audience and Where You Will Reach Them

Today there are dozens of places to share videos. Email, your website, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Vimeo and the list goes on. It's important to identify who your customers are and where they like to spend their time watching videos.

Once you know who your ideal customer is, consider all of these platforms when planning your video. Each platform has a unique format and it will be beneficial to take this into before planning your shoot.

Create a Budget

Making videos can get expensive in a hurry. Equipment, such as cameras, batteries, lights, stands, greenscreens, tripods, cables, memory cards, music and content licensing, and editing software can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That doesn't include the cost of actors, software, or overhead.

Taking the time to create a budget will ensure that you don't break the bank making your next Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram video ad.

Plan Your Story

Storytelling is at a premium. Whatever story you tell about your products and services, make sure the content is genuine and succinct. It's more important to talk about your brand values instead of the nitty-gritty of why people should purchase your product. As a small business, your personal story can be the determining factor between you and your fiercest competitors.

Research suggests consumer's preferences are changing, with more people wanting to join a brand, instead of buying its merchandise. This is especially true for smaller businesses as the trend shows customers are moving away from big corporations and looking for niche products and brands.

If you're not sure about your brand story or not sure how to convey it through video, starting with a template is the perfect solution. With software like PowerDirector for Business 365 and the Promeo mobile app, you can build your story off of a pre-made template by simply changing the text to your messaging and the images with video clips that suit your brand.

Keep It Short and Simple

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to video promotion. It's worth noting that the average video ad is 11 to 20 seconds. Facebook video ads are even shorter, running anywhere from five to 15 seconds. Make the most of every second with a clear and concise message.

Creating Marketing Videos the Easy Way

Once you have your video planned out, it's time to produce. But with the expenses and learning curve to actually make these videos, this process may seem out of reach. However, with new tools like PowerDirector for Business 365 and the Promeo mobile app, you can start making videos without any experience or equipment.

Using pre-made templates and pulling professionally shot footage from an expansive stock library can cut down your costs and time producing to a fraction. PowerDirector for Business 365 and the Promeo mobile app come equipped with all of the advanced editing tools any editor could want plus a streamlined platform that is designed to help you make effective video campaigns in minutes, without any prior experience and virtually no overhead.

Publish and Share

Publish your videos across multiple channels, including social media. The wide net approach allows you to engage with the maximum number of high-quality leads. Don't forget to add a call to action at the end of the video or in the description that encourages viewers to share it.

Engage

There's never been more content online than there is today. As a result, attention spans are fleeting. Emphasize engaging videos with out of the box production techniques and writing. For instance, you may spark a viewer's curiosity by opening your video with a question or using eye-catching visuals in the background.

Analyze

It's not good enough to create a Facebook or Twitter video ad and hope for the best. You have to look at the performance metrics to see what you did well. Looking at advanced analytics can provide essential insights that help you produce better video content. These insights often include average watch time, demographics, likes, and shares.

3. Examples and Challenges of Video Marketing

Videos come in all shapes and sizes. The key is finding a style that works for your small company or organization. If you're looking for a source of inspiration, consider these video ad examples as a springboard for your next campaign.

Examples of Video Marketing

People are always looking for ways to improve themselves and their life. New products and services offer a way to solve their problems and add value. Effective video marketing should provide viewers with solutions, no matter what form it takes.

Here are widely-used examples of video marketing:

• Product demonstrations
• Launch videos
• Miniature documentaries
• Behind the scenes videos
• Live question-and-answer sessions
• Customer testimonials and success stories
• Corporate responsibilities videos
• Unboxing videos

Finding the Right Equipment

You've probably noticed that popular YouTubers use a range of sophisticated equipment to create their videos. While fancy tools are nice to have, they're not essential. If you want to create a straightforward Facebook video ad, all you need is a camera, microphone, tripod, light source, and video editing software.

Finding the Right Software or App

PowerDirector and Promeo are among the most widely used video ad makers. The platforms bridge the gap between professional and amateur video makers, thanks to dynamic editing tools, powerful special effects, and intuitive interfaces. That way, you can release movie studio-quality ads even if you don't have a movie studio budget.

PowerDirector works for Macs and PCs. If you prefer a mobile, you can find Promeo in the App Store and Google Play Store. Best of all, they're free, so you can see if the software is right for you before committing to the paid versions.

Finding Your Audience

One of the most common mistakes that new video producers make is thinking that their target audience will find them naturally. The inverse is true. You have to work to find high-quality leads. Some ways to do that include leveraging social media channels, analyzing data, and using search engine optimization.

Converting to Sales

Studies show that 76% of marketers had an increase in sales after implementing video marketing. The key is making it as easy as possible for viewers to go from your IG or FB ad to purchase the product. You can simplify this process by including a product link in the description or placing the video on a landing page.

For more help, read over these 5 Secrets of Successful Sales Funnel Conversions.

4. Best Practices for Video Marketing

Video marketing is one of the most popular forms of advertising. Eye-catching visuals and compelling storytelling can convert casual shoppers into loyal patrons. Here are some tips and tricks to ensure that you convert new users more often than not.

Make a Plan

Do not take an unorganized approach. Creating a strategy before you shoot your first video will make all the difference later. It offers a foundation for your video content marketing as you decide where to place your campaigns and what type of videos to create.

Test

The best part about making your first promotional video is that you have nothing to lose. There's no benchmark for success or style. Feel free to explore different video formats to find the voice that works best for your company or organization.

Analyze

Why did one video do well and another fail? The answer lies in the data. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and YouTube offer advanced analytics so you can pinpoint the secret to success.

Repeat

Repetition is the hard part. It requires applying your insights to the next marketing video and then the next one and the next one. Consistently releasing new content allows you to improve as a video producer, keep your company in line with current trends, and optimize your search engine results.

Harness the Power of Video Marketing Today

The benefits of video marketing are clear. If you want to attract new customers and improve brand awareness, you need high-quality videos. That requires developing a plan, creating content, and measuring the results. If you complete these steps successfully, your bottom line will flourish. Even if you're just one person in a crowded market, video marketing can be the ticket to making your products stand out.

With software like PowerDirector 365 Business and the mobile app Promeo, you can take your entire video marketing production into your own hands. With ready made templates for easy editing, pre-made graphics, and a massive stock library full of content that is included for your commercial use, you can be a one-person production team and create videos in minutes, without any prior experience.

Make today the day of your initiation into video marketing. Discover the benefits by downloading PowerDirector 365 Business for PC. If you prefer to shoot and edit video content on a mobile device, you can download Promeo for iOS and Android devices.

If you found this article useful, why not venture over to our ultimate guide for video marketing? Our guide covers everything you need to know when creating ads or promotional videos for your brand or business.