“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Simon Sinek

Videos in marketing can be the difference between success and failure when it comes to someone engaging with you, buying with you, or even jotting down your name for a potential meeting down the line.

In this blog, find out why they’re such an important tool in your marketing shed.

You never get a second chance at a first impression, and you want the best first impression possible for your organisation.

Websites

In fact, videos in marketing and on your website are likely the first impression people have of your entire organisation nowadays. Think about the modern consumer, usually busy, looking for a quick solution, constantly glued to their screen and straight to Google for any answers they may have.

If there’s mention of your organisation or you match what they’re searching for, do they take the time out of their day to have a look around at what you offer in person?

What’s more likely is they’ll go straight to your website and have a look round. Which leads us onto the question, is your homepage a good shop window?

Are you filled up with hard-to-find information and still images? Does bland text hurt your eyes a little bit?

OR, do you have an eye catching headline video that shows off everything that you are? According to Forbes, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video, compared to 10% when reading it in a text. The increase in clickthrough rate with video is as high as 96%, and videos are shared 1200% more times than links and text combined.

It’s also a nice little side benefit that the Google algorithm absolutely loves videos and helps with SEO. It will boost you right up the rankings and help you appear more often on searches.

Social Media

The same concept applies for social video marketing.

The buyer we’re talking about will be active across most social media channels and likely check you out there too, especially if you link out from your website.

Of course, not every post on social media has to be video and we aren’t suggesting that they should be, but you definitely need some, even short video marketing.

Not just because it’s visually impressive and shows off what you do better than any other medium, but because it adds some weight to your content and makes people think that this is an organisation with something about them, or in other words builds trust with the buyer.

Besides all of that, video posts on social media get 48% more views. Why? Because it’s intriguing! It creates interest and gives you credibility.

Sales

Adding a product video onto your landing page can increase sales by 80%. Yep, 80%.

We could bore you with some stats about videos in marketing and the subsequent effect on sales, but honestly, you might as well give it a quick Google of it yourself (after reading this blog of course) and gain an understanding of the power of it.

We mentioned trust earlier on, but if you’ve worked in sales, or in fact made a reasonably lavish purchase yourself, you’ll know that trust is the cornerstone of everything.

If you didn’t trust the Apple as a brand, would anyone blindly buy the new iPhone? Would there be opening events and people camping outside the Apple shop?

For the prices they’re up at, of course you wouldn’t. You’d likely wait to see reviews, the noise about it on social media, maybe have a play on your friends’ new gadget.

But how do videos build trust?

Product videos in marketing – People can see your product in action and see that you aren’t the local Del Boy. Whatever it is, if you’re selling something physical, there’s a way to demonstrate its use.

Even if your business is a service, there’s always ways to show you what you do.

Testimonials are a great way to do just that – get real life people to give real life reviews of your work and their experiences with you. Case study videos are a great way to include your product and a testimonial, but if you can just get someone sitting down and talking about how good a time they had working with you, it adds so much value to what you say about yourself.

Video is Booming!

Truthfully, videos in marketing are becoming more accessible and widespread as more people realise how powerful a tool it can be.

Eventually, it will move from being a stand out to being a standard.

It’s always possible to catch up, but it’s better to stay ahead of trends. Among you and your competitors, do you want to be known as a pioneer of videos in marketing? Then get to it!

If you want to talk about videos in marketing, or upgrading your content strategy, we’d love to hear from you! We work with organisations at completely different stages of their video journey, so don’t be shy.

Video is a great tool for marketing for many reasons. First of all, it establishes better trust with your prospects and clients. If they can see your face (or the face of someone from your team), they will feel a better connection with your business. Plus, using video gives your company a hint of personality, which makes it more relatable to people.

To achieve the goal of more sales, you need to be strategic with video creation. Here are three quick tips.

Tell your brand’s story

A brand story will give your clients a huge “why” to purchase your products or services. It will also give them a reason to choose you over your competitors.

When you make a video for your brand story, it should not be a hard sell. Rather, you need to create a narrative of how your company was born, what inspired you to start the business, and what you aim to deliver to your clients.

Create product demo videos

People would not buy anything they don’t understand. But if you educate your prospects on what your product or service can do for them, they would have more reason to make that purchase.

For this reason, it’s a great idea to create videos that demonstrate how your products work. That way, your customers will know how to use them even before they get the products.

Leverage social for behind-the-scenes clips

Take your customers right into your company with behind-the-scenes videos. Show them your company’s processes, how you build your products, and your company culture. That way, you give a sense of transparency to your customers. It’s also as if you’re making them part of your company too.

These simple tips can help your business thrive through video marketing. You may make the videos yourself, but bear in mind that the process often takes a lot of time and effort.

You’re much better off leaving video production to the professionals. That way, you don’t have to worry about the tedious video-making process. You can focus on growing your business and getting more sales.

Video marketing can do wonders for your business. It can obtain leads, drive engagement, and even boost sales down the line. In fact, video marketing is one of the most effective tools for businesses today. It may cost you something, but the return on your investment is huge.

Making videos comes at a price because of the effort required. You don’t just need a camera; you need a storyboard, a script, a cast, a setting, and many more. Just whipping out your phone and filming everything around you will not do the trick.

It’s always a good idea to hire a professional video production company to help you out. Here are a few reasons for you to consider.

Pros have the skills

While you may have a phone equipped with excellent optics, you may not have the talent to shoot captivating videos. If you hire creative professionals, though, you can ensure that the videos you envision will be created. They have the expertise to make stunning marketing videos that will drive results for your business.

Pros have the gear

When you hire professionals to take care of video production, you don’t have to buy cameras, lights, or microphones yourself. The kinds of equipment used to make great videos are expensive, so you can save on those costs by hiring a video producer instead.

Pros will cost you less

You could put together an entire media team for your company to make marketing videos. However, this will cost your business a fortune, especially if you hire people as full time employees. Not to mention having to purchase expensive equipment and investing time in sourcing staff for this role. Instead, if you outsource video production to professionals, you will have to spend much less. Often, the costs will be on a per project basis, so you don’t have to spend extra when you don’t have any video marketing campaigns planned yet.

In decades past, aerial shots were complicated to achieve. You would need to put a cameraman in a helicopter, use long cranes, or have camera crews climb high towers. High-angle shots were expensive, risky, and difficult to set up.

Today, that’s no longer the case. Thanks to drones, you can take aerial shots almost anytime, anywhere. All you need – aside from the drone – is enough open space to fly it and the skills required to get the perfect shot.
There are even drones that nearly fit the palm of your hand, such as the DJI MINI 2. You can control them easily through a smartphone app, and you can bring it with you almost anywhere.

Drone shots are very useful for adding that wow factor to your film. Here are some of their applications:

Showcasing full 360-degree views of buildings;

If you have a property or rental business, it’s important to show clients what units look like in their entirety. For shots of the outside of a business and its vicinity, drones can do wonders. You can fly the drone around a building, for example, and take it further to get footage of the front, back and adjacent angles.
You can also use drone footage to film the interiors of large buildings. Let’s say you have a factory, and you want people to see what goes on inside, with the right equipment and protocols in place you can fly a drone through the factory while everyone is working, and show people how everything works;

Covering live outdoor events with ease;

Outdoor events look a lot more spectacular with drone shots from above as those views showcase everyone who’s at the event. Videos like that can easily show the scale of the occasion, which is an important marketing tool, especially for event planners. No need for expensive and potentially dangerous crane cams;

Stunning bird’s eye views of landscapes;

Drones are the best way to get breathtaking shots of large landscapes. If you’re, say, a resort owner or wanting to set the scene for your next brand film, you can show the beauty of your property or location to customers with ease. One flight of a drone by a shoreline or shots of hills on an early morning sunrise is enough to make a captivating preview to engage viewers in your video.

When starting to do video marketing for your business, the goal is to engage potential clients. In turn, they will notice you and get curious about what you can offer them, leading to sales later on.

Before you hit the record button on your camera, what’s the plan? How will you ensure that customers are fully engaged from start to finish? There are lots of videos on the Internet now, people can easily click away if they find a video boring
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The solution is to make your videos stand out. And the best way to achieve that is through storytelling in your video marketing.
Our brains are hardwired to listen to stories.

For the longest time, people have exchanged information through talking to each other. Values and morals have been passed through stories. Family histories have been passed on through stories. Even products get advertised for free through the stories of satisfied customers.

Storytelling is powerful. It engages the mind as well as all the senses. When you use storytelling in your video marketing, it makes your videos all the more powerful in conveying a message which lead to more engagement and sales.

With storytelling, video marketing does not feel like marketing. Video marketing that don’t tell stories don’t engage the audience. They just dump information onto people, and that’s it. These kinds of videos have no emotional connection to the audience.

That’s what makes storytelling different – it connects with the audience. Stories pander to people’s deepest emotions, making them remember the message and product much better. When they watch videos with compelling stories, they will listen and remember.

Take a look at the videos of the world-famous content creator Nusseir Yassin, popularly known as Nas Daily. His videos are short, yet they get millions of views because of how they are created. They tell powerful stories of people from around the world.

Before you hit record, plan your storyboard. Think about what story you want to tell your audience. It could be the story of how your company started, and how you got to where you are today.

Or it could be the story of how you designed your products.
That way, your audience will love watching your videos. They would not feel like you’re pushing a product on them.

This month was our last month in Blick Studio before we move offices. Currently we are setting up a new studio down the road in great Victoria Street, Belfast. We have big plans for our new space - there is already an audio studio built and plans to build a green screen and create a space for independent filmmakers and photographers. We have also set-up a new office in Bangor with huge new business plans set for 2020.

A highlight from the month was working on a new CBBC show filming in Belfast called the Tillie Files. Chris Eva was Shooting Director on it and shot a few clips for another show currently in production called Almost Never. It's great to see so many productions in Belfast at the minute, long may it continue!