Video Marketing: Keep Your Audience Engaged During COVID-19
Video marketing for business during COVID-19 can replace trade shows, keep customers engaged, and promote brand transparency. COVID-19 has spread to all 50 states and to almost every country in the world. Along with the pandemic, governments have curtailed business activities and cautioned citizens to stay home as much as possible. As businesses struggle to adjust to this new reality, they’ve had to rapidly adjust marketing plans to cater to very different consumer behaviors and their own uncertain futures. Uncertain or not, marketing has to continue or your business may not enjoy much of a future at all. Even if your have to operate with a tighter marketing budget, video marketing for business will provide you with a very useful tool and good potential returns for your brand and bottom line. How to use video marketing to help your company overcome the pandemic You may wonder if you have the funds to invest in video marketing for business right now. As your business environment has changed, you will probably find some other marketing items that you have to cut anyway. For instance, typical businesses allocate 30 to 40 percent of their budgets to attend trade shows and conventions. Since most of you won’t have the chance to travel anywhere soon, you might as well redistribute those funds. With that in mind, consider ways to make good use of your video content. Create a video for business trade shows In fact, you can work to replace those in-person meetings with virtual meeting via videos. For instance, if missing trade shows means that you also miss opportunities to connect with potential customers, why not host your own version of the event online. You can repurpose keynote speeches as videos, feature other speakers in their own videos, and host webinars to replace the meeting sessions you may have planned. Invite everybody who had planned to attend the original trade show and put out the word on social media. Try to engage online influencers, and if they’re big and enthusiastic enough, invite them to present their own video too. This is a good time to share resources and develop partnerships. You might actually draw a larger audience online than you could have in person, particularly if you record everything to let your audience either tune in live or later at their convenience. Keep in touch with customers During a crisis like this, your customers won’t find your silence golden at all. In fact, you’ll want to do more to ensure you stay on top of your customer’s minds. If like many other businesses, you’re struggling with suppliers and distribution channels, you can produce a video to explain why can’t deliver exactly the same kind of service that you’re customers have come to expect from you. Some other things that you should let your customers know could include: How hard you’re working to ensure employee and customer safety Any changes that might impact planned operations or scheduled events Details of your more flexible refund or cancellation policy in response to your customer’s needs In other words, you worked hard in the past to set your customer’s expectations. If you can’t meet those expectations, you can develop a video to explain your situation. In the midst of a global pandemic when over 20 million Americans have had to file for unemployment in just the last month, your customers will understand and appreciate your transparency. Still, since they’re all likely dealing with plenty of their own uncertainty, they won’t appreciate your silence. Keep customers and prospects engaged Lots of small businesses have gotten pretty creative with their videos lately. They’ve tried to cater to the needs of customers, most of whom have to stay home themselves. For instance, restaurants have started to produce cooking videos and fitness centers have uploaded at-home workout classes. Lego, the toy manufacturer, has started increasing its like of educational videos to help the millions of parents who are suddenly confronted with the challenge of home schooling. Your videos don’t necessarily have to sell your products or services; however, they should help to sell your brand. Local video marketing can enhance new distribution models Most retail stores have been forced to close their doors to customers because of the pandemic. Some of these stores had really not developed an eCommerce presence well before the outbreak. Still, they have creatively adapted online videos that can duplicate customers the experience of browsing around the store. Using these, they can take orders through their hastily developed eCommerce sites, simple forms, or even over the phone. Is video marketing for business effective? Zach Basner directs IMPACT’s video marketing strategy. As he put it, video offers the only digital way for people to see, hear, and even get to know you. It gives you an opportunity to make connections even when you cannot meet people in person. He also believes that small businesses should not concern themselves too much if they cannot access high-end video equipment during the crisis. While it’s important to produce valuable content that’s good enough for people to understand your message, you shouldn’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good-enough. If you need to choose between shooting your video at home on your cell phone or not producing video at home, use what you have. He also says that production companies may have also lost businesses and may be more willing to help edit those videos for a reasonable rate than they might have been in the past. Do what you can and seek help when you must; however, it’s important to get those videos produced and uploaded, even if they’re not as perfect as you would like. Basner also said that user-generated content tends to perform quite well on some platforms, so your imperfect production might blend in even better than a finely polished piece. Basner also mentioned that you might enjoy bargains when you’re posting video ads on social networks and search engines. Bids have dropped along with ad
Video Marketing: Still As Important As Ever
As we pass over into a new decade, video marketing continues to produce exceptional results for businesses around the world. In 2020, the overwhelming majority of industry authorities confirm that video marketing remains a key driver of advertising and branding efforts in the United States and around the world. Now in its sixth year, the annual State of Video Marketing Survey by Wyzowl determined that 85 percent of businesses currently use video as a marketing tool. These results show a 24 percent increase from 2016 when Wyzowl first included this question on its survey. Additionally, Wyzowl determined that 92 percent of marketers who use video call it “an important part of their marketing strategy.” Only 78 percent of surveyed marketing professionals agreed with this sentiment just five years ago. Video is popular Quoting figures from another longstanding annual marketing study by Promo.com, the independent online news source Grit Daily shows that the high value placed on video by marketers is fueled by a ravenous appetite for video among consumers. Grit Daily reports that, in 2019, 36 percent of the public watched two to five videos per day and nearly half of all people watched more than five videos per day. An astonishing 10 percent said that they watch “too many videos to count.” Summing the situation up, Promo.com CEO Tom More cited booming consumer demand for the flood of video content that businesses are current creating. What’s more, this trend is expected to continue into the near future. The digital technology company Cisco projects that global IP video traffic will account for 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2022, up considerably from just 75 percent in 2017. This represents a fourfold rise in total Internet video traffic over a period of five years. What, exactly, makes video so popular among consumers? Here are just a few reasons for video’s rise to prominence and continuing success in the modern marketplace. 1. Video is versatile From traditional commercial spots to informative presentations and “how to” videos, there is nothing that moving pictures can’t do. Consumers turn to the video medium daily for a range of practical and not-so-practical concerns. 2. Video is engaging and easy to digest It has held true since the Golden Age of Hollywood: when it comes to entertainment and relaxation, motion pictures just can’t be beat! Today, video gives viewers a welcome respite from the excess of textual information that seems to flow endlessly from every online website. 3. Video is accessible Anyone with Internet access or a wireless data plan can easily get online to watch a video with a single click of the mouse or touch of the screen. And businesses can easily supply video content to their target audiences thanks to incredible advances in video technology, both at the professional and amateur levels. Video is effective For all of the reasons listed above and more, businesses are turning to video in increasing numbers. The State of Video Marketing Survey reports that, of the 99 percent of video marketers who will continue using video in 2020, 95 percent plan to increase or maintain their spend. Even more remarkable, among businesses that don’t currently use video, nearly three out of five plan to launch their first video marketing efforts in 2020. The reason for this is simple. Video boosts your bottom line. 88 percent of video marketers report that video gives them a positive return on investment. This figure is quite striking in light of the fact that only 33 percent felt similarly in 2015. Examining the effectiveness of video from the consumer’s point of view, Grit Daily reports that more than 60 percent of Internet users visit a publisher’s website after watching a video, confirming that video’s ability to drive online traffic is simply unparalleled. Furthermore, nearly 60 percent of people stated that they “sometimes” remember a brand after viewing a video, and approximately 13 percent of people stated that they “very often” remember brands after viewing a video. Even better, video skews to a decidedly younger audience demographic, allowing businesses to reach consumers with disposable income who have proven exceedingly difficult to reach using traditional marketing channels and techniques. And thanks to modern digital analytics, the effectiveness of video marketing is amazingly easy to track and quantify. To learn more In light of the overwhelming importance of video marketing, wise companies will seek the guidance of a full-service marketing agency with considerable video expertise. Bigeye can answer any questions that you might have about everything from video planning and production to online video distribution and analytics.