If you own a small business, you might think you don’t have the resources or the time to make videos for Facebook. Maybe you’re fresh out of marketing ideas, and it seems like every video has been done before.
But Facebook marketing is essential to building a brand. Lots of businesses have been in your shoes and have made effective marketing videos without investing much time or money at all. Trying out new videos is not only quick and easy, it can be fun for you and your viewers.
Here, we’ve handpicked some of the best marketing ideas from small and medium-sized businesses to help you find your creative spark. For each video, we’ll look at a key takeaway you can use in your next campaign.
Boom by Cindy Joseph Makes the Founder a Star
Boom is an all-natural cosmetics line that celebrates beauty at every age. They sell moisturizers, blushes, and bronzers made from honey. The company can serve as inspiration for several video-marketing ideas, including homepage video, an “about us” intro, FAQs, behind the scenes, and customer testimonials.
The team creates all videos themselves and uses a mix of product and lifestyle content to attract and engage customers. The videos on their business page often feature Cindy herself.
In this example, titled, “From Hive to Jar: How Boomsilk is made from start to finish,” Cindy offers a behind-the-scenes look at the production process in Hawaii.
The five-minute video is not just a chance to get to know Cindy but also a way to show viewers that the company is dedicated to transparency as well as sustainability.
When the company decided to try Facebook ads, they didn’t create any special video content. They simply adapted videos they already had. According to Facebook, the ads helped drive a 6X increase in conversions and a 40% decrease in cost per acquisition.
The takeaway: Don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera to promote your small business. Starring in your own videos is not only a cost-effective option but also a great way to express your values and help viewers feel personal connections to your brand.
Celestial Seasonings Creates Magic with Animation
Tea company Celestial Seasonings has been around since 1969, so they have experienced tons of change in the way they advertise and market products to customers.
Not to be left behind by new generations and the changing perceptions of health and wellness products, they created a brand-awareness campaign around the “magic of tea.”
This video features the company’s iconic mascot—a Bengal tiger—and a mug of the popular Bengal Spice flavor:
The video features no call to action. Its purpose is solely to create a “celebration” of the brand’s history, and of tea in general. The company hired an agency to build the ads specifically for Facebook, and it shows. The videos are all extremely short and visually mesmerizing, featuring colorful illustrations and soothing music. Each ad evokes the relaxing ritual of drinking tea.
You can DIY a similar short video, even without any knowledge of design and animation. An animation app like Vyond can help you produce illustrations. Or use one of Shakr’s templates to mix your own photos and videos with animated transitions and graphic design.
The takeaway: If you want to transport viewers to places of the imagination, a good mix of product photography and graphic design will create that magic.
Pair of Thieves Posts Exclusive Promotions
Pair of Thieves, founded in 2013, is a socks and underwear e-commerce retailer that will give you some bold and colorful marketing ideas for stealing viewers’ attention and building excitement around sales.
The company found success with Facebook video ads when they partnered with digital agency 565 Media for a holiday-sale campaign. One video featured a parade of Santas; others were simpler single-frame affairs. To this day, they continue to use some of the tactics tested in that campaign.
In this example video, Pair of Thieves announces a sale countdown similar to promotions from around the holidays:
The video was cross-posted on Instagram to ensure maximum visibility among followers. Like most successful Facebook videos, it’s also incredibly brief, coming in at under 5 seconds. The video cleverly uses copy to persuade viewers. “Sold out” creates an impression of scarcity and thus value; “Cashmere” is the ultimate cozy luxury; and “Giveaway” naturally builds excitement for free stuff.
This particular post also calls for people to tag their friends, which extends reach. Every comment has two additional people tagged, so more people are bound to look at the ad.
The takeaway: By regularly promoting sales with expiration dates, you can reward people who follow your social accounts, as well as drum up demand for inventory that you want to sell.
Anova Culinary Cooks Up Consistent Use Cases
Anova Culinary’s sous vide cooking tools are taking flight thanks to the company’s dedication to short recipe videos. The connected devices can be used for all kinds of dishes, and the videos give you ideas of what to make.
Anova’s paid video campaign was directed at expanding to international audiences. They created new audiences based on the ones they had found success within the U.S. and saw a 5x return on ad spend, a 60% decrease in cost per conversion, and a 4.3x increase in reach.
In this video, you can see how to make sous vide steak with Anova’s product:
Their videos follow a consistent format, which helps devoted fans know what to expect. All videos are around 30 seconds long and feature mouthwatering food photography. Onscreen captions guide you through each cooking step. The “learn more” CTA will take you to a webpage with a written version of the recipe (the recipe is also linked in the post caption).
This kind of video is easy to make and easy to scale. A list template can help you set up the steps in a slideshow. Once you have the format nailed down, you can just insert new content on a schedule, helping new audiences see what you do and offering continual value to devoted customers.
The takeaway: Post videos often, and show as many use cases as possible.
Eve Sleep Keeps It Brief with Slideshows
Eve Sleep is a U.K.-based e-commerce mattress company that has built a successful brand around cozy sleep and bright mornings. They know you don’t have all night to watch a video, so they had the creative idea to shorten their marketing content.
In their paid Facebook campaign, Eve aimed to increase online sales around the world. They were able to increase their sales volume 3x from simple slideshow ads. Yes, slideshows—a format you probably use all the time.
An example of a slideshow posted on Eve’s Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Biw9iHoHNoM/?taken-by=evesleep
As Nathan Pam, Eve’s global digital marketing manager, told Facebook,
“Shooting video commercials can be expensive and time-consuming. Using slideshow ads, our best-performing ad format, we saw great results across all our geographic regions–we combined a short image duration with strong call to action. In recent slideshow campaigns we saw a 3X return on ad spend, and we continue to see impressive click-through rates and a much lower cost per action compared to traditional ad formats.”
You can create photo slideshows in minutes with Shakr.
The company also uses time-lapse videos as a simple effect to cut down on time. For an unboxing video, this can make the impact more immediate and the process more satisfying to watch.
The takeaway: Say more in less time with photo slideshows and time-lapse videos.
Manscaped Lets It All Hang Out with Humorous Headlines
Manscaped makes men’s grooming products for “special” places, so they take a lighthearted approach to their videos. If you have a niche product, Manscaped will give you some great marketing ideas to help you celebrate what makes you different.
The brand saw sales pick up after they traded in static photos for video ads. In fact, they saw a 53% increase in conversion rate after switching to video. If their results are any indication, some video is better than none at all.
An example of a Manscaped video from the brand’s Facebook page will give you a sense of their creative spirit:
The video above has over a million views, and its triple CTA (post copy, post roll, and button) most likely aided in conversions.
But the most attention-grabbing aspect of the video is the headline. We won’t repeat it here.
The takeaway: Use a stop-you-in-your-tracks headline.
Build a Brand with Short and Sweet Videos
As the above small brands show, you don’t need to be well-established to come up with great marketing ideas. Videos don’t need to be long or expensive to be effective on Facebook. You just need to get your brand out there and let people get to know you. The more content you publish, the more people can identify with your mission, values, and culture. It’s a chance to break down barriers. So make lots of videos, and let viewers in on the fun with you!
