More and more businesses are seeing the great potential that video marketing has. Video marketing for SMBs is gaining a lot of ground and video marketing is fast becoming the most popular forms of content marketing, and it won’t be going anywhere – in fact we can expect to see much more in the future. All the major social networking sites have a strong video focus. Video is everywhere today, and we love it. From a simple look on social media to those watching the television, we are seeing the popularity of video rising to become the most popular means of communication. With todays increasing bandwidth capabilities, video is poised to take over from text as the most used form of communication online.
This isn’t to say that video marketing doesn’t have its pitfalls. A wrong type of strategy for your business could see wasted potential, time and money. Not only that but there are many things that must be considered to ensure that video is used to its fullest potential.
Smaller independent businesses can use this aspect of marketing to great advantage, they just need to make sure that they go about it in the most efficient way possible, or it could end up costing more than it is worth. So, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of video marketing to see just how useful it can be.
Pros
Video is one of the best mediums for customer engagement
It is very true that a video is great way to engage quickly and effectively with your audience. It is like having a conversation about your business or product, you can let the world know who you are, what you do or offer, and it will be heard by a lot of people.
People don’t need to read it, which is why many people skip over through written content, a video will catch a person’s attention. It also forces the issue, like adverts on the TV or one that’s on before a video on YouTube; it is hard to ignore a video when it is put on front of you. Video always beat written content when it comes to viewer retention and engagement.
Video helps to make information much easier to understand –
What will be easier to understand for a potential customer; a large amount of text that can be daunting to read, with information that you have to piece together yourself? Or a video that can cover every piece of information that is necessary? They say an image can say a thousand words, well then a video can say a million!
A video can summarize even the hardest facts and info and turn them into something that is simple, but also fun and engaging. The audience love to be taught something new and a video is a much easier format to do this than plain text.
Video is super popular; people will remember it more than anything else
The fact is that videos engage people more than other content. This will in turn help you build a community! Diode Digital reported that when compared to text and print media (combined), video promotion is 600% more effective. In addition to that, the same report also states that before reading any text, 60% of website visitors would rather watch a video when available.
And these figures are consistent if you look at B2B as well. Compared to text, 59% of senior executives favor video, 75% view videos whilst at work, and 65% visit a website after viewing a related YouTube video.
Billions of videos are uploaded onto sites like YouTube, with millions getting watched every day. If you make the right type of video with the perfect mix of content, you could see it go viral, or at least engage with your audience in a memorable way.
Everyone loves a funny or memorable video; all of the best businesses know how to make the right type of content to get people talking about your business. A video that is popular can get shared in a few clicks, reaching a bigger audience than normally possible; it’s a great asset when used effectively, and one that could improve your businesses presence massively.
Cons
It can be expensive…
This all depends on what type of video marketing plan you want to have, using professional video agencies will not come cheap. If you want to create big nation spanning TV advertisements, you’ll likely have to have a really big marketing budget. If you’re not a really big, established brand with big pockets, it will probably be a while until you run your super bowl commercial. However, today everyone has an HD camera in their pocket, and video software such as iMovie and Shakr (I couldn’t help mentioning us) have made creating great video easier and cheaper than ever.
You may end up wasting your time…
Previously the time and resources that were required to make video marketing effectively would have put a strain on a lot of marketing teams. But if you end up wasting time through video marketing today, it’s not because you spend enormous amounts of time creating the content, that’s the easy part today, you still have to make sure that your videos are tailored for your audience and that it reaches them. Creating a great video and simply posting it on YouTube and hoping for a viral hit doesn’t work. You need a solid promotional plan in place before you decide to upload your video, in fact, it should be in your mind before you even start producing your video.
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