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DQ News: 8 Video Marketing Strategies for Small Business

There are umpteen ways to use video for business, ranging from stylish, high-priced ad campaign commercials to complex landing page pieces fashioned to pull someone into a sale. What are the best types of video for Small Business owners that can be created cost-effectively and published rapidly and produce leads? Here are the Top Eight.

Intro Advert

Well-known and regularly underused, the video Intro to the Business is a short, 5 minute or less (2-3 works well) homepage introduction that tells who you are, what you do and why customers should care. This can be done using a description in a commercial packed with lots of movement shots of the shop floor, the office, and products; a talking head of the CEO to a blank camera; or use the 3rd party point of view of a genuine Video interview (see below) Business FAQ. Development fees can vary from FREE (CEO riffing into a webcam) through a few hundred dollars to thousands for a videographer shot commercial. Google doesn’t care; either will index well given the suitable keyword tags. The question you have to answer is, what is going to be quickly informational, interesting, and referable (as in Re-tweeted).

The Demo

Specific to demonstrable merchandise, especially ones that move, like machines, toys, electronic devices, and, considering the medium, software. These again should not run on too long but can be lengthier than an introductory commercial. A software-based demonstration may take up to 8 minutes, but you should be able to say it in less time than that. When it comes to demos, in some cases less is more. Most often either a narrative led demo showing only products or a spokesperson paced demo (think QVC or Home Shopping Channel) works the best. Just be sure to show the BEST features of your product and lay out consistently (3x) how this solves an issue for your customers.

Professional Abilities

This is very similar to a product demonstration and works best for suppliers, especially those in developed countries, trying to demonstrate their remarkable technology will in reality cost less money or offer better quality product for a customer engaging them with a contract for recurring services. Machine shops and laser houses prefer this stuff, showing automated machinery cutting steel while a dude with a hardhat and safety goggles oversees the process. This can run 5-10 minutes max. The key here is, make sure that your capability really is something special (as in a True Competitive Advantage that others don’t have) and that your video captures its uniqueness.

Company Spotlights

This is more of a tug on the heartstrings video that features either what your company has achieved that is remarkable or what your employees have done for your company. If it’s about the company, it MUST be validated by 3rd party reference, as in an accolade won from a prominent registrar (Best in Class, Malcolm Baldridge quality), a status attained (ISO 9001 certification, etc.) or a cat saved from a tree on the news. When talking about employees, the old Employee of the Month style headline adds a nice human factor and speaks to what your company values in its people, and that can make a big difference to customers with the same value system. For these types of videos, keep them short (2-4 minutes) and keep them current, specifically for the employee notoriety videos. An Employee of the Month presupposes that next month, we’ll see another.

Video Landing Page Combo

I could write pages on this and to be truthful, I’m not a professional at it, but I am sure you’ve experienced pages that have these videos. These are designed to be hands-free on the part of the vendor of a product or service, meaning, don’t call me, take the steps explained on the video. That means enter your email address to get something for FREE in exchange for authorization to advertise to you, or register for the thing (whatever it is) right now! Just like text-only sales landing pages, these are long-form videos, with Squeeze Pages (get the email address) videos varying from 3-7 minutes, and Sales Pages running all the way up to 30 minutes (that is too long in my opinion, with 10-12 being adequate). The most important stuff here: curb options to only this with no other on-page interferences and make multiple calls to action to the viewer.

Vlogs

All about providing information this one is. It comes in the form of a training video, which is easily done for things like software applications using screen capture software, or talking head explaining something she knows, and typically is the Expert Interview (I’ve done a bunch of these in my blog, see sample). The objective is expert positioning for your company while giving real value for the view. These videos can run from 5-30 minutes or longer (think of a book author interview), but I prefer to keep them between 7 and 15 minutes (Youtube has a 15 minute max until you are a recurring video poster). Keys to success are to set the subject matter to avoid rambling, don’t provide fluff with a sales pitch to get more, and include some written text fore and aft of the video to set it up and summarize.

Testimonies and Personal Examples

Very self-explanatory here, this is 3rd party Reliability Building 101. Take the same things that marketers value about written examples and testimonials and put them on steroids. This definitely MUST be a person unrelated to the business telling about what the company did for him or her, and it can NOT be anonymous (just like those absurd made up reviews you see, “JL from Tampa says …”). Use discretion if the person doing the talking is not good on camera. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. He doesn’t need to be Ben Affleck, but he can’t be a stiff either. These run no more than 3 minutes in length and follow my rules for great reviews. Quality can’t be second-rate, but a webcam with acceptable quality can be used properly, as the subject matter of the person’s referral is the crucial piece.

Video Interview

I saved this one for last and, as you surely know by now, Smart Company Growth does these in bundles for the right type of clients. Video dialogues work well for any business that wants to put a human face on its product, so consider if that is you. They work incredibly well when your organization has these three qualities:

1. No physical merchandise– That’s right consultants, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, IT people and anyone else offering professional services, I’m talking to you. You sell intellectual property and that is hard to show by showing a video shot of your report (although you can show results charts, but the people who can use this method the most, financial advisors, usually have rules preventing it).
2. Trust is the key to business– Same group, right? If you’re an attorney, how can you start to break the trust hurdle down without ever meeting someone? Show some face time with the 3rd party credibility that comes from being interviewed.
3. Sameness in Brand– If you look at your rivals’ websites and they look like yours does– competent yet non-distinguishable– you’re a good candidate for a video interview to set yourself apart. Again, this is why professional service firms fall so nicely into video interview candidates.

For advertising purposes the longest video interview (we call them SmartVu) we do is about 12 minutes. That’s pretty thorough. The shortest you can reasonably do with any bona fide dialog is about 2-3 minutes. The crucial success variables here are that the interviewer is good and that the structure of the content is planned beforehand. An unconvincing interviewer will lead to a lame interview and weak video. A sound interviewer with planned content will create genuine questions that represent you in the very best light. Although I cannot convince all of my clients of this, DO NOT READ FROM A SCRIPT! If you’re a subject matter specialist on your product or topic, a good interviewer’s questions will lead to natural responses with you looking right into the camera. Script readers have their eyes averted to wherever the script is located and come across as wooden, with only the skilled few able to fool people into believing they are responding ad hoc.

There is a time and place to use any of the 8 best types of video promotion for your small business video. The information here should serve to generate ideas on what type of video you can produce for your own video marketing and video SEO crusade to turnout excellent results.

About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness.  He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop.  Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now. 

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Photo Credit: Denim Dave

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