Video Marketing for Small Business
Elevate your small business with stellar video marketing. Learn strategies to attract customers, drive engagement, and grow your brand. Read the guide today!
6 videos to jumpstart your strategy
A video producer filming content for his YouTube channel in Colorado
Why Engage in Video Marketing for Small Business?
As a small business, you’re likely juggling many priorities from sales, to product development, to customer support. If you want to see your business grow, you simply cannot neglect video marketing for your small business. With 89% of businesses using video as a marketing tool, small businesses must include video in their content marketing strategies in order to stay competitive.
Types of Videos to Include in Your Video Marketing Strategy
A successful video marketing strategy includes various types of content that cater to different stages of the customer journey. Video marketing for small business is essential for increasing brand visibility, engaging customers, and driving sales. With the rise of digital media, businesses of all sizes can leverage video content to connect with their audience in a meaningful way. Whether through a brand video, an explainer video, or engaging social media content, video marketing helps businesses stand out in competitive markets.
Brand Video
Youth centered nonprofit brand video featuring members, leadership, and younth interviews.
A brand video is designed to communicate your company’s mission, values, and personality. Think of this like a mini-documentary or commercial about your company. In this video, you can include interview clips from leadership, employees, customers, or any other key players who can speak to your brand. This type of video helps establish trust and connection with your audience while reinforcing your brand identity.
2. Explainer Video
An explainer video is an effective way to break down complex ideas or showcase how your product or service works. You can create explainer videos with animated graphics, PowerPoints, or lecture-style interviews. Say, for example, you need to highlight specific features of a new product. Maybe you’re introducing a new service and want to explain how it works. This is a perfect example of video marketing for small business that educates an audience in an engaging and informative way.
3. Customer Testimonials
One of the best ways to tell your brand story is to amplify the voices of your previous customers. Customer testimonials are a great tactic in video marketing for small business because they provide social proof and build credibility. Featuring satisfied customers discussing their positive experiences with your business can help influence potential buyers’ decisions. These can also be done easily by tapping into tools like VideoAsk which allows you to ask customers to submit their own user generated testimonial videos for your small business.
4. Event Video
Anytime your brand hosts or attends an event, market, trade show, or conference, it’s a great opportunity to create video content. Event video shows that you have a connection with the community or industry in a tangible way. They are also opportunities to get dynamic and fun shots of your small business. Anytime you’re out participating in something is a chance for video marketing for your small business.
5. Social Media Video
Creating short, engaging social media content is a great way to boost engagement on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These videos should be entertaining, informative, and optimized for mobile viewing. It’s important to keep in mind the different sizing specs of different social media platforms. For example, an Instagram reel requires a different sized video that an Instagram Post or a YouTube video.
Pro tip: when filming, shoot your video wider than you think. Remember, you can always crop a video down, but you cannot add pixels or make an image larger.
6. Q&A Videos
Question & answer videos (or Q&A videos) are a fun way to engage with your customers and provide answers to their frequently asked questions. This is a great way to incorporate video marketing in a way that is authentic and helpful for your small business. It also gives your company a chance to showcase leaders and team members behind the scenes of your brand.
In order to find questions your audience is looking for, you can search for your brand on reddit.com, yelp.com, or other customer engagement platforms. For more in depth social listening, you can use subscription-based tools to monitor customers who are talking about your brand online. If you are a newer brand, or don’t have much content on these platforms, try looking at frequently asked questions of other businesses in your industry.
Video Marketing for Small Business: Best Practices
Putting together a video marketing strategy for a small business can feel overwhelming at first. Keeping in mind a few best practices may help guide your brand video strategy.
1. Tell a Good Story
Storytelling is at the heart of compelling video content. Focus on creating videos that evoke emotions, address customer pain points, and showcase the value of your offerings. By centering your videos around good storytelling, you can begin to form real connections with viewers who will want to engage with your brand.
2. Keep Your Distribution Channel in Mind
Different platforms require different types of videos. For example, a YouTube explainer video may need a longer format, while Instagram Reels or TikTok content should be concise and visually engaging.
3. Use SEO Best Practices
Remember that the goal is for your target audience to watch your videos. They won’t be able to watch the video if they can’t find the video in the first place. Optimizing video content for search engines is crucial for discoverability. Use relevant keywords, compelling titles, and detailed descriptions to ensure your videos rank higher in search results and attract more viewers.
Video Marketing for Small Business is Essential!
Many small businesses never develop a video strategy because they just don’t know where to start. The best way to get started with video marketing for small business, is to just dive in! Once you create your first few videos, you’ll likely discover what works best for your brand and which videos engage your audience.