Video content dominates most social media feeds in 2023, but it’s not just for entertainment.
There is huge power in video marketing for small and medium-sized businesses looking to boost sales.
Much of this has to do with the unique way in which videos allow brands to connect and engage with customers.
Keep reading for an in-depth look at the pros and cons of posting videos, what a video marketing strategy entails, and video ideas that any business can implement with Pictory AI.
What is A Video Marketing Strategy?
Video content marketing strategies focus specifically on videos and using them to convey key brand messages and product information on social media platforms.
Ideally, a video-focused strategy should include the following:
Business goals and corresponding KPIs e.g., purchases/ conversions rather than just link clicks.
The social media channels your video content will be on as it affects formatting and length restrictions.
A clear profile of your target audience and the services or products you want brought to their attention.
Knowing what you want your videos to convey is often a matter of understanding who it is you want them to reach in the first place.Consider the specific messages or issues that video marketing can help your business with as opposed to other types of content.
If this leaves you a little stumped, don’t worry; we’ll explain it further in the next section …
The Pros of Video Marketing
From helping build brand trust to increasing conversion rates and more, videos have become a powerful marketing tool for small and medium businesses across industries.
Here is a closer look at the benefits of video content and why 93% of businesses are using it in their marketing approaches:
Videos Are More Engaging
A 2023 study found that 80% of people prefer videos over written text and another survey showed that online users are 52% more likely to share video content on social media than any other kind.
What both these statistics make clear is that videos have become the standard preference for online users, and it makes sense.
Moving images, often combined with music, are far more compelling than static images or text.
For marketers, the benefits of video are all about how much more engaging people find it and as such, how much more likely they are to pay attention to the content and convert into customers.
An Opportunity to Show How Your Brand or Products Work
A 2022 survey found that 66% of consumers have watched video content to learn about a brand or product.
In fact, almost 50% of internet users will watch videos related to a service or product before going to visit a store.
This shows that explainer videos and demo videos that give insight into the workings of a product aren’t just a powerful marketing tool, they’re an integral part of how consumers expect to interact with brands.
Other content formats are used to do a similar task, but videos seem to be the most effective tool for the job.
They’re far quicker for people to consume than explainer articles, tend to be more exciting to look at and mean that brands can connect with customers on a more human level.
Worried about conversions?
Often what helps clinch a purchase with a customer on a social media platform is ensuring that they feel equipped to use a product or service in their own life.
It takes some of the hesitancy away and done in a video format especially, is often the final bridge from click to cart.
Read our step-by-step guide to Making Explainer Videos with Pictory and ChatGPT here.
Video Helps you Connect with Customers
Shopping and engaging with businesses online may be convenient, but it also takes away some of the connection that in-person interactions convey.
One of the pros of video marketing strategies is that they give businesses an opportunity to change that.
Live videos with active comments and question sections and, in fact, any video in which the brand speaks directly with its audience helps build a sense of connection with customers.
This makes it easier to win over potential customers and leads to increased brand trust, which we’ll look at more in the next point.
Build Brand Trust
Purchasing decisions, especially when shopping online, are often influenced by how much trust consumers have for a brand.
There are enough schemes and disappointments on the internet that people still need reassurance that the business they’re buying from can be trusted to deliver as promised.
Marketing videos are able to build this trust in a way that few other formats can, especially when they’re video testimonials from satisfied customers or give face-to-face contact with someone from the brand.
Increased brand trust also brings with it a host of other benefits, including better conversion rates and customer retention.
Video Content Attracts New Customers
Video content on social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels usually have great discoverability.
What that means is that these channels make it easier for potential customers to find you.
With the apps just mentioned, users are frequently shown video posts from accounts they don’t yet follow.
This tends to be unique to video content, because of how most social media apps operate their algorithms.
It’s one of the biggest advantages that video marketing can offer to small and medium businesses – making it easier for you to get seen and to grow as a result.
Increase Sales
If there’s one thing video marketing statistics from the last few years have demonstrated again and again, it’s that sales always benefit.
Brands that use video marketing have been shown to grow revenue 49% faster than those that don’t.
It’s no wonder with all the other benefits videos bring in terms of trust building, customer connection, and generally boosted engagement.
Increase Brand Awareness
Because video marketing tends to have a better reach on social media than other posts, it’s also one of the best ways to increase brand awareness.
It helps to get eyes on your business and connect them with the most valuable parts of what you do.
It’s not just about being aware of a brand logo or slogan, but about the exact ways in which a product can integrate into the consumer’s life.
Even a short-form video of 10 seconds can do this far more effectively than a static image or blog post.
This is simply because it’s able to hold attention for longer and still ensure that a decent amount of information is communicated in that short time.
The Cons of Video Marketing
With all the pros of a video marketing strategy to consider, the issue that most often stops a brand from posting videos is this:
Requires More Time and Skills
Filming and editing content is generally viewed as requiring far more resources than things like blog posts or photographs.
Many look at online videos and get overwhelmed at the idea of having to fit shooting content, editing clips, and planning it all alongside the hundreds of other pressing tasks that running a small business involves.
We won’t lie.
The reality is that video marketing efforts can require significant effort.
Unless you have the right software to assist you.
Creating Video Content with Pictory (and ideas you can borrow!)
Creating videos with Pictory AI is one of the best ways to ensure that your business benefits from all the pros of online video marketing, without any of the cons.
Our AI technology speeds the editing process up and allows brands to create videos with personalized branding, engaging visuals, and other incredible features.
No matter your level of editing experience, we can help you create content for any audience.
To make your video marketing efforts more convenient, follow our ideas that work on any social platform or industry and can be generated in just minutes using Pictory:
Turn Existing Text into Video Marketing Content
One of the most frustrating parts of the current video trend in content marketing is that its left many who rely on blog posts and other media in the dust.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have stay to that way.
This is how easy it is to turn blog posts into online videos on Pictory:
Input your blog URL.
The Pictory AI engine will automatically pick the best summarizing sentences, but you’re still able to adjust them as much as you’d like.
Pictory will also select the best images and videos to go accompany the summary sentences.
We have a library of over 3 million royalty-free music tracks, images, and video clips.
You can also adjust the visuals used and add from your own library if you wish to.Add audio with our royalty-free music, an AI voiceover, or your own recorded narration.
Decide if you want to add branding to the video.
Pictory makes it easy to add custom brand settings so that the fonts, color schemes, etc. in all your videos match your brand voice and help increase brand awareness.Preview the video to check that you’re happy with it. Then generate it to be downloaded as an MP4 file.
With this function, and with all videos on Pictory, you’re also able to adjust the aspect ratio of the content.
This makes it easy to format videos for the video hosting platform you’d like to upload them to.
This text-to-video function also works brilliantly on written scripts and things like podcast transcripts.
Turning the content you already have into video marketing has never been easier.
Demo Products and Services
Explainer videos and product demos are some of the best ways to start your video marketing journey.
There’s always the option to use Pictory stock visuals to support your demo, but it’s likely you’ll want to create an online video using footage of the actual product.
We can’t assist with filming, but we can take the most tedious part of things off your hands: editing.
Here’s how:
On Pictory, select the product videos you want to be stitched together using the Visuals to Video feature.
That’s it. We’ll stitch it all together to create a seamless explainer video.
You can still adjust scenes in the storyboard, but the bulk of your editing time will be drastically reduced.
From here, you’ll have access to all the same branding functionalities, aspect ratio adjustments, etc. as mentioned previously.
One feature we haven’t mentioned yet but is great for demo videos is our AI captions.
Having captions on your videos makes them more accessible and means that people can follow along with all your instructions whether the sound is playing on their device or not.
Tell Your Brand Story
Using the same Pictory tools in the last point, another powerful tool in any video marketing approach is also one of the simplest.
Create an “about us” video in which you present some of the fundamentals about your brand and what you do.
We mentioned that discoverability from new customers is one of the major benefits many video platforms offer.
As such, it’s important that at least some of the videos you make speak directly to people unfamiliar with your business.
It provides so much more context than a static product ad would.
It also helps to build that sense of customer connection that is so crucial for converting clicks to purchases.
For a small business especially, content like this helps highlight what’s unique about you compared to bigger companies.
Share Customer Testimonials
Video testimonials make for highly compelling marketing material and with Pictory, you don’t even need to have video footage of customers to make it happen.
Often, customer reviews are left as comments or emails.
To turn that into a video testimonial, simply screenshot the text and we’ll turn those images into a moving visual for you.
Or use the Script to Video feature to create a captioned video with AI-generated visuals and custom voiceover.
Start Benefiting from The Power of Video Marketing Today
From building trust to increasing conversion rates and sales, video content is a powerful marketing tool.
It’s one of the best ways to communicate with customers and help bridge the gap from clicks to conversions.
At Pictory, we’ve assisted many businesses with their video content journey and have seen incredible results.
Click here to sign up for a free trial and transform your marketing strategy today.
