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Make Personal Connections Online Through Video Marketing

Any business owner, salesperson or marketer will tell you that the best way to sell your product or service is to connect with your customers. Building strong customer relationships founded on personal connection and trust leads to greater customer retention and referral for your business. But how do you build relationships with customers in the middle of a pandemic, in which face-to-face interaction is scarce? As this year ends and we begin to look toward 2021, with many of the same fears and insecurities that we carried in 2020, the best way to build a rapport with customers who you won’t be seeing in person is through video marketing.

 

Versatility and Scope

Video marketing takes on many forms, from television commercials to social media ads, stories, and even TikToks, but it has continuously been one of the fastest growing tools used to advertise to and connect with customers. According to HubSpot, 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, which represents a 24% increase since 2016. The reason for video content’s success really isn’t that surprising. Video allows you to put a face on your business, humanize it, and give you an opportunity to tell your business’ story in a more engaging and detailed format.

 

Real World Success

As a video marketer with over ten years of experience in the field, I can personally attest to the real world success of video marketing. In 2016 I launched a social media web series called Shop Local Mahoning Valley. The show featured local business owners telling their story and the story of their business in a 90 second documentary-style format. In 3 years of producing the show, I reached an average of 100,000 people per month on social media. In talking with business owners who were featured on the show, many of them saw a massive spike in business in the days following their episode going live.

 

Tools That Are Easy to Use

Another reason video marketing has exploded in popularity is the accessibility of video creation tools. Your smartphone has a better camera than any consumer-grade camcorder that was on store shelves 10 years ago. And while television commercials are still a fantastic way to advertise your business, they’re not the only way to communicate a message through video to an audience. Simply recording yourself with your cell phone, and posting those videos as stories on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, is a free and easy way to distribute video content about your business on a daily basis.

 

Quick Tips

There’s no doubt that video marketing is a highly effective way to build your business, but it’s also very intimidating for a lot of people. So if you’d like to make video content a bigger part of your strategy in 2021, here are my tips to making it easier. You can of course hire the team at 898 Marketing to handle your video content for you. We’ve got the knowledge and experience to make you look good, sound good and have success with your video marketing campaigns. If that’s not in the cards for you, you can still be very effective using a cellphone to create videos, especially for social media. Just remember to be yourself, be authentic and casual, don’t try to overproduce your cell phone videos and lose the secret sauce that makes your business special. Don’t stop or give up after just one attempt. The only way to get comfortable being on camera is to do it over and over again. Lastly, don’t be afraid to incorporate employees or customers in your videos. It takes some of the pressure off of you and helps tell a more complete story.

 

Hopefully these tips will help you develop a video marketing strategy for 2021 that helps you re-engage with your existing customers and build relationships with new customers online.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Rusu Headshot

Bill Rusu is the Content Marketing Manager at 898 Marketing and specializes in video content creation and distribution, with over 10 years experience in content marketing. Bill is a Youngstown, Ohio native and graduate of Youngstown State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications Studies.

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