Marketing is a widely used term to describe the communication between a company and its consumer. There are countless ways to market a business to the desired audience: affiliate marketing, business-to-business marketing, door-to-door marketing, Facebook marketing, and guerrilla marketing, to name a few.
Today, the biggest form of marketing is content marketing. The definition of content is material with substance. In other words, it’s something useful and entertaining, usually told in a story-like format, and a perfect way to market content is with video.
In other words, Bill Gates wasn’t only a technology genius. He was also a fortune teller when he said “content is king” 20 years ago.
If you’re buying a house, you don’t just want to see pictures. You probably want to see a video of the inside, the outside, the neighborhood, and more. And people are able to do that now, using drone video to really stand out in the real estate space.
If you’re looking for a new doctor, a headshot of the specialist doesn’t tell you anything. A two-minute video of the doctor interacting with a patient or even a patient’s success story would make a world of difference when you call to book an appointment.
Numbers don’t lie
Here’s what Hubspot, an inbound marketing software platform, found when it surveyed executives about how video can yield a return on investment:
- 90 percent believe product videos are helpful in the decision process
- 80 percent recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30 days
- 75 percent watch work-related videos on websites at least once a week
- 65 percent visit the marketer’s website and 39 percent call a vendor after viewing a video
- 33 percent of their online time is spent watching video
Today, the majority of people would rather watch a video than read text. It’s nearly impossible to log online and not see some form of video with either music, text overlay, or pictures in a slideshow.
Creating the content
Great content includes three things: education, entertainment, and emotion. When I was a TV reporter, I could not air a story that did not have those three elements.
Like anything in business, if you want to make an impact, you need to have a strategy. Just because you have an iPhone with a camera and the iMovie editor does not mean you can create effective videos to market your business.
Instead, hire a storyteller — someone who not only has experience shooting and editing but producing stories as well. The lighting, angles, audio, and form in which all of those elements are pieced together is vital to the story and your brand’s message.
Whether it be an instructional video for new employees, a behind the scenes look at what happens in the office when a deadline nears, or a thank you message for customers before a holiday, without a coherent story, the video will look like it was just thrown together for no apparent reason and that never works. If anything, it’ll hurt your brand.
Sharing is caring
Your website is your storefront. You should be welcoming people by showcasing your brand in motion. Then, continue on social media.
Second to Google, YouTube is the world’s largest search engine. With a well thought out headline and description, your interesting and inspiring content could reach an unlimited amount of people.
Twenty years ago, Bill Gates said, “To be successful online, a magazine can’t just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm… They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters to the editor pages of print.”
I think he’s right.