Video content dominates almost all other content types, and more than 50% of consumers love seeing videos.

The takeaway? 

If you don’t have a video marketing strategy as a small business owner, you are missing out. Therefore, it’s essential to become familiar with video marketing ideas for small businesses to boost your brand promotion. 

Where do you start? No need to worry; you don’t need expensive tools or a film crew to create good video content. This article goes through everything you need to know about creating video content for your brand. 

Why Video Marketing?

Video marketing involves creating videos to promote your brand, educate your audience, and engage your customers. You may wonder why there is so much fuss about video marketing for small businesses. The simple answer is that video content performs better than other content types. If there is one marketing tool proven to be effective for online content: it’s a video! 

Excellent video content helps:

• Connect Better With Customers 

Brands like Nike make an impression on people with their products and their high-quality video ads. As a small business owner, you can also create small-budget videos that can boost your business. Your videos will help form a deeper connection with your audience, boosting engagement and sales. 

• Boosts SEO

Another benefit of video marketing for small businesses is that it boosts SEO. How? Website content with videos and searchable keywords are more likely to rank higher than text-only content.

• Improved Social Media Marketing

One of the best ways to improve your social media marketing strategy is to incorporate videos. Social media videos get more engagement than text and pictures. Also, new social media features like reels and stories encourage users to create and share video content. 

10 Creative Video Marketing Content Ideas

There are different video marketing ideas for small businesses, and you need to be familiar with them before you start creating yours. The one you pick will depend on your marketing intent, tools, teams, and other factors. Here are different videos ideas you can consider for your small business:

1. Showcase Your Products in Action With Demo Videos

Demo videos are a great way to educate your audience about your products. You can show your audience how to use your products, how your product works, or what it looks like. For example, if you offer lipsticks, you could share a video putting it to test on yourself or someone else.

2. Tell Your Story Through Brand Videos 

Brand videos are one the most popular video marketing ideas for brands, and they help create awareness about your business. With brand videos, you can communicate your business values, products/services, mission and vision, and other things about your brand. About 64% of consumers connect more with businesses that share their brand purpose, so it’s a good idea to share this type of video content.

3. Engage Audience With Live Videos

Since the addition of live video features on many social media platforms, it has become one of the most popular video types.  Live videos help you broadcast live or behind-the-scenes to your social media audience. Customers spend more time with live videos even though they tend to be longer than most short video marketing ideas. You can create your live video too by streaming events, granting interviews, or starting a Q & A  session with your audience.

4. Teach Your Customers Through Educational Videos

One of the ways to establish yourself as an authority in your niche is by educating your audience. By sharing valuable knowledge in your industry, you position yourself as an expert and provide value to your audience. Popular video ideas to educate your audience include sharing tips and tricks, how-tos, fun facts, guides, Q&As and so on. For example, if you sell journals, you can share journaling prompts or ways customers can use their journals. Also, you can share videos going into the benefits of journaling. 

5. Create Explainer Videos

One of the most vital video marketing tips 2022  is creating explainer videos and ending them with a strong call to action. Explainer videos are almost similar to educational videos. However, with explainer videos, you are trying to help customers understand why they may need your products. Explainer videos quickly explain what your product does and why it matters to your audience. To create explainer videos, you focus on your customers’ struggles and position your products as a solution. 

Using the journals as an example. You can create an explainer video about mental stress and how journaling is an excellent way to boost mental clarity. 

6. Leverage Social Proof Content as Video Ads

Consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that has positive reviews from others in the business world. In this case, one of the valuable video marketing tips for small businesses is sharing social proof content. This can be in terms of reviews, unboxing videos from customers, testimonials, and so on. 

Are you a new business owner without enough customers to create user-generated content? Don’t fret. You can consider collaborating with influencers to create content that builds a positive brand image. 

7. Create Fun Product Videos

Product videos are exactly what it sounds like. It involves showing off your products through video. One of the best video marketing ideas to showcase your products are unboxing videos.  Also, some brands collate different pictures of their products and make them into a video. 

8. Entertain Customers With Event Videos

Event videos are a great way to highlight and share events in your company. Whether it’s a fundraiser or an anniversary, you can always engage your customers by creating highlights from the event. 

9. Promote Your Brands Through Commercial

Commercials are the most common type of short video marketing ideas. They are usually between thirty seconds to one minute and are what you see on TV and Youtube ads. The main goal of a commercial video is to boost brand awareness and attract more customers. 

Commercial video can highlight your new products/services, current discounts, brand mission, or ‘we are open for business’ announcements. An excellent commercial video always ends with a Call To Action and offers exciting details about your brands. 

10. Captivate Audience Through Animated Videos

Instead of normal video, you can incorporate animation into your video marketing ideas. You can employ animation for almost all your video content, including explainer videos and brand story videos. 

Animation is especially an excellent idea for complex or technical concepts. For example, if you are about to introduce a SaaS product, an animated video will be a great idea. Meanwhile, animated videos require basic technical know-how and can take longer to create. However, if you have the budget and team capable of creating it, it’s worth considering for your marketing strategy. 

Video Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Creating video content involves so many things to get it right. Here, we go through practical steps and tips to create great video content for your business. 

1| Set a Goal

One of the essential tips for creating video content is to set a goal. Your goal will determine the type of video you want to make and the strategy to employ. What do you want to achieve with your video? 

• Build brand awareness? Then try brand videos. 
• Educate your customers and establish yourself as an authority? Try educational videos.
• Increase sales?  Try product videos or demo videos.

2| Define Your Audience

If you create a video without considering your target audience, your video may not perform well. This is because your audience persona should dictate the tone and direction of your voice. Therefore, before creating video content for small businesses, you’ll need to define your audience first. 

For example, if your audience are young people who love entertaining videos, you may need to make your content funny or lively. However, if your target audience are B2B marketers or professionals, you may want to make videos that sound professional. 

3| Choose The Platforms

Popular social media apps where people watch videos include Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Once you’ve figured out your audience persona, it’s time to decide the platforms you can use to reach them. Meanwhile, video advertising for small businesses is best when sharing your content on different platforms. 

At the same time, you do not need to put your video everywhere, and that is why it’s best to choose the platforms suitable for you. Meanwhile, you should note that you can always repurpose your videos for different platforms. For instance, your TikTok video can be reshared on Instagram or Twitter. 

4| Decide The Type of Video You Want To Create

To create video content for small businesses, you will need to decide the type of content you want to create. As explained in the previous session, there are different video content ideas, including product videos and commercial videos.

Once you know the goal of your video, it will be easy to decide on a video idea. Say you are a new business owner to create awareness of your brand, then a commercial video may work best. 

After you’ve decided on a video type, it’s time to start gathering inspiration and brainstorming ideas. Figure out the type of story you want to tell and draft a script for your video content. 

Tip: You can find inspiration by watching marketing videos on different platforms. 

5| Gather Your Video Making Tools

Before you press record, you will need some tools for your video filming. Some essential tools relevant to video marketing for small businesses include:

• Camera (you can use a good phone camera)
• Lighting equipment
• Audio equipment
• Ring lights, Tripods, and Gimbals 

You may also require apps and software like a video maker, graphic design app, editing app, etc.  

6| Make Your Video

You have an idea, a script, and the necessary video-making tools; now it’s time to create your video. Your first video may not be perfect because, like other marketing strategies, it takes time. 

7| Add a Call To Action

A good tip for video advertising for small businesses is adding a call to action. This simple tactic can encourage customers to take action, and this increase leads. So, consider adding a visual or audible CTA relevant to the goal of your video content. However, you should note that not all videos require CTA, and overdoing it may seem too promotional. 

8| Use Background Music

Whether it’s a live video or an explainer video, one of the best practices for video marketing is to include music. Background music always gives video content a nice effect so take your time to pick a suitable song or voice over.  

9| Edit and Distribute Your Videos

Some video makers may argue that editing videos is more complicated than creating them, and they won’t be entirely wrong. Once you have a video, you will have to edit it until you have a polished finished product. There are many suitable editing apps and tools you can use for your videos. 

Done editing? 

Then it’s time to start distributing your content on platforms of your choice. A great benefit of video marketing for small businesses is that it’s easy to repurpose your content for different platforms. This means you do not have to create new videos for different platforms. Instead, you can use one video across multiple platforms. 

10| Measure The Success of Your Video

Once you make a video, it’s best to pay attention to relevant metrics to measure the performance of your content. Some metrics include play rate, number of views, engagement rate, and likes to dislike ratio. 

5 Best Practices for Video Marketing

Now that you know the steps to make great video content, let’s get into some important tips to consider when creating your video:

• Keep it Short

It’s best to keep your videos under 2 to 3 minutes unless you’re creating live videos. The human attention span keeps dropping, so people are likely to watch short videos than longer ones.

• Upload Your Videos on Your Website 

Do you have a website? If yes, great! A good way to boost SEO is by uploading video content to your website.  Another great video marketing tip 2022 is distributing your videos across different platforms to reach more audiences.

• Don’t Be Too Promotional

Customers don’t like content that makes it obvious that you are selling to them. They want a solution, not a sales presentation so avoid being overly promotional with your videos. 

• Pay Attention To Video Quality 

It’s important to make sure that the quality of your visuals and audio are great. No one would enjoy watching a video with bad sounds or blurry visuals. Therefore, it’s best to invest in great video-making tools for good results. 

• Experiment with Different Video Ideas

There are different video marketing ideas for small businesses, so it’s best to experiment with them. Instead of posting product videos every time, you can consider creating other types of videos like brand videos or explainer videos. Always look for new and creative ways to reach your audience.