business growth

Why Use Video Marketing for Your Small Business?

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Welcome to our first guest blog, written by Nicole Standish of Charm Digital Media. Enjoy this article and let us know what you learned in the comments below!

Videos are some of the most effective marketing tools today. Customers find them attractive, relatable, and relevant. They are highly effective at capturing and retaining the client’s attention. Small Businesses especially can benefit from the value and engagement that video provides.

So, how can this form of marketing be useful to your small business?

Boosting Conversion Rates and Sales

Using a targeted video content strategy, you will not struggle to boost your conversion rates and sales. Therefore, be ready to make serious money and become wildly popular. A landing page that contains a video is capable of increasing conversions by as much as 80 percent.

Amazing ROIs

Videos offer amazing returns on investment (ROI). They guarantee the best results based on what you spend. They are a worthy investment when done correctly. All it takes is a bit of planning, a great video marketing team, and a smartphone to begin seeing your conversions soar.

Research shows that businesses publish on average 18 videos per month according to this HubSpot Infographic. That is close to 1 video per work day. Do not, however, place too much emphasis on producing perfect videos. Instead, focus on the content and solving problems for your target audience.

Building Trust with Clients

Videos are perfect for building trust with your customers. Most times, clients find it easier to relate with brands that produce videos. Trust is the foundation of any business relationship, especially if you are a small business that is just getting acquainted with your buyers. To do this,  Use video to highlight your team, show your community involvement, outline your mission and vision as a company, and show off your well-earned testimonials. 

Search Engines Love Videos

Google – and all the other major search engines – love videos. They reward marketers who use videos to pass messages across. Visitors on your site tend to spend more time browsing through your pages while engaged in one of your videos, improving your reach and validating your relevance to search engines. 

The likelihood of showing on the first results page increases 53 times when you feature videos.

Popular with Mobile Phone Users

Mobile users love videos. Today, there is a 233% increase in mobile video views. Businesses can take advantage of this trend and reach people on their mobile devices, while they are at work or at leisure. Video is the easiest content to consume on a smartphone or smaller device.

Tip: Include text in your video as many viewers watch with the sound off.

Videos are Ideal for Explanations

You have a higher and better chance of reaching out to your customers with a message they understand when using videos to explain your product, service or process.Explainer videos are popular with more than 98% of all video viewers, meaning they value the effort that you are taking to produce the videos and provide the answers they are looking for.

There are many ways to create an entertaining explainer video. If your subject is difficult to explain and low on the likeability scale, you can easily narrate or animate your videos to add more emotion or pizzaz. Use emotion, drama or humor to draw in your audience and keep them engaged.

Popular with Lazy Buyers

Today, your business will engage with many lazy buyers. Such buyers are a difficult lot to market to without videos. They are not interested in your long-form content, they want to know quickly and easily how your product or service can solve their problems. Video allows them to listen or watch while they are multi-tasking. Additionally, video gives them a deeper glimpse into your businesses without needing to visit your about us page, removing another click in their buyers’ journey.

Vidoe Marketing For Small Businesses = Conversions & ROI

If you have small businesses or any business for that matter, video can work for you. Using a mix of written and video content, you will surely attract more customers and do so in the way they feel the most comfortable engaging with your brand. There really isn’t a down-side to video marketing. Video marketing is affordable, easy to produce and has outstanding ROI. 

Nicole Standish is the President of Charm Digital Media.  As a digital media consultant, Nicole helps businesses attract and convert online business.  Nicole evaluates existing digital resources and strategies; develops campaigns to reach targeted audiences, and optimizes marketing channels to reach and exceed sales goals. Follow Charm Digital Media on Facebook at Charm Digital Media and Twitter at @CharmThem

Interested in learning more about video marketing? Comment on this post or subscribe to our digital marketing blog – The Content Catch Up! 

 

Using Video Sounds Good, But What Do I Say?

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Social media posts with video are 1200% more likely to be shared than posts with just text, and text and pictures COMBINED.

Consumers who watch a product video are TWICE as likely to purchase the product than those who do not.

Websites with heavy video content are 53 TIMES more likely to land a first page Google ranking than sites without video.

Many of you have heard the impressive statistics about using videos to reach your current and potential customers, but are unsure how to proceed when it comes to knowing what to say in a video, or in creating videos about your business.

With our Video Crisps subscriptions our clients get professionally edited and/or animated video content given to them each and every month. When we launched this program we didn’t anticipate how many people would struggle with not only knowing what to say in the videos but also with knowing how to use them.

That’s exactly why regular consultations on content and strategy are an important part of the program. This is the first of a series of blog posts in which we’ll be looking at different type of video content and usage, starting next week with community outreach and public education.

But in the meantime here are some ideas to get you started brainstorming what video can do, in very tangible terms, for your business.

  • Explain how your services work
  • Collect customer testimonials
  • Recruit fresh talent
  • Describe your mission
  • Train your employees
  • Enhance your social media
  • Increase open-rates on emails and newsletters
  • Introduce your staff
  • Showcase your products
  • Show your audience your space
  • Highlight your community events
  • Stay top of mind
  • Create videos that can be shared
  • Communicate your message

If any of this sounds interesting, give us a call at 607.239.5423, and remember to subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss a single post about how using video in your messaging can significantly impact your business.

Elin Barton is the President of White Knight Productions and the host of the podcast, Ready, Set, Grit.  Her first book, Ready, Set, Grit: How to Turn Your Daydream Into a Phenomenal Success, will be released in the Fall of 2017. To find out more about how you can use video to grow your business visit our website.

You’re Weird and Unusual? Me Too!

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I’ll never forget the first conversation I had with my friend, Meagan. We were hiking in the Angeles National Forest outside of L.A. There were rather a lot of us on this day hike as friends-of-friends rounded out our original core group of hikers to about 15 or 20. We split off into smaller groups of twos and threes as fitness levels and varying degrees of patience created a kind of natural selection process and determined who was going to end up in conversation together.

Meagan and I found ourselves together and as we made our way down the trail we discovered that we both loved traveling and had done a lot of it. As we talked I was starting to realize how much I liked this person, but when our discussion turned to food and cooking – another passion for both of us – the conversation had gotten to the point where we were already planning our next meeting. But then Penzeys came up and that’s when we knew we’d be friends. You may know that Penzeys is a company that sells spices, herbs and seasonings. These days they have specialty shops all over the country, but back when I first met Meagan they were a fairly small mail order business. Not many people knew about Penzeys in those days, but Meagan and I were both huge fans, and once we realized this our conversation – and friendship – really had gone next level.

Today Meagan and I live across the country from one another but we’ve stayed friends. We both are still loyal Penzeys customers too, and that’s the issue that I want to talk about in this blog post. Penzeys has always had a strong brand and a clear voice. Back when they were the “little guy” there were certain things that they always talked about, and which came across in all of their materials: quality, integrity and a kind of homeyness. It made Penzeys customers feel loyal and inspired, like we were part of a movement of goodness, healthy home cooking and a place where the little guy could come out on top.

Now, decades later, the tone of Penzeys hasn’t changed much, even though the business has become much, much larger. The company has put their voice behind social issues and hasn’t been shy about political ones, either. While their choices may cost Penzeys the business of a few customers, the remaining ones are loyal advocates who feel like the company understands them. And the steady growth of Penzeys earnings speaks for itself as a testament to what happens when you’re real and authentic. You end up with a tribe of brand advocates – loyal customers like me and Meagan who not only talk about the brand, but who bond over it, forming a life-long friendship halfway up a mountain!

These days, more than ever before, it’s imperative that businesses begin to show their real selves to the world as a way to attract the right people to them. Even corporations need to realize that it’s okay to be a little weird and quirky. Trying to please everyone only leads to a bland vanilla brand that no one will ever get excited over, so go ahead and let your hair down. Be yourself.

Take a chance and share your thoughts. Let us hear your voice, peek behind the curtain of your operation, see you step in front of the camera. When you find the courage to let your voice be heard, and do so consistently, week after week, you’ll watch with amazement as your tribe begins to form around you, one loyal follower at a time.

Elin Barton is the President of White Knight Productions and the host of the podcast, Ready, Set, Grit.  Her first book, Ready, Set, Grit: How to Turn Your Daydream Into a Phenomenal Success, will be released in the Fall of 2017. To find out more about how you can use video to grow your business visit our website.

Why Video Content Matters

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If you have a business of any kind chances are that you could benefit by engaging in conversation with your current and future customers. Anyone can start a blog or post on social media, but what’s a little trickier is coming up with a strategy around what you’re saying, and finding a way to make sure people are paying attention.

If you want to make sure that the odds of a successful campaign are in your favor then you may want to consider including video in your mix. While today’s consumers are looking for relevant and useful information, they are less likely than ever to want to actually read long blocks of text. You only have three seconds in which to capture someone’s attention, and video helps to stack the odds in your favor.

It also allows you to create a personal connection with your audience and to show – not tell – what your business is all about. People still like doing business with those who they connect with, like and trust, and with video your authentic and true self can shine through.

But don’t just take my word for it. The anecdotal evidence and statistics speak for themselves. Social media posts with video are 1200% more likely to be shared, and according to Wirebuzz, viewers retain 95% of the message when they watch it in a video as opposed to just 10% when reading it in text. “How to” searches on YouTube have grown by more than 70% in the past year and will continue to increase, according to projections. That’s pretty impressive, especially as YouTube is already the second largest search engine.

You probably don’t need to be convinced that video is relevant, but how can you use it to grow your business? The possibilities are endless, really. You can introduce your staff or product, give a behind-the-scenes tour of your offices or showcase client testimonials. And if you don’t like being in front of the camera, there are dozens of ways to create videos that can keep you safely behind the scenes.

Because of the nature of our business we see successes just about every single day. I have a client that didn’t even have a YouTube channel a few months ago, and now, after a couple of months of Video Crisps content, she is coming up number one in a YouTube search. It’s exciting and it proves that there’s no time like the present to get started in making video work for you.

Elin Barton is the President of White Knight Productions and the host of the podcast, Ready, Set, Grit.  Her first book, Ready, Set, Grit: How to Turn Your Daydream Into a Phenomenal Success, will be released in the Fall of 2017. To find out more about how you can use video to grow your business visit our website.

Adapt and Grow

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If you’re not always changing and adapting as a business, then your business is dying.

You have probably heard that idea before, but if you’re running a small business are you so caught up in the day to day that you’re forgetting to ask yourself how you can continue to do better, be better, and adapt to and ever-changing and often fickle marketplace?

Part of the solution to this issue is a commitment to education for leadership and employees of any organization. And the other part is a willingness to grow and change, to try new things and to let go of that which is no longer serving you.

In order to do this effectively you have to ask a lot of questions, which means listening to your customers, your employees and to peers and leaders in your field. And, when you do start getting feedback, you have to be willing to do something about it.

If you start hearing that your pricing is too high, for example, that could mean one of two things. Either you need to come up with a product or service that is more affordable to your customer base, or you need to court a different demographic because you’re probably not working with your ideal clients.

Obviously no business should want to jump on every trend that pops up, but being savvy enough to balance what your customers need and want with new advances and best practices in your business are a winning combination and one which we all should be striving for.

And even if achieving the perfect balance of innovation and consistency is tough, you don’t have to be perfect to be effective. In fact, any steps you can take towards intentionally creating an innovative and forward thinking company are going to serve you well and move your closer to your goals.

Perfect Place, Perfect Time?

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At times running a business can be scary. You could lose a big client, make a costly mistake or have issues with an employee. Your office space could flood as we’ve seen happen recently down in Texas, or you could get sick and have to step back from the company for a while.

I recently spoke with business owners who have experienced all of the above, and one of the similarities that I found among them was this.  While no one enjoyed actually going through the unpleasantness of a major setback, every one of the people I spoke to was convinced that their lives and their businesses are better off now than before they experienced their life-changing event.

One friend, for example, had extreme challenges in her business when she lost a major client. She was forced to dramatically cut back on her staff, and then shortly after that she became seriously ill, which meant that working 70 or 80 hour weeks was no longer an option for her.

What ended up transpiring was that she cut her work hours back dramatically and actually found that without her previous overhead, that her profit was actually significantly higher, even with the shorter hours. She also started working on a book that she had been meaning to write for years but which she had to keep putting off due to other obligations.

It’s not hard to see how this friend’s life and business were better after the unwelcome shake-up happened, and interestingly, I found the same thing to be the case with everyone I talked to about this. Each of the business owners had had a significant setback that turned out to be a blessing. And that’s the part that I started getting very, very interested in.

So often we resist change, especially when it’s something that is perceived as negative, but in the cases of the people that I spoke to, the changes they had endured all had incredible blessings attached to them.

There is a school of thought that says the Universe is always conspiring for our highest good, for our best interest – even when it’s difficult or impossible to see it at the moment you’re going through something challenging. I for one am going to work on actively remembering this the next time things don’t go my way in life and in business. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to relax and allow, and lean into our faith in happy endings and positive outcomes.

The Results are in… It’s Video Crisps for the Win

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For years we have specialized in producing high-quality video content. I’ve always been proud of our storytelling abilities and our expertise and attention to the technical quality of our craft – the lighting, the color, the sound…

I don’t think there are many people who would dispute that our team is known for their professionalism and skills, and also for their dedication to producing excellent content and to customer satisfaction.

The thing is, video production is more complicated than most people realize and traditionally the cost of professional production has reflected this fact. At White Knight we knew we could help more people create great video content if we could just get that price point down.

We’ve also extensively studied the mounting evidence that proves video is the most powerful medium for engaging your audience and attracting new clients to your business. There are hundreds of statistics to back up that claim – from the one that tells us that social media posts with video are 1200% more likely to be shared or that people are twice as likely to buy a product once they watch a video about it.

Moreover, we know that these days a company’s values, culture and brand is more important than ever before in creating an engaged and active audience. Every company out there would love to have fans that are so excited about the brand they can’t wait to recommend it to all of their friends. Video can help to create this kind of engagement – with consistent and well thought-out messaging, which is exactly what the Video Crisps do.

Our Video Crisp clients get fresh, custom-created video content delivered to them every month, with a minimal investment of time and money, and so far people love this program! We’ve helped all kinds of companies, from colleges to financial services firms to pet sitters, and across the board we are hearing reports of positive feedback, a broader reach and higher rankings in the search engines.

It’s just one more piece of evidence that proves why video should play an important role in any marketing strategy. What are you doing to create a highly engaged audience today?

You can learn more about our program, see examples and read what people are saying about working with us at this link: http://whiteknightpro.com/video-crisp.html

Tribe it Up

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The other day I had lunch with my friend and fellow entrepreneur. We spoke candidly about some of the challenges in our respective businesses, and as we were getting ready to leave the restaurant she said to me, “I’m so relieved that I’m not the only one who goes through this stuff.”

That statement struck a cord with me because so often as entrepreneurs and small business owners we do feel like we have to figure everything out on our own, and that can be a very lonely position to take. The truth of the matter is, we have more in common than we realize. Even though we may be running businesses in different industries with our own very specific challenges, on a slightly higher level we are all the same.

We face issues and questions around cash flow, sales, employee recruitment and retention. We have to pay attention to marketing, advertising, culture and reputation. As our companies grow we most likely have a team in place to assist with many of these items, but ultimately, as a small business owner, the buck does stop with us.

But that doesn’t mean we have to go it alone.

Taking the time to intentionally seek out and build a support network for yourself is, I believe, key for the success of a business. At a minimum you may want to consider hiring a business coach or a mentor, but beyond that setting up a “mastermind” group of trusted peers will help you to keep challenges – and successes – in perspective.

Elin Barton is the President of White Knight Productions and the host of the podcast, Ready, Set, Grit.  Her first book, Ready, Set, Grit: How to Turn Your Daydream Into a Phenomenal Success, will be released in the Fall of 2017.

I’ll Tell You a Secret

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And that secret is, your customers don’t care about you.

Okay, that may have been a little harsh and it may be a slight exaggeration, but only a little one. The truth of the matter is, many companies spend their time talking about how great they are and how much they have to offer.

I know you’ve heard the pitches. They go something like this:

  • We have the best team.
  • We offer the best service.
  • Come and work with us and you’ll get the benefits of our new and shiny equipment/office/services.
  • We’re so much better than the competition

The thing is, your customers probably don’t care about all your bells and whistles. They don’t really care about your awards, accolades and your team. No offense, but they really don’t.

The truth is, what they do care about is how they’re going to feel if they decide to work with you. That’s it, so start shifting the story that you’re telling and turn it into one that they actually want to hear.

Need help with your content creation? At White Knight we offer both Video Crisps and our total content solution: Content and Crisps. To find out more about our programs, schedule a time for a discovery session.

Content is King

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Remember the old days of communicating with customers when you were forced to rely on broadcasting your message to the masses, whether via TV or radio advertising, print ads or billboards? You put your message out there and calculated that some small percentage of people who saw it would have a favorable reaction and buy your product or service.

These days, of course, we’ve gone a complete 180 and instead can hyper-target who sees and responds to your message. There are incredible tools available to marketers now, in 2017, but what’s more relevant today than ever before is the need to produce quality content. And quality is the key word. Your content needs to be something that your current and future customers will find interesting, relevant and engaging.

Many marketers find that producing such content is time-consuming and challenging. But at the end of the day it is completely worth the investment, and the proof of that is in the numbers. I recently saw a statistic that showed that companies that publish a blog post 16 or more times per month increase their web traffic by three and a half times over companies that publish 4 or fewer posts per month. That is a significant number because of course, every time someone comes to your website it is an opportunity for them to engage with your brand or to purchase your product or service.

When you begin to consistently put out content that people care about you establish yourself as an expert, and you become a trusted source of information. In addition, when your content is interesting and valuable it is shared by your followers and you suddenly find yourself in front of a new audience that you may have not initially been aware of or had access to.

Written content is powerful, but video content can help you take your customer engagement to a whole new level. Consider these statistics. Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. Brightcove reports that video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines, while MarketingLand says that 62% of Google searches include video. And, of course YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and videos that are hosted there and link to your website can help your Google rankings. “How-to” searches on YouTube have been consistently growing at approximately 70% per year, and this trend is projected to continue.

It’s our belief that written content and video are both important to your customer engagement and your SEO. But be aware that both your written and video content must be high quality or it will be a turn-off for your audience. Brightcove, in one of their studies, reminds us that poor quality video will actually give people a negative perception of your brand.

Need help with your content creation? At White Knight we offer both Video Crisps and our total content solution: Content and Crisps. To find out more about our programs, schedule a time for a discovery session.