A video marketing strategy empowers your business to connect with your community, build customer loyalty, and increase revenue.
The data is clear: Video is consumers' preferred media.
A 2017 Cisco study found that 82% of all internet traffic will be video by 2021.
In its 2019 marketing statistics, HubSpot reported that 62% of people said they were more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story.
In December 2018, HubSpot reported that consumers prefer video over email, social images, and blog articles.
HubSpot's graph depicting preferred content formats (Source)
Don't let these insights slip off your radar just because your focus is local.
Your local business could have the most to gain from implementing a video marketing strategy.
Lets say you own a coffee shop just outside a college campus. By implementing a smart, thoughtful video marketing campaign, your business can connect with students, staff, and the community, build customer loyalty, and increase revenue. The best part? You don't need thousands of dollars worth of film equipment to do it.
Your off-campus coffee shop can build a solid, implementable video marketing strategy by taking the four following steps.
4 video marketing tips for local businesses
1. Find the pivotal moments in the customer journey when personalized video can deliver unique value
An up-to-date, personalized customer journey map is an invaluable asset to your business. These maps can nurture existing clients and new prospects, help increase your conversion rate, and act as a customer-centric north star as you develop future business strategies.
Whether you need a crash course in customer journey mapping (find our guide to creating one here and our guide on using your map here) or have a handle on it, we need to talk about how it can focus your video strategy.
To reach and retain your customers, you need a video marketing strategy that will break through the growing noise floor and resonate with your buyers. Remember that according to Gartner, only 37% of viewers watch to the end of a video (full research available to Gartner clients).
If you want your videos to land, you must design them with a strategic buyer journey touch point in mind.
Consider our off-campus coffee shop. Instead of a generic video aimed at potential new customers and loyal returnees, gear your video toward a pivotal moment in your customer journey: entering college as a freshman.
A welcoming, introductory tone that congratulates new students on their college acceptance and offers them a cozy spot to study and feel at home will make customers at this pivotal moment feel seen and welcome.
Key Takeaway: Video marketing is a great opportunity to speak directly to customers at a pivotal moment in their customer journey.
2. Identify which type of video speaks most effectively to that moment in the customer journey
In our guide to a winning video marketing strategy, we discussed three key types of video your business can produce.
A brand story video
This is the best way to drive awareness and set yourself apart from industry competition. These videos should target potential customers who haven't visited your store before, or don't know what makes your business special.
This is the type of video we imagined above for our coffee shop, where you meet your customers in their specific moment of the customer journey and begin building a relationship.
A product demo video
This type of video focuses on one product or service your business offers and is a great opportunity to build loyalty among existing customers by ensuring they have a positive customer experience after they make a purchase.
For our off-campus coffee shop, this could be as simple as a video announcing a new coffee flavor/roast or a new rewards program for students and professors.
Customer testimonial videos
Customer testimonial videos provide an enormous opportunity to build brand trust. When it comes to reaching potential customers, 89% of marketers say that customer testimonials and case studies are the most effective content types for influencing purchases. The key to this type of marketing video is asking the question "who do my customers trust?"
For our coffee shop, this could be a great opportunity to feature graduating seniors or beloved professors.
Key Takeaway: Different marketing video types are best-suited for different moments in the customer journey. Identify your target audience and where they are in their journey, then ask yourself how they would most benefit from a marketing video.
3. Personalize to engage, nurture, and reward repeat business
Key video marketing personalization statistics (Source)
Every year, consumers expect more and more of the marketing content they encounter to be personalized.
Just take a look at the last email you received from your preferred clothing retailer. Did it feature a personalized list of recommended items? Or a heads up that you left merchandise in your shopping cart?
Video marketing is no different.
What is personalized video marketing? Gartner defines it as: "Personalized video for marketing and targeted video for advertising are created by combining creative assets and customer insights. These videos incorporate custom elements in live-action video or motion graphics, or overlay personalized text over a series of photos or other creative."
This is a great opportunity to lean into your local community.
Does your town host a beloved local food festival? Produce a video promoting your business' involvement. Did your local high school just win a big sporting event? Offer a discount to anyone who comes in and makes a purchase while wearing the school colors.
Key Takeaway: Remember that customers want to shop local; it makes them feel good. Use personalized marketing videos to drive home your connection to your community.
4. Take the time to build a social media presence
By now, our off-campus coffee shop has produced a few thoughtful, well-targeted personalized videos. These could be the most profound, influential videos in the world, but without a strong social media presence, you might as well be posting them on Myspace.
This is where investing in social media marketing software will make all the difference for your company.
Social media marketing software offers a central hub from which you can post to all of your social profiles, lets you track and run data analytics on impressions and clicks, and even schedules posts so you never miss out on prime opportunities to reach your local community.
Sprout Social's post scheduling interface (Source)
An intuitive social media software solution will save you time and effort.
Running a busy, local business already requires all of your time and energy. Social media software centralizes and streamlines a cumbersome process.
In just a few moments our coffee shop can post a personalized "Welcome new students!" video across all social media channels, schedule posts to promote upcoming events as they occur throughout the semester and track the video's views and impressions.
Key Takeaway: Software is your friend! Social media software comes in all shapes and sizes. Click here for a breakdown of Hootsuite and five of its alternatives.
The future is video
The era of video marketing is here. To reach and retain your customers, you need a video marketing strategy that will break through the noise and resonate with your buyers.
How is your business utilizing video in your marketing strategy? Do you have the right tools to help you with that? If not, start with Capterra's directories, which pair products with real user reviews and a filtering tool to help you find the best fit for your local business.