You mean like right now, right now? YES! Finish reading this blog first, of course, but yes, your small business needs video. It is a common misconception that more and more businesses are beginning to turn to video. The truth is that more and more companies are already using video. Don’t let your small business get behind. It is a lot easier than you think to get a good, high quality video out there. You’re doing yourself and your customers a disservice by not having video. You don’t want to do yourself or your customers a disservice, do you? We didn’t think so.

Without video you lessen your marketability, and ultimately your profits. For your customers, or potential customers, you miss out on an opportunity to engage them and possibly demonstrate what your business does or clarify any questions they may have before deciding to go with your business.

Let’s look at the 10 reasons why your small business needs video now.

1. Just Google it

Not you, your customers. Having a video will increase your ranking on search engines. This increases what is known in the business as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While it may sound like the name of a Transformer, it is what your business needs in this digital day and age. Adding a video to your website increases your chance of being a first page Google result. First page Google results get 90% of clicks, which makes a small business video production a wise investment.

This is the equivalent, for those of you who remember, of naming your business “A1” in hopes you will be the first listing someone will see in the yellow pages. With video, it won’t be a simple listing, it will be a way to grab the viewer’s and potential customer’s attention through highly engaging video.

2. Do I know you?

Having a small business video production will increase your brand awareness and develop more customer loyalty. With video being a more engaging form of communication, more brands are recognizable by their videos. People want to see people. What that means is, the more we recognize a person in a video the more we like them and remember them. If your video doesn’t have people in it, not to worry. Products and services, if presented in a coherent way, will also create the same top of mind feeling for your brand.

”Can you hear me now?” Chances are the mere reading of that reminded you of a commercial campaign Verizon ran years ago. The power of video and recognition go hand in hand. The more customers recognize and engage with your brand, the greater the chances of them returning and telling others how great your business is.

3. A Swiss Video Knife

Video is amazingly versatile. Don’t think of a video as being a one-stop shop. Videos can be used in various ways. They can be used in social media campaigns, television commercials, on your website, and video sharing platforms.

This is done through the magic of editing. Editing a video in various ways can yield different iterations of the same footage. Shorter videos are perfect for fast-paced social networks, while a video on your website may be longer. If your video covers a certain area of your product or service that you want to focus on to get customers in the door or to your website, just edit it and reformat it to be at optimal viewing settings for sites like YouTube or Vimeo.

Avoid thinking of video as being something that once done, is cast in stone. It can be fluid. A great example of this is crowdfunding campaigns who use videos. They make a few edits to their campaign video and voila! They now have a product video.

4. How Does This Thing Work?

A small business video production can also help clarify what your product or service does. We know it’s going to be engaging because it’s video, but that is only one of the reasons it can be beneficial when it comes to product videos.

There’s an old adage in visual media that states, “Don’t tell me, show me.” Many times, showing what your product or service does is a lot more effective than simply telling what your product does. A great example of this is late-night infomercials. The vast majority of them show you what the product does. It can be a guy sawing a boat in half only to spray some rubber bonding on it, put it back together and prove it is still sea-worthy. Or the “celebrity chef” showing you how easily even burned cheese slides off of their non-stick frying pan.

Whether you like or dislike infomercials, they are very successful in showing consumers what their product does as opposed to just telling. Showing how your product or service works also alleviates the need to field emails and phone calls. Instead, you can focus on building and enriching relationships with your customers to keep them coming back.

5. Whaddya Lookin’ at?

With a small business video, you can also track…analytics (triple air horn)! Analytics are awesome because they teach you things about your viewer’s habits. Analytics include things like:

• Location of your video’s viewers
• Date/time of views
• Length of time they watch your video

Let’s break each of these down a little bit more and see why they could be important. Knowing the location of where your viewers are coming from can help you target future promotional campaigns in that area. Having the knowledge of what time of day viewers watch your video may not seem as important, but over a few months you can begin to see patterns in when customers are potentially more interested in your business.

The length of time someone watches your video is called “engagement”. Higher engagement means they watch more of the video. Low engagement means they watched less. Engagement can also tell you what parts of the video were skipped or replayed. This can let you know what parts of your video are either really captivating or could be confusing for your viewers. You can then edit your small business video to improve this important analytic and keep customers watching from start to finish.

6. It’s a Buyer’s Market

Another great reason to incorporate a small business video into your marketing strategy is because people who watch a video of your product are 85% more likely to purchase your product. That’s right, people are almost twice as likely to purchase a product after viewing a video of it. To put this into perspective, let’s say someone told you the chances of you winning the lottery are 85% greater if you simply do a small business video production. I think we all can agree we would get that video done right away.

I don’t know about you but those odds sound pretty enticing.

7. Video Killed the Everything Star

• The average number of videos produced by businesses a month is 18
• 85% of US internet users watch videos online
• Video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors to your website
• 45% of people watch more than an hour of YouTube and Facebook videos per week
• More than 500 million hours of video are viewed on You Tube everyday

With statistics like these, you can see why not using video at this point could be holding your business back.

8. What’s Your Story Video Glory?

Video is an amazing way to get your story out there. Many marketers will tell you that selling a product also includes selling the story. What makes you, you? A story that is compelling and speaks to the essence of what your small business is will keep consumers riveted. Consider companies you really admire. Do you know their story? You probably do because you like and respect them.

Video is the perfect medium for telling your story and helping your customers and viewers connect with you and your brand. Video also allows you to show the more human side of your business. Whatever your budget, we can work to get your small business video production going. It does not have to be a giant blockbuster production to grab viewers’ attention.

9. Be There, in a Jiffy

A small business video production doesn’t have to take a long time to make. Choosing the right video production company can help make sure this process is as smooth and as seamless as possible. We have highly skilled video production specialists that know how to get in, set up, get out and make you and your company look good. Some videos can take longer than others depending on how heavily they rely on motion graphics or animation, but generally we can have a nice multi-use video ready for you much faster than you may think. A video done in a short amount of time does not mean that the quality has to be lower. Again, the quality depends on choosing the right video production company.

10. Are Oh Eye?

Return on Investment (ROI) is everything. As we discussed in #9, video doesn’t take too long to create. However, a well-done video can withstand the test of time. We also discussed how a single video can be used across a variety of platforms such as websites, social networks, and video sites such as YouTube. You may wonder, won’t it get lost in all the cat videos? Chances are if positioned correctly it will get to exactly the people it needs to get to.

It makes sense to do video and put it where it is most visible. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine with Amazon closely behind it. Some think the goal of video is to make it go viral, but in reality, you want a video to go “meaningful”. We can help you craft that message that means something to your customers. To try and prove to you how video can be vital to your small business, keep a “consumer video journal”. This can be something you keep track of in your mind or something you write down.

Keep track of how many times you see a video in the span of a week. If it’s an ad or a video you meant to watch, just keep a note of it. As you watch the video, be aware if you watch it all they way until the end, click through it, or re-watch certain parts. Think of why you did or did not watch the whole video. Think of why your replayed certain parts. Did you take an action after you saw the video? Why or why not? Keep these things in mind and see just how surrounded we are by marvelous video.

Being aware of what is out there will put you more in tune with what consumers look for and expect. This will position you and your small business for optimal success. Reach out to us to begin exploring how we can help in getting your small business video production off and running.