How to Widen Your Reach With Video Marketing

Featured article by Jennifer Livingston, Independent Technology Author

In terms of marketing opportunities, video is taking over–if it hasn’t already. Just look at some of the evidence backing this up from the latest statistics YouTube released:

– YouTube has over 1 billion users–almost 1/3 of all people online

– Hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos are watched each day

– More 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube than any Cable Network

And this is just on YouTube alone. The indications are clear that if businesses don’t start finding ways to incorporate video marketing into their overall marketing strategies they’ll be hard-pressed to compete in the coming years, and likely to find themselves left in the analog dust. Widening your reach with video marketing is at least a straightforward, if not always as simple, matter of creating great video content and then getting that content seen by as many eyes as possible.

Ways to Use Video to Marketing Your Business

The key to creating great content, ironically enough, is to create it. In other words, the content doesn’t have to be Oscar-worthy masterpieces; it can’t be terrible either, but more importantly is that it’s made. Then another piece is made, and then another. Great video marketing requires a regular flow of fresh video content, first and foremost. So what follows are some suggestions on how to keep that flow going.

Use Video to Introduce New Products & Services

The next time you have a new product or service to introduce, do it in a video. According to Business.com, after watching a video about a product or service, consumers reported they were 85% more likely to purchase that product or service. Entice your audience with a promise to solve a problem you know they’re facing, then create a short explainer video demonstrating precisely how your new product or service does just that.

Give Behind-the-Scenes Peeks

Everyone loves a peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of a business. You can capture this fascination and market on it by producing short behind-the-scenes looks at how your business operates. How do you make your product? How do you find customers for your service? How do you train new workers? How do you set up and close down shop? What’s a typical day at your place of business like? Remember, what may seem boring and mundane to you might be fascinating to your target audiences.

Ways to Maximize Your Video Marketing Impact

As stated earlier, churning out interesting, if not great, videos is only part of the equation when it comes to widening your reach with video marketing. The other part is making sure those videos get seen.

Use Subtitles to Reach International Customers

YouTube has local sites in 88 countries, and is available in 76 languages. If your video only plays in its native language, without any subtitles any other language, then you are missing out on a huge population of people who might become customers. You don’t have to be multilingual or spend a fortune to do fix this problem either. Simple subtitle services can do it for you, and give you a major advantage in foreign markets.

Use Closed Captioning to Reach Hearing-impaired Customers

Hearing-impaired people watch video too. Showing them you care about their needs by providing them a way to enjoy watching your video content, goes a long way toward earning their goodwill and respect, and ultimately their business. The same subtitle service you use for international subtitling should also be able to help you create closed captions for your videos.

Optimize for Mobile

Just as more and more people will be watching video over reading textual content in the months and years to come, so too will more and more people be watching those videos (and indeed viewing all their content, including textual) on mobile devices. That means if your video is not mobile-friendly, it won’t get seen nearly as much.

These are just a few pointers of many on how to widen your reach with video marketing. But once you get started with these alone, you’ll be well on your way to keeping your business thriving in the new video-dominated marketing era to come.