Since the emergence of YouTube in 2005, the prevalence and impact of video marketing have skyrocketed.
YouTube changed the game by allowing everyday users to upload, publish, and market their video content directly within the search engine.
Today, over 2.6 billion people use the platform.
And YouTube isn’t the only player in town.
Vimeo, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram all have powerful video marketing capabilities to help businesses get found.
Local businesses can use video marketing to drive traffic, reach more customers, and grow online.
Here are four strategies to build your local video marketing strategy.
The Value Of Video Marketing For Local Businesses
Video is a powerful medium for local businesses.
While many might assume that video marketing is more in the domain of online businesses, there are many benefits of video marketing in the local sector.
Benefits Of Local Video Marketing
- Website traffic: Publishing videos online and optimizing for clicks can drive more users directly to your website.
- Revenue growth: Video marketing can influence buying decisions and increase revenue for your local business.
- Brand awareness: Video exposes your business to more users across a wider range of platforms, helping drive visibility for your business
- Trust and authority: Posting valuable content can build trust with your audience and lend authority to your business.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Embedding videos in your web pages and articles can help your site appear in Google organic or image search.
- Backlinks: Videos can add value to your content and encourage other websites to link back to your website, which is good for SEO and referral traffic.
- Email marketing: Videos make great additions to your email marketing campaigns, driving more engagement and clicks.
- Advertising: Many video platforms offer paid advertising opportunities to generate even more clicks and revenue for your business.
- Local presence: Publishing videos about your community or local events can help you attract more customers in your area, even if advertising online.
- Relevance: Creating relevant and engaging videos can further support your existing marketing campaigns, teach users about your business, and improve your digital footprint.
How To Win With Local Video Marketing
Recent studies show that 70% of viewers have bought from a brand after seeing their video content on YouTube.
The opportunity is ripe for video marketing, even for local businesses.
Here are a few ways to make video work for your local business.
1. Drive Traffic With Educational Videos
Many small businesses struggle to drive organic website traffic due to having limited resources and reach. Your local business can potentially drive more visitors through SEO with educational video content.
Users are actively searching for information online.
If you can publish and market educational content suited to their interests, you can use the power of search engines like Google and YouTube to grow your website traffic.
Tools such as Semrush and TubeBuddy allow you to research the keywords users search for on Google and YouTube.
Based on the terms’ volume and competition level, you can create videos targeting these topics.
Say, for example, you are a small law firm.
You can create educational videos around:
- “tips for hiring a divorce lawyer” (260 searches per month).
- “divorce mediation tips and tricks” (170 searches per month).
- “adoption laws” for your state (390 searches per month).
You’ll want to optimize your video title, description, and tags on YouTube for the target keywords you hope to rank for.
You can then publish your video on YouTube and embed the video on your website.
This can help drive organic traffic to your website and increase your website’s authority within your industry.
2. Build Trust With Product Highlights
Today’s consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical of “scams” and false advertising claims.
Educated consumers are more likely to invest in brands they know and trust.
Video marketing can be a great way to build trust in your brand.
Product demos and tutorials allow you to demonstrate the benefits and features of your products.
You can show potential customers how they might enjoy your product, use specific features, and apply it to their everyday lives. Sometimes, showing is better than telling!
Where web page copy or blog articles don’t suffice, adding product highlight videos can encourage customers to buy from you.
So, if someone visits your shop and later checks out your website, a helpful video may be enough to entice them to make a purchase.
Further, if you can find keywords to target in your video, you may be able to rank your video on Google and YouTube.
If you have eCommerce functionality, this can be a good way to drive online sales.
3. Repurpose Video Content Across Social Media
Small, local businesses face unique challenges when it comes to marketing.
Often, the market is smaller and local competition can be fierce.
Add in the fact that many small businesses are tight on marketing resources, and it’s even more important to get the best bang for your buck.
That’s where content repurposing comes in.
You can essentially “reuse” your video content across platforms rather than making unique video assets with repurposing.
Here’s one example of how this works:
- You conduct a Facebook Live video session via your local business’s Facebook page.
- You then download the Facebook Live video to your computer to later upload to YouTube.
- You edit your video and publish it to YouTube while also saving individual video clips on social media.
- You re-share these video clips on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
- Once live, you embed your YouTube video in your latest blog article.
- You then link your blog article to your email marketing campaign.
In this case, you are turning a single video into multiple pieces of content to use across seven different platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, website, and email).
You can see how this is a significant time (and money) saver in your video marketing efforts.
4. Increase Connection With Company Bios And Testimonials
Customers often want to feel a close connection with the brand they hope to buy from.
This may be particularly true for local businesses closer to their local community.
Video content can help nurture this connection.
There are a few types of video ideas to build relationships with your customers:
Team Bios
Have your business’s team members share interesting facts about their passions, experience, and hobbies to build a connection between users and your company.
Testimonials
Ask existing customers if they’d like to offer video testimonials reviewing your products or services. This can help build trust with potential customers.
Interviews
Host an “ask a [profressional]” session so prospective customers can learn more about your industry, offerings, and/or company.
Tutorials
Show your service or product in action with expert-led walkthroughs (can be live or pre-recorded)
Event recap
If there’s a popular event in your local area, consider recording your experience and adding your commentary for a post-event recap. The event may be searchable on Google or YouTube depending on its popularity.
Community engagement
Does your business host volunteering events, scholarships, or otherwise get involved in your local community? Show your team in action by recording your work and showcasing it on your Community Initiatives page on your website.
Facebook Live
Facebook Live offers the real-time engagement you can’t get on many other platforms. This allows users to comment, ask questions, and engage with you in a live, digital setting.
Video content adds a personal touch to your marketing.
Nurture that connection with prospective customers and it may inspire a visit to your local business or online shop.
Use Video Marketing To Reach More Local Customers
Video marketing isn’t just the domain of online businesses.
Local businesses can also benefit from the video in unique ways.
While the goal may not be online sales, video marketing can nurture connection, trust, and engagement with prospective customers.
There are many creative ways to use video marketing in your local business.
Whether through educational videos, team bios, Facebook Live, or another medium, video is a great way to bolster your online and local presence.
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Featured Image: fizkes/Shutterstock
