Video Marketing is enjoying a huge growth in popularity. In the past six months we’ve seen a big increase in demand from our customers looking to exploit the power of online video in their marketing campaigns. There are two simple reasons for this. Firstly, and most importantly, online video is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. Secondly, advancements in technology mean that it is now far more cost-effective to create impressive online video campaigns than was previously possible.

Most homes and businesses in the UK now have internet speeds that allow the streaming of online video to happen almost instantaneously and, at the same time, the technology available to shoot and edit videos is becoming a lot more accessible and cost-effective. This presents a great opportunity for businesses willing to try something new to stand out from the competition and, as I will explain shortly, it can also be a great way to improve your sales process.

It surprises me that more businesses don’t make use of online video because it is such an effective method of communication. Don’t get me wrong, the text content on our website is extremely important but the videos do so much more than the text ever can. We can say what we want in our text but the videos are much more real and dynamic - it shows prospective customers what we’re really all about.

One of the ways we use video is to film our clients talking about their business and the benefits they have gained working with us. Sure, we could get a quote and put that up instead, but seeing that person actually talking about these benefits makes it seem so much more real and tangible. 

The main aim of the Brinn Marketing website and sales process is to build trust and credibility into everything we do – the videos do this brilliantly. We’re not the only ones using video on our site of course, 37 signals use it to great effect on their site and were actually a major influence for us deciding to start making the most of this on our site. I defy anyone to watch the client testimonial videos on the 37 Signals site and not at least sign up for a free trial of one of their products!

Video can also be a great step to add into your sales process at an early stage to build further trust and credibility before a prospect even speaks to anyone at your business. Whenever anyone fills in a form on our website, we point them back to a video within our site that talks about the reasons marketing often doesn’t work. This warms up the prospect further before talking to us so by the time they speak to one of our advisors they’re already on the same page and are warmed up to what we have to say.

We have the expertise to film and edit all of our videos in house and we also offer it as a service to our clients – most are surprised that it is actually as cost-effective as it is. But even if you don’t want to pay an external company to do this, as I explained earlier, the technology is now available to be able to do this yourself with minimal amounts of training and, more importantly money! They might not be Hollywood productions but (within reason) this actually adds further trust and credibility because it appears more real and genuine rather than an overly sleek corporate video.

So before I leave you all to go away and think about how you could use video to great effect in your sales and marketing process, there are a couple of things to point out that will help you along the way:

1. Always give people the option of whether or not to watch video on your site – it is extremely annoying when you go on a website and videos begin playing that you haven’t purposely clicked on (remember that users of your site may be in an environment where it is not suitable to watch video such as an office or quiet space)
2. This is an extension of my first point and is really just an opinion, but one form of video I would avoid is one that is appearing more and more on corporate websites where someone appears on the screen as if they are ‘inside the website’ and begins talking (see here for example).  These are extremely annoying because they break the rule above of playing automatically and not at the users request. More than that though, I would bet my last penny that this form of corporate video will be a huge fad, will fast become dated and will actually have a negative rather than positive effect for potential customers visiting your site. You have been warned!

Happy Filming