How Startups Are Using Video Marketing To Grow

A startup can be a great business move for fresh new entrepreneurs. It can upscale quickly and generate a fair amount of profit, especially if you create an innovative product or service. But with millions of startups launching each year, the competition is tough.

It’s crucial for any startup to have a firm grasp on the marketing tools at their disposal, and any new brand or business in this day and age needs to have a solid marketing strategy in place.

As the digital marketing world grows, it’s clear that video is fast emerging as a powerful tool. More and more research suggests that videos can be a great way to convey information, increase sales, and improve user experience (UX).

Let’ go over some of the different ways successful startups are using video marketing to grow:

To explain their business

When you head to a website, reading through all the information on the home page and the about page can become tedious. Using video content to explain your business is a great way to easily and effectively communicate what your customers/audience needs to know.

Whether it’s to introduce your team, explain how to use your services, or as a startup video conveying your brand’s message, videos can be a great way to connect with your audience. You can learn more about startup videos here.

Effective Storytelling

Generally speaking, visuals appeal to our emotions more than other mediums. Amongst visual mediums, videos are probably the most effective means of communication. In business, there’s a term called storytelling that effectively means telling the story of your brand. Video is possibly the best form of content to use in telling your brand’s story.

Most entrepreneurs will know that in order to sell a product to your market, you need to use the “Point, Story, Metaphor” formula. A great way to do this is through video content, so that as many people as possible can hear your “Point,” know your “Story,” and connect it all with that “Metaphor.” Having a unique story is going to help make you stand out from the crowd. But you still want it to be accessible and memorable. (1)

Writing great sales copy might work, but it can be hard to connect with just words. High-quality videos with the right visuals and the right words can work even more effectively than either of these things on their own.

Personal testimonials

Testimonials are used as a tool to share customer’s experiences and build brand trust. When you combine the effectiveness of testimonials with the power of video, this can provide impressive results. With all this put together, videos can work to enable strong connections with future customers/viewers.

Encourage your customers to send a video of themselves using the product, even if it’s just a short clip using their phone can work. This way, the videos can seem as genuine and authentic as possible. Many startups have gained interest this way on social media.

Embracing video platforms

Platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are great ways to gain exposure for your brand and business. Startups can use the opportunities provided by these platforms to gain the exposure they need to get their business off the ground and become recognizable. Some brands use YouTube as a video hub where they store all their training videos, FAQs, and more.

YouTube is also now used as the second largest search engine after Google. Many startups have published on YouTube for this specific reason, as you will receive a higher internal traffic ranking than if you publish content on other platforms. YouTube videos also rank really well on Google, so if you’ve done your keyword research you’ll receive double the benefits.

Expanding audience reach

There is so much competition out there among brands and businesses, so it only makes sense to utilize the best tools at your disposal. Videos can be more time-consuming to make than emails, blogs, or social media posts, but they’re worth it.

Videos can open up avenues to a much larger target population than almost any other medium. Research has indicated that a third of the activities you can take part in on the internet somehow involve watching and downloading videos. Over five billion videos are viewed on YouTube every day, and 53% of these viewers are still seeking more videos. (2) (3)

All it takes is one short clip. One video can make all the difference and grow your startup into something huge.

Improving brand awareness

Brand awareness is crucial. If no one knows who you are or what you do, they’re not even going to know where to look to find your product. Many startups are using videos to gain this awareness amongst potential clients, customers, or investors. As we touched on before, many social platforms such as YouTube and Instagram make it easier to incorporate videos into your marketing plan.

According to a recent study, videos can increase brand recognition by 54%. Essentially, the attention span of internet users is getting smaller. Users are less likely to read through long form content and more likely to watch a short video. (3)

Converting sales

Videos can also be used as sales tools. In fact, people are 80% more likely to become a customer if you have a video on your landing page. Testimonials, product reviews, and live videos are all effective ways to use video to convert potential customers into actual customers. (4)

Consumers seem to trust videos much more than other mediums and are more likely to feel at ease exchanging their money for your services if you use videos within your content marketing. 52% of small businesses surveyed by Biteable believe that video marketing does help them build trust with potential customers. 74% said video has a better return on investment than static imagery. (2) (5)

It’s clear that there is success to be found using video marketing.

What to take away

Many businesses can learn from the success of those who use video marketing to grow their brands. Successful startups should be especially aware of new and emerging trends, and if they have the know-how, how to use video marketing to increase visibility, convert sales, and help their startup to become a strong and healthy business.