Video Content For Small Business: Why you need it and how to make it

Taylor Alden

Taylor Alden

-Guest blog by Gary Gumbleton (www.capitalcontent.co)

Businesses know they need to make content but they tend not to know what to make and how to make it. Gary Gumbleton, Managing Director of Capital Content explains how to structure your video content strategy and the essentials you need to convert eyeballs in to sales. When looking at a video content strategy, a business needs to view themselves as a TV network; just like the BBC. Under the network, there are channels: BBC1, BBC 2 and BBC News. Each of these channels have their own specific audience. For a business, instead of thinking of an audience per channel, the channels should be business objectives eg:

  • Raise brand awareness
  • Sell more product
  • Position themselves as a thought leader

Within each channel, there are seasons and episodes. Nowadays, it’s no longer about one long 10 minute video. Its about 10 short 1 minute videos. It gives you a ‘Contact Moment’ which is an excuse to go back out of social/email with another piece of content.

Think about your business objectives and write down the video ideas that support them. Segment the list of ideas in to seasons per channel. A good start is to look at your own FAQs and create a video for each one. Not only would they work well reactively (when someone researches your business via your website) but also sales enablement (instead of writing the same response for objection handling, send a link to your content hub that answers their question…and others).

Here at Capital Content, we always recommend having the following 3 simple channels of content as a good foundation of a longer term strategy:

  • Thought Leadership
  • Behind The Scenes
  • Community Involvement

 

Thought Leadership

 This channel of content is your thinly veiled sales pitch. Here you want to show the interested pubic that you know your industry outside of your product. You need to build confidence in to the viewer that you are a leader in your industry without the ‘hard sell’ of how good your product is. No one likes to be sold to. As soon as you start selling via video content, people will skip next.

A great example of thought leadership content is an estate agent inviting in a mortgage advisor and having a discussion about interest rates. No one is saying ‘buy this house’ or ‘use me for a mortgage’ but you are instilling confidence in to the viewer that you are the people to talk about the industry as a whole.

Behind The Scenes

People buy from people. If you work for the red team and left to go work for the blue team, people will buy from you while working for the blue team. You need to show who or what is behind the logo. Become personable so people start a ‘relationship’ with your company and move away from the supplier/vendor situation that you may be in. Staff profiles, an office move, footage of you on site with a client are all great examples of BTS video content. It also uses what we call the ‘Mirror Strategy’. If your viewer sees people like themselves in the video, they will want to invest time and money with that business because they sub consciously see themselves in that video.

Community Involvement

 A CI strategy doesn’t have a direct ROI of sorts but it is absolutely essential in this day and age. The new buying group coming up through the ranks are the Millennials. Over the years, us older generations have told the millennials that they ‘shouldn’t worry, its all going to be ok, you WILL be able to buy a house’. Sadly, this is not the case and now they don’t trust us. The only way to build trust with a stranger is face to face. You can’t meet all prospects face to face so the next best thing is video.

Millennials want a moral, ethical business to invest their money in. You need to show that your business is doing good for the community and therefore your community should give back to you. Do you sponsor a local football team? Are your staff training for a sponsored 5k run? Do you have a strong sustainability strategy? If you answer yes to any of those questions, make a video about it. This kind of content incorporates what we call the ‘1mil/2mil’ strategy. If your business gives £1m to charity, you should spend £2m telling people about it.

Pulling together the TV Network structure and creating content using the 3 simple channels mentioned, your business will have a great, long term video content strategy. You have a camera in your pocket right now so write down some ideas and start shooting.