Why making a mobile video for your small business is more cost-effective than you might think

Creating a video to promote your business used to be left to larger businesses, but as technology has improved, the cost has decreased, making video production a financially viable marketing tool for businesses of all sizes.

The ever-changing face of digital marketing

Over the last 10 to 15 years, it’s been impossible not to notice the increasing importance of digitisation in the commercial world. When a small business owner recognises the need to go ‘online’ to remain competitive, they also become aware of the necessity of regularly promoting their digital presence, so that their potential new customers can find them online.

The ways that small businesses try to direct the right traffic to their websites have changed rapidly, over recent years, in response to the changing behaviours of web users. Many of these changes relate to the increasing use of mobile devices, especially the explosive growth in people watching videos on their mobile devices.

Back in 2011, only 6 percent of YouTube’s traffic came from mobile devices. Six years on and mobile devices are now responsible for over 70 percent of their billions of views per day. Many small business owners are now capitalising on these figures by creating their own videos in a cost-effective way.

Creating cost-effective video content

When you consider the amount of video content that’s being watched every day, creating your own video can be a very valuable marketing opportunity, if you’re able to keep your costs down.

The video content you create isn’t going to have a cast of thousands, be shot on a desert island by a Hollywood director and last for a couple of hours. Instead, it will probably be one to three minutes long and might be written, directed by and even starring you.

If creating your own video seems daunting, have a look at what your competitors are doing and you’ll see that making something memorable doesn’t have to be as complicated or costly as you might have thought. In fact, you might already own some of the kit you need to produce a video.

In many cases, the smart phone in your pocket has the capability to produce a HD quality video. Some of the most expensive brands in the world have shown us the way in creating beautiful looking films, shooting and editing them with just iPhones and iPads. The luxury car company Bentley made videos costing far less than one of their new models.

You’ll still have to think creatively to keep your budget low, but there are a couple of cheaper types of script that are good starting points. One thing you can do is keep things simple by filming an interview of yourself or a colleague. Another way is to record an event or presentation that you or one of your colleagues makes, which you can edit afterwards and add voices, titles and music over the filmed action.

When creating video content, you should keep three key things in mind:

1. Make relevant content that your audience will be interested in
2. As people don’t have long attention spans, keep your ads short
3. A clear call to action tells your audience what to do next so they stay engaged

Get these things right and you’ll find that video content can give your small business the opportunity to create something with high engagement and the capacity to provide far more information than more traditional advertising formats.

Finding the right video channels for your mobile content

Once the content has been created, your next step is to upload the video to the right channels so that your mobile audience is able to see it, when they’re watching the things they like. So where are the best places to post your video content?

When you’re uploading video ads, the first things to consider are the location of your audience, when they watch mobile videos and what types of videos they watch.

If, for example, you run a personal training company based in Sydney, you probably want to show your video in the mornings, lunchtimes and evenings, to people within a 50-kilometre radius of the city. A popular YouTube channel showing lots of health and fitness programmes would be a great channel to target. Uploading a video to YouTube is quite a straightforward process and it also allows you to show your video on your own website.

Just as there are varying amounts of money you could spend on making your video, there is a wide variety of costs for placing your content. It costs nothing to show your video on your own website or social media page, but you might choose to pay for it to be seen on someone else’s website or as a paid ad.

Facebook and Instagram allow you to show your videos for free but you can also promote them via paid ads. With video ads, you can choose the keywords you want to use to target people searching for related content and you can even pick specific videos and websites where you want your ads to be seen.

In the past, creating your own video content to sell your company’s products or services wasn’t financially viable. In the future, video production looks like it might be one of your best marketing options.

If you’re ready to boost your skill level, you can learn more about this topic by signing up for Google’s Digital Garage free learning modules.