How to Do Small Business Video Marketing

Most small business professionals know that an effective video marketing strategy drives growth — but we aren’t always sure how to do it right, or we think video marketing is too expensive for our small businesses, so we tend to dip our toes in it with a few scattered pieces of video content rather than jump right in.

Perhaps you hired a video production company to make an “About Us” video for you so you’re doing some sort of video marketing. Or maybe you’ve been trying to help your sales team use more video as part of the sales process, but they refuse to record themselves.

If any of these sound like you, chances are you’re feeling intimidated and overwhelmed — especially when you have limited resources. You know video is important, but you feel stuck, you don’t have a plan, and don’t know how to make video work for your business. 

But this is no time to slack off on producing video for your small business. Even though over 80% of online traffic today is made up of consumers looking for video content, the average business has visual content on only 5% to 10% of its website! 

This means most businesses in your industry are not creating video, and there is a whole lot of opportunity for your small business to dominate your industry with video marketing. 

If you think it’s too expensive or difficult to implement, stick with us because we’ll show just how easy (and worth it) video marketing truly is — especially for small businesses. We’ve helped hundreds of B2B and B2C businesses like yours create winning video strategies that build trust with prospects and enable sales teams to sell better than ever.

Examples of businesses using this approach to bringing video in-house, (as outlined in Marcus Sheridan — co-owner and principal here at IMPACT — and Tyler Lessard’s The Visual Sale), include:

• Mazzella Companies: After creating The Lifting and Rigging Channel with this process, they now have over 4,000 YouTube subscribers and have generated over $20 million in revenue.
• Lucidchart: Since it kicked off its Lucidchart Explains the Internet channel, this B2B company that provides diagramming, data visualization, and team collaboration software has reached over 20 million viewers and gained over 400,000 YouTube subscribers. 
• Loyola University: By using this method, the university created an acceptance video that received more than 15,000 views from almost 12,000 people, along with over 4,000 online reviews. Because of their video program, Loyola had record-breaking first-year attendance.

In this article, we’re sharing what you need to do to build a thriving video marketing program that will help your small business:

• drive far more traffic, leads, and sales
• immediately shortens the sales cycle and generates more revenue
• gets your sales team and subject matter experts excited to create video content 

Ready to create videos for your small business that have purpose, drive results, and aren’t just “nice” to have? 

Here’s what to do.

The one thing you must do to succeed in video marketing (that most companies don’t)

Even though it’s clear that video marketing is a fundamental part of the buying process today (of all consumer web traffic in 2022, 82% will be video), most businesses we speak to aren’t using their video marketing resources as efficiently as they should. More often than not, they’re spending thousands of dollars on agency-produced video content that leaves them with a handful of videos, a large hole in their marketing budget, and not much else (if they’re doing video at all).

Yet, time and time again, we see our clients earn the biggest ROI when they embrace a culture of producing video in-house. To get the best possible results with your video marketing strategy, you must hire a full-time videographer to own your business’s video production process.

Upon reading this, you might be thinking, “Why would my business need a full-time videographer? There’s no way we need someone working on this 40 hours per week.”

But the truth is, not one of our small business clients that have taken this initial step would agree — they would tell you there is plenty a videographer could do in a week. They would also tell you that if you could experience the business growth that hiring a full-time videographer has on your sales and marketing numbers, you wouldn’t hesitate, and you might even wonder whether you should hire another. 

As Marcus Sheridan, one of the principals at IMPACT and author of They Ask, You Answer, often says, we are all media companies — and when your sales team is properly using video in the sales process, you’ll quickly see how a videographer is just as important to your bottom line as your sales team. 

So really, hire an in-house videographer. It is the one thing you can do to make your video initiatives immediately successful. 

Learn how to build this video culture within your company with our free course Video Sales and Marketing Strategy by IMPACT’s video coach Zach Basner, or talk to an advisor who can walk you through the steps. While hiring a videographer might not sound like it’s for you, we will show you the incredible benefits of doing so and how to find the right fit for your business. 

Once the right person is in place, making lots of videos for your small business that dramatically increase traffic, leads, and sales can happen in months — not years. 

Speaking of content that actually works, here are the types of video content that, if done properly, will make the most difference. 

Don’t just brainstorm small business video marketing ideas: Focus first on videos that immediately affect sales and closing rates

For small businesses using video in their marketing campaigns, it’s critical to create the right ones first. You need to know which videos are the most effective so your investment helps your company grow and doesn’t drain its resources. 

The most effective videos will help your small business tell a bigger, richer story using the power of the Four E’s (as described in The Visual Sale by Marcus Sheridan and Tyler Lessard):

• Education: Makes it easier for your prospects to process information and remember what they’ve learned. 
• Engagement: Helps you tell better stories and hold your prospects’ attention. 
• Emotion: Triggers joy, anticipation, trust, and other emotions in your prospects, which helps them feel a stronger connection. 
• Empathy: Relates to our prospects’ struggles and fears, which reaches them on a human level.

This is where The Selling 7 comes into play.

While most agencies will teach you how to advertise your business using video the way everyone else does, here at IMPACT we teach our clients how to create seven highly effective videos that build trust with your prospects and skyrocket your sales. Following this framework, each and every video your small business creates will serve a purpose and become another useful tool in your sales team’s toolbox that they will then use to improve their process.

That’s right. Video marketing is a sales initiative. 

And after your in-house videographer cranks out these seven types of videos, your sales team will be well on their way to not only meeting but exceeding their sales goals and growing your bottom line. 

1. The 80% video 

If you ask your sales team what percentage of sales questions they answer on a typical sales call are the same from call to call, they’ll likely tell you they get asked the same questions about 80% of the time. This means your sales team is constantly taking time on their sales calls to answer the same questions over and over again.

What do you think would happen if instead of your sales team answering these questions during each sales call, they had a video in their toolbox they could forward to a prospect to watch prior to their sales call that answers these questions in advance?

The result is a highly useful video your sales team can use to reduce the time they need to spend educating prospects on a call so that instead they can focus on your prospects’ unique challenges. 

To make an 80% video:

• Have your team brainstorm a list of the most important products and services your business offers (you will eventually create an 80% video for each). 
• Once you have these products and services nailed down, come up with the most-asked questions (aim for about seven questions, which we find to be the most effective), and make one video that addresses each question as honestly and thoroughly as you can. 
• Lastly, string these videos together, and there you have it: an 80% video that addresses all the big questions your potential customers typically have.

Post your 80% videos on your business’s YouTube channel and embed them in your website wherever it is useful (product and service pages, etc.). But also be sure to get it into your sales team’s hands so they can immediately use it in their sales process. If they forward it to clients before their sales calls, they’ll notice their sales cycles are immediately shortened by the amount of time they need to spend answering those same old questions they’re always answering.

Here’s an example of an 80% video from IMPACT client Sheffield Metals:

For small businesses, imagine how useful sending a video like this before a sales call would be for you or your sales team.

2. Bio videos for email signatures

When bio videos are created and used in the right way, they are powerful tools for humanizing your business. The reason? They allow prospects to “meet” and see your sales team or any other customer-facing employees before they interact with your business’s employees. 

A bio video should accomplish two things:

• Explain what the person does for the company and what they love about their job.
• Reveal a small bit of personal information about what they do outside of work to give prospects a feel for who they are. 

By mixing the professional and personal information in this 90- to 120-second video and placing it in your email signature, you can get an average of 25 to 30 additional views per month. Now you have more prospects who know your name, face, and story — and before you reach out to them, they will feel like they already know you, as in this example introducing Leigh Ellis of IMPACT client Aquila:

Videos like these turn prospects into customers because they immediately establish a human connection and trust. 

3. Product and service fit videos

Although our product and service pages and videos are often the most trafficked, they are also mostly misused. This is because, as businesses, we approach our products and services information as ways to talk about why our products and services are the best, what they do, etc. 

But most small businesses don’t talk about one very effective thing: who their products and services are not a good fit for.

Now, before you walk away shaking your head in disbelief, hear me out. The moment we explain to prospects why we’re not a good fit, as honestly and thoroughly as possible, we eliminate prospects we would otherwise be wasting our time with, and we become all the more attractive to our right-fit customers.

After training with IMPACT on how to do these videos right, Office Interiors nailed it in this product and service fit video about moveable walls:

In other words, while you help your bad-fit leads weed themselves out, saving your sales team time they otherwise would have wasted, you also strengthen your attractiveness to your good-fit leads because they now know you are a transparent and trustworthy business. 

4. Landing page videos

On your website, you can think of your landing pages as any page that offers a form to prospects to fill out. It might be to “sign up for our newsletter,” “download our free guide,” or even “buy now.” 

When consumers land on these pages, most are wary of providing their personal information because of one or more of the following fears:

• Their personal information might be abused.
• They’ll be spammed with multiple emails.
• They’ll be interrupted with unending sales calls.
• The process to fill out the form might require too much time or thought.

A landing page video serves to eliminate these fears and set the prospect at ease by walking them through exactly what they can expect when they fill out the form. Create these videos for each landing page on your site so that they can be placed directly next to the form with a clear call-to-action, such as “What will happen if I fill out this form?”

River Pools, which is owned by IMPACT co-owner Marcus Sheridan and has been supported by the IMPACT team, has a great example of a landing page video:

Not only will prospects respect your business for being frank and honest, which is hard to come by online these days, but in addition, your small business will see an average form submission increase of 80%.

For many of our clients here at IMPACT, that has helped generate hundreds of thousands in additional revenue they otherwise wouldn’t have seen. 

5. Cost and pricing videos

If you want to create videos that help prospects become customers in a way that few of your competitors are, create videos that address the cost of your products and services. Even if your costs depend on several factors, talk about those factors and how they drive your costs up and down. Talk about the marketplace and how your products and services compare to your competitors’ costs and why. 

Not only do these videos give your sales team another powerful tool for explaining your business, but they also give your prospects an efficient way to share cost information with key decision-makers. This can help overcome any communication gaps that might otherwise happen if a “messenger” is relaying this important information to others. 

If you don’t teach your prospects how to buy from you and why your pricing is what it is, chances are they’ll either purchase the cheapest option or go with the other business that is able to explain their costs. 

See this video by another IMPACT client, RetroFoam of Michigan, to see how this type of video is done right:

6. Customer journey videos

Most businesses know to provide some sort of social proof on their websites, such as client testimonials or case studies, but few companies use what we call customer journeys. 

These are three-stage videos that use the traditional hero’s journey — a storytelling strategy often used in film and literature — to guide people along in a way that makes the most sense:

• Stage 1: Your customer explains their problem — a need, stress, worry, concern, or issue that you’ve helped them solve.
• Stage 2: They share the journey they took to fix the problem. (This should be the journey they share with your company.) 
• Stage 3: Your customer describes where they are today, which shows that with your help they were able to fix the problem.

After working with IMPACT, La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings & Décor created this customer journey video: 

These videos help other prospects see themselves in your customers. They will walk away thinking, “They are just like me, and look how this business helped them solve their issue.” Most happy customers are more than willing to help you out, and it leaves you with a valuable video you can share with prospects that helps them feel more comfortable working with you — which is what all small businesses should try to do. 

7. “Claims we make” videos

Last but not least, your company should create a “claims we make” video that provides your prospects with proof that you are what you say you are. These are typically the things we tell our prospects, such as:

• We are the best at _______.
• We have the most _______.
• No one does _______ like we do.

Any business can make these claims, but the most successful ones can prove it. These videos are sometimes similar to an “about us” video, but when they’re done right, they provide visual proof of why you claim what you do.

For example, if your small business manufactures something with unique materials that are difficult to source, create a video that explains the process. If you say on your website that your people are what makes your business different, use a video to show that — like IMPACT’s client Service Thread did:

Behind the scenes videos like this show the people, the processes, and the follow-through that makes your business stand out.

(And if you don’t think your business is that different  — which is how some of our clients feel), simply making one of these videos shows you are. )

In our Pro course, Crafting “The Selling 7” videos that convert, you can learn more about how to create these videos with IMPACT coach Will Schultz (which is free with a 14-day trial of IMPACT+). And if you’re still unsure how to create these videos in a way that helps your sales team, talk to an advisor at IMPACT who can answer all your questions. 

Plan a personalized approach to video marketing for email with these easy steps

Now that you know which videos your business needs for the biggest impact on its sales figures and ROI, you need to set your sales team up for success with an effective approach to email: personalized video. 

Where we now stand, only 18% of our marketing emails are ever opened, but by telling prospects there is a video in the email (in the subject header), prospects are much more likely to open it. And with a message inside from your sales team using their name specifically, they’re also more likely to respond.

Think about it: have you ever received an email from a small business that took those extra steps? It's rare and truly helps you stand out from the crowd.

The good news is there are several simple-to-use technologies out there that make the personalized video process super-quick and easy for your sales team:

1. Choose simple technologies: Platforms such as Vidyard and Wistia make sending personalized emails incredibly easy. Not only are they a cinch to learn (it will take your sales team minutes), but they also have free versions your team can get started with today. 
2. Train your team on how to use them: Our experience is that many sales team members at the mid-size companies and small businesses we train can be less “techie” than others. It’s helpful to schedule a training session to get your team on board and fully functional when using video for email. Even a two-hour “how-to” can go a long way in generating big results since many of the technologies for video are easy to use.
3. Teach your team the importance of a strong subject line: It’s likely your sales team fires off hundreds of emails a month, but without effective subject lines, prospects won’t open them. Teach your sales team how to create subject lines that engage people by using personalization (whether using the prospect’s name or company name, this is a must — in addition to saying you included a video for them) and the reason for your email so they know what’s in it for them if they read it. For example: “Krista: A quick video I made for you explaining your question about cost.” 
4. Show them how to create the perfect thumbnail: Teach your team how effective their videos can be if they use enticing video thumbnails. This could be an animated thumbnail of them waving, or holding up a sign saying “Hi, [prospect’s name]!” It’s an effective way to show prospects that a friendly and inviting video that is specifically made for them awaits.
5. Set a “don’t stop” rule: Many of your team members will swear they aren’t good on camera and might feel uncomfortable at first. Implement a “don’t stop” rule from the start, and the more your team is cranking out these personalized sales videos, the more comfortable they will feel. 
6. Set the right tone with internal communication: All of these steps are easy for your team to learn — they just take a little time and dedication. There is no better way to demonstrate how effective video is than by making an example of it in your day-to-day communication. Here at IMPACT, we use video all the time to share feedback on projects and make company announcements. It’s an effective way to communicate, and by setting the precedent by doing it yourself, you’re modeling a strong example that you also practice what you preach.

Head over to IMPACT+ to learn from our video coach Zach Basner how to master on-camera performance, or set up an appointment with an advisor to get additional tips about teaching your sales team how to use personalized videos to make a better connection with your business’s prospects. It’s easy to do and makes a world of difference to the growth of your business. 

Build a fool-proof video marketing strategy for your small business 

The information and examples we've shared with you here come from the award-winning inbound marketing framework we teach our clients called They Ask, You Answer. Here at IMPACT, we strive to help businesses like yours build the best inbound marketing strategies on the planet, and a large portion of our clients’ success comes from the They Ask, You Answer approach to video marketing. This method has worked for thousands of companies, small and large, B2B and B2C, and across a wide range of industries.

Hundreds of our IMPACT clients have used these steps to help their sales teams realize incredible results.

To implement They Ask, You Answer in your business, which you can either do on your own or with the help of our coaches, here are a few helpful resources:

1. What is They Ask, You Answer?
2. Fundamentals of The Visual Sale

Our strategic coaching and hands-on training for your marketing and sales teams will help you improve your video strategy and scale your business one-on-one. Set up a time to talk to one of our advisors, and we’ll show you how to alleviate your video marketing challenges so you can finally do what you set out to: Help your small business grow.