Jennifer Sanchez
I spend an undisclosed amount of time on YouTube and watching ridiculous vines. For whatever reason, these videos are addicting. YouTube has more than 1 billion users and Vine has racked up more than 40 million users. I’m not saying that a lot of these people shouldn’t put down the iPhone and put up a paperback book (myself included). What I am saying is that people are receiving content online in different ways. No one has the time or patience to read an entire pages of pages of boring content, when they can receive that same information in a 10 second entertaining video.
When it comes to your website, let’s hope you didn’t spend 6 hours crafting a 6,000 word page about your company. But if you did and you’re getting frustrated that people aren’t making it past the first paragraph, here are a few ideas to use videos to spruce up your website:
1. Get to know the team
Our new website has a pretty legit About page (including a video). Incorporating a video from each person on your team would be a great step above your average “author bio” or team page with a picture. If your team is too large, having a video of your CEO or someone who interacts regularly with clients or prospects would be ideal.
If you have a remote team, this is a great way for potential clients to see exactly who they will be working and interacting with. Author bios are great and are certainly needed, but having a video takes it a step above, shows off your personality, and shows what makes you unique.
2. Introduce your company
Not everyone has a product or company that can be easily and briefly explained through text. Visitors should be able to visit your website, scan your homepage, and understand what your company provides in 30 seconds or less. If you have a more complicated service offering or product, this is a great place for a video to clearly explain your company and what exactly you’re providing.
Crosswater at Pablo Bay is a home builder community in Jacksonville, Florida and client of LW. They have a great example of how to use video marketing on your website. On their Life at Crosswater page, they have a video where they introduce their location and community. They also have staff members from both Crosswater and one of their home builders introducing the community. Much more effective than photos and text testimonials.
3. Office tour
Moving to a new office or Upgrading to a new, larger space? Giving a video office tour is a great way to show your web visitors you are expanding and your company is growing. It’s a more effective and exciting way to get customers to take note of your new address. Certainly much better than a tweet saying “We’ve moved!”
4. Training videos
PracticeSuite is a medical billing software company and LW client. They utilize video marketing for multiple training videos on how to use their software. They have educational content easily available on their website for their visitors, and visitors who want to learn more can easily sign up for webinars. This can also help your sales team direct customers who have questions about using your product or software.
5. Demos
HubSpot gives a great ungated demo of their product. They also provide an opportunity to sign up for a live demo customized for your business. Having a demo really helps to show how a product or service with many moving parts works.
6. Along with advanced content
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard about Inbound Sally and her Frozen adventure. Being an Inbound Marketer is Hard, the Adventures of Inbound Sally did so well that we had to come up with a part two. Do You Want to Build a Campaign is a follow up eBook along with a Frozen parody video. It’s completely ridiculous but it got people’s attention, and helped increase our traffic and leads.
7. On your blog
We had a good run with shooting Friday Fails every week on our blog. It was a ton of fun and covered a multitude of topics regarding inbound marketing, websites, SEO, and more. While we still put the transcript of the blog along with the video, it allowed us to still post regularly to our blog, just changing things up a bit. We saw increased traffic to our blog, and were able to embed calls-to-action within the video to also link to some of our advanced content.
What are some ways that you’ve used videos to help spruce up your website?
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