It can be a challenge for startups to get seen and heard.
The problem is that a lot of great ideas and business ventures fall through the cracks. This typically happens when marketing efforts miss the mark.
If you want your startup to grab stakeholders’ attention and rise above the ranks, you’ll have to communicate what you’re offering in an engaging, memorable, and effective way. For this purpose, videos can be ideal.
Our survey bolsters the case for video marketing, too. take a look at this chart.
If you take a look at the most-funded Kickstarter projects, you’ll note that about 90% of the campaigns listed on the first page have a video that introduce and describe the company along with its offering.
Now, considering that not all Kickstarter projects rise to the occasion (as of December 2019, 62.56% of Kickstarter projects were deemed “unsuccessful”) it would be a smart move to give your startup campaign the best chance at thriving with a well-made video.
Let’s keep in mind that videos aren’t just great for Kickstarter campaigns.
They have proved, time and again, to be one of the most valuable marketing tools for helping businesses in their infancy to arrive on the scene early on in their journey.
According to our research, 58% of marketers we surveyed said that they use video content to build brand awareness.
The numbers don’t lie. Here’s an example of a startup that decided to put a video at the heart of its marketing efforts and saw remarkable results.
Dropbox’s big win
Dropbox is an established name now, but when it made its debut in 2007, the company faced a barrier with its marketing strategy.
Initially, Dropbox tried to use Google AdWords to reach its target audience.
This approach, however, proved to be unsuccessful because they were spending $300 per customer acquired.
The strategy was not ideal or sustainable at the time. Essentially, the company was having trouble trying to solve a problem that people weren’t even aware they had yet.
To combat this, the file-hosting service then chose a two-pronged approach. First, they pushed a referral campaign to attract customers.
Users who spread the word about the company’s service through social media and e-mail were rewarded with free space. Consequently, these users became brand advocates.
Then, Dropbox focused on designing a home page centered around a video featuring simple stick-figure drawings that showed what the product does. No fancy charts, tables, or graphs. Just a video.
The result:
The revamped strategy worked wonders. In just two and a half years, Dropbox’s valuation rose to $4 billion.
Following the example set by Dropbox, and others that came before, plenty of new startups have found success with videos.
The reasoning behind this is simple: videos make an impact because they can get to the heart of your product or service and have the potential to reveal your company’s why in sixty seconds.
Consider it a more creative and dynamic version of your elevator pitch.
In my experience, I’ve seen videos help startups in so many ways. Here are a couple that really stick out.
Reason 1: Highly effective in the early stages of your business
A video has the potential to leave a great first impression.
This is great especially when you’re in the initial stages of developing your businesses and trying to connect and communicate meaningfully with investors, partners, and people from the industry.
A short video can help you pitch to busy executives, who probably don’t have the time to go through pages of a descriptive proposal.
Our study revealed that marketers found video to be the most effective form of communication with their customers.
Read more: Video Marketing During COVID-19 – Insights from Entrepreneurs and Marketers
If you’re new to marketing with this medium, download our step-by-step guide on how to build a video marketing campaign.
How to build a video marketing campaign for startups
Reason 2: Great asset for increasing sales
A landing page embedded with a video can be much more engaging than one without (think back to Dropbox’s example).
And your video’s utility doesn’t just end there. You can use it as part of your sales funnel and explain what your product or service is to prospects.
If you’re in the B2B space and are reaching out to your prospects directly through email or LinkedIn, adding your video along with your message can be massively effective, too.
You can also add a link to your video in your proposals before sending them out to potential clients.
Related: Complete Guide to Using Video in Email Marketing
Reason 3: You can optimize them to run as powerful ads on social media
We all know that social media is a powerful tool for brands that want to promote themselves.
The challenge for marketers is that the attention spans of users on these platforms are very short which means the promotional material needs to be attention-grabbing and engaging in order to be effective.
Typically, a 60- to 90-second video may not be the most suitable medium to promote on Facebook or Instagram.
However, you can optimize your video into short 15- to 30-second cuts that hook people’s attention and spark their curiosity to learn more and land on your website.
You could also share these clips as short video stories. They are one of the top social media trends of 2020. Might as well make the best of it.
If you’re curious about which platforms are popular amongst marketers for sharing video stories, take a look at these stats:
Conclusion
Investing a good sum of money in a video when you’re starting out can be intimidating.
However, the fact that it can be used consistently to communicate who you are in an engaging way through different channels can turn out to be immensely beneficial in the long-run.
Interested in kick-starting a video project for your startup? Get in touch and let’s brainstorm!
Talk with a video strategist