Have you ever learned something thanks to Google videos?
You surely have.
Take me, for example—a few weeks ago, I learned how to cook Bucatini all’Amatriciana, one of the most delicious kinds of pasta ever. Before that, I tried learning how to throw a football like Tom Brady. Good times.
That’s the beauty of videos. They tell you exactly how to do something in great detail.
The same goes for online marketing. A business that makes instructional videos provides a lot of value for customers trying to learn something.
In the article, we’ll talk about five important reasons why businesses should create “how-to” videos.
1. Help customers learn how to use your products
A video is a perfect medium to explain how a product or service works to both prospective and existing customers.
This applies to all businesses, from pasta-making equipment sellers to SaaS companies making chatbots.
PayPal, for example, uses how-to videos to explain various product features.
This quick one below, in particular, walks customers through the process of creating an invoice inside the tool.
Thanks to straightforward explanation and helpful voice-over, a customer should be able to send branded invoices after watching.
A product explainer video like this targets both potential and existing customers.
On the one hand, it’s helpful for the current PayPal customers to learn how to make invoices — an essential financial operation.
On the other hand, people looking for an online payment app can see how easy invoicing is with PayPal.
So, be it a 30-second explainer video or a detailed product walkthrough one, videos are easier to use than reading manuals or guides.
And your customers will choose them first if they have a choice.
2. Rank higher on Google
How does “ranking higher on Google” help your brand grow?
Simple—about 23 percent of product searches begin with a search engine.
That’s thousands of potential customers looking for your products and services using Google.
Searches that begin with “How to…” are some of the most popular and present an opportunity for your business to get some exposure.
Let’s assume that you’re a SaaS business selling an online resume builder—an app where people can easily make resumes and download them.
Your potential readers can use numerous search requests to look for your product on Google. Like these.
If you create how-to videos targeting these requests, Google might rank it high and drive potential customers to your website.
With thorough keyword research and a passion to help people, you can bet that your content will get results.
Each request in the image above is a potential keyword representing a unique search intent—essentially, it’s a topic for a unique video.
That’s why targeting appropriate keywords is necessary to drive traffic from Google.
Learn how your potential customers use search engines to find products and services like yours and create business videos to help them in their buyer’s journey.
Consistent uploading schedule and quality video content will send Google a clear signal that you’re a serious company that can provide value.
This is when your videos will start ranking and give you more exposure.
Read more: Google Loves Video and Here’s What’s In It for You
3. Help customers solve a specific issue
Take a look at the image with Google searches above. Can you find any mentions of products in those search queries?
Of course not.
People look for solutions to their problems rather than specific products (unless you’re running a company like Apple).
Since videos are excellent explanation tools, you can use them to show how your potential customers can solve an issue they’ve been struggling with.
Here’s an example—let’s say you’re running a software company selling chatbots. They are useful tools that provide customer service and share marketing messages.
Here are some goals your target customers might have:
- Providing 24/7 customer support
- Recovering more abandoned shopping carts
- Increasing awareness of promotions and sales among store visitors.
You can make a video showing how to use your product to tackle each of these. The point would be to not advertise your tool but rather show how it solves a specific problem.
Here’s an example—A chatbot company made this how-to video to give their users step-by-step instructions for building a chatbot for automated lead generation.
A customer interested in improving lead generation can learn this useful trick.
With chatbots being somewhat novel for many people, explaining how to use them in a video is the best way to reduce hesitation and make a user consider buying.
4. Target customers across your sales funnel
A sales funnel is a series of steps a person takes to learn about your business and become a customer.
It’s a strategy businesses use to tailor marketing messaging for each customer group (the people who haven’t heard about your business, those who have visited your website, existing customers, etc.)
The beauty of how-to videos is that they fit anywhere in a sales funnel. Here’s how.
- Top of the funnel (the discovery and awareness stage) — customers are unaware of your brand and looking for a solution to a problem they have. Short explainer videos that show how to solve that problem could grab their attention
- Middle of the funnel (product research) — videos that walk viewers through product features can help explain why your offering is an excellent choice
- Bottom of the funnel (making the purchase decision) — Videos that can help customers discover the full potential of the product or service they have acquired. This type of content can delight and retain your buyers.
If your sales funnel is leaking customers—that means that they stop engaging with your brand at a specific stage—you can use short videos to cover that “weak point.”
Here’s an example—this short explainer video describes how to get started with an app and find the best candidates within one minute.
Since it serves as an introduction to the product, it could be useful for “top-of-the-funnel” customers looking for solutions.
Top-of-the-funnel explainer videos like this one are perfect to advertise businesses. That’s why they are often a part of marketing campaigns on social media and Google.
Read more: 3 Tips for Creating Short Videos to Boost Customer Loyalty
5. Prove your expertise
Instructional videos help showcase expertise and build a reputation as a reliable business. Just think about these opportunities that come with videos:
- Showcase industry expertise. Creating a resume builder tool, for example, requires a good knowledge of recruitment trends
- Demonstrate how well you know your prospects. Even a short software product explainer shows how knowledgeable your company is about its target audience because the product’s features are tailored to meet their needs.
The ultimate benefit of videos is the confidence they inspire in customers. By helping to build your company’s reputation, video content gives a chance to make that good first impression.
Pro tip: Use video customer testimonials as another tactic to prove your expertise and build credibility.
Since 62 percent of customers say that video testimonials help them make a buying decision, it’s an opportunity no business can afford to ignore.
How-to video marketing—wrapping up
The ultimate benefit of how-to videos is that they provide an opportunity to avoid in-your-face advertising.
It’s something that all businesses are trying to accomplish. And if done right, videos can help your business serve customers at any stage of the sales funnel.
Isn’t that amazing? No other medium does that better than video.
If you’d like to create a video for your business, get in touch with us. We’d love to help bring your vision to life.
Talk with a video strategist
This post was written by Bridgette Hernandez. She is an expert guest author specializing in writing education and marketing guides.
Bridgette has authored hundreds of publications in content marketing, customer psychology, and digital marketing for universities.
She is currently working on Subjecto, a project dedicated to helping students use flashcards to learn core concepts in first-year classes.