Video marketing continues to be a rising trend as more and more businesses look to market themselves in new, effective ways. The numbers continue to justify the actions, year after year. Video marketing for engineering firms works.
According to a 2016 survey, 76 percent of businesses say that the use of video marketing has provided them with a good ROI, and that number only continues to increase as time goes by. Potential clients seem to connect more with a business when there’s a video on your website, preferably on your front page.
Why? When you’re optimizing your company’s website so it ranks highly on search engines (SEO), videos tend to help push your ranking up a few notches. In fact, your website is 53 times more likely to show up first on a Google search engine results page if you have a video embedded on your page.
But, how can all these insights help your engineering firm? Good question.
Whether your firm is focused on consulting engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, or more, you’re constantly in competition with other firms and consultants. You have an extremely limited amount of time to capture the interest of your audience and demonstrate your value – making video the perfect tool.
Taking up just a few minutes of your site visitors’ time, you can generate excitement, convey your talent, sum up the most important information on your site, and encourage potential clients to reach out. Plus, video is versatile, and can be used across all of your channels, including social media, email marketing, and depending on the length, your online ads. If you choose to invest in video creation, you’ll get more bang for your buck by sharing it across multiple channels, by ultimately getting in front of more eyes.
So, what can you do to get started with video marketing for your engineering firm? First things first.
Pick Your Equipment
Even with video for social media, you’ll want to select equipment that will help you produce professional looking video. Most smartphones have high quality cameras that are suitable for the job, but be sure to purchase a smartphone tripod for steady footage. There are many different kinds available, usually for a reasonable price. For higher quality footage, there are also many HD video cameras available on the market today that would meet your needs, although you may need to shell out a little more for one of these.
If you’re going to shoot inside, or somewhere that’s not well lit, think about buying a free standing, directional light or two. And, if you don’t have any visually appealing places to shoot, consider using a green screen to place your subjects anywhere you like. If you opt for the green screen, additional lighting is a must. These pieces of equipment can be purchased online.
The last piece of equipment to think about is your editing software. If you’re expecting to do only some basic editing, free editing software may be enough. For more advanced editing, consider purchasing Final Cut or Adobe Premier. These programs will give you the tools to great compelling video content.
Your website is 53 times more likely to show up first on a Google if you have a video embedded on your page.
Let Them See Who You Are
The thought of standing in front of a camera and talking about your firm might scare you enough to change your mind about video marketing altogether. It’s one thing to talk with people face to face, but it’s something else entirely to feel like you’re having to “perform” in front of a camera.
This is perfectly normal. A little bit of stage fright is common for people who aren’t used to being in front of a camera. That’s why it’s a great idea to record multiple takes at first. This gives you the opportunity to get a little more comfortable in front of the camera and allows for you to look over your work and see if you need to make improvements. And, don’t be too afraid to ask someone else to give you unbiased direction.
It’s important to be personable! No one wants to watch a video of someone who’s as interesting as dry toast. Add a little personality to your videos. You don’t want to go overboard, but you want to – at the very least – be interesting. Again, this is something you can work on in the beginning and tweak as you continue to do more videos. Remember, you only have a few moments to capture the interest of your audience, so make it count.
Remember Your End Goal
During the video production process, keep in mind your end goal. You want to communicate your expertise and demonstrate your value, in a short amount of time. Of course, you already know about your knowledge and expertise, but does that come across in the video you’re putting together? What are you selling? What is the purpose of this video?
That last question is probably the most important. If you don’t have anything to say, you don’t need to create a video. Of course, the entire purpose of video marketing is that you DO have something to say, so remember that when you’re recording. If you don’t have a clear purpose for that specific video going in, viewers will be able to tell.
Before stepping in front of the camera, it’s a good idea to come up with some talking points of what you want to say, how you want to say it, and why you need to say it. The focus is video marketing, so you want to talk candidly with potential clients about what you do, and how you can help them. Creating talking points instead of a script will help keep your videos personable, and prevent you from sounding like a scripted robot.
What’s the Story?
There are times when you should record short, 10- to 30-second clips. Then there are times you should put together videos that are a bit longer.
Regardless of the size, you need to know your story. Each video needs to be unique, showcasing different ways you can help a potential client. You know what they’re going through, you understand their problem, and you can help them achieve their goal.
Your story is your firm – it’s that simple. Everything your engineering firm does is part of that story. Your goal in video marketing is communicating that story to potential clients. Again, you know your potential client’s problem and you know how to fix it. Convey that in your story.
Give the People What They Want
Another part of your video marketing message is letting potential clients know you have the resources and know-how to help them, but the best way to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about is to show them.
Think of each video as a video blog post, where you talk about their problems. Before wrapping the video up with your call to action, add some value to the video. You are the expert in your field, and this is your platform to showcase it.
Viewers are watching your video looking for answers, and if you have an answer for them – showing that your company is, indeed, the best in the business – you’re more likely to have a higher conversion rate.
You Have Videos – Now What?
Congratulations! After numerous attempts, false starts, editing, reshooting, etc., you have videos that are not only impressive, but give you a sense of pride and accomplishment. It’s tough doing video marketing, isn’t it?
OK, you have these videos, so what do you plan to do with them? You plan on adding them to your website, sure. That should be high on your list of things to do with them. It’s also good to add a video on your home page, as it helps with search engine rankings and keeps viewers on your home page longer.
What else do you plan to do with them? Did you know that, after Google, YouTube is the largest search engine? The video sharing site processes more than three billions searches a month. That’s more than Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL … combined.
If your company doesn’t have a channel created on YouTube, it’s good to go ahead and create one. Once you do that, you can post all of these videos in your channel. Be sure to give each video a precise title as to what it is so people can find it if they search for it. Online advertising platforms also allow you to use YouTube links for advertising purposes.
Also, don’t forget about your social media marketing. Post your videos – or links from YouTube or your website – to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Work with Video Marketing Experts
As mentioned earlier, video marketing is no easy feat. A lot of hard work goes into a great video marketing campaign. Does your company have the resources and expertise to do it well?
If you’re not sure where to start, let us know. At New North, we’ve helped companies just like yours grow into successful marketing. Using our proven system we’ve helped companies implement video marketing in Frederick and beyond, aligning messages and platforms with their next stages of growth.
