If you want to transform your website into a customer or lead generation machine, we’ll give you all our best tips, tactics and secrets to get there fast.

Using video in your marketing efforts is only gaining popularity in the new year and for good reason. 72 percent of businesses say that using video has actually improved their conversion rates. And 52 percent of consumers say that watching some kind of a product video online makes them more confident in their purchasing decisions. It’s for these reasons and more that we highly recommend that you make 2019 the year that you finally start using video in your business. But here’s the thing, it’s not enough to just make any video. There are a few kinds of videos that’ll let you do the most good in the new year.

1. Tell Your Customers A Story

Use video to tell your customers a story with your business as a guide. A few years back when video marketing was just more of a new trend many businesses jumped on board without really thinking too much about it. It was going to be a great way to tell their own story, how they got started, why they got started and what makes them so great as a business. We shouldn’t be telling our story but our customers’ story. And how our business can act as their mentor and guide getting them from point A to point B. By making a really simple 60-second video and that’s really all it has to be, 60 seconds long where do you call your customers out.

You talk about what they want and the problem that’s standing in their way how you can fix that problem and the potential amazing outcome that’s waiting for them on the other side of it. Now you’re making a video that makes your audience sit up and pay attention. And that can even just be a really simple talking head style video kind of like what I’m doing right now with some b-roll footage just to kind of liven things up.

2. Emphasizing People Over Business

Emphasizing people over the business you know in today’s world people really value authenticity in all forms. And they would rather see your business for the people that make it up. We really want to see you in the New Year dropping some of those barriers that overly polished and overly professional videos can create and just get a little more real. The level to which you can do this is going to depend on the industry you’re in. Some industries are just naturally they have to be a little more professional than others.

But there is a way to find that balance between personality and professionalism. And we are willing to bet that even if you’re in an industry that’s a little more buttoned up and professional. You can probably get a little more personal than you think you can. How do you do this though you know basically what we recommend is when you’re speaking to the camera try to think of it like you’re speaking to a friend rather than just a faceless audience of customers. And if you’re actually going to go through the process of scripting your video out rather than outlining, make sure that you script it more like the way you converse. Don’t try to really overly focus on grammar rules that are not very important even in written copy it’s not that important. And don’t use bigger words that are unnecessary.

You really still can demonstrate authority while making your video relatable at the same time. And if you do that you will connect more with your potential customers and they’re going to like you more. And at the end of the day that is a huge motivating factor. People always want to work with or buy from people that they like rather than stuffy businesses.

3. YouTube Advertising

YouTube is definitely one of the biggest sites in the entire world you’re on right now. But we think most businesses are still late to the party advertising on it. Probably mostly because they’re scared of actually making videos particularly small businesses. But the truth is YouTube ads are one of the best ways to put your brand and your offer in front of the exact right people at the exact right time.

They actually have some of the best targeting options around. Because you can put yourself in front of people who are actively looking for the services that you provide by using what they call in-market audiences. To explain that you know YouTube is owned by Google. They know who’s searching for Web Design companies or accounting firms or family attorneys for instance. Then you just make your ad and tell YouTube I only want this ad to show in front of people who are looking for those particular services. And that’s just one targeting option there’s actually way more as well.

You can target people who are watching a particular topic of the video who live in a certain either state city or even zip code. You can even target things like income level you know if you had a high ticket service you provide you can make sure that only people who are qualified to pay for your service can actually see your ad. You can even make a list of your competitors websites and tell YouTube to show your ads to everyone who’s been to any of those websites recently. If you were to make that customer saag a story video that we talked about earlier and use it this way on YouTube that would be a really compelling and strategic ad that you could put in front of your ideal customer for pennies of you.

4. Email Marketing

Even with all the social media platforms out there we are a big believer in email marketing. Email is still the best way to develop a relationship over time with potential customers. Giving them really helpful advice and helpful content which allows you to build up Authority and Trust over time. If just using plain text emails can do all of that imagine 10 Xing the power of that by including a simple video in that email. You basically just take whatever the content you were going to share in that text email.

And you can still list it out in text from within the body of the email but make a video about it as well. And these videos don’t need a whole lot of production value either if you have an iPhone or a smartphone that is generally good enough. You can do it selfie style if you need to just get the content out there that’s much more important than the way you’re presenting it. And in some cases having that selfie style is actually going to be preferable. Because remember it adds to the authenticity factor and it makes you seem more personable and relatable as a brand.

Just upload the video to youtube and then get a screenshot of the thumbnail of the video and then put that as an image right in the body of the email that’s linked to that video on YouTube. This is gonna majorly increase the likelihood that your message is even going to be received at all. Because people are about three times more likely to consume a video as opposed to reading the same content in written form. And not only that but if you put the word video in your email subject line letting them know there’s a video in the email. People are about twice as likely to even open that email.

5. Custom Welcome Videos

If your website exists largely to schedule consultations or appointments. Then you can use really simple custom videos to increase the show-up rates for those appointments. And build a lot of really good loyalty and Trust right up front for a very little effort. Imagine if someone were to schedule a consultation on your site and then a few minutes later they get an email with the video in it that’s welcoming them to your world by name. This sets the stage immediately that they’re gonna have an amazing customer experience with you and your business.

If that sounds hard or time-consuming it doesn’t have to be. But it just goes a really long way toward building goodwill. We recommend you give them welcoming by name, reiterating the appointment day and time, letting them know what they can expect from the consultation and anything they need to have prepared. By the time you do this a few times, you’ll probably have your sales pitch down cold. It’ll be a really easy process every time you get a new consultation.

6. Process Video

Process video covers the biggest obstacles that a lot of your potential customers are probably going through when they come to your site. They don’t really know how the process is going to go if they choose to work with you. Especially if you offer something that’s a little more complicated, so why not make a really quick video that distills the entire process into three or four really easy to understand steps. Imagine if you are about to climb a rock wall and you look up and all you see is just a big flat surface.

That’s probably gonna look pretty intimidating to you right. But what if instead of a flat surface you saw little rocks jutting out that was labeled one, two and three. So you knew exactly where you were gonna grip and where you were gonna step all the way up. That would make the whole process seemed a lot more doable. And this is the kind of thing that you want to accomplish with your video. Just say something like you know first schedule a consultation. Second, we’ll meet and put together a solid plan. And then finally we’ll put that plan into action notice. How that didn’t even have to be super detailed in fact sometimes it can work better that way by keeping things really simplified. In most cases including too many details is gonna be overwhelming to people and lead to fewer conversions, not more.

Try to keep it to three simple steps five at the most and even if you have the kind of process, that’s more complicated like three steps or something long like that. Try to consolidate some of those steps into phases, so you just have three different phases to walk people through. And when you’re done you can use this as a youtube ad or a Facebook ad and you can even put it right on your homepage.