Online video marketing for tape value chain companies

Overview:

• Online video is the future of content marketing.
• The market for tape is changing quickly as it becomes more digitised.
• The current “facedown generation” is most affected by marketing that can be viewed in video form on their smartphones and tablets.
• Using the free mega social media platforms YouTube and WhatsApp, you can make and upload short, interesting videos, which will bolster your connection with customers.
• Videos can be made according to a simple strategy based on popular demand for products and services that you offer, indicated by key-word searches in Google.
• Customer communication is more frequent, easier and more personal through the use of WhatsApp and video emails.
• Online video marketing is easily successful and not yet utilised by many members of the adhesive tape market.

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Social media marketing you can apply to your business now 

For the last 5 years, Afera has been developing its content marketing program, including its informative, interactive website and 2 growing Twitter accounts Design that Sticks: Scanning the Web for Next Product Design and The Adhesive Tape Industry Network.

At our recent Annual Conference, Lasse Rouhiainen, internationally renowned social media and digital marketing author and keynote speaker, delved further into the realm of digital marketing strategy, taking online marketing beyond targeted email lists, banner ads, company websites and Twitter accounts. How? By using video marketing that can easily and effectively be applied to any adhesive-tape-related company now with tangible results.

The bottom line: The market for tape is changing quickly as it becomes more digitalised. Your customers are part of a generation that is facedown, glued to their smartphones and tablets. Videos, which are quickly becoming the biggest currency in content marketing, are the best way to reach your customers and educate them on what you have to offer.

Mr. Rouhiainen said that he was standing in front of the Afera audience because he had marketed himself through videos. Of his 2 YouTube channels, 1 has 1.6 million views. You could do the same for your products and services on the mega social media platforms YouTube and WhatsApp, that are both free, easy-to-use and not yet frequently utilised by companies in the European tape industry. Video marketing can be carried out quickly and according to popular demand on Google. YouTube and email videos will encourage more and better relationships with customers.

Making your company relevant in an increasingly digital world

Companies that survive and thrive by surfing the tech wave which is moving through business, especially over the next 2-5 years, can generate interest and leads through an extremely simple, little-used programme incorporating YouTube and WhatsApp. Mr. Rouhiainen revealed all the details which he has learned and taught to companies in the U.S., South America and Europe over the past few years.

What will your customers be doing in 5 years?

In the next 5 years, the world and marketing will change more than it has in the last decade, and there are simple and powerful ways to adapt and thrive in the new commercial environment. Big, new platforms, such as Amazon and AliExpress, are being developed that allow companies to sell products more easily, less expensively and to wider audiences.

More mobile
Your clients are, more likely than not, going to be increasingly looking down at a handheld device. We are the biggest facedown generation that has ever been. The mobile world has happened. So you should create your marketing and educational materials about your products that are easily viewed on a smartphone or tablet.

Multitasking
Whatever message you convey to your audience needs to grab their attention differently than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Your client’s attention span is getting shorter.

Watching video content
Today’s consumer is increasingly watching web-based videos. At the same time, recent studies have revealed that nowadays, before contacting companies, customers tend to research products online. They evaluate different options, of which price is an important factor.

In order to compete with Chinese producers and vendors who are increasingly popping up for Western consumers, tape companies need to differentiate themselves. And in the realm of social media/content marketing, video marketing is remarkably effective for the B2B marketplace.

So why try video marketing?

• Your customers are becoming more mobile and digitally oriented. 80% of people want to watch videos before contacting a company to enquire for more information.
• Chinese players are utilising easier sales processes and favourable shipping agreements to expand sales to Western end users. Companies who want to compete with these low prices have to differentiate themselves from how they did business 5 years ago.
• According to a recent Cisco study, 80% of internet traffic will be through video by 2019. Facebook has grown immensely under this principle. In short, there will be more and more video content online all the time.
• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says that videos posted on its platform and Instagram offer 5 times more engagement with the user than static content.
• The B2B market is really big on YouTube. Utilising the social media platforms of YouTube and WhatsApp are a great opportunity for the tape industry, because almost no one in this segment is using them together like this yet.
• On average, people check their WhatsApp messages 80 times a day.
• YouTube is owned by Google, which promotes its own platforms. This will ensure that you are more findable on the internet.
• You can use simple filming and testing skills that you are cultivating already in our increasingly digitalised lives. And it does not matter where you are based or whether you are out on the road. People will continue to watch your videos generating interest for your brand.
• It is extremely cost-effective. Both YouTube and WhatsApp are free. You can upload as many videos as you want to YouTube, and you can create as many channels as you like. You could make videos for your company and products in general and specifically for you as a salesperson.
• Video is quite evergreen if you do it well. Videos will remain effective for 2-5 years, if not beyond this, long after the time and effort it took to make them.

You can start right now, very easily

These are the simple steps you can take to start this marketing process today:

Planning: keep it simple

1. Because attention spans are short and video marketing is new, people do not expect long corporate presentations or amazing documentaries. They just want something quick, relatable and informative.
2. Done is better than perfect. You can use your mobile phone to create a simple video.
3. Focus on educating – on tutorials, for example – rather than blatant advertising. Share interesting information. All of your marketing/informational materials about your products and services could be converted into short videos.
4. Start by Googling your product(s). Search your key words and those of your competitors. With each search, scroll down to the bottom of the first page to the heading “Searches related to...” to find out what your customers are searching for in relation to your product or service. Completely based on demand, plan to create videos based on these key words.
5. Keep your scope to 2 or 3 videos to begin with.
6. Topics should include how-to’s and common Q&As.

Creating: an interesting strategy based on demand

1. First go to www.google.com and search “adhesive tape”. A result from YouTube – not only the title, but the icon or image of the video – shows up on the first page. This means that it will get more clicks than most of the results. As mentioned above, video results are somewhat prioritised by Google.Most of you have your own company websites – something Mr. Rouhiainen highly recommends – and you practice SEO (search engine optimisation). Focussing on the key words such as “adhesive tape”, your company’s pages may take months or even years to achieve a top ranking in Google. Listed videos could get you a higher ranking in Google faster, because they routinely garner more clicks than normal results.
2. Look further at the search results for “adhesive tape”. Scroll down to the heading “Searches related to adhesive tape”. Those who search these key words also search these similar words. Search key words of your competitors in the same fashion. Has someone already produced videos about these? List and compare all of your key words which you have gathered. Which ones are most relevant to you and your company? You will use this information as your basis to create videos.
3. Whenever you talk with your clients by phone, they pose questions before they place their orders. Note all of these. You may use these for Q&A videos.
4. In making a video, let go of the idea of making a corporate presentation pushing your products and services. Do this and you will lose your audience’s interest really fast. The best video subjects to focus on?

• Testimonial videos
• Presentation videos
• Unboxing videos
• Product demonstration videos
• Event videos
• Advertising videos
• Product review videos.

5. Choose a video orientation and length. The 3 levels of engagement with your customers, according to Facebook:

• On-the-go videos: You do not want to interrupt them but get their attention. They are short and to-the-point: 30 seconds–2 minutes.
• Lean-forward videos: These are a little longer, 2-5 minutes.
• Lean-back videos: These are longer, more detailed presentations on a specific subject, such as high-pressure adhesive tape. For these, you create a presentation on PowerPoint, then record yourself talking through the presentation, just like you would do when visiting a client. Then upload this video to YouTube. It can be any length of time – if it is good people will value that and watch till the end. Then it is highly likely that they will call you afterwards. Furthermore, after this level of engagement, it is more likely that they will purchase from you over an inexpensive online Chinese vendor.

6. Choose a video headline topic. The 5 different types:

• “How to...”: According to Mr. Rouhiainen, this type of headline has generated more than a million views from his own videos. This works for all kinds of products, whether B2C or B2B. People simply visit YouTube because they want to learn something. Think about your most popular key words now on Google, and do a how-to video on each of them. 
• “3 tips to...”: Share whatever advice you may have about challenges your customers have.
• “3 common mistakes made in/when...”: If you know what common problems your customers have, you could make this an interesting video. People usually want to avoid mistakes. 
• “What every user should know about...”
• “Did you know...”.

7. Try not to over-complicate the process. Make 2 or 3 simple videos to start with using the amazing camera you have in your smartphone. Beyond this, there is a lot of help available online, such as freelance sites which will make videos very inexpensively for you.

Promoting your videos: headlines and WhatsApp

Once you have made your first few videos, how do you promote them?

1. Use your key words in the title of the video.
2. Get viewers – potential customers – to contact you via WhatsApp. Each video should include a phone number through which anyone can send you a WhatsApp message with questions or requests for more information. Your text can read, “If you have any questions or want to learn more about [subject], send us a WhatsApp message on +[phone number].” You’ll find that international enquiries increase with the use of WhatsApp, as it is a free communications platform, and texts are easier to send than placing calls through different time zones.
3. Some video marketeers have a separate business number specifically for WhatsApp contact, including specified contact hours, as enquirers usually like to be answered as quickly as possible.
4. Once you have your enquirers’ information, never spam them or send more information than they have requested.
5. Hopefully a WhatsApp call or text enquiry will lead to more calls and messages. An effective way of answering email enquiries is replying with video emails. If you receive enquiries through your website or videos, you can respond with video – which is much more relatable and engaging than sending a regular written email.

Video emails can help build rapport with a customer much more quickly. Mr. Rouhiainen emphasised that people who do this tend to have a higher conversion rate of enquiries and ultimately more customer loyalty. When you are not just a name but a face and a voice, people tend to keep buying your products.

A free, easy tool for making video emails is located at www.useloom.com. Remember that you do not have to film your face if you do not want to. You can also write out your email and then record your monitor, thanking the enquirer for their interest, showing him/her your responses to their questions on your screen, and saying that you are here to help if they need any further assistance. The tool’s process consists of recording for up to 5 minutes, clicking “done”, and uploading to their server. The videos are private and are not posted or searchable online.

Mr. Rouhiainen said that he guaranteed this process would help tape-related companies going forward, because currently very few people are doing this. Remember, he concluded, if you do not engage in video marketing, others will!

About Lasse Rouhiainen

An internationally renowned social media and digital marketing author and keynote speaker, Lasse Rouhiainen offers training in 3 different languages, English, Spanish and Finnish, and lectures at business schools and universities worldwide. He is a pioneer in teaching companies how to implement marketing strategies using video, YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Mr. Rouhiainen is the author of the best-selling video marketing book 101 Video Marketing Tips and Strategies for Small Businesses and Smart Social Media: Your Guide to Becoming a Highly Paid Social Media Manager. He has also appeared on a number of TV programmes to speak about the latest social media strategies and trends.

Questions and comments?

Lasse Rouhiainen
Social media and digital marketing author and speaker
lasserouhi@gmail.com
www.lasserouhiainen.com