In recent years, the internet has done a brilliant job of bridging the gap between the rich and the poor. Today, having a huge advertising budget is no longer mandatory to successfully catch the attention of your target group.
Small and mid sizes businesses that have a limited budget can look for ways to leverage the power of YouTube videos in reaching their potential customers. Here are 7 tips that will be of help to businesses looking to make the most of YouTube videos on a limited budget.
Do Your Homework Well
While you may get excited at the idea of having a low budget tool of reaching out to your audience, you need to realize that your competitors would also be opting for similar choices. To make sure that your videos stand out in the crowd, you need to have a proper video strategy. Start by agreeing upon the basic purpose of your video.
Then, try to understand what your target group expects and use this knowledge to come up with emotional videos that they will connect with. Choose a movie maker tool of your choice for preparing the video. Simply bombarding your audience with tonnes of self-promotional content will not yield the result you expect.
Plan Out the Video Duration
The average viewer today has a much shorter attention span than that of the past, and if your video passes the two-minute mark, viewers are more likely to lose interest. Shorter videos have lower production costs and are more impactful in conveying the message to your audience.
However, just because your video is short, you cannot miss out on having a proper flow of content and an outro. The last 30-45 seconds of your video is the segment that stays with the audience for the longest duration, and that is why you must focus on perfecting your YouTube outro.
Edit Your Outro to Perfection
Having understood the role of outros in the success of your video, the next step is knowing how to create an outro that strikes a chord with your audience. There are several free outro makers available for use by those working on a budget, and you need to evaluate them to settle on an outro maker that works the best for you.
- Biteable is one of the best free tools for preparing YouTube intros and Outros. The stool has several pre-built video templates. All you have to do id choose a video style and then customize it to your taste by changing the colors, background music, adding your brand logo, etc.
- Tube Arsenal should be your preferred choice if you are looking for an on-site clip editor with which you want to customize your brand’s logo or images. The tools allow fancy ‘reveals’ such that an image appears bit-by-bit from left to right, among others. Although this is not a free tool, it does offer you professional-level editing tools at a meager $9 to $11 (depending on whether you want to settle for 720p or 108-p)
- If you are on an extremely tight budget but want high-quality 3D clips, then Panzoid is what you should settle for. It is a free community-driven site and has hundreds of intro and outro templates for you to choose from.
Cut Down on Unnecessary Costs
If you are working on a limited budget, the most effective cost-cutting measure for you would be by cutting back on professional actors. You and your co-workers can don the creativity hat and shoot the video all by yourself.
Most smartphones today have HD recording capacity, and you need not invest in heavy recording equipment. Making a completely animated promotional video is another option that you may want to consider.
Do not Compromise on Content
While you are free to pull strings here and there to have a video in your budget, under no circumstances should you compromise on the quality of your content. Poor production and ill-developed content will cost you conversions and compromise on your long-term ROI.
Rather, invest your efforts in identifying a technical expert who is confident about working in a constraint budget and has great storytelling skills. Always remember that it is much better for a firm to go without a video than have a poor quality video in its kitty.
Indulge in Two Way Communication
In today’s social media-driven age, the audience feels valued when a brand considers their views. An effective way to channelize on that would be by asking people what they want to see. Organize polls or live discussions on social media platforms to have a clear picture of the audience’s expectations from your video and then try to give them that.
Most often, you will not need a high budget to deliver such videos.
You can take things a step further and encourage user-generated content as these have higher chances of resonating with the target audience.
People are more likely to listen to a recommendation from a friend or peer than have a brand talk about yourself. By incentivizing user-generated content, you will successfully accumulate some high-quality videos at a limited budget.
Have a Detailed Promotion Strategy
Knowing when and where to promote a video goes a long way in deciding whether a promotional video will be a hit among the target group. Being the second most common search engine YouTube has a massive audience reach. Using video keywords like ‘how-to,’ ‘tutorial,’ etc. will help you rank higher in the search results.
Have a detailed promotional strategy wherein you space your videos, have guest bloggers, and go for other ways to get public attention. Try to repurpose your marketing videos in relevant places like landing pages, email newsletters, etc. for improved results on a constraint budget.
Thus, you see that with proper planning, it is possible to create some high-quality marketing budget at a limited budget. All you need is a creative mind and a keen desire to see beyond the ordinary.
As you begin your journey of exploring the world of low-budget video making, your experience will give you the tips that you need to be successful here. After all, the experience is always the best teacher, and video making is no exception to this.
