You may have an idea for the next big UK business, but in order for a new venture to grow you need to know how to reach your audience. Effective marketing is the key to brand awareness and reaching your target audience is the best way of creating new customers.

The popularity of the internet, whether that’s social media platforms, websites or blogs, has shifted the boundaries of traditional marketing. According to MarketingProfs, 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium, making video the perfect medium for promoting your products and services.

If you’re looking to incorporate video into your content marketing strategies, we have spoken with some of the best content marketing agencies in the UK in order to get their advice on using video to promote your products and services, as well as customer engagement.

First we have insights from Jonathan Bright, Creative Content Lead at Southerly. Southerly is a creative content agency that specialises in web design, content marketing, social media, internal communications and SEO.

What’s really interesting about using video as a promotional tool is that the lines these days are very blurred between entertainment and marketing. This is a great thing, especially for small companies looking to stand out in their fields, because you can get super-creative with your marketing at relatively little expense, and your content will very likely be content well received.

The online public are receptive to great content, plain and simple. They know when the film they’re watching is commercially motivated, but they don’t care as long as it’s good. And when it is good, that’s a gold star for your company – people trust you, they want to come back to your content because it’s the best. We don’t get better customer engagement than when we produce videos for our clients, for exactly those reasons.

Better still, you can measure and analyse your video’s performance, something that was nigh-on impossible with, say, a TV ad. For instance, not only can you can see what types of videos generate the most views, you can see which of those views were actually valuable – how long did they view the video for before clicking away? What action did they take as a result? Did they visit your site or download any of your resources? Online video provides all sorts of invaluable information about your audience and their typical behaviour.

Next we have advice from Eric Campbell, Managing Director of White Light Media. White Light Media is an award-winning Design and Publishing Agency providing copywriting, design and publishing services.

Small businesses and start-ups have agility on their side – they can be more creative with what they produce and how they get it out there. It depends entirely on your audience, but doing something different will help you stand-out. We’re all used to seeing the head of the company talking to the camera telling us how amazing their business is. It’s been done a million times and it’s dull.

The Dollar Shave Club video is three years old now and has had almost 20million views but the way they got their message to their audience is perfect. A simple idea with some smart, humorous dialogue that is very well executed. The result – you put a smile on the viewers face, they remember you and your brand and next time they need to buy razor blades…

Another, newer organisation using video to get across their brand message is free accommodation app Weestay. They produced a basic short teaser to show what they are all about and the simplicity of the storytelling is refreshing and captivating at the same time. The viewer can pick up the premise of the app fairly easily and the cost of production will have been fairly minimal. A bit of creative thinking is all that is required.

We hope that the learnings shared by these content marketing agencies has inspired you to introduce video into your next content marketing strategy.

Author: Garth Haley is director of Hyperfine Media.