If you’re old enough to remember, the heading of this article was the song title of the first video ever played on a burgeoning cable channel called MTV. MTV changed the way music was consumed and marketed in the decades to come. (Trivia: Which band recorded this song?)
What do MTV videos and pest control have to do with each other? Very little on the surface, but if you attended the National Pest Management Association’s December 2019 Technology Summit and attended the meeting of Jeff King of the Pest Rangers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, you walked away and sang a different tune .
King used video marketing to reach consumers in northeastern Pennsylvania and tell the story of his company in a way that is particularly noticeable to in-demand Millennial and Z-generations seeking solutions to their pest problems.
“Video fits in with today’s customers’ habits of gathering information and making decisions about who to work with,” says King. “Video makes complex concepts easy and shares the journey with the customer.”
When you consider that more than 300 hours of video are uploaded per minute and nearly 5 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every day, you see why video marketing is so appealing.
King started video marketing after seeing a local television commercial for a car dealership and was impressed with the quality of the video. He knew the owners of the dealership and they connected him to the local production company that was producing the commercial.
Define Video Marketing Goals
Once your company has decided to add video marketing to your current range of customer contacts, it is a good idea to define and set goals to keep you updated.
Jeff King of the Pest Rangers says his company’s goals are centered on four areas:
- revenue
- Brand awareness
- Demand generation and transformation
- Audience engagement
Sales-based goals Focus on things like increasing lead form requests, while brand goals include things like growing a higher quality email list, increasing blog traffic, or collecting Google response boxes for targeted keywords.
Brand awareness goals can be just as important as revenue as it positions you for future success and often takes qualitative feedback into account. They are usually measured by brand recall and recognition, frequency / quality of mentions or video views.
Demand generation and conversion goals are usually measured by the number of leads, the impact on the conversion rate, or the impact on sales opportunities and the generation of pipelines.
Audience engagement goals are usually measured by average engagement (also known as the average length of time viewers have watched the video).
The conversation with the production company resulted in The Pest Rangers making one long (2 to 3 minutes) and two short (30 to 40 seconds) videos each month. The videos show King and Pest Rangers employees in “explainer videos,” which educate and educate customers on everything from setting up a mousetrap to breaking down the company’s pest control packages.
When it comes to choosing a production company, King says, do your research and ask questions so you know exactly what it is all about, from cost to time spent. King says they usually spend one day a month filming, and the production company makes several videos from that day on.
“There is so much that can be done with video when it comes to answering customer questions and putting a face to your business,” says King. “It allows us to take a picture and share a story.”
When it comes to sharing a story, King isn’t afraid to allow customers to see behind the curtain of the Plague Rangers. The company recently released a video documenting a mouse problem in their office and what they were doing to solve the problem.
While many PMPs are reluctant to announce that they have a mouse problem in their own “house,” King thought this would be a fun way to get the message across.
King recommends pest control professionals consider the following as they embark on the video marketing journey:
- Choose a professional video production company to work with – quality in presentation matters.
- Pay attention to what you say and what you do in all videos. Project professionalism and always value security.
- Have fun with it. Include interested employees.
VIDEO MARKETING ADVANTAGES. Video marketing offers numerous benefits to pest control professionals. In his presentation at the NPMA Technology Summit, King shared the following stats that highlight the importance of adding video to your marketing efforts.
Increase sales. Marketers who use video are growing their business 49 percent faster year over year than those who don’t.
Influence purchase decisions. A whopping 90 percent of customers say that product videos help them make purchasing decisions, and 64 percent say that watching a video increases the likelihood of buying. Additionally, 97 percent of marketers say videos helped improve users’ understanding of their product or service.
Give people what they want. Consumers prefer video content over email, newsletters, social pictures, social videos, blog posts, and downloadable content (such as PDFs). When consumers think about buying a product or service and want to explore their options, they use different methods. Key tactics include using a search engine, visiting the official website of a company or product, viewing review websites, and watching videos. Any of these platforms can easily be tagged with video, giving your brand a better chance of convincing the consumer.
Create a Video Marketing Strategy
What are the steps to create a video marketing strategy from scratch? The Pest Rangers’ Jeff King shares his formula for video success:
- Define video marketing goals.
- Research your target audience for videos.
- Decide what types of videos you want to make.
- Set a budget.
- Determine who is responsible for creating your videos.
- Create a campaign strategy.
- Where will you host your content?
- How will you measure performance?
Rank higher in search. With the help of videos, you can improve the ranking of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). The time a visitor spends on your page after doing a Google search can affect how high your results are. This is an important Google ranking factor called dwell time.
- Video is an incredibly effective way to improve this metric. 80 percent of marketers say video increased the time spent on their sites.
- The average internet user spends 88 percent more time on a website that contains video. And websites with video have an average dwell time of two minutes longer than websites without video.
Sites that use video effectively increase their chances of getting ranked on the first page of Google results by up to 53 percent. After all, 55 percent of search results for keyword searches in the US contain at least one video.
Increase website and social media traffic. Video users enjoy 41 percent more web traffic than non-users.
Get more backlinks. Embedding a video in a page or post almost triples the average number of linked domains.
Bump Up Conversions. Video users have a 27 percent higher click rate and a 34 percent higher web conversion rate. Using videos on a landing page can increase conversion by 80 percent.
Crush Email Sends. Using the word “video” in an email subject line increases open rates by 19 percent, click rates by 65 percent, and unsubscribe rates by 26 percent. Adding videos to emails can increase click-through rates by up to 300 percent.
Where do you keep your videos?
Now that you’ve gathered your finished videos, you need to decide where you want your videos to live. Jeff King strongly recommends using multiple sales channels when posting a video to maximize reach and engagement.
Where do the Pest Rangers place their videos?
- Multiple pages on the company’s website including blog, resource hub, product pages, etc.
- Inbound Marketing Campaigns.
- Outbound email marketing campaigns.
- Social media channels (the ones your prospects are active on; Facebook and Instagram are likely more residential, while LinkedIn is more likely to be for commercial customers).
- Your company’s YouTube channel.
- Shared by the company’s sales force.
- See how the Pest Rangers use video marketing effectively on their website (https://thepestrangers.com) or on their YouTube channel.
Reach decision makers. Three quarters of executives watch work-related videos every week. In addition, 54 percent of executives share work-related videos with colleagues each week.
Additionally, 59 percent of senior executives agree that they would prefer to watch the video when text and video on the same topic are available on the same page. They aren’t the only ones, however: 72 percent of people would prefer to use video to learn about a product or service.
Stack up stocks. Social video generates 1,200 percent more shares than text and images combined. If your brand creates video content that target audience will enjoy, 83 percent of consumers say they want to share it with their friends.
Answer to the quiz question on page 62? The buggles.
Check out the Pest Rangers
Want to see how the Plague Rangers are using video to step up their marketing efforts? Visit https://thepestrangers.com/
