Start the Year Right with Video

Q1 is an interesting time of year for businesses. Trends differ based on the industry and whether businesses sell primarily B2B or B2C, but in most cases, the first few months of the year represent a slowdown from the holiday and Q4 boost in the months prior. How can you start the year right with video?

With that in mind, it’s common for Q1 goals to fall within two major themes: take action to boost sales during the slower period, or use the sales slowdown to get ahead on big-picture sales and marketing initiatives that may pay off later. In both cases, using video to your advantage is a tremendous help.

With the help of Render Perfect Productions, video marketing experts in Baltimore, Maryland and beyond, let’s explore a few potential Q1 goals and how video supports their success.

Keep Holiday Business

Given that Q1 falls right after the holiday shopping boom, many businesses hope to use Q1 to turn these onetime customers into brand loyalists. Consumers are more likely to purchase from brands they’re not familiar with when buying gifts for loved ones, so many businesses see an uptick in first-time buyers.

Email marketing campaigns, repeat purchase promotions, and social media plays can help bring these buyers back a second time, encouraging them to become long-term customers.

How Video Can Help

Video is the perfect tool to connect with these buyers authentically, staying on their radar without directly pushing another sale. Here are just a few ideas of specific videos that you can put to use as you aim to develop brand loyalty:

• How-to video that explains how to get the best use out of the product or service already purchased
• Social media videos with UGC of gift recipients enjoying their new items
• Commercials that customers will see on their favorite platforms, reminding them of your brand

Accomplish Projects

Another common approach to Q1 is to put aggressive sales tactics on the back burner to focus on projects that often get de-prioritized later in the year. Think website updates, company rebranding, improvements to employee onboarding, or any other big-picture initiatives that never quite come up at the right time.

Since some consumers won’t be receptive to sales-heavy content in Q1, if you choose to dial back your marketing efforts, investing time into these irregular projects is a great way to maximize your resources.

How Video Can Help

Video can play a critical role in every example of long-term projects we mentioned above. If you’re updating your website, incorporate video on a few of your key pages to provide a dynamic opportunity for visitors to learn more. If you’re updating your company branding, consider an internal video that helps explain the changes and roll out the new version to employees. If you’re improving your onboarding process, standardize the company-wide training with video content that employees can watch autonomously.

Better yet, if your organization isn’t already using video content as part of your marketing efforts, make “develop a video marketing strategy” one project you plan to tackle. Use these slow months to identify opportunities to incorporate video, then get started with brainstorming, scripting, and storyboarding to bring the content to life. Or hire a video production partner that can guide you in the right direction.

Whether you choose one of these projects or something else, that’s long overdue in your own organization, take a moment to consider how video can take your project to the next level.

Close Unfinished Deals

For B2B organizations, it’s common to pick back up in January with deals that never closed the year prior. Clients may not have signed on due to budget constraints, lack of executive approval, or even just because they couldn’t make it happen before they set their holiday OOO message.

It’s important for sales and marketing professionals to reengage these clients in Q1, checking back in to understand whether the deal is still viable. These opportunities can be low-hanging fruit that helps make up for the traditional slow period, so don’t ignore them just because they didn’t complete before year’s end.

How Video Can Help

There are two key ways to use video to help close these stubborn deals. The first—and likely most effective—is to have salespeople send custom, one-on-one video messages addressing the client. Think of these videos as a replacement for your typical email or phone outreach, and provide the same information in video form as you would otherwise. The key is that video makes the interaction feel more personal, helping you build (or recover) the relationship and stand out from other outreach efforts.

If you don’t want to go that route, you can also share testimonial videos with these clients to help them understand how your product or service has helped other clients in the past. Both options will go a long way towards helping nudge unfinished deals closer and closer to success.

Start the Year Off Strong

Last but not least, your team (and your organization) likely has ambitious goals set for the year ahead. Whether you’re hoping to improve brand awareness, increase your conversion rates, or capture more value from repeat customers, you’re going to have to make a dent in Q1 to have a shot at hitting your targets. Don’t make a mistake by assuming that Q1 marketing is a lost cause.

How Video Can Help

There’s a video type for virtually every type of marketing goal. Brand (or “About Us”) videos are great for boosting brand awareness. Product videos and video ads are effective in attracting new leads. Testimonial videos go a long way towards encouraging conversions. For internal goals, team videos help attract top-tier candidates and improve employee morale.

If you need help to understand which video type aligns best with your 2022 goals, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what our producers love to help with. Schedule a call here for custom (and free!) guidance based on your industry, your goals, and your budget.

About Render Perfect Productions:

Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.