SIX VIDEO BASICS FOR SMALL TOURISM BUSINESSES
Are you a small business owner in the tourism sector in Ireland and know you should be making videos to reach your target audience?
Have you got beautiful views or great services to show that would make great short videos?
You know that video works – videos are EIGHT times more likely to be watched than a text post in social media.
Video engages – it gets attention – and it’s the way customers are finding you – on Google searches, on YouTube and on social media. So, if you have a business that wants to be found by your target audience, video is the way to go.
But where to start? Particularly if you are a small business where your small team does everything and you don’t have a major marketing budget.
Well, use what you have – your smartphone with its super HD camera – to get started.
Here are my tips to get you up and running … these basics will get you started with little cost, a bit more time and some brain power into the bargain. It’s worth the investment, believe me!
1. YOUR FIRST VIDEO BASIC – THE INTRODUCTION
This is a one minute or so video in which you tell us who you are and what your business is about – 5 sentences should do it. Preferably do the interview as a Piece to Camera, meaning you talk directly to the lens in a conversational way.
This would make an ideal trailer on your YouTube channel, or a pinned tweet on your Twitter account, and on your Facebook or Instagram page.
So, get started – “hello and welcome to…”
2. AN EVENT PROMO VIDEO
Telling people about something that’s coming up in your business is a great way to promote and market. Anything from a gathering to a special offer. You can create this on a laptop or app without even using the smartphone camera. Create a free Canva account and make a poster with details of an event coming up. Add some animation to it by making the text move on the screen and hey presto you have an event video – plus a poster.
3. A “HOW-TO” VIDEO
These videos are one of the most popular genres on YouTube and where a lot of businesses are found by people looking for your service.
So, you have a kayak hire business – show us how to safely get into a kayak for the first time for beginners.
This video came up when I searched “how to kayak for beginners” in Google – over 351,000 views since April 2019! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUYEH2cOA7c
The sound quality is not perfect but all the details are there.
4. AN ACTION VIDEO SHOWING US A GREAT VIEW OR AMENITY
For example, record a series of nice shots of your tourism offering with music and text. It could be the view over your local hill, or the well-known amenity. You don’t even have to feature in this – the text on the video could give us all the information we require. Six nice shots of action e.g. people walking/working/talking/ enjoying – assembled with text and a nice video and the logo at the end. This can all be done on your smartphone without the terror of having to be in the video yourself!
5. A VIDEO TOUR OF YOUR BUSINESS
Every website has an “about us” section, right? Could you make this into a video instead? This is a good follow-on video from the first introductory video -feature the team, where you are based (the front of the office building or B&B for example) and how to find you. This is a very useful video for people trying to locate you and also for showing the human beings behind the business. People do business with people after all.
6. A TESTIMONIAL VIDEO
Testimonials are a really great marketing tool and a video is ten times that. One of the best types of video to make and doesn’t have to be really high quality or difficult – the more authentic the better. Ask a client or satisfied customer to record themselves, or else ask them onto a recorded video call – to say what they liked about your service.
So, these are your six video basics.
I hope they have helped inspire you to go out and make videos to promote your tourism business.
Best tip of all – just do it! Get over the self-consciousness of being in front of the camera and start recording!
If you would like to find out more about making your own videos – do get in touch!
We teach you how to make great quality videos on your smartphone – on our popular online course.
Click on the link below for more information. https://rathdownmediainstitute.teachable.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here and we’ll let you know when we post more videos in this series.
April 2021.
