As a small business, you’ve got a limited budget. You want to employ all of the tactics that the big-name brands use for marketing their business, but you just can’t afford it. One of those very popular and successful strategies is using live video. How can you use it to promote your brand without spending your entire year’s marketing budget?

Live video or streaming media is truly the latest trend in marketing, where brands are switching their marketing dollars from broadcast television to these live video streams and seeing enormous of success from it. Audiences are switching their preferences from text-based content to video content, which makes it accessible to everyone.

 

Why is video so popular?

The forecasted growth of video estimates that by 2018, video will encompass 79% of all online traffic. Companies that want to get in the massive growth and domination of live video will get an edge up on the competition. The reasons why? It:

• Grabs your attention
• Lets our brain process the information quicker than text
• Has better recall than text
• Natural extension of video marketing
• It opens up a whole new world of interactivity with the customer
• Can be cost-effective
• Gives customers the transparency they desire about a brand
• Offers educational opportunities
• Can create a community

Why is live video such a win for marketers?

According to studies, 90% of users say videos are helpful in the decision-making process when deciding about a product they are buying online. After watching the video, 64% of users say they are more likely to buy the product. It isn’t just product conversions that are making live video such a success for marketers, it is also that it is helping to gain a larger audience and customer base because 92% of mobile video viewers are also more likely to share these videos with others (who in turn will convert and share).

The all-knowing Facebook also believes that live video is king and prioritizes videos on user’s newfeeds.

 

How can you employ live streaming on a limited (or no) budget?

First of all, you want to stay away from overly-complicated technology and go with what you know. It is not that difficult or expensive to make high-quality videos. You simply need your laptop or phone and you can use platforms like YouTube Live or Periscope to get started.

 

Start a VLOG

A VLOG is basically a video blog. If you’ve already got a fan base on your blog, your video blog shouldn’t be any different except that it could be better. A VLOG allows your customers put a face to the information they are getting and can actually establish a personal connection. Depending on what your brand stands for, your VLOG can incorporate a number of topics, as long as they are valuable to your viewing audience.

 

Tutorials and DIYS

As with all of your marketing efforts, your customers are looking for content that is valuable. This doesn’t change when you implement live video. What is making them want to watch your videos? Live tutorials and DIYs give your audience that valuable content that they desire and can even make them excited for it. Promote your stream long before it goes live, letting your customers know what they’ll be missing if they don’t watch. You could turn this into a weekly or even daily feature.

 

Get help

If you are well-connected, you could find “experts” in the field to do one-off live streaming events. This could be a question and answer session or a tutorial. By getting someone who may already have a well-establishes video audience, it will bring more attention to your brand. Collaborating with influencers, you could also send your product for review and ask to have it displayed on their live video streaming sessions.

 

Q&A sessions

Your audience will undoubtedly have questions and comments about your brand, no matter how small your business is. Host a live question and answer session and get to the bottom of all their queries. The Q&A doesn’t just have to be about your brand, but also about the issues surrounding your brand (product ingredients, causes you support). Give the viewer a reason to ask a question and tune in.

Live video is estimated to get huge and you need to be a part of this movement, no matter the size of your company. Stretch your budget and think of creative ways to get involved, while you watch your audience grow.