In the last two decades, technological advancement has progressively penetrated several industries such as health, education and business. The current shift towards technology is very visible within business sectors such as production and marketing. This brings the focus on how the various marketing strategies have inculcated digitization into operational systems. Word of mouth marketing is no exception to this trend as vlogging has changed the dimension of this strategy. Word of mouth marketing is arguably considered as the most effective marketing strategy. Indeed, a study by Bughin et al. (2010) suggests that word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising within dynamic industries such as cosmetic and telecommunication. Word of Mouth marketing can be defined as actions taken by a company that ends up motivating people to talk about their products, services, or brand spontaneously (Mosley, 2018). With this in mind, this strategy can be more effective when it is fused with visuals. This explains the significant input vlogging introduces to word of mouth marketing. According to a research by Brasel et al. (2008) visuals advertising have higher tendency of registering in the memories of target audience. Organizations that have harmonized technology and word of mouth marketing are currently able to reach potential customer effectively. These hybrid strategies are in the form of forums, vlogs, blogs and others. This article will be focusing on identifying 5 key ideas for business vlogs and its limitations.

Chart 1: Data on word of mouth marketing

Source: referralrock.com 2017

Step#1: Introduce your company

As a brand do you want to establish connection with your existing and potential customers? Vlogging can help. For starters, you can tell the story of your brand by introducing the “brains” behind the company with videos showing off the staff membership. This allows your customers get to know the work force in charge of production. This ‘behind the scenes’ footage looks into your company as it shows the entire production line and also relates the human faces  behind your brand which eventually helps to exhibit the relation side of your company.

Step#2: Feature Interviews

In the process of introducing your company, you can decide to take vlogging to the next level by interviewing industry experts, CEO, regulatory bodies and managers. These astute people can indicate interesting findings and observations about your brand and the industry in general. These interviews give credibility to your company, establish your company as an industry giant and further humanizes your brand.

Step#3: Vlog Blogs

Blogs are still one of the effective ways of reaching target audience as it focuses on a topic at a given period. However, some customers will prefer to ‘watch’ their information rather than read it. The needs of such customers can be fulfilled by a narrating the content of blogs through visual displays in the form of vlogs. This expands your vlogging portfolio and also provides a wider range of content for customers to choose from when engaging with your brand.

Step#4: Vlog a day at the office

Vlogs can provide customers with a ‘day in the life’ experience which is a walk around the office and exposure to what it’s like to work in the company. Customers develop love and loyalty for the brand when they are exposed to such exclusives.

Step#5: Feature Customer Testimonials

Vlogs can increase customer loyalty through testimonials. An effective vlogging strategy should have a slot for customer testimonials to ensure that new and potential clients get the opportunity to watch reviews from existing customers. This establishes authenticity and a great trust for your brand.

Awareness of Limitations

As I have dispassionately discussed the key ideas for business vlogs, it is fairly appropriate to highlight some limitations of vlogging. These few limitations should be taken with a grain of salt. It should be noted that vlogs are prone to copyright infringement, vulgar language and sexual revelations (Nelson, 2020). However, the limitation does not outweigh the benefits of implementing vlogging in business operations. In summary, the key to successful vlogging is consistency. Frequent vlogging improves with consistent posts and in turn increases customer acquisition. You should  be creative in contents or outsource experts who can execute your vlog strategy.

Reference.

Brasel, S. A. and Gips, J. (2008) ‘Breaking through Fast-Forwarding: Brand Information and Visual Attention’, Journal of Marketing, Vol 72, No 6, pp. 31–48.

Bughin, J., Doogan, J., & Vetvik, O. (2010) ‘A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing.’ [Online] Mckinsey.com. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/a-new-way-to-measure-word-of-mouth-marketing  [Accessed 2 Feb 2020]

Mosley, M. (2018) ‘Why is word of mouth marketing so incredibly important?’ [Online] Referralrock.com. Available at https://referralrock.com/blog/word-of-mouth-marketing/  [Accessed 2 Feb 2020]

Nelson, E. (2020) ‘Top Ten Biggest Problems with Vlogging’ [Online] Thetoptens.com Available at: https://www.thetoptens.com/biggest-problems-with-vlogging/  [Accessed 2 Feb 2020]