Video Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners

Today we're gonna go over Chapter 11 of Your Amazing Itty Bitty Visibility book, 15 Chapters to Marketing Made Easy. And Chapter 11 is all about video marketing, one of my favorite things to do, and yet probably not your favorite thing to do. Video is challenging for many people and it's, people just, they, they fear video. They fear getting up and talking to a camera or talking into space like they can't even see anybody. That was really strange when I started doing webinars that where you couldn't see the audience. So that's one fear. And videos take practice. If you go back and look at videos that I did, 20 years ago, they're not the same as they are now. So every video you do, you get a couple percents better. That's how I look at it. Every single video is practice. And I want to share with you some of the reasons that you really want to do video. Um, number 1, video is the best way to share your personality and encourage future clients to trust you. It is very hard online to gain trust, and video is one of those things that makes it so, so much easier. People can see what you look like, see how you dress, see how you talk. All of these things that they're like intimidated with, especially in my industry, in the tech industry. People don't wanna talk to tech people because they feel like they're going to talk down to them. They're gonna make 'em feel stupid, you know, whatever it is. And they can see by the videos I put out, I'm not that way. I have an introduction video on my website and people have said, I'm really, um, that they felt comfortable to call me. After watching that video. So the videos could be sales tools for you that work 24/7. People who have seen your videos will come up and talk to you as if they know you. This happens to me in networking events. So I am a true introvert. I absolutely hate going to big chamber events or any in-person networking events. I would rather just sit back on the wall and watch everybody. In fact, if I had the choice, I would rather sit in my office and not go. But that doesn't help grow a business. So early on when I started doing videos that would be sent out to people in, in emails, The nice effect of that was when I went to these big events, people started coming up to me and starting conversations with me in reference to whatever video they had just watched. And generally I had no idea what video it was until they started talking, and I had no idea who they were, even though I may have already met them. I might have met them once or twice, and I'll be honest, faces, names, I, I have a really poor memory for that. But they had been seeing me in their inbox every single week for who knows how long, and because of that, they knew me and psychologically, they expected me to know them the same way, which was a little strange at first, but it made networking so much easier. People would come up and engage me in a conversation of something I actually know about because it's something on a video that I sent them. It's, uh, it was magic, uh, back in the days of networking in person. So if you are an introvert, video is key for you. Here's another interesting thing. Videos remain on the internet forever unless you take them down. I have videos back, um, well, on my YouTube account from when I started, and those videos, depending on what somebody is searching for, they still come up in the search results. They, you know, I think I started my YouTube account back in roughly 2008, 2009, somewhere in there. And there's videos on there that still show up on the search results, which I think is super cool. And here are a few super cool things to know about video. I love this one. There's a delete button. Unless you're going live like I am right now, you don't have to post what you record. You could simply delete it. And if you're doing a short video, deleting it and re-recording it is faster than ever editing the video. Once you get into editing, it's a whole nother ball game. But if you can just film something and use it, that is the best way to go. So a 30-second video is going to take you 30 seconds to record it. If you wanted to edit a something you said out of it, you could spend an hour or two, or you could just re-record it for another 30 seconds. That's what I do. I try to do as little editing as possible. And videos can be short. In fact, there's a lot of places to put short videos these days. So don't let someone pressure you into doing long videos. It's not really necessary. Short videos work great. When I first started video marketing, I was doing 30 to 45-second videos and sending those out in emails to people. That was all. And they actually appreciated it. Some of the feedback I got was, I knew I wasn't gonna be spending 5 minutes watching this video. I knew it was gonna be short. Because I trained my recipients to expect short videos. So Shorts, way before Shorts was even a thing, way before TikTok or Reels or any of that came out, was the way to go for me for video marketing. So low-tech video is great. Do not think that you need to go out and purchase a video camera. Now I did that. I purchased a video camera. I probably spent $600 to $800 on it, and at the time it did all this great HD stuff and all that. And what I found out later was to get the HD high resolution, one, you don't need that on the internet, and two, it put it in a proprietary format which didn't work anywhere. I had to convert it to put it on the internet, and then I lost that HD part of the video. So that was a complete total waste of money to buy that. Just use your cell phone. That's it. Cell phones these days have good enough cameras for any marketing video you're gonna do. Now you're not gonna do like a commercial you're gonna put up on TV, probably not, but for just general social media videos, video marketing, things that are going on your website, cell phones are fine. Another thing that's super important is get a mic. The cell phones, especially in the selfie mode camera, so if you're looking at it and you see yourself, the microphones on those are not so great. So get something like this. I use Boya. I want to say $40-ish on Amazon. Uh, and now, oh, also natural lighting. Don't go out and spend a ton of money on lighting. Stand in front of a big window and use natural lighting. That works better. It makes you look better than fancy lighting is ever going to do. Now, some types of videos. That you want to do. Introduction video has been the best thing I've ever done. I, I kid you not, I put that video up, the very next day I got a call from somebody wanting a website who was my perfect customer. And they literally said, I watched your introduction video and I felt comfortable enough to call you. So that video If you haven't done one, put it up on your website, get it done. 30 seconds is enough. Let people know who you are, what you do, what it's like to work with you. Let your personality show through the video, all of that. Uh, demonstration videos. If you're doing products, those work fantastic. FAQ videos for your website. This was one of the first things that I did on my website, even before the introduction video. And that was when I'd go to a networking meeting and someone would ask me a question, I would either write it down or make a mental note of it. And I would go and I'd do an FAQ video on it because the true introvert in me thought, if I do this video, I can then the next time someone asks me, I can just email them the video and they can get their answer. Not a great business strategy. However, those videos do great on my website. So people can now either watch or read when they go to my FAQ section. Testimonial videos are fantastic. I have probably 15 to 20 up on YouTube from various different people, various different times within my business. And those videos show up when someone is searching for, my business plus reviews or my name plus reviews aside from my website and aside from Google and Yelp and all of the other places that I have reviews online, those videos show up in the search results. Educational videos. I put a lot of videos with my blogs. I think I mentioned this in the blog chapter, but a lot of times I may not want to write a whole new blog. I'll just simply go back to an old one, create a, a video for it, a few minutes long, put it up on YouTube, connect it to my website. Now that's my post for the week as far as putting new content on your website goes, as far as satisfying the search engines and all that stuff, all the SEO stuff. So a lot of my blogs have educational videos on them. It's a great tactic. I highly encourage you to do it. Um, and once you're comfortable, you might try lives. There's a lot of reasons for doing that as well. And let's see, what else do we have in here? Live streaming allows interaction with your future clients on social platforms. That's kind of super awesome. And, um, these opportunities, or these are opportunities to show your personality and expertise and get people to trust you. So video has done a ton for me as far as growing my business over the years. And like I said, I started out not knowing what I was doing, making tons of mistakes. I still make tons of mistakes when it comes to video, but I just get over it. And one of the things I do wanna say is I had feedback from from people I didn't really care to get feedback from. And it was feedback I didn't really care about. Stuff like, Dotty, you should straighten your hair. Dotty, you should wear lipstick. Dotty, you should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wasn't helpful at all. And the thing I wanna say about that is the people that were doing that were not people I ever wanted to do business with. So video is something that will filter your your customers, your potential customers, and the ones that vibe with what you're doing and saying are the ones that you want to work with. The ones that are critical of what you're doing, you don't want to work with anyway. So you haven't lost a thing and you've gained a ton. So I highly encourage you to try video if you're not already doing it. Tomorrow, Chapter 12 will be repurposing your content. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. If you wanna get your own copy of 15 Chapters to Marketing Made Easy, check out either the YouTube description or the, uh, comments wherever you're watching this.