Why Small Business Owners Should Embrace Video

In this episode of No Grey Suits, host Anastasia explores the importance of using video in marketing for small business owners. Anastasia explains why video can create a more personal connection with your audience, help convey your energy and passion better than text, and distinguish your unique brand from larger, faceless corporations. She discusses the emotional impact of video, the efficiency of conveying messages through video, and how it helps attract the right kind of clients. This podcast is a mix of practical advice and entertaining anecdotes aimed at helping small businesses succeed through effective video marketing.

00:00 Welcome to No Grey Suits Podcast

00:26 The Power of Video in Marketing

00:58 Creating Personal Connections Through Video

01:53 Emotional Impact of Video Content

02:47 Conveying Passion and Energy

06:13 Building Trust and Relatability

08:24 Embracing Your Unique Personality

13:35 Practical Tips for Video Content Creation

16:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

A HUGE thank you for listening to No Grey Suits. I really do appreciate you spending some time with me, and hope you got some shiny nuggets of gold, or at least silver out of it.

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Transcript

0:03

Hello, and welcome to No Grey Suits, the podcast. I'm your host, Anastasia, and this is a place for people who have escaped corporate to do their own thing, where we'll talk marketing, videos, social media, business, and chat with other business owners about their journeys. It's a bit random, sometimes super practical, sometimes plain old entertainment.

Microphone (Yeti Orb) & ????????? C930c: 0:26

Today I want to dive into the why of using video in your marketing for a small business owner. Now, I know a lot of small business owners shy away from video. I know it can be a hassle. It can be a little bit scary. Uh, and it can be just something that is pushed to the end of the priority pile. But there's a reason that it works. A few actually, and we're going to cover some of them off today. Video let's your audience get to know you. Not just your brand. Why is that important? Why do they need to know you and not just what you say you can do? That's the beauty of small business. People choose small business. over large business or corporations. Because of the personal connection, because they want to support small because there's something unique about you and about your business that they love. So you've got to let them in. Let them see who you are, let them see that uniqueness that they'll fall in love with so that they come to you rather than going to one of the big guys. Next, video in the way of nothing else, other than face-to-face interaction, causes an emotional response. You can see me. You can hear me. You can see my facial expressions. I can make eye contact with the camera, which feels like I'm making eye contact with you, which tricks our brain into actually paying attention. Think about it when you're watching a movie and an actor breaks the fourth wall. You pay attention for a second. Your brain goes, oh, That's what we want. It's those little micro-actions that we're trying to make the brain do. And when somebody is looking directly at you. And talking to you. Your brain wants to pay more attention. Next. Your energy, your personality. Your passion for your business. There's only so much of that you can convey through a copy and images. Now I love the written word as much as the next person I read nonstop. I think my Kindle said something like I'd been reading an average of 15 books a month this year. That's how much I love the written word. However. Your passion for what you do the love for what you do, the why behind what you do. That excitement that. Energy. Doesn't always come across how you want it to through copy. Or through images. Sometimes it can, but it's hit and miss, and it's also hit and miss how somebody is going to interpret the written word. We all know we've sent those text messages where they've been taken completely the wrong way. You know, we might've been writing them with a smile or with a sort of cheeky grin. But. Whoever's receiving that text can't see that. And depending on their state of mind at the time, They might actually picture you. Grimacing. They might picture you scowling. If it's video. There's not as much room for error. I might say. It's far more fun to listen to a story, especially if it's business related or an anecdote uh, by video than it is reading the caption on a social media post. If somebody is telling a funny story and you can hear in their voice that they're smiling or they're close to laughing, or if you can see in their face that, you know, They actually find this funny or they find this amazing you're much more likely to relate to that emotion and to the story that's being told. When you're reading it, it comes back to that perception. Again, if you're not in a great mood, when you're reading a funny story, you're probably not going to see that much fun in it. You just kind of go okay. Yeah, that was all right. But if somebody tells you a story on video, It's why stand up comedians do so well. You can see them, you can hear them. If those jokes were just written down. Would you crack up as much as you do watching a comedian. Probably not. You might occasionally. If you are really into it. And if you really liked the joke. Let out a little. But that uncontrollable laughter. Or a true giggle that you just can't stop. You don't really get that when jokes are written down. Now I'm using jokes and laughter and humour here as an example. But any emotion is felt more when it's conveyed via video than it is via the written word or through imagery only. Next. People do business with people that they feel connected to. So, you might come along and say, I don't feel any connection to office works. I still do business there. That's true. But if you had a stationery store, That was just down the road from you. And you knew the owner of that stationary store through a bunch of videos that they did of them and their team. And you knew them that you thought they were great people down to earth, you know, they had families, they shared a little bit of their story. They are a little bit unique, a little bit quirky, maybe. You know, they might put some reels out there, have them, you know, unpacking things and finding out that it's the wrong item or something like that. Silly stuff like that. Unless budget was your only worry about your stationery you'd probably be more likely to go to the guy down the road. With the family, like team culture and the, you know, And the jokes or the, or the in-store dog. You'd be more likely to choose them in most cases. I mean, of course, sometimes the wallet is going to win. It's a tough economy at the moment. The wallet wins a lot. But if there's not a huge difference in price. Most of the time, you'd rather go somewhere with better service. And where you feel like you're supporting people. And you feel loved and appreciated by those people. than a corporation. Video can help you do that for your customers. Your customers can always go to the big guys. who can put thousands and thousands of dollars into advertising and SEO. They don't have your, that don't have your personality, your quirks they don't have your stories. They're boring. You're not. Being you. And being un- boring on camera. And showing that personality or showing some of that uniqueness. Is going to help you attract clients who appreciate the same things you do, who value some of the same things you do. Now, every client's not going to be a clone of you. That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is if a client has gotten to know you. If they've gotten to know some of the weird, quirky things about you. For instance. You know, I can be a bit of a nerd sometimes. If you go through some of my reels, you'll probably see that we have a life-size Stormtrooper in our living room. I have a bunch of Marvel pop vinyls above my desk. Because I love Marvel. I love Groot. My coffee mug is Groot. My other coffee mug is Lego. All of those little touches, all of those little bits of your personality, your quirkiness, your uniqueness. The things that make you, you, the things that made you start the business that you're in that make you love the business that you're in. If you let those things shine and there's no better way than video, unless you're face to face. I will always have that. Face-to-face is always going to beat video hands down. Unless you're really, really socially awkward. in which case, maybe own it! Anyway off track. Getting back on track. So, showing all of those little things. Showing some personality. Showing that you're not just another corporate in a grey suit. See what I did there. I thought I was funny. It brings your people to you, people that vibe with you. People who also smile at a Lego mug. Or people that, you know, might even start a conversation with you by, oh my goodness. How cool was the lightest Deadpool film? No spoilers, please. I haven't seen it yet. I have toddlers. They're not allowed to watch it. So I have to wait until, you know, One day when they maybe sleep. But. You might have some common ground with your audience. And how good is that? Conversation starters, which means the conversation doesn't all just have to be work boring. Stuffy. As well as. You know what. If somebody. Hates all of those things. If somebody. You know, doesn't really have a sense of humour that matches yours. If somebody doesn't think Groot is adorable. And doesn't think that, you know, Having quirks. Or unique loves. is cool They're probably not going to contact me. And that's okay. It's okay. To repel people. who you're not going to work well with, especially in the service industry, not so much in e-comm. I mean, look e-comm you barely ever actually meet your clients anyway. But in service industry, especially B2B, chances are you're going to be dealing with these people a fair bit. And if you have no common ground, if you have no common values, if you have no common interests, If you have, you know, if you can't. Feel like you can be, you. With your customers, especially if you're the type of service that has, you know, the same customers coming back again. And again, you have to deal with them again and again, and it's not a one-time deal. You know, if you really don't like each other, if you really don't get along and that's okay, you don't have to get along with everyone. He taught me a long time to learn that one. If that's the case. Then they can go elsewhere. And you can attract more of the clients that you actually love working with. Like attracts, like. If you go out there pretending to be something that you're not. You're going to attract what you're not. And that mask that you put on. You kind of have to keep it on throughout the whole relationship. If you have customers that you work with for a year or more. Can you imagine having a call with them every single week and having to put that mask back on, you might as well go back to working for corporate. Put that fine voice back on. You know, the voice that. I would answer the phone with, when I worked at Macquarie. Good afternoon, Macquarie Home Loans. How can I help you? Blah. It's your business. You started it to do it your way. Show some of your. Shazam of yourself. And video is an awesome way to do that. Once you're confident on camera there's another huge benefit. To doing or to having the confidence and having, yeah. Almost the enjoyment of jumping on camera. I can jump on camera and record a 60 second reel. With next to no preparation. I mean, sometimes I check that I don't have something stuck in my teeth. You know, But. If somebody asks a question on my socials or somebody emails me through a question. I think that's actually a really good one. I can just jump on and record a reel. Somebody asked today."Whenever I upload photos to Instagram, they look all blurry and yuck". In a group. Now if I had, have not been with my toddlers at the time and been able to record a quick video explaining to her, it would have taken me less time than it took me to write out the answer to the question, which was, if you're interested, Sometimes when you've got a really beautiful big photo on your phone or your computer, and you're trying to upload it to Instagram. It's little smarts will actually try and squish that photo itself. Sometimes it goes a bit overboard at over-correct. These aren't the technical terms for it, by the way. And it can end up looking a bit blurry a bit pixelated a bit yuck, so, sometimes if you're finding that's happening, if you resize your photos before you upload them to Instagram, then you'll find that it won't do its thing of trying to squish it itself, which a lot of time ruins it anyway. I would have been able to record that in maybe 30 seconds. Instead, it probably took me about a minute. And a bit. To write it out. And explain it. Once you're confident on camera, you can very quickly get value across to your customers or your audience. A lot faster than writing a blog post, putting together a social media post with a graphic and a caption. You're more likely to procrastinate on that and go, yeah, I'll do it later. I'll do it later, whereas you're less likely to procrastinate if if you go, good question grab the mic, turn the camera on."Had an awesome question today". And answer it. Takes a bit of confidence to do that. It takes getting used to being on camera. It takes, knowing that you've got an okay set up. And by okay. I mean, look, I guess you can record those sorts of things on your phone uh, but you know, if you're standing outside and it's really, really windy, you're going to get wind noise and all of that, I do have a bit of a, uh, worksheet workbook checklist. That's the word I'm looking for? Um, on some things that you can do to be a bit more camera ready. And that doesn't mean you have to wake up every day and put all of your makeup on. Uh, it's just more about framing And the sound is okay, so that your audience actually does get some value out of it. So few benefits to video for your business there, help your audience get to know you. People buy from small businesses. Because they're small, unique, quirky businesses because they're real people. Otherwise, they'd just buy from the corporates. Being on video helps your audience actually relate to you more. Helps your audience make that decision to buy from you. Helps repel the people that don't vibe with you. That aren't going to be good customers for you. So that you don't have to go looking for the red flags and actually fire them. They just won't come. The good ones will. And once you're confident and once you've done a few videos and you know, you're happy just to switch the camera on and chat away. You'll find it's actually sometimes most of the time. a bit easier to create content than trying to put together graphics and captions. Anyway. That's it for me today. If you have any other questions for me? Let me know. And. I'll jump on video. And I'll answer them. Have an awesome day take care.