Using videos for business could be the best thing you do this year
So how can YOU start using videos for business?
Using videos for business is the fastest way to build credibility online, and find those people who are looking for products and services like yours.
Transcript >>
HOW TO USE VIDEOS FOR YOUR BUSINESS – 4 QUICK WAYS
This is Teena Hughes from teenahughesonline.com
I get asked a lot of questions and this one is good one. I thought you might like to hear my thoughts on just how you can be using videos for business help. So there are a quite a few different ways that videos are great for any business. Let me just outline a couple of them for you here.
1. The first idea is using questions and answers.
My all-time favorite way to come up with ideas for videos is related to QUESTIONS which are related to any business by using questions and answers videos. It’s absolutely fantastic. So if you’ve got ten questions, make ten videos.
2. The next one, the second type — is testimonial videos.
Now this one is overlooked by so many companies, businesses, small businesses. And I’m not sure why. Maybe some folks think it’s embarrassing to ask for a testimonial. I’m not exactly sure but it’s really important for you to ask for that testimonial when your customer is still going through that warm and fuzzy glow of being really thrilled that you’ve done something for them — either with your product or service, or your customer service.
3. The third one is, do you have products or an online store?
This is something I just don’t understand — why people aren’t using this.
A lot of people will use a photo of their product or service, but they don’t put a video. If you post a video of your products for example, they’ll be more engaging. The person will find out more about your product than just looking at a very brief description and it will work in your favour.
4. So the next one, the fourth one is — do you have food and drinks in your business?
Well, this is absolutely perfect for videos. My idea here is to take a video of the creation or the final results. So while you’re making something, whether it’s a toasted sandwich or a drink, take a video of the making of it. Or when you hand it over to the client and then as they’re enjoying it, ask them if they’re enjoying it. And if they say yes, ask them to take a quick “selfie” of themselves.
A selfie video is better than a selfie photo but either will do. And get their words about, “How did that taste?”. Yum-O. So the testimonial video and the food and drink video are both excellent.
That’s just four quick examples.
Now on my website I’ve posted a lot more information about each one giving you even more tips (see below).
The great news is that should be enough to get you started thinking about how to do this.
So please pop over to my website which is https://teenahughesonline.com/0102 — that’s /0102.html (you’re on this page now).
Okay, so that’s it for today.
This is Teena Hughes saying Cheerio for now and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
P.S. if you’ve got any questions about videos, marketing, etc please do let me know.
I’d love to hear from you. Okay. Bye bye.
— END TRANSCRIPT —
There are so many ways to answer this question, so I’ll jot down a few ideas and see which ones sound good to you.
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Questions and Answers
- my all-time favourite way to come up with ideas for videos related to ANY business
- make one video per question
- publish one video weekly (or more often if possible)
- and build up an entire series of great questions you’ve been asked — and now answered.
- When anyone TYPES a question similar, they’ll see lots of your videos in the Search Engine Results Pages — woohoo!
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Testimonial Videos
- many business don’t get around to asking for the Testimonial, but it should be part of every business’ Standard Operating Procedures
- make this part of your Procedures Manual — whether you’re a one-person business or a huge company.
- The best time to ask is immediately after you’ve done something your customer is thrilled about, whether it’s your product or service, or even your customer service
- or maybe you did something surprising like sending them a Valentine’s Day card in the post!
- If they call or write to thank you, ask them if they could make a quick video with their smart phone and send to you to help with your marketing efforts
- most people say YES, OF COURSE!
- Pepper your website pages with the Video, audio and text Testimonials
- and publish them everywhere online.
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Got products? An online Store?
- This is so overlooked I’m always surprised!
- Take a video of each product you sell
- nothing fancy, just talking about it for about 30 seconds
- Each video can be placed on its own product page
- and shared across the internet.
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Is your business food and drinks?
- Perfect for videos!
- Take a video of the creation or the final result – it’s up to you, but just do it
- people love these kinds of videos
- Ask your customers to take videos of themselves eating or drinking your menu items
- host a competition, Best Video of the Week/Month etc
- get them involved in your business
- Share on your site, social places etc
- contact the local Newspaper about the upcoming Competition — what a great idea!
Videos work great for ALL businesses
It doesn’t matter which type of business you own, you can make videos to help in your marketing. Here are a couple of examples I’ve come across recently — if you have any other ideas to help these folks, let me know.
The Barber Shop
I was recently waiting for someone in a Barber shop in the city, and I got chatting with the owner.
I asked a few questions and we talked a little bit about marketing, but for each technique I suggested the Barber said,
“Oh I don’t think that’ll ever work. My customers come in every couple of weeks for a haircut — they don’t need to be sold to. A couple of times a year it is quiet, but I just have to cope with that.”
I didn’t push it, but my head was filled with ways the business owner (and other hair professionals like hairdressers in Hair salons) could be boosting the business for those times when business slows down, for example:
- have every customer add their email name to a Clipboard in the Salon which goes on the mailing list (or into a database) so they can be alerted when anything new is happening in the store (like an email Newsletter)
- send off an email 1-2 weeks before every event on the Calendar where the customer might want to think about a quick haircut — Father’s Day, Christmas, etc etc — remind them to book as these times get busy
- keep long-term customers at top of mind — consider a Loyalty Card (every 10th haircut free, complimentary shampoo once a month, once a quarter for example)
- the younger generation love “selfies” – ask them to take selfie videos while they’re in the barber shop or Salon — their happy face (and testimonial) will attract new customers
- take videos of special treatments and other services like Barber shop moustache trimming and shaving (e.g. wet shave) or special Salon styles; they’ll need to get customer’s agreement in writing first — and upload those to social sites to attract new customers
- consider having a website if there isn’t one yet — this is a great place to post photos, tips, techniques etc — and videos :-)
- on the website, write articles like “What Not To Do While in the Barber Chair (ir Hair Salon Chair)” which could be tongue-in-cheek as well as realistic
- post video Reviews on Google, website and social media – ask customers to do the same
- consider offering special pricing for events like weddings, anniversaries, graduations, etc. Be thoughtful by offering discounts for seniors, students, or veterans – deserving people with a limited budget.
What about you — can you think of anything clever the barber or hair stylist could do? Let me know in the Comments below.
The Fruit & Vegetable Van in a Local Community
Recently I was visiting a friend who had a mobile fruit and vegetable business — a fantastic idea! I chatted with them and asked about any marketing they might be doing, and they said they both said they were a bit too busy to do any marketing – even though they knew they should be doing something. (Yes, alarm bells started ringing in my head!)
I gently suggested that even a simple mailing list could work wonders, sending a video in the middle of the week showing:
- what they would be in the van in the next delivery day this weekend
- they could even get orders in advance by sending off an email two days before they did their normal rounds
- but they said they “just didn’t have the time”.
After more chatting, the owners did mention one of their efforts — they contact some of their customers by text message (which was great) — but only to let them know they were around on that particular day (not to take orders in advance or let folks know what was new on the menu).
This means that sometimes their regular customers wouldn’t be at home — I was thinking that getting these clients to order and pay in advance would be a good step to take.
The fruit and veg van owners did use Facebook, but again it was only on the day — one photo showing the produce — not in advance — so it meant their customers had to:
- [a] be at home or close by and
- [b] be reading Facebook in that teeny-tiny minuscule window of time, or
- [c] check their smart-phone messages
- [d] be receiving these Facebook messages in the stream – and as we all know, many times these FB messages can be hours late, which means the customers miss out.
The Fruit and Vegetable Sellers could have improved on this by:
- adding a few juicy videos and a few photos of what was in season
- posting these DAILY to remind their customers about Delivery Day
- posting images with messages like: “Only 3 days till Delivery Day!”, and “Fruit & Veg Ordering Window closes at 4pm Friday afternoon!”
- starting a pre-orders capability and taking payment online.
This would have been perfect for video marketing their produce daily.
The solutions to the problems with their current strategy is that they:
- could ALSO reach customers by email in the middle of the week AND on the morning of their delivery day, and
- could ask each customer HOW they would like to be notified [like a mini questionnaire], so they’d be sure of reaching as many people as possible
- the business owners could also find out if there are local websites they could put their website name and phone number on
- could and should create/have a website or a web presence!
- could find out the cost of having flyers delivered once a month with the local newspaper, and a whole host of other simple, inexpensive or free options to help their marketing.
I’d made suggestions to the owners about :
- coming up with a weekly video recipe to send via email to get the customers excited about the upcoming produce
- and when they had a glut of products left over, I suggested they make simple recipes (for example home made tomato sauce for pasta or salsa) which they could either sell or use as a taster on their deliveries.
It would have been great too if they could have donated left-over fruit and veg to:
- someone who loved to cook and could make the vegetables into soups and perhaps chop the fruit into ziplock bags for the freezer to be used in fruit smoothies etc, or
- find local charities who would be very grateful for the fruit and veg left over
- help out a charity, who in turn might add them to their own Newsletter or publish a Press Release (which could be written and distributed every month) to let the locals know about this lovely couple and what they were doing for the community.
Unfortunately the owners felt the business was fickle, couldn’t bring them the income they needed, and they closed their mobile van business a few months later.
The sad note here is that I have heard so many people in that area talking about how much they miss this one delivery van, and wish they could have helped them stay in business.
Don’t let your business fail because you’re overworked and can’t think straight
Whatever you do, start doing weekly video marketing — something, anything, to keep your products and services in the minds of those potential or current customers.
If you ARE overworked and can’t think straight, video marketing is perfect!
Create a Template video with your Intro and Outro video, and all you have to do is add 30 seconds of new video footage in the middle — like a VIDEO SANDWICH :-)
PS — wondering what “intro” and “outro” is? They are two mini video clips — an “intro” is the bit which is at the beginning of each video, and can
- (a) introduce the content of the video (talking head) or
- (b) a little animated logo to introduce the business (there are many types of intros).
- The “outro” is the Call To Action (CTA) at the end of every video (you can have multiple outro videos, for different types of videos, but only use ONE at a time). The role of the CTA is to tell the viewer WHAT TO DO NEXT (Sign up for more news! Download the uplcoming events! Grab an excerpt of my new book! Sign up for a free 15 minute consultation! etc etc).
OK — now — get off the computer, go for a walk, grab a coffee in a local cafe, talk to strangers, chat and get them talking all about themselves and their business. You need to become the LISTENER first. Then slowly introduce the idea of what your business is — and how YOU can potentially help them.
And then when you’re feeling pumped from being away from the computer for a bit, pick the first idea which comes into your head for your own business, and make a video right now to help your own marketing campaign.
Go on, you can do it! When it’s done, send me a link and I’ll feature it in my next Newsletter :-)
Prefer to Watch on YouTube? >>
If you’d like to see the results of the Video Marketing Questionnaire, pop over to this page >>
Your thoughts on using videos for business?
Which topic above is most important to you? I’d love to hear, do post a message on this page, or vida the Contact page or pop over to the Facebook page for a chat.
Cheerio for now, have a spectacular week!
Teena!