If you’re looking to grow your creative business in a way that isn’t totally saturated and not very many people are doing yet, it’s with video marketing.

Videos are so powerful, but surprisingly, I’m not going to tell you to start a YouTube channel and do YouTube marketing.

In this post, I’m going to share with you why your handmade business needs to do video along with 8 tips to do them well and have them impact your business in a big way with little effort.

Here are a few reasons why you want to do video.

Firstly, social media loves video. That’s just where things are moving these days.

It’s really hard to stand out in social media because of the algorithm and all the competition that’s out there, but you can still have a competitive edge and stand out by doing videos.

It’s the medium that all the platforms are pushing, so they give you more reach and visibility if you do video. Plus, it’s overall just more engaging for people to consume.

I’m not saying you should always do videos, but people love videos! So instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, let’s give them what they want. That’s generally the philosophy you want to have anyway when it comes to social media.

Making videos isn’t easy and for some of you, this might be super scary. But stay on to read the rest of this because I’m going to show you how it doesn’t have to be scary.

Because most people are afraid or resistant to doing video, that means not many people in your space are doing them yet. Of course, this is relative to other forms of marketing.

If 100 of your competitors are on Instagram, probably only 5 of them are using video marketing.

Videos are an incredible way for you to build trust, credibility and appreciation for your shop and your products and help increase sales and conversions.

If you’ve done a lot of live events like craft shows or farmer’s markets, and you sell really well there but you’re struggling to sell online, it’s usually because of that personable connection. If people can see, touch, feel, smell, wear or taste your products, that’s always going to help close the sale.

It’s hard to do those things online.

Maybe your products require a bit of you talking about it and explaining the benefits to people who come to your booth. If this is you, you definitely want to use video marketing in your online business. It’s the best way to translate your offline sales success, to the online world.

If you make a product that’s information-based, like crochet patterns, craft kits, or creative classes, then video marketing will be super helpful for you.

Having said that, it’s not that people who make jewelry or clothes won’t find video helpful. It’ll just be more helpful in other ways that I’ll talk about later in this post.

Okay, now that I’ve kind of convinced you that video is where it’s at, let’s talk about how to grow your business with video. 

1. Let Go

The first tip I have for you is to let go completely of the idea that you have to be prim and proper and polished to do video.

Yes, you want to be presentable, but no, you don’t need to look like Kim Kardashian or the perfect hair, face, or voice to do video well.

Here’s why.

When people see videos or photos that look too polished, they’re going to think it’s an ad. People will assume that you spent the time to create an entire photo shoot, hire models, makeup artists, and advertising agencies to create that video.

When things look too good, it comes off as an ad and ads don’t perform nearly as well as candid, real, raw and natural videos.

This is why, if you’ve ever done a Facebook ad, you’ll learn that they don’t like it when your ad looks like an ad. They want your ad to look like a normal post in your news feed like as if your friend posted it. Facebook has the data to show that those kinds of posts, always get better engagement than polished, fancy videos or posts.

That’s also why most ads you see these days, unless it’s an ad for designer products, use actors and models that look relatable and or aspirational.

They’re not looking for the super hot, sexy person because the data shows, it’s harder to make sales when you use models that look too good.

2. Short is Sweet

Your videos can totally be short.

Don’t stress about making them long. You don’t take action when you make it hard for yourself.

Instagram story video posts are only allowed up to 15 seconds anyway, while reels go for up to 90 seconds. It doesn’t have to be a whole process where you plan out an entire speech.

Make it easy for yourself.

In fact, really long videos can be hard to watch because people are busy and don’t have much time.

The hardest part of doing video is just showing up and when you can do that, you’ll have won more than half the battle.

3. Quality Over Quantity

You don’t have to do a lot of videos. This is why I mentioned that I’m not here to tell you to start a YouTube channel.

I know that I post two videos a week on my Creative Hive channel, but Creative Hive has a very different business model than my jewelry business. One is selling information while the other is selling a physical product.

Fundamentally, I don’t believe that you need to do a video every week to have video work well for your handmade business. I say that because creating video can be super time consuming, especially if you’re doing 1 or 2 videos a week, and it isn’t the best thing that will give you the biggest ROI for your business.

For most of you reading this post, you should be focusing on pitching your products to people who have large audiences to get your products in front of. That has the best ROI, meaning, it can give you the most sales for not a lot of time invested in doing it.

Videos take a lot of time but don’t give you fast or a lot of sales. It takes time to get there.

It’s totally okay to create a fixed set of video assets that you can use over and over again in your business, like in your emails, website, and social media.

These videos can be evergreen videos that help push people to becoming your customers.

We’ll talk about some of those types of evergreen videos in a few minutes.

4. Use Your Phone

You can absolutely use your phone camera to take videos if your phone was built in the last 3 years.

Here’s something you may not know, but the back camera always performs better than the front camera. Keep that in mind when you go to make videos.

You don’t have to go out and invest in a $400 DSLR video camera.

Make your life easy. It doesn’t have to be hard or expensive.

If you’re doing top-down videos of you making your products or demonstrating it, I love using my Ipevo Presenter document camera. These cameras are usually known for instructors or teachers in class to show pages from a textbook and cast them to their entire class.

I love that it captures little details incredibly well and it connects directly to your computer. The best part is it’s only $100.

If you don’t want to spend that much on a new camera, you can probably also rig together an overhead holder for cheap.

If you’re an artist and create it digitally, you can record your screen and use that video.

See, you don’t even need a camera to do that.

Let me tell you, seeing art being created like that is so cool and mesmerizing.

5. Show How to Use Your Product

Make a video that shows how to use your products. You can just demonstrate using it and you don’t even have to talk about that.

Let’s say you make handbags. I know there can be a lot of detail in handbags and video is a great way to capture a comprehensive view of your product, from the outside design to the inside pockets and dividers you’ve got.

Or you can talk about the benefits of your products. For example, if you make a skincare product, talk about how the ingredients you use in your products help with someone’s skin.

If you truly don’t want to talk in a video, you can just film the video without any voice and then write out a simple script that you can hire a voice-over actor on Fiverr for $20 to do the speaking for you. Then you can add that to your video later.

6. Show You Making Your Products

Make a video of you making your products. You don’t even have to show your face for these types of videos. You also don’t have to show the entire start to finish process of making your product if you’re concerned about people stealing your techniques.

You can record yourself making your product as usual, but in video editing software, you can cut out proprietary parts and definitely speed up the video because people love seeing something before and after.

They’re eager to get to the end result of what you’re creating.

These kinds of videos are amazing to have in your business because they help build appreciation and appeal for your products.

When people don’t know how your products are made, sometimes they assume simple designs don’t take a lot of effort, and they don’t value those products as much.

How many times have you ever heard people say, “I could make that myself.”

When you show your process, you’re showing people how much skill, patience, and effort is required to do what you do.

It educates people that it’s not so easy to make your products.

That makes people appreciate your work more and they’re more willing to pay your higher prices for them.

7. Build Trust

If you’ve got a website online but few people are buying and you haven’t been around for a while, it’s most likely because people don’t trust you yet.

It’s the same reason why past customer feedback and that five-star rating you see when you shop on Etsy or Amazon is so important. That gives people trust.

If you don’t have a lot of customer feedback yet, that’s okay, because you can still build trust with your potential customers by making videos.

Videos help show your products in a way that pictures just can never do, so it gives customers a better idea of the product they’re buying.

Another video asset you should start collecting is if you can get an influencer or YouTuber doing a product review or unboxing video of your products. That’s even better for boosting your credibility and social proof.

This is how trends are created.

When celebrities and influencers talk about certain products, that’s when people decide, “Hey, if so-and-so likes using this product, it must be good, so I have to get some myself.”

It’s consumer psychology and it’s proven.

These are the best kinds of testimonials to have and they bring you incredible social proof, trust, and credibility.

If you’re wondering how to get YouTubers or influencers talking about your products, I have a great video showing you the simple steps for how to do that.

8. Paid Ads

If you ever do paid ads or if you do Facebook marketing, videos, in general, are always great to use because you just get better engagement with them.

This might be a little advanced, but if you do video ads you can even retarget people who’ve watched your videos. The reason you want to do that is because now they’re more familiar with your brand and they’re more likely to buy.

Video ads are also cheaper to do because, again, Facebook is encouraging people to use videos because people love them.

I have a video ad that’s a combination of YouTubers talking about my products and me making them and it converts into sales quite well.

You can watch that by clicking here if you’re curious about what that looks like.

Bonus Tip!

My last bonus tip for you, if you’re lazy like me, you can make easy video ads or video posts by creating slideshows of different product photos, just like this one of my charm bracelets.