What if video doesn’t work?

What if video doesn’t work?

What if I make a video and it doesn’t work? You may be concerned about putting a lot of time and money into a video and not seeing any returns. Today I talk about the five-step process I use to guarantee video works for your business.

I’ve worked with many clients who have been in this situation. What I have seen with my insights and working with hundreds of businesses and making thousands of videos is there has to be a mindset shift when it comes to video. I think people still see video as a one-off. They think they want a magic bullet video, where one video will communicate all their messages to loads of different audiences. And if you do that, the video will not resonate with anyone and not going to work for you.

It is easy to focus on the production rather than take a step back and plan the video, work out what the goals are, and have a marketing strategy in place, where you can get the video in front of your desired audience. In short, you don’t have a video strategy.

I have developed a five-step process which will guarantee video will work for your business. The process is broken down into; planning, production, promotion, performance, and polish. Most business I see only actually do two of these, there might be some planning, and they focus on the production. Very few companies actually do a promotion, which can either be paid or not paid. Very few companies track and measure their videos and see how it’s performing. And then very few then would look at the video and then actually rework it, re-edit it, repurpose it. In other words, polish it to make sure that it works.

If you’re serious about wanting to build your audience to grow your business with video, I’m offering a 30-minute video strategy call. The link’s on the screen. It is a free strategy session where I can support you and advise you on how you can use my five-step process to grow your business with video.

The Power of Now

The Power of Now

Each Sunday for my video challenge, I am doing a book review, focusing on a book which has made an impact on my life and business. Today’s is not an exception – The Power of Now.

This book as sold millions and I have read it at least three times. This short review will not do the book justice as there is so much it in.

There are so many points in this book. If you read it, you’ll find that some resonate more with you than maybe me but let’s hear three things that I’ve taken away from it.

1. There is no such thing as time. It’s all made up.
2. The past and the future don’t happen. The past is gone; there’s nothing we can do about it. The future is something that we often create in our head.
3. The ego makes us overthink things. If we could stop thinking, I think we’d probably all feel a lot better for it.

The book is about The Now. The only thing we have is the present. I think if we realise that the mind is a superb instrument, it is very powerful but also it can very destructive in the way that we tend to overthink things.

Reading this book has opened my mind onto how I think and how the ego can control the way you do things and how the only thing you can do is be in the present. So I’d like to end on this quote, “Realise deeply that the present moment “is all you ever have. “Make now the primary focus on your life.” I highly recommend this book.

“Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the now the primary focus of your life” – Eckhart Tolle.

Has video become a tick box exercise

Has video become a tick box exercise

I’m just wondering if video has become a tick box exercise? I understand as busy business people, video is just one of many things to be done if you are launching a new website or champaign. So when it comes to video, there is more to just finding a video production company and tick it’s all done. Follow me today as I travel into London as I visit a digital agency to see if this is true. Day 21 of my video challenge.

Rather than looking at video from a strategic point of view, it needs to be seen in how it integrates into the whole marketing and business plan.
Put some thought into how you are going to distribute and market the video to make sure that you get a return of investment. There seems to be a missing link here between the, what I call the pre-pre-production, the strategy part, and the promotion and distribution of the content. Then there is no following up and checking on the metrics and measuring it to make sure it worked. Video is so much more than another item on a list to be ticked off.

I Blame Kevin Costner

I blame Kevin Costner! Do you remember the film ‘Field of Dreams’ starring Kevin Costner where he hears a voice when walking through his cornfield which says “If you build it, he will come”.

I often think of this analogy when clients make ‘build’ a video, upload it to the website or plonk it on YouTube and expect people ‘he’ to come and watch it. This might have worked in the past, but not anymore.

If you think about it, we live in a noisy content world. Look at the facts, over 300 hours per minute of video content is uploaded to YouTube. Five hundred million Instagram stories are posted per day. It’s getting tough to get your content seen by your audience. And even if you have a warm audience, they’re very likely to miss what you’re trying to show them.

Social media channels make their money through advertising. You may of heard the phrase “Pay to Play” and, like it or not, this is the world that we live in as marketers, and we need to see this as an opportunity. See this age of video ads as a Goldmine Era. What I am referring to is that you can reach a wide audience and not pay a lot of money at the moment, but this won’t last forever. All the social media platforms are offering video ads, which can be very highly targeted. But before you rush out there, there are a few things to consider to make this campaign effective.

The first, have clear goals. Do you want this to be a brand awareness campaign? Or do you want people to consider one of your products? Or you want a conversion and sales? This will shape what your video content will be.

The second consideration is to have a budget in mind. Now, you can spend just a couple of dollars, obviously, right up to hundreds or thousands of dollars, it depends on the size of the target audience and also their geographic location. But if you’re niche and know exactly who and where your audience is, you can run a very effective campaign for not a lot of money.

The third, measuring the results, and having an online campaign like this, will give you great metrics. So you need to consider what goals you want:

  • Do you want just purely views?
  • Do you want to promote people sharing and engaging with your content?
  • Do you want people to click through to a landing page?
  • Do you want to go straight for conversions?

Now, each platform has a slightly different setup, depending on these goals that you want to achieve. We are nearly halfway through 2019. The digital landscape is changing all the time. I would recommend you at least test some paid promotion for your video content. It’ll give you an unfair advantage over your competition. And believe you me, a lot of businesses are not doing this.

Don’t waste your money on video

Don’t waste your money on video

On my way to see a potential client, and in the video below I want to talk about why making videos for your business can be a complete waste of money.

The main point is that most businesses don’t have a video strategy. They make video on what I call an ad hoc or one-off basis, and there are no concrete goals with what the video should achieve (increase brand awareness, new leads, education, entertainment, etc.) The business justs make content for content sake.

Another potential money waster is making a video for what the business thinks the audience wants to hear. They make videos about their own business (who we are, what we do) rather than considering the audience and making content which actually will resonate with them.

A third mistake I see is not having a marketing or distribution plan in place. Only uploading to YouTube and a few social media posts are not enough. Videos need to be seen as an asset and therefore, to make it work is to pay for some advertising to place it in front of your intended audience.

The way I help my clients and the way I work with them is to join all the dots when it comes to video creation and to help them create a video strategy. And I was just wondering, do you have a video strategy for your content?

How to overcome your fear of being on camera

How to overcome your fear of being on camera

Today’s blog I want to talk about how to overcome your fear of appearing on camera. Even though you’re an introvert and have concerns about being judged and you think you have a face for radio.

Now I get this. I think it’s tough to talk to a camera as it’s a static object and it feels very unnatural. And, as an introvert, I do find this hard to do. Often I think Will the audience want to hear what I got to say? “Do I have anything important to say? “What if they don’t like it?” There are loads of excuses not to do this. And actually, I think as you’re talking to a camera, you get used to it if you practice a lot. I think it’s easier than actually doing public speaking.

Video marketing is essential, especially if you have an important message and story to tell. And I also understand when you put yourself out there, you may think, “What will people think?” You have a fear of being judged. We live in a world if you’re going to put yourself out there online, you’re going to be judged. People are going to leave negative comments. They might not like the message that you have. And I think you just got to accept that. And realize that most of this are not personal. It’s about them and their issues. What you need to do is really just focus on your audience, the people who do resonate with your message, who do follow and like you. Concentrate on them and serve them and do not let the distractors, the haters get to you. Now I know it’s hard to do that sometimes. I like to be liked. But I think you got to realize that you won’t be liked by everybody. Your content will not resonate with everybody. So create content which is going to be valuable to your audience and build an audience who are going to like you, follow you, and leave positive comments.

The third thing is, I just see this a lot, is that people think that they are ugly. They have a face or a good voice for radio. I’ve done thousands of videos and most people do not like the way they look and sound on camera. It’s so common that is when you film with a camera, you’re used to seeing yourself in a mirror, so you look different and in your head, you probably also think you sound different. Yes, we all have an accent. Yes, we all do look different. And that’s what makes us uniquely human. In my experience, that people don’t comment, or very rarely comment, on the way you look and sound.

If your message is good and valuable, people will concentrate on that, not on the way you look and sound. And yes, there are tricks you can do. Location’s important. Lighting’s important. Sound is also important. So there are things you can do to help to make you look good. Editing your videos can help. You can put footage over what you’re saying. If you’re that concerned about the way you look. But I think part of it is you just got to do it, and you get used to it. The more you do this, the more comfortable you get on camera the easier it becomes. So I think the big tip is to practice. If I can do it, so can you.