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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.

 

Why asking about price is wrong

Why asking about price is wrong

When I get inquiries from potential clients who say “I want a video, how much?” I think this is the wrong first question to ask. Day 12 of my video challenge and this one is a little different. Apart from the different format (wide rather than square), and it’s shot on a DJI Osmo Pocket (apologies for the sound as just using the onboard mic), this video is a bit of a rant, a rant on how not giving any indication of a budget to a video company does not help.

 

Video is now

Video is now

Day 10 of my video challenge and today I want to talk about how surprised at the number of businesses who delay producing videos. I understand about maybe not being ready, not enough time or money and other priorities come along, I get all that. The response often is ‘video would be nice to have, but not yet’. Just want to point out video is massive now, driven by social media platforms and mobile devices.
A question for you. Is delaying using video to engage, educate, sell to your audience determinantal to your business?