Blue Ocean Strategy and how video professionals can use it to completely eradicate the competition

Introduction

The video production world is getting more and more competitive by the day.

Thousands of people are rolling out of film school each and every year. The cost of equipment is coming down by the day, meaning that the barriers to entry are getting lower.

It can feel like there's videographers, filmmakers, video production companies, popping up left, right and center. No wonder it's getting more and more difficult to land video projects, and it's even more difficult to land projects that pay what you deserve.

Well, what if I told you that there is a giant untapped blue ocean that contains 99% of your target market that your competitors are completely ignoring?

And what if I said that it could be just you talking to those prospects, whilst your competition fights out for the scraps, the 1%, and the unprofitable projects?

Well, there is. And in today's Deep Dive, we're going to uncover your blue ocean. Blue Ocean Strategy and how video professionals can use it to completely eradicate the competition.

Links

• Watch: The Buyer's Journey: The most important marketing concept for video production professionals to understand >>>
• Purchase: The Lead Generation Machine for just $7 >>>

Transcript

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:28:12
The video production world is getting more and more competitive by the day. Thousands of people are rolling out of film school each and every year. The cost of equipment is coming down by the day, meaning that the barriers to entry are getting lower. It can feel like there's videographers, filmmakers, video production companies, popping up left, right and center. No wonder it's getting more and more difficult to land video projects, and it's even more difficult to land projects that pay what you deserve.

00:00:28:19 - 00:00:58:22
Well, what if I told you that there is a giant untapped blue ocean that contains 99% of your target market that your competitors are completely ignoring? And what if I said that it could be just you talking to those prospects, whilst your competition fights out for the scraps, the 1%, and the unprofitable projects? Well, there is. And in today's Deep Dive, we're going to uncover your blue ocean. Blue Ocean Strategy and how video professionals can use it to completely eradicate the competition.

00:00:59:06 - 00:01:43:04
Let's get stuck in. So, first thing is first, what is blue ocean strategy? Well, blue ocean strategy is one of two key concepts that is vital for video production professionals to understand. It works hand in hand with The Buyer's Journey, which - if you aren’t 100% sure about that subject - I do have another Deep Dive on that concept, which I've linked to below this video, but to serve as a very quick summary of The Buyer's Journey, our prospects go through the three stages of The Buyer's Journey - The Awareness Stage, where they become problem or opportunity aware, The Consideration Stage, where they become solution aware, and then The Decision Stage, where they become provider aware.

00:01:43:16 - 00:02:04:24
They go through the three stages before they engage with us and become a client. Now, the typical production professional will only ever be set up to sell to those that are in The Decision Stage of The Buyer's Journey. The people that have been through the journey, have decided that they need a video, and are now looking for the person, or the team, to create that content for them.

00:02:05:00 - 00:02:29:13
The amount of your potential prospect-base that are in that stage at any given moment in time is less than 1%. But all of your competition, and pretty much every filmmaker, videographer or video production company in the world, are fighting it out for that 1%, which obviously makes it incredibly competitive. The buyer has the advantage. So ultimately it comes down to price.

00:02:29:23 - 00:02:49:14
So that's a very quick recap of The Buyer's Journey. But as I've mentioned before, the full Deep Dive on that subject is linked below. But this is hopefully where the enormity of the concept hits home. This is where a lot of production company owners or freelancers have their “aha” moment and that is what we call blue ocean strategy.

00:02:49:14 - 00:03:10:20
Now, I first learned this concept when I was running my own production company and this concept, linking this back to my business, ultimately shaped my belief about the industry and set me off on the journey to building long term contracts through my consulting offering and then ultimately teaching this to thousands of production professionals around the world with incredible success.

00:03:11:01 - 00:03:38:08
Now, I was like any other production company owner before I stumbled upon this concept. I had a fantastic team. We were creating brilliant work, but in the grand scheme of things, we were average - converting probably 40% of the projects that we pitched on to paid projects, which wasn't bad, but wasn't great. However, just like almost every single production company and freelancer out there, we were struggling to generate enough leads to really kick on.

00:03:38:18 - 00:03:57:24
I was tired of the project by project way of working and all the stress that came with it. So when I shut that production company down and escaped the stress, I promised my wife that I will never allow myself to fall victim to that trap again. Like I said, I knew of Blue Ocean strategy, but it wasn't built in to my production company.

00:03:58:06 - 00:04:22:19
But when I made that promise to my wife and implemented the learnings from Blue Ocean Strategy, that's when our world turned around. Now, this concept is covered in detail in a book called, funnily enough, Blue Ocean Strategy, which was written by Renee Mauborgne and W Chan Kim back in 2004. But that book comes highly recommended. But here's a very quick overview of the book taken from the Blue Ocean Strategy website.

00:04:23:09 - 00:05:01:13
“Blue Ocean Strategy is about creating and capturing uncontested market space, thereby making the competition irrelevant. It is based on the view that market boundaries and industry structure are not a given and can be reconstructed by the actions and beliefs of industry players.” I've read this book about eight times and I still dip into it every so often. It's become a major part of my teaching, but when you couple The Buyer's Journey with Blue Ocean strategy, we have a completely different view of our business and in particular how we can attract and convert huge numbers of prospects that are perfect for us to our business.

00:05:01:14 - 00:05:28:03
By implementing the Blue Ocean strategy, you leave the big bloody red ocean that is full of your competitors that are fighting over a very small percentage of your target audience, and you open up a huge, clear blue ocean that allows you to compete where the rest of your target audience is - but without all the competition. This enables you to charge what you are worth and eradicates the lengthy, time-consuming and sometimes costly pitch process altogether.

00:05:28:03 - 00:05:54:09
But it's when you link this back to The Buyer’s Journey that the penny drops. We know that our buyer, or our prospect, will first identify, or become aware of, an issue, or an opportunity that they need to fix or achieve. If your prospect is a marketing professional, this could be that their sales numbers are dropping, or their previous marketing efforts just aren't delivering as they once did, or there's a new competitor in town, or they've got a new product to launch. It could be anything.

00:05:54:13 - 00:06:24:20
But once they've identified that issue or that opportunity, they then start to research ways in which they can fix that challenge or achieve that opportunity. Again, for a marketing professional, this could be radio advertising, search engine optimization, pay per click campaigns, PR or perhaps video. But then and only then, once they have identified the route that they are going to take, the vehicle that is going to take them to their goal, do they look for the person or business that's going to help them do that.

00:06:25:01 - 00:06:46:16
Now, relate that back to how a typical video production professional markets. Think about your own marketing collateral right now. What do you have? A website, a couple of social media channels, a showreel, a few case studies, a portfolio section on your website. That's all great. And don't get me wrong, they're all important when the time is right. But what is that content on your website actually doing?

00:06:46:16 - 00:07:10:03
What are you saying? Who are you talking to? And what are you talking about? Now, there's a high chance that you have your showreel on the home page of your website, maybe a link to your past projects or portfolio pieces, maybe even pictures of you and your team. The office dog? Be honest. Do you? Again, it's fine if you do, but who are you really talking to here?

00:07:10:10 - 00:07:35:23
You're talking to someone in The Decision Stage. Someone that knows that they want a video, someone that's coming to check you out to see if you're the person or the team to create it for them. Now take a look at some of your competition and see what's on their website. It’s the same thing right? And all the rest of the competition, all of the other production companies and freelancers that you can think of, they all do the same thing throughout all of their marketing.

00:07:36:03 - 00:07:53:22
Okay, let's stop looking at your competition. Let's go a bit deeper. This is a deep dive, after all. Let's take a look at your showreel. What does it do? What is it’s purpose? To show how talented you are, right? To show the level of production that you can deliver? To show how tight your edits are? To show past clients that have put their trust in you?

00:07:54:04 - 00:08:17:05
It will do and that is the purpose of a showreel. But now let's link this back to The Buyer's Journey. Who is that content going to appeal to? Who is it going to work on? People in The Awareness Stage, The Consideration Stage or The Decision Stage? It's The Decision Stage, isn't it? The people that have already decided that video is going to be the vehicle that's going to help them to achieve their goal.

00:08:17:14 - 00:08:39:22
And this is what nearly every single video production company or freelancer does. Why is this important? Because it means that you are only ever going to be able to sell to people that are in The Decision Stage at that particular moment in time. So it's a tiny percentage. We're talking less than 1% of all of the marketing professionals or business owners in your area.

00:08:40:05 - 00:09:03:06
And this issue compounds because all of your competitors are pitching, quoting or proposing to win the work from those prospects, too. That's the bloody red ocean. You're in it! And guess what? Your prospects, all those marketing professionals in this example, know that there are tons of talented production companies, videographers, filmmakers in each and every city in the world.

00:09:03:06 - 00:09:34:24
The barriers to entry to the market have dropped significantly in recent years, which means that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are supremely creative, talented, and reliable doing exactly what you are doing. So what happens? It becomes incredibly competitive. And the buyer, your prospect, is in a strong position. So ultimately it comes down to price and that's not a good place to be in. Massive effort, massive competition, low conversion rates and low profit.

00:09:34:24 - 00:09:57:08
So that's the 1% of your target audience. What about the other 99%? What are they up to? They still have the same challenges, goals and aspirations as the 1%, right? Where are they? Well, they're in the big blue ocean where none of your competitors are. They still have the exact same goals, opportunities and issues as the 1% that are in The Decision Stage, but they just aren't quite there yet.

00:09:57:12 - 00:10:28:05
They just need a nudge. None of your competitors are bothering with these people and that creates a huge opportunity. Coupling The Buyer's Journey with the Blue Ocean Strategy methodology is what our marketing needs to be built around. This is what allows production professionals like you to charge what you're worth, attract a constant flow of profitable prospects to your business and dramatically reduce the time, energy and money that's wasted on the incredibly competitive pitching, proposal, or quoting, process.

00:10:28:05 - 00:10:58:04
This is the secret to unlocking long term contracts with clients that you love working with. But also with clients that love working with you. Clients who respect your view. Clients who look to you as the expert. Clients that go with your creative direction, suggestion, ideas, concepts and knowledge. This is what has helped thousands of production professionals - just like you - to build a profitable, enjoyable business and we achieve this by implementing the framework that is called The Lead Generation Machine.

00:10:58:04 - 00:11:34:13
So, if this has resonated with you at all. If you can see how powerful the Blue Ocean Strategy concept will be for your video business, I want to give you something that will allow you to create a constant stream of opportunities (that are perfect for you) into your video business. This is my book, The Lead Generation Machine, and it's the ten step framework that has now helped over 3,000 video production professionals around the world to completely reinvent their businesses by building a simple, powerful and proven marketing strategy that builds upon what we have learned here today.

00:11:34:13 - 00:11:51:17
You can get that very framework and all the steps that you need to take - covered in detail - for just $7 via the link below. So that's all for today, and that's our deep dive into Blue Ocean strategy. I hope you found this helpful. And if you want to sort your marketing out once and for all, hit the link below.

00:11:51:24 - 00:11:57:03
Grab your copy of The Lead Generation Machine for just $7. Have a fantastic day!