The most important marketing concept for video production professionals to understand
Feb 06, 2023
Introduction
There are two key concepts that it is absolutely vital for video production professionals to understand when it comes to their marketing - one of which is The Buyer's Journey.
Without understanding this key marketing concept, people that run video businesses constantly try all forms of marketing, but nothing ever really sticks.
By understanding The Buyer's Journey and relating it to your video business, you'll be looking at your marketing in a completely new light.
And that, funnily enough, is what we're going to cover in today's Deep Dive.
Links
- Watch: Blue Ocean Strategy and how video professionals can use it to completely eradicate the competition >>>
- Purchase: The Lead Generation Machine for just $7 >>>
Transcript
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:32:17
There are two key concepts that it is absolutely vital for video production professionals to understand when it comes to their marketing - one of which is The Buyer's Journey. Without understanding this key marketing concept, people that run video businesses constantly try all forms of marketing, but nothing ever really sticks. By understanding The Buyer's Journey and relating it to your video business, you'll be looking at your marketing in a completely new light. And that, funnily enough, is what we're going to cover in today's Deep Dive.
00:00:33:00 - 00:01:01:07
What is The Buyer's Journey and why is it vital for video production professionals to understand? Let's get stuck in. So welcome to today's Deep Dive, where we look at key marketing, sales and retention concepts, tactics and strategies in detail. The goal for these sessions is to give you a deep understanding within a particular subject and provide you with everything that you need to benefit from that knowledge with actionable takeaways.
00:01:01:07 - 00:01:29:11
Because of this, below this video, you've got access to the resources and worksheets that we talk through in this video. Those will help you to implement what we learn here today and today, we're looking at The Buyer's Journey, a key concept to understand for video production professionals, and most importantly, how to take advantage of your newfound knowledge. So let's start by understanding what this concept is first, and then we'll move on to how we apply this to our video business.
00:01:29:12 - 00:01:47:13
In the marketing world, there's a concept called The Buyer's Journey. You may or may not have heard of it, but one thing's for sure - that you would have experienced it, perhaps without knowing. The Buyer’s Journey sets out the path that any buyer takes, no matter what they are buying. It could be a car. it could be a set of golf clubs.
00:01:47:19 - 00:02:18:09
It could be hiring a video production company, or a videographer, or filmmaker. But it plays a major role in the way in which we're going to attract your perfect prospects that have never heard of you before, right through to becoming a client., so this is a key concept to grasp. The Buyer's Journey has been around for many years, but it was the founders of HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, who coined the phrase and made it a cornerstone of the marketing world in their book Inbound Marketing, which is a highly recommended read by the way.
00:02:18:09 - 00:02:56:16
I don't want to get too caught up here in the background, but this marketing strategy completely reinvented the way in which marketers market. It allowed them to open up a whole new market of potential buyers, well before the buyer, or the prospect, was solution aware. We'll come on to that. But by understanding this concept, you create a giant blue ocean of all of the people that would be suited to your services and you give yourself the ability to convert them into a buyer, a client, or a customer. By not understanding this concept, you - just like pretty much every other video production professional in the world - are only ever going to be able
00:02:56:19 - 00:03:17:19
to sell to prospects that have transitioned through The Buyer's Journey and are looking for someone, or some team, to create their video content. And that's a problem, because that's where it is incredibly competitive and the buyer is in a strong position, because there is no lack of talented video creators today. The barriers to entry to our industry have dropped significantly in recent years.
00:03:18:00 - 00:03:38:09
The cost of high quality equipment continues to fall. Thousands of people roll out film school each and every year. Within any city in the world, there are literally thousands of talented videographers, filmmakers, production companies doing what you do, and the buyer knows this. So ultimately, it comes down to price. And that's not a good place to be.
00:03:38:15 - 00:04:10:02
Massive effort, small prospect base, massive competition, low profit, low conversion rate. And incidentally, those prospects that are aware that they need video content created and are actively looking for a provider, represent a fraction of all the other potential prospects that are just like them at any given moment in time. We're talking less than 1%. So you can see why it can sometimes feel like you're banging your head against the wall when it comes to marketing your video business and converting your opportunities to sales.
00:04:10:02 - 00:04:41:17
But imagine if you were able to turn the 99% of your perfect prospects that aren't yet ready to buy into genuine red hot leads and opportunities. And imagine if it was just you speaking to that 99% whilst your competition fights it out for the scraps with the 1%. That would be quite powerful, right? That would give your video business a new lease of life. That would allow you to pick and choose the projects that you worked on, the clients that you worked with, the industries that you worked in.
00:04:42:00 - 00:05:08:04
And that's why The Buyer's Journey is such a critical concept to fully understand. Whenever I work with a production professional, I implement this strategy and you'll see how we do this as we progress through this video. But the first thing that I do when I take on board a new consulting client is to make sure that they are absolutely crystal clear with this very philosophy, because when they are, the results are abundant and genuinely life changing.
00:05:08:07 - 00:05:34:09
Now the concept of The Buyer's Journey is simple and it's broken down into three stages. We've got The Awareness Stage, The Consideration Stage and The Decision Stage. In The Awareness Stage, your prospect becomes aware of an issue that they are facing or an opportunity that is presenting itself. In The Consideration Stage your prospect starts to research ways in which they can fix their issue or achieve their opportunity.
00:05:34:14 - 00:06:00:12
And then finally, in The Decision Stage, your prospect is actively looking for the product or service or provider that will help them to fix their issue or achieve their opportunity. Understanding this is important, because at each stage of The Buyer’s Journey, your prospect is looking for different things. They have different questions that need answering, which means that we need to talk to them in a different way and provide them with the content that they require at that stage.
00:06:00:18 - 00:06:27:22
The majority of production professionals will only ever market with their showreel, or their client projects, or their case studies. So if you're doing that, you're only ever going to be able to attract and convert prospects that have already made their way into The Decision Stage of The Buyer's Journey. Think about that. Whenever you receive an inquiry, a request for a quote, a request to pitch, the buyer is in The Decision Stage.
00:06:27:22 - 00:06:50:22
They're looking for someone, or some team, to help them achieve their goal, or fix their problem. But they've already decided that video is going to be the route for them. They've already taken that journey. But were you the one that made them aware of that issue or that opportunity in the first place? And how many other marketing professionals just like them, have the very same goals?
00:06:51:05 - 00:07:12:11
That's where the real power of this concept comes into play. If we can attract and convert prospects that are just like those that are already in The Decision Stage, we are able to completely eradicate the competition and open up a whole new market of potential customers. So how do we apply this to our video businesses or our freelancing operations?
00:07:12:12 - 00:07:40:01
Well, we shape the journey that our prospect goes through by understanding what resonates with them whilst they are in each stage of The Buyer's Journey. Then we shape the journey that they go through and the content they engage with from that. Because our competition - and pretty much every single video production company, or videographer, or filmmaker - is marketing with only their showreel and case studies, they are leaving a huge untapped ocean of potential clients ready and waiting for you.
00:07:40:07 - 00:08:07:05
So if you can hook your potential clients in at The Awareness Stage - well before they've decided that they need a video and certainly well before they are looking for the person or the team that's going to create that video - well, you've just dramatically changed the future of your video business for the good. Let's go into the three stages of The Buyer's Journey in a little more detail and then we'll look at how we use this to start driving an untapped flow of opportunities into your video business.
00:08:07:14 - 00:08:28:06
So let's start with The Awareness Stage. In The Awareness Stage, we make our prospect aware of an opportunity, or an issue, relating to what we know are their key motivations. That may be moving away from pain, or moving towards pleasure. In this stage, we're going to be creating content that taps into their core intrinsic motivators, and we show them that we have the answer.
00:08:28:06 - 00:08:49:13
All we are looking to do at this stage is to build a huge group of people that engage with this content, so that we can confidently say that our service can help those people. You may be asking at this stage, “How do I know what those core intrinsic motivators, or challenges that my perfect prospects face are?” Do not worry, I'll come on to this and I'll make sure that we're crystal clear on what they are, so our content and messaging cuts through.
00:08:49:16 - 00:09:10:20
Now let's look at The Consideration Stage. So once our prospect has put their pain, challenge, question, worry or aspiration into a box, and we've shown them an answer to that motivator, we then educate them through our content, or messaging, and we show them how our service can help them to fix that problem, or achieve that opportunity.
00:09:11:04 - 00:09:34:07
One of the most important pieces of work that we need to do is to put in place systems that identify where the prospect is within The Buyer's Journey, so we know that we're serving them the right content at the right time, and we can do that all automatically - to run in the background of our business. So once it's set up, you can just let it run and you can concentrate on serving your clients. And we'll come on to that shortly.
00:09:34:15 - 00:09:55:18
And then in The Decision Stage, once our prospect knows our service (video production) has the ability to help them, it's time to show them how we have helped other people that are just like them achieve the very same goals, or fix the very same challenges that they face. This is where we speak directly to their problem, giving them the answers and showing them that we are here to help them.
00:09:56:02 - 00:10:16:04
So let's do something practical here. In the links below this video, you'll be able to download the worksheets and resources to help you implement what we've learned so far. One of those worksheets talks you through the steps that you need to take in order to uncover what content will resonate with your target audience in each of the stages of The Buyer's Journey.
00:10:16:04 - 00:10:41:07
So once we're done here, you can go away and get this in place. You'll see in the worksheet that we have sections for content ideas and we work through the process of identifying what the content should be, what it's saying, and how we answer the questions that our prospect has in each stage of The Buyer's Journey. But what I want to do here is to now talk about how we utilize what we uncover in that task and how we apply what we've learned so far to our business, because this is where the magic happens.
00:10:41:07 - 00:11:04:07
When we have our content ready for each stage of The Buyer's Journey, we then serve this content to those that are in The Awareness Stage. So that's the people that aren't yet even aware that they have an issue to fix, or an opportunity to take. These people are also, incidentally, the 99% of your prospect base that you're competition is completely ignoring.
00:11:04:14 - 00:11:36:04
Now this is important. Our Awareness Stage content is designed specifically to hook people that would be perfect for us and our services into our Buyer's Journey. This content is short and sharp, but the only thing that we are looking to do here with this content is to drive engagement. If somebody watches one of those videos to over 75%, or they click on a link, or they comment on a post, share it, or even like it, well, it's safe to say that something in that video, or post, or blog, resonated with them.
00:11:36:06 - 00:11:56:01
If they show any one of those engagement actions, we can safely say that they are, well, engaged and already for our Consideration Stage content, which shows them how video can help them to fix or achieve their newfound issue or opportunity. Does that make sense? We're not trying to generate a lead here. We're not trying to convert them to a customer.
00:11:56:07 - 00:12:24:12
We're not trying to get them to pick up the phone. We're simply using this content to find out who we can help. Why do we do this? Well, this allows us to make our marketing work for us. Here's something that happens all the time. A video production company, or a videographer, or a filmmaker, decides that they need to get more clients, so they spend days on their showreel, maybe some case studies, and they head on over to Facebook, or Instagram, or LinkedIn, or YouTube, and they decide that they need to boost or promote that video.
00:12:24:22 - 00:12:47:17
They select a few top-level demographics of people that they think will be good prospects, boost the post and wait to see the opportunities rolling in. But nothing ever happens - other than wasting a load of budget and the view count on the video rising a little. They turn the ad spend off, feel deflated, and tell themselves that social media marketing just doesn't work for them.
00:12:48:01 - 00:13:11:01
That's common and I see it all the time. But why do you think it doesn't work? Why have they wasted their hard-earned cash? Well, it's because they're serving Decision Stage content - their showreel, their case studies, their portfolio items - to anyone that looks like their target audience. But we already know that 99% of those people were not going to be in The Decision Stage.
00:13:11:07 - 00:13:33:22
They're not aware that they have a challenge to overcome, or an opportunity to take. So why would they be minutely interested in a showreel, or a case study, if they are in no way thinking at all about creating video content? That's why it doesn't work. That's why they waste their budget. That's why they walk away feeling deflated, telling themselves that social media just doesn't work for them.
00:13:34:05 - 00:13:58:13
You have to serve the right content to the right people at the right time, depending on which stage of The Buyer's Journey they are in and what questions they need answering. Your showreel and your case studies are important, but they will only ever work on someone that has made their way through The Buyer's Journey and are looking for someone, or some team, that is going to help them create that content.
00:13:58:13 - 00:14:23:07
Now the other benefit of what we are doing with our Awareness Stage content is that we are targeting engagement, or video views, which cost a whole lot less than a click or a conversion. An engaged video view will typically cost you less than a cent, whereas a click, or a conversion, can be upwards of $5, or 500 cents. Because we are only looking to see who engages with our awareness stage content,
00:14:23:14 - 00:14:46:17
we can use engagement targeting to make this incredibly, incredibly cost effective. Then, when that person shows any engagement actions, we can use remarketing tactics to serve them our Consideration Stage and Decision Stage content, which will be more expensive, yes, but we are only spending that money on people that we know are engaged and primed for our service.
00:14:46:23 - 00:15:08:01
This is how we make social media marketing work for us as video professionals. And this is why understanding The Buyer’s Journey - and relating it to the video world - is so important. So have you got that? Does that all make sense? Now, that's a pretty in-depth look into The Buyer’s Journey. The second major concept that we must be aware of is called Blue Ocean Strategy.
00:15:08:01 - 00:15:27:07
And I have a separate Deep Dive on that subject. And remember, you can grab the resources and worksheets from today's sessions via the link below. But if this has resonated with you at all, 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.
00:15:27:07 - 00:15:56:07
Now, this is my book, The Lead Generation Machine, and it's a 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 - into their video business. 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.
00:15:56:07 - 00:16:09:01
So that's all for today. I hope you found that helpful. And if you want to sort your marketing out once and for all, hit the link below and grab your copy of The Lead Generation Machine for just $7. Have a fantastic day.
