What content should Video Production Companies create to promote their shop?

Introduction

As video company owners, videographers, and filmmakers, we know we need to create our own content. It's what we tell our clients to do after all. But it can sometimes be difficult to practice what we preach when it comes to our own content creation.

In this Deep Dive, we run through the process of uncovering what you should be creating and show you how to make sure that it does indeed drive opportunities into your video business.

What You'll Learn

Before we dive into what content will attract perfect prospects, we need to understand the strategy behind it – the journey that our content is going to take our perfect prospects on. This strategy works hand-in-hand with the buyer's journey and Blue Ocean Strategy.

• The Distribution Strategy – Understanding where interactions take place and putting mechanisms in place to automatically move prospects through the buyer's journey as they engage with your content.
• Three Distribution Channels – Your website, your emails, and your social channels – the places where your perfect prospects engage with your content.
• Content for Each Stage – Creating awareness, consideration, and decision stage content that serves the right message to the right people at the right time.

The Problem with Decision Stage Content Only

Almost every production company simply creates decision stage content – showreels, case studies, behind-the-scenes content – and expects that to attract prospects and convert them to clients. The issue is that you are only ever allowing yourself to sell to the very small percentage of your target audience that have made their own way to the decision stage at any given time.

In order to reach the untouched 99% of your perfect prospects who have the exact same challenges and desires as the 1%, and that your competition are completely ignoring, we need to hook them in with awareness stage content, educate them with consideration stage content, and then finally convert them to an opportunity with decision stage content.

The Distribution Strategy Explained

Your perfect prospects will either be in the awareness stage, the consideration stage, or the decision stage. To serve them the right content, we first need to identify what stage they are in, then make sure they are being served the right content.

It would be pointless serving someone in the awareness stage your showreel, because in this stage they're not even aware of an opportunity presenting itself or an issue that needs to be fixed. This is where so many production professionals get it wrong – they create an incredible showreel and promote it to people they believe will want to work with them, then wonder why promoting their content on social media never worked.

Content By Stage

Awareness Stage: We only use one distribution channel – social channels. Content should speak directly to the pain points that your perfect prospects have. It's usually nice and concise, in the region of 60 to 90 seconds, and easy to consume. The sole purpose is to capture attention, make prospects aware of an issue or opportunity, and progress them to the consideration stage.

Consideration Stage: We use two distribution channels – our website and our social channels. Our website acts as a hub for all consideration stage content. Here we educate our perfect prospect as to how they can achieve their goal or fix their problem, and we overcome objections. We pick the three biggest challenges, pain points, or questions that our perfect prospects have and use them as our consideration stage content.

Decision Stage: We use all three distribution channels – website, emails, and social channels. There are two types of decision stage content that all production professionals should have: showreels and case studies/testimonials. Your showreel must contain information as to how you have helped people just like the viewer fix their problems or achieve their goals before. You need to speak about or show results.

Why This Approach Works

By building custom audiences of people who have engaged with your awareness stage content, you can continually serve them consideration stage content until they're ready to progress to the decision stage. This is how you make social media work for you, and how you don't waste any money on serving the wrong content to the wrong people.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:00
As video company owners, videographers, and filmmakers, we of course know that we need to create our own content. It's what we tell our clients to do after all. But it can sometimes be difficult to practice what we preach when it comes to our own content creation. So, in today's deep dive, I'm going to run you through the process of uncovering what you should be creating, and I'm also going to show you how to make sure that it does indeed drive opportunities into your video business. What marketing content should video production companies be creating for themselves?

00:00:33:00 - 00:01:04:00
So, before we get stuck into understanding what content is going to attract perfect prospects that have never heard of us before, right through to becoming red-hot opportunities, we need to get really clear on the journey that our content is going to take our perfect prospects on. We need to understand the strategy behind it first. Now, if you've watched any of my content, you would have heard me bang on about the buyer's journey and how it works hand-in-hand with Blue Ocean Strategy. If you aren't up to speed with those concepts just yet, I've linked to those videos below.

00:01:04:00 - 00:01:37:00
Almost every production company simply creates decision stage content, so that's showreels, case studies, behind-the-scenes content, and expects that to attract prospects and convert them to clients. The issue with that is that you are only ever allowing yourself to sell to the very small percentage of your target audience that have made their own way to and are in the decision stage at any given time. In order to reach the untouched 99% of our perfect prospects who have the exact same challenges and desires as the 1% and that your competition are completely ignoring, we need to ensure that we hook them in with our awareness stage content.

00:01:37:00 - 00:02:09:00
We educate them with our consideration stage content and then finally we can convert them to an opportunity with our decision stage content. So we need to be able to serve the right content to the right people at the right time. How do we do that? Well, you first understand where these interactions take place and then you put in place mechanisms to ensure that you are automatically moving your prospects through the buyers journey as they interact and engage with your content. I call this our distribution strategy. Catchy, eh?

00:02:09:00 - 00:02:58:00
The concept behind our distribution strategy is that our perfect prospects will either be in the awareness stage, the consideration stage or the decision stage. So in order to serve them the right content, we need to first of all be able to identify what stage they are in. And then we need to make sure that they are being served the right content. It would be pointless serving someone who we know is in the awareness stage, our show reel, because in this stage, they're not even aware of an opportunity that's presenting itself or an issue that needs to be fixed. And this is where so many production professionals get it so wrong.

00:02:58:00 - 00:03:37:00
They create an incredible showreel and promote it to people that they believe will want to work with them. And then they wonder why promoting their content in social media never worked. You've got to serve the right content to your audience depending on where they are within the buyer's journey. Within our distribution strategy, we have three main distribution channels. These are the places in which our perfect prospect engage with our content. These three distribution channels are our website, our emails, and our social channels. Remember, this is specific to video production professionals.

00:03:37:00 - 00:04:44:00
In the wider marketing world, we talk about paid, owned, and earned media. There are plenty more distribution channels such as out of home, TV, video on demand, print, influencer marketing, guerilla marketing. The list goes on. But for us and this strategy, we focus on our website, our emails, and our social channels. Let's start off by breaking these three distribution channels down to the three stages of the buyer journey. The awareness stage. In the awareness stage, we only use one distribution channel, and that's our social channels. By definition, if someone visits your website, they are in at least the consideration stage.

00:04:44:00 - 00:05:27:00
The only way they can get to your website is by one clicking on a link that takes them to your website. And to do that, they need to have engaged with your content or been recommended your site by someone else. So, they're either aware of you or they're interested in how you or your service is going to help them achieve their goal. Two, searching for you or a search term that relates to your website on a search engine like Google. And if they're searching, they're already aware of you or they're aware of the issue that they face or opportunity that is presenting itself. Therefore, they are already in the consideration stage. Or number three, they've typed in your website address into their web browser. And to know your website address, they must be aware of you.

00:05:27:00 - 00:06:06:00
And the same goes for your emails. If they're receiving your emails, that means they've subscribed to your content and have given you permission to email them. So, we only have one distribution channel in the awareness stage, and that's fine because our awareness stage content is only designed to capture our perfect prospects attention, make them aware of an issue or an opportunity, and progress them to the consideration stage. That's the sole purpose of our awareness stage content. So, how do we do that? Well, we create and promote our awareness stage content to people that look like our perfect prospects.

00:06:06:00 - 00:06:59:00
In my book and free video course, the lead generation machine, there are tons of free resources that help you get all this in place, and the link is below to that. Now, this part is key. If that person engages with your awareness stage content, we know that they are most probably a perfect prospect. If they've bothered to watch a video that is speaking to the pain points of our audience persona or ideal customers and they've watched that video to completion or at least 75% completion, like comment or share on one of those pieces of content, it's safe to say that something in there resonated with them. And our service video production could probably help them. But how do we know if they've engaged with that content? Well, it's simple. We build what are called custom audiences of people that have shown engagement.

00:06:59:00 - 00:07:45:00
Again, that could be watching one of our awareness stage videos to at least 75%, clicking on the link, liking a post, sharing a post, or commenting on a post. If they show any of these engagement actions, we know that they are well engaged and primed for our consideration stage content. That's the number one goal of our awareness stage content. Our mission here is to build huge custom audiences of people that we know are engaging with the messaging within our awareness stage content. We do build in a simple call to action on our awareness stage content that directs a viewer to our website and of course our consideration stage content because sometimes people will want to find out more there and then.

00:07:45:00 - 00:08:30:00
But sometimes life will get in the way and they'll like a post or watch a video to 75% and move on to whatever they were doing and get distracted by something else. By building custom audiences of everyone that has engaged with our awareness stage content, we can continually serve them consideration stage content until they're ready to progress to the next stage of the buyer's journey and our decision stage content. Okay, so the next stage, the consideration stage. Once we have identified those that have engaged with our awareness stage content, we can now start serving them our consideration stage content. And for this stage, we use two of our distribution channels, our website and our social channels.

00:08:30:00 - 00:09:27:00
Our website acts as a hub for all of our consideration stage content. So our content will be hosted on YouTube, not Vimeo. And I'll explain why in another video and within the book and embedded on our website. Why on our website? Well, there's two reasons. First of all, visiting our website is a greater sign of intent than simply watching a video to 75% or liking a post. They've come away from whatever social channel our content found them on and they're now in our environment. By having them on our website, they have shown greater engagement and a greater commitment to finding out the way in which they're going to fix their issue or achieve their opportunity. The second reason that we want them on our website is that we own this space. We don't have to play by anybody else's rules. We are in charge of the journey that they take on our website.

00:09:27:00 - 00:10:09:00
So by being on our website, we can encourage them to view more consideration stage content, give us their email address, or even reach out and inquire straight away. Also, by having them on our website, we are able to see what they are doing. If they engage with a few pieces of consideration stage content, we can build custom audiences of people that are super engaged. We can get a really clear view on what is working or what isn't working. When it comes to using our social channels within the consideration stage, we can serve the people that have engaged with our awareness stage content, our consideration stage content. Again, we'll come on to what that content actually looks like shortly.

00:10:09:00 - 00:10:47:00
But by having this mechanism in place, we can tell the social channels to only serve consideration stage content to people that are in the consideration stage. We stop serving them awareness stage content and focus solely on educating them enough to convert them to the decision stage. This is how you make social media work for you and this is how you don't waste any money on serving the wrong content to the wrong people. Again, this is where so many production professionals get it wrong. The calls to action within our consideration stage content will vary depending on what type of content it is, but we'll either be directing them to our decision stage content or we'll be encouraging them to give us their email address via a lead magnet in order to get them onto our database and ready for our email broadcasts.

00:10:47:00 - 00:11:17:00
Once we have their email address, we own that data and we can start sending them emails. And then finally, the decision stage. As you've probably guessed, we use all three distribution channels. Once again, we host our decision stage content on YouTube and embed them within our website, which makes a transition from consideration stage to decision stage as seamless as possible. We execute the same remarketing techniques on our social channels, which means we're building custom audiences of people that have engaged with our consideration stage content or watched a few of these videos on our website.

00:11:17:00 - 00:12:02:00
And we serve them our decision stage content when they're ready, when they're back on social media. And finally, we serve our decision stage content to those that are on our email list. They have adhered to one of our calls to action and are serious about finding out enough information to be able to achieve their goal. In terms of the calls to action within our decision stage content, it's simple. Get in contact, request a quote, inquire. This is the final step to converting that person that has never heard of you before to becoming a red-hot lead and in turn an excited and satisfied customer. So that's what we're setting out to achieve. That's the strategy.

00:12:02:00 - 00:12:42:00
Now that we understand the strategy, it's a lot easier to understand what we need to create. We need to create content for each stage of the buyers journey. So, let's focus on the awareness stage. Our awareness stage content should be speaking directly to the pain points that our perfect prospects or our ideal customers have. Remember, all we are doing with our awareness stage content is looking for engagement. So if someone watches a video that is crafted to speak directly to a pain point that our ideal customer has and our service video production helps to overcome, well, we can move them into the consideration stage with confidence.

00:12:42:00 - 00:13:15:00
So awareness stage content is usually nice and concise in the region of 60 to 90 seconds and is nice and easy to consume. Like I've said within my book and free video course, the lead generation machine, we go through the exact steps to ensure that you can identify exactly what this content should be for your own particular case. And the link to that is below this video. But for example, if we're looking to attract marketing professionals from the world of dentistry, one of the subjects could be how to attract more dental patients to your dental practice without wasting time, effort, and money.

00:13:15:00 - 00:14:06:00
When we serve this content to our target audience that are in the awareness stage, if they watch this video to 75% or show some engagement action, we know that they are probably in the market for attracting more patients to their dental practice. In the consideration stage, we're going to educate our perfect prospect as to how they can achieve their goal or fix their problem. And we overcome objections. Remember, the consideration stage is where our prospect becomes solution aware. We know that the viewer, our perfect prospect, has been engaged by something within our awareness stage content. So, now is the time to take that engagement and make it meaningful. We're going to present them a more detailed version of the answers contained in your awareness stage content.

00:14:06:00 - 00:14:59:00
So, what we typically do here is pick the three biggest challenges, pain points, or questions that our perfect prospects have and use them as our consideration stage content like I'm doing with this video right now. And remember all the steps are within the book and video course the lead generation machine which is completely free. So now we move into the decision stage. When someone moves into the decision stage they are now aware that the service that you offer will help them to achieve their goal or fix their problem. So now is the time to show that you are the person or the company to help them do that. So there's two types of decision stage content that all production professionals should have.

00:14:59:00 - 00:15:09:00
The first is a showreel. And you may feel that this goes against my other teachings, but showreels are important in the decision stage. You just have to get people to the decision stage first, which is what our awareness stage and consideration stage content is designed to do. They still need to be sure that you are talented, but here's the one twist. Your showreel absolutely must show your production capabilities, whether that be from producing, shooting, editing, animating, sound design, and so on. But to create a standout showreel, it must contain information as to how you have helped people just like the viewer fix their problems or achieve their goals before. You need to speak about or show results. A showreel with just creative shots will not stand out no matter how great you think it is or how tight the edit is. Knowing what we know now, our prospect's key driver is results. So, we must show that others have been happy with your service. So perhaps your showreel needs a re-edit. And if so, how do you land on that information? Well, the answer lies within the second piece of decision stage content that all production professionals should have, case studies and testimonials. Again, you may well have these, and if so, that's great. But if you don't have these in place, now's the time to get them sorted. So that's what content you should be creating, and most importantly, the why behind creating it.