What content should video business owners, videographers and filmmakers be creating?
Feb 27, 2023
Introduction
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), but it can sometimes be difficult to practise 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 content should video business owners, videographers and filmmakers be creating?
Links
- Watch: The Buyer's Journey: The most important marketing concept for video production professionals to understand >>>
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Transcript
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:21
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. 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.
00:00:20:21 - 00:00:51:10
And I'm also going to show you how to make sure that it does indeed drive opportunities into your video business. What content should video business owners, videographers and filmmakers be creating? Let's get stuck in. 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.
00:00:51:17 - 00:01:13:21
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. Now, almost every video production professional simply creates decision stage content -
00:01:13:21 - 00:01:41:11
so that's showreels, case studies, about us content - and expects that to attract and convert 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 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 the competition are completely ignoring),
00:01:41:16 - 00:02:04:04
we need to ensure that we hook them in with our awareness stage content, we educate them with our consideration stage content, and then finally we can convert them to an opportunity with our decision stage content. Now, I attribute a lot of the success I've been able to achieve from this concept, and in turn help thousands of production professionals just like you, to Molly Pittman and her incredible coaching.
00:02:04:13 - 00:02:27:12
I first discovered Molly's work while she was at Digital Marketer, one of the leading digital marketing brands in the US. Molly started as an apprentice at Digital Marketer and soon worked her way up. I listened with intent to every episode of the Perpetual Traffic podcast that she founded and starred in. Molly would often talk about the importance of serving the right content to the right people at the right time.
00:02:27:18 - 00:02:52:24
But how do you do that? Well, you understand where these interactions take place and you put in place mechanisms to ensure that you are automatically moving your prospects through The Buyer's Journey as they interact and engage with your content. I took Molly's teaching, went over it again and again, and finally developed the process in which video production professionals distribute the right content to the right people at the right time.
00:02:52:24 - 00:03:15:23
And I call this our distribution strategy. Catchy, ay? Now, the concept behind our distribution strategy is that our perfect prospect 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.
00:03:16:05 - 00:03:37:08
It would be pointless serving someone who we know is in the awareness stage our showreel, 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 why so many production professionals get it so completely wrong. They create an incredible showreel and promote it to people that they believe will want to work with them.
00:03:37:16 - 00:04:04:12
And then they wonder why promoting their content on social media never works for them. 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 places in which our perfect prospects engage with our content. Those three distribution channels are our website, our emails, and our social channels.
00:04:04:13 - 00:04:30:00
Remember, this is specific to video production professionals and video business owners and freelancers. In the wider marketing world, we talk about paid, owned and earned media. There are plenty more distribution channels in the marketing world - Out Of Home, TV, Video On Demand, print, influencer marketing, guerilla marketing and so on. But for us and this strategy, we focus on our website, our emails and our social channels.
00:04:30:09 - 00:04:53:10
Let's start off by breaking the three distribution channels down into the three stages of The Buyer’s Journey. The awareness state. In the awareness stage, we only use one distribution channel and that's our social channels. By definition, if somebody visits your website, they are at least in the consideration stage. The only way they can get to your website is by: one, clicking on a link that takes them to your website.
00:04:53:10 - 00:05:11:18
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. Number two is searching for you, or a search term that relates to your website on a search engine like Google, for example.
00:05:12:01 - 00:05:37:15
And if they're searching, they're already aware of you or they're aware of the issue that they face or opportunity that's presenting itself. Therefore, they are already in the consideration stage. Or number three, they've typed your URL into their web browser. And to know your URL, they must be aware of you. And the same goes for your emails. If they're receiving your emails, that means that they've subscribed to your content and have given you permission to email them.
00:05:37:21 - 00:06:06:00
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 prospect's attention, make them aware of an issue or 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.
00:06:06:08 - 00:06:38:13
And in the resources for this video, I've shared with you an audience persona worksheet which will help you to get all this juicy information. Now, this part is key. If that person engages with our awareness stage content, we know that they are most probably a perfect prospect. If they've bothered to watch a video to completion, or at least 75% completion, like, comment, or share, on one of our pieces of content, it's safe to say that something in there resonated with them, but how do we know if they've engaged with that content?
00:06:38:13 - 00:07:01:09
Well, it's simple. We build what are called custom audiences of people that have shown engagement. 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
00:07:01:09 - 00:07:25:18
stage content. That's the number one goal of our awareness stage content. Our mission here is to build 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 the viewer to our website and of course, our consideration stage content, because sometimes people will want to find out more there
00:07:25:18 - 00:07:49:17
and then. 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, or get distracted by something else. By building custom audiences of everyone that is 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.
00:07:50:10 - 00:08:12:00
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. Our website acts as the hub for all of our consideration stage content.
00:08:12:04 - 00:08:31:08
We'll come on to this later in the video, but our content will be hosted on YouTube, not Vimeo, and I explain why in another video 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 on social.
00:08:31:17 - 00:08:51:03
They've come away from whatever social channel our content found them on. And they’re now in our own 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 that space.
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We do not have to play by anybody else's rules. We are in charge of the journey that they take on our website. 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. But also by having them on our website, we are able to see what they are doing.
00:09:11:01 - 00:09:30:07
If they engaged with a few pieces of consideration stage content, we can build custom audiences of people that are super engaged and we can get a really clear view of 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
00:09:30:07 - 00:09:51:06
our consideration stage content. Again, we’ll come on to what that content actually looks like shortly. 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.
00:09:51:12 - 00:10:22:21
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 so wrong. The calls to action within our consideration stage content will vary depending on what type of content it is. Again, we'll come on to this shortly, 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.
00:10:23:07 - 00:10:46:13
Once we have their email address, we own that data and we can start to send them emails. Now, finally, the decision stage. As you've probably guessed, we use all three distribution channels within the decision stage. Once again, we host our decision stage content on YouTube and embed them within our website, which makes the transition between the consideration stage and decision stage as seamless as possible.
00:10:46:20 - 00:11:08:07
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 those videos on our website, and we serve them our decision stage content when they're back on social media. And finally, we serve our decision stage content to those that are on our email list.
00:11:08:13 - 00:11:31:24
They have adhered to one of our calls to actions 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 to 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.
00:11:32:10 - 00:11:58:11
So that's what we're setting out to achieve. That's the strategy. And now that we understand the strategy, it becomes a lot easier to understand what we need to create. We need to create content for each stage of The Buyer’s Journey. So let's focus on the awareness stage. What we're going to do here is to go back to our audience persona worksheet and extract questions, worries, fears and aspirations that we know our perfect prospects have off the back of our research.
00:11:58:20 - 00:12:19:11
These are the titles of our awareness stage content. Remember, although people in the awareness stage have not yet identified a pain, or problem, or opportunity, yet, we know that they have them and it's our job to make them aware of it in order to help them to fix that pain or problem, or achieve that opportunity. We have the answers, so let's give them to them.
00:12:19:13 - 00:12:47:12
The title of that content will catch their attention because we have profiled them. 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.” 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, we know that they are in the market for attracting more patients to their dental practice.
00:12:48:05 - 00:13:09:09
In the consideration stage, we are going to educate our perfect prospect as to how they can achieve that goal or fix their problem. 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.
00:13:09:16 - 00:13:29:16
We're going to present to them a more detailed version of the answers contained in your awareness stage content. So what we need to do here is to pick the three biggest pain points, challenges, or questions, that our perfect prospects have and use them as our consideration stage content. Jot these down and add some bullet points that form the backbone of the video.
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Remembering that we can get more information into this video, as we know that our viewer is engaged by this point. And 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 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.
00:13:52:03 - 00:14:11:24
So there's two types of decision stage content that all production professionals should have. The first is a showreel and you might feel that this goes against my teachings, but showreels are important ... in the decision stage. But you just have to get people to the decision stage first, which is what our awareness stage and consideration stage content will do.
00:14:12:06 - 00:14:44:21
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 stand out showreel, it must contain information as to how you have helped people like the viewer fix their problems or achieve their goals before. 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
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key driver is results, so we must show them that others have been happy with our service and achieved results. 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.
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But if you don't have these in place, now's the time to get this sorted. So that's what content you should be creating. And most importantly, the why behind creating it. Now, as you've got this far into what has been a pretty chunky Deep Dive, I am certain that you are serious about driving opportunities into your video business. The teachings within this video have come from my book, The Lead Generation Machine, which walks you through the process of creating a marketing system that drives a constant stream of opportunities (that are perfect for you) into your video business.
00:15:41:11 - 00:16:00:06
And I want to offer you this book, and all the step-by-steps, right here. If you use a link below this video, you can get access to the e-book for $7, the physical printed book for just $27, or both the e-book and the physical book for just $27. And the printed book comes with free worldwide shipping.
00:16:00:13 - 00:16:15:04
So I hope that's been helpful. But if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out or leave a comment below. Don't forget to grab your resources. And of course, the book from just $7. Thanks for being here and have a fantastic day.
