Simon Banks, Video Strategist - Tallboy communications ltd

My name is Simon Banks, I'm a video strategist and my company is called Torboy. And I work with companies with video content, and this is through strategy, production, and marketing and distribution. I think video is part of marketing, and you need to represent yourself in front of the camera. I need to be seen if you want to be serious about your marketing. So hence, at Tallboy, we're doing a lot more video content. For me, it's more about educational. It's about educating our clients about why they should be using video, how they should be using video, and how to get a return of investment on video. So when it comes to video, nothing can really be video except a face-to-face meeting. Video, it displays emotion. You can hear the person's voice. You can see their face. You can see the color of their eyes even. So if you want to reach out on a more personal level, nothing beats video, especially if you can't go and see them. And video, just on this day and age, I think people are used to watching video content rather than reading about it, and I think that is the future. People are not going to read websites. They're going to watch videos. I think a lot of companies see video as a standalone. For some reason, it's always separate. And it's quite often seen as a ticker. So sometimes they'll be doing a launch of a product, or we've got a new event coming up. Oh, let's have a video. But I don't think they really understand how video works or what's really involved with video. So quite often they say, oh, let's just get a videographer in, and they can come and shoot for a day and make some videos, and that's it. We're done. But realistically, that's part of the story. But unless you really know what your video wants to convey, who your audience is, and if no one watches your video, you're completely wasting your time and money. So you've got to have all those elements in place for an effective video campaign. So recently I wrote a book called How to Get Video Right, and it's a guide for businesses on how to use video. Because I feel a lot of businesses come to me and they say, I want a video. How much? And they get caught up in the production of the video rather than looking at the strategy, the planning, then the production. And just as important and more important is how you actually get the video watched by your audience. So I actually wrote the book out of frustration because I've worked with hundreds of companies, produced thousands of videos, and I just feel a lot of them just don't reach their potential. And when you've got a client spending good money with me, I want to make sure the video reaches their goals. And I see a lot of businesses get caught up with the glamour of producing a video rather than actually looking at how can this video reach our goal or how can it be effective. So when it comes to thinking about video content, I always use a phrase. It's called start with the end in mind. So let's look at what your video wants to achieve. So it could be I want to increase in sales. I've got an event which I want people to register and come to attend to. I've got new staff starting, so let's do some onboarding video. So look at what you want to achieve, who your audience is, and I think the more video can be more specific to your audience, the more effective it would be. And then let's look at the type of content that you should do, whether you should do, should it be just a simple piece of cake? Do you need a big camera or someone talking as an interview? Do you need a big lossy film where you're showing the whole company and what they do? Or it could just be simple animations like a PowerPoint presentation. There's loads of different forms of videos you can do. So let's look at what the results are you want to achieve, audience, and then look at the type of video that you will need. So when I talk to my clients, it's not about making a video for them. It's talking about what kind of video content you need, the more long-term, bigger picture. How video can actually... How can you actually work within your current organization, matching against your sales or marketing goals? So therefore, it's about thinking a bit more holistic about your company and what you want to achieve, rather than just having a one-off campaign. Because though video can be very effective, I think a one-off video campaign is not effective unless you've got one particular goal, which is maybe I've got an event and I want people to come to the event, or we're doing a product launch, something like that. But generally, I think this donation... You need to have regular video content. I do think a lot of companies miss a trick here when it comes to doing video content in terms of lead generation. A lot of people just want to go straight for the sale to say, here's my product. It's really good. Buy it. I think in this day and age, you've got to think about your customer journey. And I think when I think of a customer journey, it's about do people know you? Do they like you? And do they trust you? And I think video is very good in all those three areas. So when clients first come to me, I'll say, well, I'm going to do this. And they'll say, well, where are you in the customer journey? Do they know about you? No. So therefore, you create a different piece of content so they get to know you. So it might not mean so much about you, the company as a brand, but maybe talking about the issue that you solve. And when they get to know you, then do they get to like you? So that's producing more regular content where you're asking those questions that your client's potentially asking. And only when you get to the stage when they start to trust you, when you can actually ask for the sale or for something to buy. Okay. And I think a lot of people miss that in terms of they go try and go straight for the sale when actually they need to think of it as a video marketing content. It's more of a long form. So let me talk about what I call the missing link. And the missing link for most businesses, they have a video and they think that uploading to YouTube, creating a couple of social media posts, that is video marketing. And I'm surprised at how many companies never track what they do. And they never use video as an asset. Because video is an asset. And therefore, you should be not only just putting it on YouTube, that's one platform, but looking at other platforms to put it on and then tracking it. And most companies don't do that. And I think that's a mistake. I think that's part of the missing link. And I think part of our role as video producers and companies is that we need to be much better at encouraging our clients to be using video marketing platforms so they can actually track and look at the analytics to see if video content is working. Because you're spending good money on video content and no one's watching. What is the point? So just because you have a video, that is not the end of it. So unless you have a strategy and a platform in place where you can put the video out there to your audience where they can watch it. For example, 23, where you can host all your videos in one location and then you can distribute them across all the platforms. So you don't have to keep uploading to individually. 23, for example. You can then upload to YouTube. You can upload natively to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the analytics and statistics come into one place. You can see who's watching, how long they watch it for, where they're watching, when the drop-off rate is. Do they click the call to action? Now, unless you have this sort of platform in place, I would suggest that you're probably wasting your time and money on video content. It's no good investing in video unless you have a platform in place. So I think when it comes to video content, the attention these days needs to be, right at the beginning of any video. So you've got to capture their initial interest. So there was a time, not so long ago, when you'd have the company logo up front as part of the video. And I'm like, no more because you've got eight seconds or less to attract someone's attention on any sort of platform. And therefore, you've got to have some strong beginning to attract your audience and then you can go into the content. So my suggestion would be, if the client has a lot to say, you can go in and say, hey, I'm going to do this. I would suggest that it was a series of videos and break it into smaller, what I call chapters or themes. So rather than have a 10 minute video, let's have five, two minute videos, for example. And that way you can distribute it and then you can engage the audience. Now, the little fact that I need to share that very few people watch your video all the way through. OK, so for the two minute video, I would say probably only 20% of people actually watch right to the end. So therefore, my big tip for people is if you've got a message or call to action, it needs to be, close to the front of the video, don't leave it to the end of the video because they won't probably watch it. So this is where the beauty of video comes in. It's about testing it out. It's not simple about producing one video, put it up there and see if it sort of, I hope that it works. It's about, this is where the analytics come in. Look at the analytics. Where are people dropping off? Do we need to re-edit the video? Make it shorter? Maybe make it longer. I mean, there's so many things you can do now with video and then upload it again. It's really about testing. See what works. What doesn't work. And then just keep going until you find a particular format or style or topic or theme that works. And then you produce more content around that. I think where most companies really need to look at is actually, yes, we should do video. We know we need to do video. And therefore, that's work on a strategy on how we should be doing video and how video integrates into an overall picture of marketing or communication within the company or outside the company. Too many businesses are still seeing videos. They're seeing video as a standalone, as a separate. Video needs to be integrated into your business in all sorts of areas and departments. And until you start thinking that way, video will always be a nice to have and potentially not work. And if you think that way, your company will be left behind. You've got to embrace video now. It's here. It's not tomorrow. It's not even today. It's actually, video was here yesterday. You know, Facebook was saying a couple, many years ago how they were becoming a video. They're becoming a video platform. YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google. And I think a lot of businesses are missing a trick by not embracing video big time. And it doesn't have to be huge expense. You just really need to have a strategy around it. And there are agencies that can help you, like 23, like my agency, that can help you get that strategy right. So that's where the conversation should start. It should start about how could we be using video more effectively. And from that, make a plan.