Online web videos can build a great amount of personality and credibility in your marketing. The reason that video is such a great social media tool is that it provides your ideal clients with information that instantly builds your relationship with them, gives you credibility and helps you to generate sales leads. BUT…
Shooting a video of yourself can be downright scary for many people. I hear it all the time: “Jeff, I really know that I should do more online videos, but I look horrible on camera and hate to look at myself.” A little secret: Everyone (except ego maniacs) hates the way they look and sound on video. Even Robin refuses to watch her own videos for this reason.
So here’s a simple (but effective) strategy for getting started with videos:
Use video to answer questions that your prospects and customers ask about the services that you provide (or IT questions in general). Here’s the formula:
Step 1: Brainstorm a list of the TOP 10 questions you hear from clients and prospects. This could be about what you do, cloud computing, what to spend on IT, how to keep employees in check, or anything related to your business. Brainstorm a 2nd list of the TOP 10 questions that your clients and prospects SHOULD have but rarely ever ask. (See Robin’s wedge letters, free reports and other sales letters for good content here.)
Step 2: Setup your video camera for recording. I recommend the Kodak Zi8 with an attached lavalier microphone, but a simple Flip camera or webcam would work just fine.
Step 3: Record your 20 videos one by one. Here’s the format:
- Start by saying who you are. For example, “This is Jeff Johnson, Head Marketing Coach and Master Mentor at Technology Marketing Toolkit, Inc.” Do this for every video since someone might not watch the video in a series; they may skip around and only watch one or two that interests them.
- Next, state the question that your video is going to answer. For example, “One of the questions I get asked a lot is…” or, “In this video, I’m going to answer the question…”
- Answer the question without a script by pretending the camera is someone who you’ve just met at a networking event and has asked you that question. Look them right in the eye and keep it simple.
- At the end of your video, give them an irresistible offer (ideally on a dedicated landing page where you can capture their lead info).
- Aim for 60-90 seconds per video, but if it needs to go longer to answer the question and you feel that your answer will hit the mark, then go for it.
- The only editing you should do is cutting off the start and end of the video. Don’t fuss with it!
- I recommend recording 10 to 20 videos at a time. Once you have the questions ready, just set aside a few hours to get this done and knock them all out at once.
Step 4: Post and share your videos. YouTube is ideal (for the SEO). Next, release a new video every other week on your company blog. Cross post the blog entry on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time. Send a teaser e-mail to your e-mail list telling them about a new video that you just posted. If you create 20 videos, you now have nearly 10 months of videos ready to go!
Start to finish, this is a strategy that can be implemented in 2 hours of time. You could even schedule the blog posts, social media posts, and even the e-mails in advance, giving you an automated system for posting content.
