Creating video content to help your agency grow

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Hello and welcome to today’s webinar. I’m Chip Griffin. I am the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and today we’re going to be talking about creating video to help you grow your agency. So let’s go ahead and get into the discussion. So before we do, I should address a couple of housekeeping items.

As with all of our webinars, the replay and the deck will be available to all attendees, as well as to SAGA members on the SAGA website, which is sagaimpact.com. If you have questions during the course of this webinar, please use the Q& A function at the bottom of the screen. I will try to get to as many of them as I can.

over the course of the presentation. , if you have questions for me that you would rather you ask privately, feel free to just email me chip@smallagencygrowth. com. That’s also where I’d love to get any feedback that you may have at the end of today’s session. And finally, if you are interested in tweeting about the webinar while it’s underway, feel free to use the hashtag agency leadership so that other folks can find your discussion.

Upcoming webinars to note, next week we’ve got using project budgets to improve agency profitability. That’s something that is near and dear to my heart, and I know from the work that I do with agency owners, anytime we can improve the profitability of individual products. Projects were going to make a real difference for the overall health of the agency.

Agency M and A basics the week after that, just walking through some of the things that you need to be thinking about. If you’ve ever entertained the idea of either selling your agency or acquiring another one, we’ll have a session on podcasting. aptly timed for St. Patrick’s Day. Gift of gab and podcasting all at the same time.

And finally, hiring the best employees for your agency at the end of March. So, a very heavy webinar schedule coming up and I look forward to seeing you on as many of them as possible. Of course, you can catch all of the replays over on the SmallAgencyGrowth. com website. So, all right. Let’s talk about what we’re going to be discussing today.

We’re going to talk about why you should be thinking about using video to market your agency, what kinds of videos you should be considering, how you make those videos, which is not going to be an in depth technical discussion, but I’m going to go over some of the basics for you. And finally, how do you measure the success of your video efforts?

So let’s jump right in and start talking about why video. And video to me is one of the most compelling ways that you can engage with prospective clients or even existing clients because people prefer to interact with other people. We’re not robots. We don’t want to talk to other robots. We don’t, we don’t care about the brand on the website and, and the logo.

We’re not talking with the logo. We’re talking with you. And so to the extent that you can use video to humanize your business, to humanize the services that you’re providing, to start building or strengthening the relationship between you and your prospects and clients, even when you can’t physically be present, either on a zoom call live or in person live, when we start doing more of that, the more that you can use video to cross that gap and build those connections, the more that you can do the things that you want to do with your agency to be successful.

You need to make sure that there’s a way that people can see and hear you. And that’s one of the really compelling things about video. And I I’ve been involved with online audio for, I don’t know, 25 years. Back in the mid 1990s, I was creating audio segments for a website, back before it was even called podcasting around 2000, I started plugging in basically a phone tap to my telephone so that I could record interviews and post them on a website that I had back then.

Today, it’s really easy to do audio. We talk all the time about the explosion of podcasting. And as I said, we’ll have a webinar where we talk about that in some detail. But one of the really powerful things about video is that it makes people feel as if they’re engaging with you already, even before you have a sales conversation, a solutions conversation.

It’s one of the best ways that I can find to build my current business, for example, because agency owners that I work with typically have had a chance to see me, to hear me. They know the kind of advice I give. They know the way that I talk. They, they just, they, they, there’s that sense of familiarity during the first, telephone call or Zoom conversation that I have.

It’s the same thing with agencies. Agencies are fundamentally about relationships. Now, beyond the relationships, there’s the technical side of things, and you’ll hear a lot about how Google loves video, and so video can be really powerful from a search engine optimization perspective. And that’s absolutely true.

It’s a piece of the puzzle, but I’ve included it here after the humanizing effect because that’s really the most important thing. But that secondary benefit, what you get out of having a video show up in search because you’re able to answer the questions that your prospects may have, or you’re able to highlight a case study, or all those kinds of things.

And we’ll talk about the kinds of video that you can create and how it fits in to your overall puzzle pieces of growing your agency. But search is certainly something that’s worth considering. And particularly because YouTube is owned by Google. Google particularly prefers YouTube content. So it’s really valuable to get your stuff posted there.

But the other reason to think about video, beyond all of those, is that it allows you to stand out. A lot of agencies are not using video effectively right now. I think a lot of agencies are missing out on a great opportunity. It’s one of the reasons why I scheduled today’s webinar. Because I think it’s really important that agencies be thinking about how they can use video.

to shorten sales cycles, to accelerate growth, to strengthen the relationships with existing clients, to attract new employees. And that last one is one that a lot of you may be overlooking, but if you’re, if you’re recruiting, video can be a really compelling way to show off your team to new potential team members, to show yourself off.

It makes people look and say, yeah, I want to be a part of that group. Or yes, I want to work for that individual. And video can do that in a way that words on a page or on the screen just can’t do quite as effectively. So, all of these are reasons why you should be considering video. But, but what kind of video?

It’s, it’s easy for me to say, have video. And so then you start wandering around aimlessly and trying to figure out what do you even create? And so that’s the next piece of this discussion. What kind of video is the most effective? And this is going to vary depending upon what it is that you’re trying to accomplish.

And as with anything, any marketing technique, any solution you have for clients, any sales tech, I mean, all of these things you need to be thinking about. What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? Because things like video or audio or articles or marketing materials, all of these things flow from your objectives.

Not the other way around. You don’t go out and say, Hey, I want to create video. Instead, you think about how does video help you achieve those goals? And we talked about some of the things that you can do with video as far as building relationships with prospects, clients, talent, etc. But what kind of video?

So the simplest, the easiest to produce is simple talking head video. Something that is just you talking to the camera, and we’ll talk about how you can do that just with a cell phone, just with the webcam that’s built into your laptop. You can sit down and literally just record yourself for a couple of minutes.

It might be an introduction to your agency. Perhaps you sit down and you say, Hi, my name is Sally Smith. I own XYZ Agency. We serve this kind of client. Just talk about your story. Talk about your founding story. Talk about what you do. Talk about things that you, that you’re interested in. Things that your clients might be interested in.

It’s very simple to do and you can use this as a way to get your voice out there, your message out there. And so it’s a, it’s a good low barrier to entry because simple talking head video doesn’t require a lot of fancy post production. And we’ll talk later about how you don’t need to worry too much about the editing side of the equation and getting it just so, unless you’re a video production agency, but that’s a whole nother story in which case you’re probably only paying casual attention to me when I talk about production because you’ve got that piece down.

But most of you are not into video production yourselves. So talking head videos can be a really easy way to dip your toe in the water and get started. You can do interviews. So maybe you’ve already got a podcast, and so now you just can start recording that video, whether that’s on Zoom or StreamYard or one of those services, Skype.

You can record the video along with the audio and publish that. And so that’s another way to get some of the content out there. But maybe you don’t have a podcast. So maybe you want to think about starting a video series on its own, a video interview series. Really simple to do. Zoom allows you to Connect with someone and just hit the record button, and it will save off that file onto your computer and something that, frankly, you could post directly to YouTube just like that.

Or with just a little bit of light editing, you can make it just a little bit better.

An interview is a really good way to do it because it’s a way that you can start having conversations with more people. We talked in the business development webinar a couple of weeks ago about the, the value of finding ways to create conversations with prospects and we talked about how podcasts or interviews are a really good way to open the door to those conversations.

It’s also a really good way to get video content that you can share about your agency and start to build some of that human connection that video allows you to do. You can answer questions. So these might be questions that prospects ask you, it might be questions that people are interested in in whatever industries you’re serving, you know, maybe it’s a, you know, if you’re a, an event agency, you know, maybe it’s, you know, what, how should I be thinking about events in 2021, if you’re a PR agency, it might be, how do I get published in TechCrunch or the New York Times or wherever it is that maybe your prospects are particularly interested in.

So this is very similar to the talking head question, but instead of instead of it being sort of a pure monologue. This is you taking a question. It could be a question that you create on your own, just one that you know is on people’s minds, but perhaps it’s ones that you feel. Maybe you post on Twitter or LinkedIn and say, what questions do you have?

And then you just answer them. Very simple. It’s a good way to get that content out there. And it’s a good way. Questions are a good way to help with the video SEO. So if that’s part of your objective with your video, Q& A videos can be a fantastic way to do it because people ask questions of the search engine and your video can help answer them.

You can teach, you can train, you can do things like this, right? So this webinar is video. And in particular, it’s video because I’m using the, some of the, the readily available technology to present this to you in a video format. So instead of just creating this and putting it out there, as if it were a traditional webinar, where you just hear my voice and you don’t see me, I’m, I’m taking advantage of it to make sure that you can see me next to the slides.

And as you know, I’ve, I’ve occasionally dipped out and gone to a full screen view so that you can see me and all of my bald glory. But by having myself on the screen, I’m helping to create that connection with you. Hopefully you feel more connected with me over the course of this training than you might if I was just a disembodied voice.

And this was the traditional webinar that we’ve seen for years. But training can go beyond that. It doesn’t have to be a webinar. It could be training that you put on, into a condensed four minute video. So maybe it’s a 10 minute, training video on how to get press coverage or how to do social media correctly or whatever.

You can take advantage of video to do that. And maybe you intersperse in some imagery, screenshots, maybe it’s a demo of a site that you find particularly effective for doing your job. And one of the things you have to get past, and I know a lot of agency owners struggle with it, is the idea that if you train people, if you give people the answers, they’re not going to hire you.

They’ll just do it themselves. But those aren’t people who would have been your clients anyway. If you’re out there demonstrating your expertise by expertise, by teaching, by training, you are, you are establishing, establishing yourself as the expert that potential clients ought to be hiring. So it can be a really useful way to take advantage of video.

You can use video for case studies. Maybe it’s a, you record a conversation with a client about something you did for them that was particularly successful. I find that video can be a great way to get people to give testimonials.

Even if you don’t use the video, sometimes instead of asking someone for a testimonial or sending them some draft text for them to approve, which always feels stilted, just getting on a Zoom call or a Skype call with them, recording it and having them share their experience and how what you did for them helped them achieve their own organization’s objective.

In the whole that can be a case study that’s published as a full video, but it also gives you the ability to take quotes from that real quotes, not the stilted manufactured ones that you would come up with your client might come up with, but real expressions of the satisfaction they have with the work that your agency is doing.

So you can get all sorts of value out of those kinds of conversations because they’re, they’re available as full length videos, as snippet videos, as quotes to put on your website or in your marketing materials or in your proposals or wherever else you need to have those validation points to help convince people to hire you.

So think about that as a way to leverage your video. But how do you do it? And I know a lot of folks are intimidated by video. Maybe they’re not feeling comfortable on camera. Maybe they’re not feeling comfortable with the sound of their own voice. But maybe it’s, it’s just fear of the technology and what it takes to produce it and edit it.

They’ve heard all these stories and, and it just, it seems daunting. But the reality is it doesn’t have to be. Part of it is you have to have reasonable expectations for what you’re going to do to get started. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when getting into video is trying to be too perfect.

I’ve been guilty of that. I continue to be guilty of that. I’ve spent probably way too much time and money trying to build out this 15 by 15 foot home office that I’m in to be a home office plus studio so that I can do all sorts of different kinds of video. I’m really passionate about it. I love it. It doesn’t have to be as fancy as I’ve made it.

And frankly, some days I wish I would keep it simpler because the more fanciness you add to it, the more things can go wrong. But just focus on getting started. Focus on good enough. Don’t focus on perfect because you don’t need to build a full fledged broadcast studio. You don’t need to rent a broadcast studio.

You don’t have to have the same level of quality that’s on CNN or CBS or MSNBC or any of these places. You just need something that people can understand. It needs to be good, clear video, but even more importantly, clear audio. And we’ll talk about that in a minute too. You can get started just with the webcam that you’re probably having on the computer that you’re watching me on right now, whether it’s built in as a laptop camera or an external one that sits on top of your monitor.

Most of you have a webcam already. That can be a perfectly good way to get started. It will work for you for doing talking head or Q& A or interviews on Zoom. All of these things can be done very simply with just a webcam, but you can also use what you’ve got in your pocket. We all have these. We all have phones in our pockets, and they all have cameras.

These cameras can be a fantastic way to record really high quality video. Higher quality than your webcam, higher quality perhaps than the camera that you’ve got that you use for photography. Even though a lot of times those can be used for video, sometimes your iPhone, your Android phone will actually produce better quality video.

And the audio is not half bad either, even just with the built in microphone, it’s not as good as if you get an external microphone, but it’s still very, very good. So you can get really high quality imagery just out of those simple devices that you already have. You don’t need to invest in anything else.

And as I said, you may have an existing camera that you use for photography in your home. A lot of those now, particularly if it’s been bought in the last 10 years or so, it probably does video also. And so you can probably do some pretty nice video with that. It’s going to be a little more complicated than doing it with your phone or your webcam.

It’s worth checking out as a potential alternative. There’s even all sorts of software that will allow you to bring a direct feed from a camera like that into your computer. That’s how I’m recording this today or producing this webinar today. I have a Sony mirrorless camera that sits right above the monitor here in front of me, and it has a cable that runs into the computer, and that’s how this image comes out.

You can think about doing that if you wanted to use something that was a step above a webcam or your mobile phone, but you don’t have to really. The important thing when you’re talking about cameras is to make sure that it’s stable. So if I’m recording on my mobile phone, I don’t want to have it waving all around.

I want to keep it stationary. You can buy little tripods that you can put your phone on, but you can also just tilt it up against some books or against the wall or, you know, pretty much anything. My phone has a kickstand on it, so it’s just got a little stand, so it’ll sit up on my desk if I want or on top of a book, so I don’t even have to put something behind it.

It will just sit there, and that can be a great way to record some video. But even more important than what people see on the screen in video is what they hear, and I know that that sounds sort of counterintuitive. You’re like, well, if it’s video, shouldn’t the imagery be most important? The reality is it isn’t.

For the video content, for the most part that you’re creating as an agency, to market your own agency, the video needs to be good enough. It needs to look professional, but doesn’t need to be broadcast quality or fancy. More important, by a long shot, is whether or not people can hear you. And so the microphone that you use is far more important.

The microphone that you use helps to make sure that people can hear you clearly because if someone’s listening and it’s, it’s, you know, that, you know, ragged sound, you know, maybe you’re out recording in the wind and you hear all that wind noise that we’ve all seen on these online videos, whether it’s on Facebook or YouTube or wherever.

Someone’s recorded, or maybe someone so far away from the microphone, you crank up the volume as much as you can, and you still can’t hear them, you know, those are, those are all problems and people will suffer through grainy video, poorly lit video, but they’re not going to suffer through not being able to hear the content, particularly on something that you’re creating as an agency for your agency, because the content is really what’s most important.

There, your spoken words, the words that are spoken by your interview guests. Those are the things that matter the most. So if you focus on one thing over the other, focus on your microphone. Now the microphone, sometimes your built in microphone on your laptop, on your computer, in your webcam, it may be good enough.

Try it out, find out. Don’t go investing a lot of money in a microphone until you figure out if the things that you have already will work for you. If you decide that you want to step it up, there are all sorts of USB microphones that you can plug into your computer, put on your desk, and they work just great.

That’s probably the next place that you would go after you work with whatever onboard microphones that you may have. Beyond that the sky’s the limit. You can use XLR mics, which are more professional microphones. It’s what I use for, for my studio here. But frankly, I’ve got a lot of microphones that I’ve accumulated over the last 20 years.

I have a lot of audio hardware. And so for me, it makes sense. Most of the stuff that I’ve used to build out this studio are things that I already had, and I’ve had for a long time. You don’t need to invest a lot, but you do need to keep experimenting with your microphone until you get to the place where you feel like you’ve got a good enough quality that people are going to be able to clearly understand what you’re saying when you’re sharing your videos.

The other thing that I would say after the microphone that you want to look at is lighting. So while people will suffer through video that’s overexposed and those kinds of things, it’s relatively simple and straightforward to get it to a point where again, it’s not going to be broadcast quality lighting.

But at least it’s going to be good enough that people can see you clearly. So avoid things like filming right in front of a window so that you’ve got, you know, a bunch of sunlight coming in over your shoulder and you end up looking like a silhouette. Try to put the light source on the other side of you.

If you’ve got glasses, try to put it at an angle. You know, one of the things that you probably noticed from time to time during my presentation here is that I occasionally get little reflections off my glasses from the lights that I have on either side of me, but they’re not constantly there because they are strategically placed high into the side so that it’s it’s not a constant distraction, but I’m sure that as I’ve turned my head at various points, you will see those reflections and that’s fine, but try to get the light so that it’s coming in and it helps complement

what you’re trying to record as opposed to distracting from it, particularly by having the light source behind you. That’s really the biggest thing that you want to avoid. So you can do this by simple strategic placement. You can do it. You can put a desk lamp, perhaps up that’s that’s facing you. If it’s a little bit too strong, take some kitchen parchment paper and put it over the front of it.

Now, that’s better if it’s an LED light or something like that that doesn’t get too hot. If it’s a traditional incandescent, you may want to be careful about using parchment paper. But, you know, there’s a lot of different things that you can do to sort of diffuse that light a little bit. If it’s too strong, maybe you just put it in an angle.

Maybe you bounce it up off the ceiling. Now, ceiling lighting is tough for someone like me because I’m bald, so I don’t like light coming straight On the top of my head looks all shiny. You don’t want that, but it doesn’t have to be really fancy again. Just try to avoid the crazy lighting that makes it hard for someone to see it.

The other thing beyond the light behind you would be really dark, right? If it’s just too dark so that they can’t see you at all. You know, that can be a problem as well. So, so cameras use what you’ve got. Don’t need to go out and invest anything super fancy. Focus first on your audio. Make sure you’ve got that clear.

That’s the first place that I would upgrade. And then after that, look at your lighting. You know, there are relatively inexpensive video lights that you can get for, you know, 50 or 60 bucks that can do a pretty decent job. If you can’t find anything around your home or office that will fill in and get the job done at no cost.

So bottom line is not a whole lot of money that you have to spend. And of course, when you really want to go crazy, you can do something like I’ve done and build out a whole studio with track lighting and, soft boxes and all sorts of crazy stuff. But that’s a conversation for another day. If you’re interested in a webinar where I walk through some of the details of some of the advanced stuff I’m doing, I’m happy to do that.

But for the purposes of today’s show, I think we’ve got enough on your plate. Now, how do you measure the success of what you’re doing? How do you figure out if the video that you’re producing Is actually making a difference. I’ll tell you one thing. It’s not about sheer numbers. You’re not going to have millions of people watching your videos.

You’re probably not going to have thousands of people watching most of your videos and that’s okay because what you need to do is you need to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish. What is your goal? If you can figure out what your target is and how video fits into that picture. That’s when you can figure out what those measures of success are.

For example, if you were doing video interview series, maybe the mere fact that you’re having conversations with people who are relevant is enough. I’ve done video interview series where I didn’t care if anybody watched them, but that’s not true. I, I care if they watched it. I mean, it’s an ego thing, but from a business perspective, the simple conversation with the person on the other end of that connection was what was important.

Perhaps it was a prospect. Perhaps it was a potential partner in some joint venture. Perhaps it, if you’re an agency, it might be doing interviews with members of the media, folks that you’re continuously trying to work with. So you’re using it as a way to strengthen your relationship, while also showcasing to prospects that you have this relationship with this reporter or with this outlet.

There’s a lot of different ways that you can look at the video content far beyond the number of views that show up on YouTube or Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever you’re sharing your video. You also want to think about what are the other things that you can accomplish with your video. And so you do want some eyeballs on them, but maybe it’s a question of Is it a video that you can show to prospects so that they are a warmer lead when they come to you?

One thing that i’ve seen some folks do pretty well is In advance of an introductory phone call that they may be having with a prospect They share a short video. As we all know anytime that you get on the phone with someone new What’s the first five or 10 minutes spent doing? You each share your story.

One thing you might think about doing is just putting together a quick two minute video that you send to new contacts before you have that first conversation. It’s just you sharing your story. First of all, it’s giving them a chance to chew on, to think about what you’ve shared as far as who you are, how you got to where you are, and a little elevator pitch for your agency.

Right? So it’s gotten their gears turning before they’ve gotten on. But it’s also giving you back probably two, three, four minutes of that conversation so that you can focus on more substance, so that you can focus on listening to the prospect and what the challenges are that they have. So think about some of those creative uses of video that aren’t about mass production, mass distribution.

It’s about getting to the point where you’re actually working with individuals And it’s those one on one connections that you’re making with video that may be far more important than those larger scale things that everybody immediately thinks of anytime they talk about online video. This is not about viral video.

This is about effective one to one communication using video as the medium, using video as the tool. And if you think about it that way, that’s how you come up with the measures of success that will make a difference for you. Or as we always say on the Agency Leadership Podcast, Gini Dietrich and I sign off every single episode with, it depends, because that’s basically what it comes down to.

When you’re measuring anything in your business, but particularly video, because video has sort of non traditional ways that you want to look at the effectiveness of it in terms of the audience that you’re reaching. So, a few final points that I’d like to make as we wrap up today. Don’t worry too much about the quality of the video from a production standpoint.

Don’t focus on, you know, fancy editing. You can get to that stage, right? You don’t need to have lower thirds or, you don’t, you could even get away without doing any screen sharing or imagery at all. And it’s, it’s literally just a talking head or literally just the interview, recorded straight out of zoom with, with nothing added to it because what matters is the content.

What matters is the words that you’re speaking that your guest speaking that you’re using as far as training or Q& A or whatever kind of video that you’re creating. So don’t get fixated on the things that will hold you back. Focus instead on creating quality content that’s a good match for the people that you’re trying to reach.

And finally, I would say the biggest piece of advice to have, I would have to anyone who’s thinking about using video to grow their agency to just get started. The video that you’re creating today, the first video that you create the 10th video that you create. You’re going to look back a couple of years from now and say, Oh my God, I can’t believe it.

That was terrible. I know I do. I cringe when I watch some of the earliest videos that I created years ago. Frankly, I cringe at some of the ones that I create today. I’ll probably sit back and watch this webinar at some point when I’m making some notes on it to share it out and realize, Oh my God, I can’t believe that I said that, or it looked like that, or, you know, any of those kinds of things.

So don’t let those things hang you up. Just get started. Just get out there. Start testing it. Start trying it. See how video can make a difference for your agency. So that will bring to a close the formal presentation today. I’ll get on to questions in a minute, but, for the live audience. But before I do, if you are watching this on replay, feel free to send me your question at chip@sagaimpact.com. I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have if you were not able to watch live, or if you’re watching live and you think of something after the Q and A session that’s coming up, feel free to just shoot me that email and I’d be happy to do what I can to answer it. I would also welcome any feedback that you have.

I’m always curious what folks think of the webinars that I’m producing. If you have thoughts on how they could be made better. Or if you have some suggestions for future topics, I’d love to hear those as well. So again, I’m Chip Griffin. I’m the founder of the Small Agency Growth Alliance, sagaimpact.com. And I appreciate you taking the time to tune into today’s webinar. And in just a moment, we’ll get started with the Q& A, but for the recorded audience, that will conclude the session. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.