Building an Efficient Video Content Engine

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Six key skills necessary for ramping up video content production.
• Mindset shifts in video content strategy, including thinking in terms of programs rather than individual outputs and optimizing for impressions rather than clicks or downloads.
• Where to distribute video content.
• Where to get ideas for video content and use them to create different content pieces.
• The concept of “The One” and how it can unlock desired results.
• The trend of personal brands as experts leveraging video for brand building and demand generation.

Welcome to the Spark Polo Show, where we talk about how to leverage video content to build B2B SaaS brands.

So, if you’re wondering who is this podcast for I’m gonna tell you right now. If you’re trying to build a brand, if you’re a marketing decision maker, whether a marketing director, a marketing VP, CMO, and you are in charge of building your content strategy, this is a perfect podcast that you can listen to, to get insights about how to leverage video content, to build that brand and to generate demand.

And so I also wanted to tell you how we are planning to frame our episodes. We’re gonna have two types of episode styles, if you will, and the first style is gonna be more educational. Those are gonna be question and answers, Q and As. We’re gonna be putting out guides, playbooks, tips, frameworks, and different concepts. Things that you can listen to and you can go back to, to understand and leverage a specific style or a specific tip.

The other type of podcast episode is gonna be more conversational, where we’re gonna bring a guest and we’re gonna do interviews, we’re gonna share stories, and it’s gonna be more conversational.

Today’s agenda, we’re gonna be basically covering what’s our framework, how do we approach video content? What skills do we need internally to kind of leverage video content and start thinking about ramping up video content production for our brand. Then we’re gonna talk about how to get most out of every video that we make. And then where should we distribute our videos.

The last two things we’re gonna cover are what are some of the mindset shifts you have to achieve–you and your leadership team or anybody in your team really– to basically take advantage of video content. And where do I think that video content is heading in the future?
And so with that being said, let’s jump in.

What skills do we need internally to start thinking about ramping up video content production? And so this is a really good question that I get asked a lot and people don’t seem to understand, and this is why they always fall short of their goals or they just can’t figure out how to increase production.

And so there’s really six skills, individual skills that you need. And I wanna make a distinction here. You don’t need six people, you need six skills, and some of these skills can be outsourced, meaning you can have a freelancer do or an agency. But at the end of the day, if you wanna increase video production, these are six key skills that you need to have access to, whether internally or externally.

Number one, you need to understand project management. You need to have design skills, animation, video editing, creative direction and messaging. So let me break down each one. So, project management. The reason why you need somebody that understands project management is because when it comes to video content, there are different video styles and each one takes a different amount of time.

So you may be thinking about a social media animation. Sure. It may take a couple hours to produce for an animator, but if you’re thinking more like an explainer video or an interview or a webinar, then you need to understand messaging.

You need to have somebody that understands messaging to put together a script that actually explains your product or explains whatever you’re trying to explain. And so, I hope you understand that again, you don’t need everybody. A person for each skill. Sometimes you’ll find somebody that understands that, that can do video editing and can do animation as well.

Sometimes you have a project manager that can actually design or that can actually have some creative direction skills, and ultimately messaging is also very important. So with that being said, usually what we see with our customers is we basically take project management, design, animation, video editing, and creative direction and they’re the ones in charge of messaging. And so that usually makes for a very good dynamic because they control the messaging and we control the creative and also the execution of that creative in the most efficient way possible. And so if you have a person internally that can do design animation, then you can hire out the rest.

The reason why you need these skills is because if you’re trying to increase the number of videos that you do in a quarter, in a year, you will need some project management capabilities. Because it’s the only way to really ramp it up. Otherwise, it’s just gonna get stuck always.

So the next thing I wanna talk about is video content mindset shifts.

So these are things that, honestly, if you take anything from this episode, it’s, it’s these things right here.

Okay? Number one, program versus output. We already alluded to this earlier, and when it comes to video content or any content strategy, really, you have to think of programs because when you create a program, you’re starting to become part of the conversation.

Instead of creating a video, you’re creating a conversation and that conversation is happening every month and you create a certain amount of videos per month.

Whether it’s three, whether it’s 15, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re leading the conversation and you’re capturing some of that conversation and you’re showing it to your audience and they’re being part of that conversation.

And output. What that means is, you have to remove the project per project mentality. Data is important, but we went too far on the data side that we forgot about building programs and, and building conversations, building community around your product, around the things that your company cares about and is good at.

The next point that I want to cover is the zero click concept. So the content that you should be creating right now should be native to the platform that you wanna be in. You should optimize it so that people can consume it short form and move on with our day. So let’s say you have a blog post you could take out 3, 4, 5 different snippets from that blog post and turn them into a a hundred word LinkedIn post or a short video. And now you have five social posts that can go directly to your audience and they don’t have to click into anything to consume it.

The next point that I want to cover is the zero click concept. So the content that you should be creating right now should be native to the platform that you wanna be in. You should optimize it so that people can consume it short form and move on with our day. So let’s say you have a blog post you could take out 3, 4, 5 different snippets from that blog post and turn them into a a hundred word LinkedIn post or a short video. And now you have five social posts that can go directly to your audience and they don’t have to click into anything to consume it.

And that leads me to the next point, which is distribution, organic versus paid. So a lot of companies are looking at how can we put this video or how can we put this p piece of content, you know, and gate it and generate leads. Well, why do you want 10 leads that have shown interest in the subject, but haven’t shown interest in solving any problem?

And so at the end of the day, you don’t want your salespeople like doing the warming up. The marketing should be doing most of the warming up so that by the time a salespeople reaches out to that company or that customer, they’re already warmed up, right? Maybe not necessarily warmed up completely but at least they’ve already seen 20, 30, 4 of your pieces of content that are useful, right?

So we think of paid content the same way we think about organic content. And so what that means is we only use paid channels to distribute our content and to get in front of our ideal customer profile, not to generate leads only. So, obviously we do wanna generate some leads, but we don’t, that’s not the only purpose why we do paid ads.

We wanna educate people and we do that more effectively, and we do it more consistently, and we do it more repeatedly than our competitors. If you do that, then you’re gonna generate the demand and you’re gonna generate the leads that you need.

So next question is, where should we start to distribute our videos?

So lemme just present two scenarios. Scenario number one, let’s say you only created two or three videos last year or this year and in the last 12 months, and you’re trying to figure out how to like distribute these videos. Well, you’re very limited because you don’t have anything new coming in.

So you’re very limited to how you, where you can distribute it. But a few ideas are give it to your salespeople, cut it up into different pieces maybe, and send it put it in your email. In your email campaigns obviously your website. Obviously in social media, sometimes in social media, you can repost videos, right? Like repost posts. And so, I don’t know, every two or three months just repost it, right? See what kind of traction you get from the same video.

And then another way you can actually send it to your to your partners, right? To your whoever can actually get your word out there to your to people that believe in your brand that may not buy from you, but then they can.

Share it or or just get, help you get the word out in some form or shape. And so that’s how I would distribute a video in that scenario.

Scenario number two: Let’s say you do have already a, a pretty good amount of video content being created and, and you have an ongoing program where, you know, you end up with, in a year, I don’t know, more than 10 videos I would really start thinking about using LinkedIn ads because we’re talking about B2B SaaS companies, right? So LinkedIn is like the holy grail of, of the audience. Like for most SaaS brands, not all of them, but most of them. So LinkedIn right now, it’s a huge opportunity for distributing video because LinkedIn needs more content. There’s not enough content, and so you need to be posting as regularly as you can and, and as as as, yeah, as much as you can basically.

And you need to do it consistently. If you don’t have that much video, then you’re very limited ‘cuz you can only repurpose the same content so many times.

But if you’re already creating video content, it’s informative in nature, then you should just post it and you should run it as an ad as well and get and shoot for impressions. Don’t shoot for for, for clicks or anything like that. Just impressions. Because then you can retarget that audience that watched 50% of that video or whatever.

And so that’s, that’s how I would distribute all of our videos is I would just create a video distribution program basically, where every month we are putting a certain amount of dollars behind a video that’s going out that is informative in nature to our ideal, like ideal customer persona, basically.

So repurposing video content.

And so what this means is, again going back to the programs versus output concept, you want to make sure that when you create a video, you’re not thinking we need one video. No. We need to generate conversations and record or capture these conversations so that then we can repurpose this into different content pieces.

And the same is true with video content. You might wanna ask your customers, right? Interview your customers. And then also you need to interview your subject matter experts internally to ask them things about the future and currently. So that’s how you repurpose video content, that that’s where everything starts from. And there you’re gonna get ideas for explainers ads, social media, videos webinar, things like everything.

So the last thing I wanna talk about is the one, and what that means is for every challenge or for every situation, there’s always one person. Or one lesson that you need to learn, or there’s only one change that you need to make to really unlock what you’ve been wanting to unlock for so long.

Okay? And so what that means is, If you haven’t been able to grow with video content, implement one thing today.

One thing, maybe that one thing is gonna help you achieve that. If you’re having a hard time selling something to your boss or, you know you you wanna try something new, but you’re having a hard time, maybe you can get one person to help you do that. Let me give you a third scenario.

Sometimes you’re creating a marketing program and it’s, it’s, it’s not resonating, but then there’s one interview that you do with one customer that changes everything that you thought you knew. And so what I mean by that is you always have to think of what’s the one thing that I’m missing, right?

And so what I want you to take home today basically is with this concept of the one is, if you cannot increase the number of videos, just create one. Create one and don’t overthink it. Just create one program and eventually you will succeed.
So that brings me to what are some trends that I see happening in video content for SaaS brands.

In the future, I don’t think companies are gonna be the experts. I think the experts are gonna be the, the personal brands, the people working at those companies– the CEO or the CMO or the COO or the CTO– and they’re the ones really just, just making the company grow and being the face of the companies. The demand is being generated, not, not by the solution of the company alone, but mostly I strongly believe this, mostly, I think it’s gonna be the personal brand that company’s hiring to come work for them.

So to finish up parting thoughts, I just wanna say thank you for staying and listening. I’m sorry for how choppy it is, but we need to basically do what we preach. And that is, let’s not overthink it. Let’s just get it done.

Let’s not wait. Put it off just because we want it to be perfect because at the end of the day, we have what we need to start and be part of those conversations that we wanna be part of and we wanna lead. So that’s why we did this episode to get started and I look forward to being with you guys again next episode.

See ya!