How Telling Your Story with Video will Attract Loyal Customers to your Business | Q and A Video Marketing
Welcome to the Q and A Session #10 2 June 2014.
Video Marketing Q and A – Do you have questions about Video Marketing?
At Video Experts we have the answers. You are invited to a free live Q and A webinar with Video Experts owner and Video Profit Strategist, Marcus Seeger.
These free Google Hangouts on Air Webinars are held every Monday at 12.00 noon AEST.
More video marketing information here.
[Transcript]And I am the owner and Video Profit Strategist here at Video Experts. Welcome to our live Q&A, session #10 and today’s topic, well, just wait – I’m going to tell you very shortly.
So, firstly I just wanted to let you know how I started in video marketing and video production. It was actually way back in 2003 when I was studying multimedia design here in Melbourne at Swinburne University in Prahran. I remember it very clearly, I had just shot my first video as part of my Video 101 class and I was sitting alone in this darkened, small, tiny little edit suite and that’s when it hit me, I had like an “aha!” moment. I started to bring in the footage into the edit suite and I discovered that I had the ability to manipulate that moving image over time and add voice and music and text and create something incredibly powerful in terms of a short video. And that’s really what I do today when I bring that power of video to my clients, which are largely small businesses and SMEs across Australia and allow them to stand out from their competition by using video, and that can be in many ways, but largely it is through telling their brand story – so what is it that is unique about their company?
So you might have guessed what today’s topic is about:
It’s about telling your story and how video is the best medium to do that.
I’m just going to check my notes over here for a second. So that’s right, the reason that storytelling is so incredibly powerful is that it’s essentially in-built into our DNA. If you go back hundreds of thousands of years to the early, early incarnations of mankind, we used to communicate through storytelling and that was often around a campfire for example at the end of a day where stories are told and retold and retold, and that is how knowledge was shared over generations, was through this narration, the storytelling techniques. And then we started to add graphics in terms of art on the walls of the caves and that has progressed through the written word more recently and just in the last 100 years through film.
Now this is, as I said, storytelling is in-built, we naturally are drawn towards stories and small businesses often have big stories that can really resonate with a larger audience than they normally would get in contact with or exposure to given the size of their business. So powerful storytelling can enhance the reach of a business and ultimately attract more interest in their business and more customers. And the reason for that working so well is that people buy from people, people do business with people, they don’t really do business with a business. They’re much more interested in understanding and connecting with the people that are involved in that business, so storytelling, telling for example, communicating the reason why your business exists is going to communicate a personal story that will connect with your audience on that very personal level, and that is one of the main reasons why story videos can work so effectively well, it’s because A) it’s in-built into our DNA to listen to stories, and B) we much prefer connecting with a business through their story and through their people, and more likely to do business with people.
I’m just going to give you a few examples here on my notes, I mean just before I do that I guess the story that I mentioned earlier at the very beginning about how I actually started in my business, it was a very, very brief 60 second outline and I’ve got a longer version of that as well that goes into more detail. But essentially, it allows people to understand where I was coming from, that I’ve been doing this for quite a number of years, that I almost just stumbled upon this magic of video when I was studying multimedia and how I then apply that to growing businesses and increasing profits.
So those mini stories can be very useful to really communicate your maybe origin story, so that comes under the umbrella of like the start-up story, like how your business started. If we think about some of the giants in IT today, from the Silicon Valley such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, they all started, you know, in the garage, you know, they’ve got that garage origins which makes a very, very interesting story when you combine that with massive success, you know, these companies just didn’t suddenly, they weren’t huge to start with, they had a growth process and those origins in the garage start-up stories are very, very interesting. Facebook is another example in the dormitories of Harvard University.
So think about if you’re applying this knowledge to your own business, think about what your start-up story is, why you as a business owner started this business. There are probably hundreds of different businesses that you could have chosen to start or to purchase or to run, but you chose this one, and why is that? Your audience, your customers and your potential customers, they want to know that and if you can share that through video, then you’re going to A) stand out from your competition and B) you’re going to gain more connection, a greater connection with your customers – it’s a win-win situation.
I’ve got a couple of other examples of stories that we’re going to fit in here in our 15 minute or so Q and A and the second one is more of a brand story. So this is beyond the start-up, it’s more as the brand evolves and the business becomes much clearer about what they do and who they serve and how they go about their business, their culture, what is their defining pillars of their business, and how that is infused throughout the whole organisation, and whether that’s a one person team or 1000 person plus business or organisation, it’s not that relevant. It might be more complicated with a larger business, but the essence is there for businesses of all sizes, and again, this is something that not only will benefit you to actually refine and to define as you become clearer on this and are able to then communicate this through video with your customers, it is going to be a huge benefit to you.
And there’s a number of references here, one I’m just going to choose at the moment which is the most popular automotive video of all time screening on YouTube. I think they’re up to over 90 million plus, which is the, what do they call it, The Epic Split, the Volvo Truck ad that you may have seen, I’ve got a link here if you haven’t. So that is a very, very interesting take on a brand story.
And product stories is the third type of story I’m going to touch on here. Now, for example, every time Apple releases a new iPad, iPhone, MacBook, MacBook Air etc. there is always an accompanying product video we have with Jony Ive, the engineer, Senior Designer at Apple, always doing an interview style video with the Apple look with the white background explaining how they’ve redefined their product, how they made it better than it was before.
And this is a fantastic launch of that new product, to explain how it came about, why, if you think about in terms of your own business, why are you creating this new product, this new offering, what is it about it that you’re so excited about and how is it going to benefit your customers? There is something unique about it that you’ve just chosen to take it to the market and there is a story behind that, so you already know that story, you’ve already gone through the process, it might not be crystal clear but with a little bit of refinement and some time spent on developing that story, then you’re going to have something, a medium, some collateral here that you can support the launch of any new product, but also over time that product could well be an existing product and the story will just enhance it to your new customers who have never heard of you or never heard of that product. To have that information about why and how and when you created that product through this fantastic product video, it is going to speak volumes about you and about your business, and ultimately help your customers understand the benefits of that product and hopefully actually purchase it, that’s the whole idea here.
You know what we do at Video Experts, our whole focus is growing your business through the power of video, it’s actually about increasing your profits and that can be done in many, many different ways, and storytelling is one of them, and if you can do this, you’re going to stand out from your competition. There are very, very few businesses that actually have spent the time to refine their stories and actually communicate them through video, so this is a great opportunity, you know, in the next 12-18 months, that opportunity might well have disappeared, and you will find that a lot more of your competition will have developed these stories themselves. So now is a good time to act.
And just a final note here as we wrap up, the key to a good story is to be authentic, certainly don’t pretend that the story is something that it’s not because it’s likely to come back and catch you out at a later date, and also because your audience will notice, you know, we have got these antennae that are able to detect B.S., you know, so it’s got to be an authentic story, don’t make it up, it’s got to be grounded in reality. And another tip really with storytelling is to make it entertaining, and if you combine those two themes, authentic and entertaining, then I’m sure you’re going to be well on your way to creating a fantastic story about your business, whether it’s in the form of the start-up how you began, your brand i.e. what is the culture of your business, or it could be some product videos that talk about the story of how those products came into being.
So I hope that has helped and really opened your eyes to a whole area of video marketing and production that you might not have considered in the past. As I said earlier my name is Marcus Seeger and I’m the owner and Video Profit Strategist of a video marketing business called Video Experts based here in Melbourne, Australia, and feel free, if you really enjoyed this episode to subscribe to the channel, to share it, to like it, leave some comments below, if you’re on the website just click on the free updates tab if you’d like to receive updates about what we are doing here at Video Experts and how we can help you, we do provide quite a lot of information that you will find useful I am sure.
So thank you once again for joining me, it’s been an absolute pleasure, enjoy the rest of your day. Okay, bye for now!
[End of transcript]Notes – so “Telling Your Story with Video” is a huge topic but this video will have provided a starting point and hopefully go got you thinking about your story. We would love to hear from you – what kinds of stories can your business tell via video?
