Links Mentioned & Helpful Resources from Episode

• David Feinman’s LinkedIn
• David’s Company, Viral Ideas Marketing Website
• Retargeting Video Viewers in Meta (Facebook) Advertising
• Retargeting Video Audiences in Google Ads
• Age Demographic Statistic from Limelight (Source Link)

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Kevin Dieny: Hello, and welcome to the Close the Loop podcast. I’m your host, Kevin Dieny. And today we’re gonna be talking about Video Marketing for Small Businesses. How we get videos created, produced, edited, published, marketed, you know, how we get videos to help our business help ’em grow. So to help me dive into this topic, I have a very special guest.

[00:00:20] Kevin Dieny: His name is David Feinman. He, David Feinman is a serial entrepreneur. David has been starting companies since the age of 16. So he has been doing this a long time and for most of his life, uh, he currently owns five companies and is heavily involved in the video and business, of video with business, video creation industries.

[00:00:39] Kevin Dieny: Uh, David loves building community and he loves endurance sports and triathlons. So he is pretty much an endurance type guy. So welcome, David. Thanks for coming on.

[00:00:48] David Feinman: Thanks, Kevin, I appreciate you having me here.

[00:00:50] Kevin Dieny: So just to ground our audience on what we’re gonna be talking about, uh, video marketing for small businesses, uh, video is a great medium to grow a business.

[00:01:00] Kevin Dieny: However, I don’t know how many, I don’t know if I’ve ever met that many businesses who are like, yeah, I’m using video, small businesses who are saying I I’m using video all the time everywhere. I think what I’m hearing a lot of times is, video, oh man, how am I gonna do that? Or, oh, that’s something I’ve been, you know, avoiding and it is tough to do.

[00:01:18] Kevin Dieny: So do you think, like, as far as the future of video and businesses, video marketing, do you think that there’s a point where all businesses, all small businesses that everyone’s gonna be adopting and using video across the board and they’re and you know, in creating and growing their businesses?

[00:01:37] David Feinman: Yeah, I, I think that’s a, that’s a valid question.

[00:01:41] David Feinman: So, I think it’s important to like provide context of like how online marketing has gone, right. So when we started out, it was pretty much a directory, right? You’d go on a, you’d go find a list of a business, you know, on Yahoo or Google back in the day. And it was actually like a digital phone book and then things evolved and everyone started making their own websites.

[00:01:59] David Feinman: Websites were very basic. They just had text on them. You know, here’s our hours. Here’s a little bit about what we do. And then as time has. We’re now currently in a stage where your website has to be really robust and has to really show off what you’re doing. Uh, as a business, you know, if you’re a restaurant, small business, you have to show your menu, maybe have to your food.

[00:02:18] David Feinman: If notice where the internets going with web 3.0. Um, we’ve gone from actually looking at something to being able to be inside of it. So I think video is like that midterm next evolution. Um, and it has been for years, uh, for, for people to, to recognize something, both from a search perspective, typing into Google and finding something.

[00:02:38] David Feinman: And also wanting to see something before they go and experience it. Especially a younger audience. They, they really wanna see what they’re getting before they get it. A lot of people are unwilling to take their risk of time, to figure out what they should do with something before they actually see it before you buy it.

[00:02:55] David Feinman: So, um, I think all businesses need some form of it, whether that’s a real, really robust strategy or something simple, it, it just depends on where you’re at.

[00:03:03] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, that feeling of like, well, like people who say it’s too expensive, it’s too hard. It’s too much. They maybe just don’t know. Like, so for the business who are pushing back saying video is just for a small business, too much, too hard.

[00:03:18] Kevin Dieny: Like, what you’re you’re asking me to do is like, you’re asking me to produce like a super bowl commercial here. So so like what, uh, how, how as a business, who’s a smaller business. How do they jump into the world of using video to grow their business?

[00:03:33] David Feinman: That’s a great question. So, um, If you’re, if you’re on the smaller side, you’re just getting started, which is the group of people.

[00:03:40] David Feinman: I’m assuming you’re, you’re speaking about, you’re going to want to either do it, do it yourself version, or you’re gonna wanna do what I call the, do it together version. I always recommend that even, even if you think you could do it yourself, always try to do the, do it together, version, uh, with some sort of professional.

[00:03:58] David Feinman: Um, so what should you could do is you can record some sort of video and then pass along that video to an. To Polish it up and, and make you stand out, you could do it like that to start out and that’ll give you, um, a way of doing a video that’s, um, much more cost effective, but still get you that professional Polish to it.

[00:04:17] David Feinman: Um, and then, you know, as your business grows, you can graduate doing a little bit more professional, professional content.

[00:04:23] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, so in terms of the types of videos that small businesses should be making, could be making that provide, I guess what their consumers are, are requiring. Cause you’ve said they wanna be able to see it.

[00:04:36] Kevin Dieny: They wanna be able to interact with it, or they wanna be able to see how it is live, moving around. So what kinds of videos I guess, would work best for a small business?

[00:04:45] David Feinman: Are you familiar with like the awareness, consideration, decision framework?

[00:04:48] Kevin Dieny: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:49] David Feinman: So we kind of think about video in that same framework.

[00:04:53] David Feinman: So awareness, like when someone comes and they’re looking for something you want to create videos that fit into that category, that might be your search traffic videos. Like that might be an about us video, something like that. Then you want something in the middle, something that, um, lets people. That are deciding on buying your product or service to decide on this for a restaurant.

[00:05:14] David Feinman: This might be like a video of some of the food and how it’s made for maybe someone that’s selling more B2B. This could be like your, uh, testimonial, uh, type video, and then decision, um, stage of the, of the game. This might be stuff about features all your frequently asked questions. All those kind of videos can be put at that stage of it.

[00:05:34] David Feinman: So really we just kind of look at it like a sales funnel and operating your video is kind of like a virtual sales funnel in a sense. I’m curious what you think of that, that framework. Um, cause it’s, it’s definitely like a little, um, interesting way of doing it.

[00:05:48] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, well, so I was also gonna like, make sure I explain it too, cuz the funnel or the framework, the sales funnel is very much like a, I believe a great idea to do it.

[00:05:58] Kevin Dieny: And for our listeners who are like, what is he talking about? Awareness, consideration decision. It’s basically the way I understand it is that you’re moving from consumers who don’t have any idea. They even have a problem. To those that figure out, oh, I, yeah, that this is a, this is a problem. I should do something about it to, well, who, who does solve the problems?

[00:06:18] Kevin Dieny: You know, like for instance, I’ve met people who are like, well, I’ve got this problem, but I wouldn’t know where to go to fix it. Are there people that, that help with that kind of thing? And so you’re kind of moving people along now, how, how large those groups are. Right. Very much varies across the industry or industry landscape, but.

[00:06:37] Kevin Dieny: The other thing to consider here is right. Like, yes, I’m moving people down toward, like they know they have a problem. They know we could fix it. They trust us, they know us, but at the end of the day, too, I. One really important aspect about video is that yes. On your website or wherever , you’re interacting with your consumers, you could tell them you could write it.

[00:06:57] Kevin Dieny: You could show little visuals like a diagram, an image, but having a video also means that. People can read it. They can see it, like they can pick and choose their sort of medium modality that they want to adopt to learn along these paths. So I think, yeah, maybe first you’d go. Okay. Well, do I have written text for all these cuz you could just whip that up.

[00:07:20] Kevin Dieny: Fairly quickly you go, okay, well now I have texts. Do I have images? Do I have graphics? Can I explain this visually? Okay. Now I think you’re evolved to that third tier, which is like, do I have video to move someone from, to, to just explain the problem and then to explain how the, the solution works and that’s what David is talking about and, and.

[00:07:39] Kevin Dieny: Also why I think it’s so important that you include different types of mediums at each point. So that you’re kind of, , you’re hitting, cuz some people don’t like video at all and they’ll be like, oh, like a video just makes me, you know, sucks my internet bandwidth. I’d rather read it. Some people are blind and so they have to hear it.

[00:07:58] Kevin Dieny: Right. So it makes sense that you’d want to have these different. Mediums to, to cater to the entire possible grouping of whatever your tastes of your audience are. That’s again, that’s kind of why I think what you’re saying, David, is the videos in a way, the format you should think about what kind of videos to make is fit them into.

[00:08:17] Kevin Dieny: Okay, how am I helping people figure out and then learn and then become closer to a customer or a consumer?

[00:08:25] David Feinman: Yeah, exactly. Like you wanna, you wanna kind of just walk them through the process and give them another, another medium in which they can interact with you before they get to you kinda like a virtual sales person.

[00:08:37] Kevin Dieny: Okay, so let’s, let’s go at the very, very beginning of this right. This whole topic. If a business is like, okay, I’m bought in on the video thing, where do I start? Do I have to go buy a video camera? Can I just use my, Android, iPhone. I know that some of them might be like more budget conscious at the smaller business level.

[00:08:54] Kevin Dieny: So where does a small business with a limited budget start? Like where, how do they go? Okay, today I don’t have a video tomorrow, I have a video. Like how do they yeah. Where, where do you start get started with that kind of thing?

[00:09:05] David Feinman: Yeah, so, um, I actually gave this, this one, some thought, because you had sent this question over to me, um, and as, as someone who does professionally, like, you know, I, I tried to think like, what is the simplest way that someone could create something that at least they have something and.

[00:09:19] David Feinman: What’s crazy now is the phones, um, that are out there are really good in terms of quality. So I would recommend that you grab your phone, let’s save a physical location, or if you don’t have a physical location set, set up the camera on a nice steady service. Um, ideally you would have some sort of like either tripod, like, like this, like a little, you know, tripod like this that you could just put on your desk or, you know, even some sort of clamp the whole hold down your.

[00:09:45] David Feinman: And you can start recording. It can either be you talking to the camera and talking about as a given topic, or maybe you talk a little bit and then you scan around and you pull some footage and using, if you have a MacBook, you can use, you can use iMovie. Uh, you can download Adobe if you want to get a little more fancy or there’s even if you Google free editing tools, there’s a ton of different apps out there.

[00:10:07] David Feinman: Um, I have an experiment with them, so there’s none in particular that I would recommend. There’s a ton of different free editing apps that you can use, or even low cost editing apps that you can use. So like very simply put together a quick edit, uh, based on, on what you recorded on your phone. Or even you can go, you could go out and, and work with an editing service, um, that could take what.

[00:10:28] David Feinman: Take what you made on your phone and turn it into something a little bit more polished. If you have a, you have a little bit of a budget for it. So if you already have a phone, which I think 99.9, 9% of us do, you can make a video and you can get started. Um, it’s easier said than none. Like, it’s easier for me to say that outta my mouth than for you to do it.

[00:10:45] David Feinman: It’s actually like very nervewracking to be on camera for a lot of people. And I think that’s like the biggest barrier, um, myself include it. Um, you know, I’m like, I, I, I do get a little nervous behind the camera sometimes, so I it’s something. Comes with a lot of practice. Like a lot of the customers that we’ve worked with for years are like, they’re fine now.

[00:11:01] David Feinman: And it was, it, it just takes a lot of time to get used to being on camera, speaking in soundbites, speaking succinctly and, and just getting your message across.

[00:11:11] Kevin Dieny: Wow, yeah, I think that’s really good and encouraging because, uh, the, the thing, the question that goes along with that so much with when in my head is, okay, well, what is the quality requirement?

[00:11:23] Kevin Dieny: Right? Like if I make a video with my. And I publish it. Is everyone gonna go? Oh, that’s bad quality. I’m not gonna watch that. And is it gonna, or is it gonna make my business look poor or bad? Like. So I think one of the considerations too, is, is like, what should be the production standards, like is like for a smaller business who may have a brand, they, they feel needs more or less like, does all that sort of weigh into, or is video like a special space where it’s okay to have some low quality stuff, maybe some higher quality stuff.

[00:11:55] Kevin Dieny: Like, can it run the gamut? You know what I mean David?

[00:11:58] David Feinman: Yeah. I, I know exactly what you’re saying. I think, I think, um, for a lot of businesses, it depends on where you’re competing. Um, some of the larger business clients in the world, you, you can’t afford to put out something that, that. That doesn’t look polished because your competitors have something that looks polished and looks like, you know, the video costs a great deal of money and it represents the professional quality of the brand.

[00:12:20] David Feinman: That’s not to say you can’t do something, um, on TikTok as well, or do something on, in short form content. Um, we’re seeing like a huge rise in over the past probably year and a half, two years, even since like the start of the pandemic. Of short form video content on both TikTok, Instagram reels, and now YouTube shorts.

[00:12:38] David Feinman: So that type of content you still want to as a business, have it have some level of quality. If you look at some of the top creators, it’s not just like a junky shaky cell phone video, it has good lighting. It has good sound. It’s well spoken. The points are clear and, and, and made, but you know, the bar of quality, um, is subject.

[00:13:02] David Feinman: But at the same time, you also want to make sure that it does have some level of Polish. And really the three things that I can recommend are, you know, doing a little bit of research ahead of time, about what you’re talking about. Um, and, and kind of put your bullets and thoughts down on paper. The second one would be lighting.

[00:13:18] David Feinman: Make sure you have good lighting in your room. Uh, a good natural light. Would be great. Definitely a huge difference. Like if I were to lower my blind right now in the quality of like the light hitting my face, then now uh, I’m right next to a window. So that helps a lot. Um, and then your sound, um, you wanna make sure that you’re speaking clearly, um, into a microphone if you have an extra one.

[00:13:38] David Feinman: Um, so those, those couple little things take like that amateur level and at least make it like an amateur plus video where it doesn’t look like something that was record it fly by night.

[00:13:50] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, I think that’s, those are all really great. And I think. Can easily be something that people go, well, this is why I’m not even gonna pursue video because you know, like this, I, I, my idea is my business gonna have to be great.

[00:14:05] Kevin Dieny: I want like a whole production team, like super bowl style, commercial ads. Uh, so if it, if I can’t do that, I’m just not gonna, not gonna bother. So there’s a great stat. Um, I think I, I shared it with you ahead of time, but I’m gonna read it is, uh, from HubSpot, they said 72%. Customers said they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video.

[00:14:27] Kevin Dieny: Right. So that 72% would rather learn about a product or service from a video. Right. So if you just ignore video, what are the consequences? What is the, what are you missing out on? Like how bad really is it? If a business just doesn’t use video or doesn’t do any video at all, is it really that bad?

[00:14:45] David Feinman: Yeah, um, I mean, if you think about all of the platforms on the internet that we all go on, right. The majority of them are video based Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, they’re all primarily video. And yes, you should actually have written content. That should be part of your strategy. But I think businesses that aren’t doing it are missing a huge opportunity to capture their audience.

[00:15:12] David Feinman: So other competitors aren’t doing it, or they are doing it and people are going there and learning about a product or service virtually on their own time. I think, um, Anymore people don’t necessarily want to call without doing a little bit of research ahead of time on the business. And like at least having something where they can watch something before they do a little research is important.

[00:15:35] David Feinman: And it gives you kind of like a taste of what’s to come with a business or with an experience that you’re about to go into. So I think. That helps our article spot on. Um, and, and from what we found with a couple of our companies that have really embraced it, uh, we work with this one local company. They do kitchen and baths.

[00:15:52] David Feinman: They’ve really embraced video from start to finish. So every part of their process is documented. They probably have 50 videos on their website is they’ll find when a customer comes to them that. The customer’s like ready to go. Like the customer. They don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining it’s they just get right into their process.

[00:16:10] David Feinman: They’ve even gone so far as to create a process video to share. This is how our process works. So people know exactly what they’re getting when they come the door. So all their leads, all the people that come into their, their shop are prequalified. They know all the FAQs they’ve seen the work that they’ve done.

[00:16:25] David Feinman: They could point to specific case study examples of kitchens that they’ve liked in the past. So. Really the work, the hard work that was done ahead of time with a salesperson or with, with humans is now done. And they’re just coming in ready to go, um, as the perfect customer. So I think businesses that, that aren’t do it, do it.

[00:16:46] David Feinman: Obviously you can still be successful without video. There’s plenty of companies that are, but you’re missing out on, you know, a lot of, a lot of getting a customer. That’s kind of spending that time that you talked about in the HubSpot article up front, learning about your product or service. And, and they’re ready to go.

[00:17:02] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, wow, that’s a such a cool example. I, I was gonna piggyback on what I had said with another, like quote I saw from a company, called Limelight where they said, “Online video consumption has increased across all age groups in the last five years.” So yes, kitchen and bath, right? That’s that’s an industry for people who have.

[00:17:22] Kevin Dieny: I guess money to be able to afford to upgrade an existing kitchen and bath. So I would say that that’s not, you know, your 18, 16 year olds who no, you know, so is video for all the age groups, right? Like, is it impactful for all the age groups? It’s sort of what that’s suggesting, but, and what’s, you’re found too is like, it’s, it’s worked here and there for, for this customer, that customer video is helping customers arrive at a business ready to go.

[00:17:49] Kevin Dieny: And it seems like you’ve seen that. Not just the young crowds, like that’s affecting everyone?

[00:17:55] David Feinman: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen it, uh, affecting everyone. I think you’ll notice just what platform are people engaging with? Like obviously TikTok skews younger. So does Instagram reels, but if you go onto like a Facebook or YouTube, or even on the website of a customer, that’s gonna skew older and it’s also, you know, your, your buyer and the user of your product or service is.

[00:18:19] David Feinman: You’ll have a certain demographic range and that demographic range is using the internet. Somehow they might not be using it like you would, or, or they might be using it a little differently, but every age group is using the internet. Like, Hey, my 90 year old grandmother, uh, we just got her MacBook pro and she uses the internet.

[00:18:37] David Feinman: So, you know, I think, I think it’s covered across most age ranges.

[00:18:42] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, and kind of like I was mentioning earlier, I think it’s great to have different medium types for every major point. Your business wants to communicate because you never know someone’s gonna be more hip in the video than others.

[00:18:55] Kevin Dieny: Someone, you know, the longer to me, the longer someone’s engaging with your webpages, the longer they’re there, the more interactions that happening are happening, even if they’re like, Hey, I saw like, this is really helpful and explain it to me. I know someone else I’ll just refer ’em to this video. And then you like, yep.

[00:19:10] Kevin Dieny: Things have a way of virality. Things have a way of expanding beyond. Okay. I, I paid for this be to be made in my business. I’m seeing, it’s getting 10, 20, 30, whatever views, like, am I gonna. Get the million views. Am I gonna end up like on morning shows because I made the, I made the greatest, the, you know, small business video.

[00:19:31] Kevin Dieny: I don’t, I don’t know if that’s sort of the expectation, right? So how, how should a business sort of, what, where should its expectations be with its videos? Like, should it be like, I’ve gotta make the next, um, viral virality video. That’s gonna crush the waves or should they just be making content? For their visitors and not be looking at million hits, you know, like, you know what I mean?

[00:19:54] David Feinman: I mean, look, a, a video doesn’t need to get a million views to be successful. In theory, a video that does get more views is going to be more successful. There’s no way to spin the numbers like that. You know, if you’re getting more, more of the right views, I should say, it’s gonna be more successful. Um, but that being said, like, if you’re getting, you know, as a local business, if you’re getting a lower number of views, that’s fine too.

[00:20:15] David Feinman: Or if you’re a B to B, uh, company that doesn’t sell to a lot of customers a year, but maybe your engagement size is higher. Of videos use, you know, if you have a hundred customers and a thousand potential customers a year, you close one in 10, you know, that could be great for a local business, right? Just as kind of like an example to the kitchen and bath line, they don’t, they’re not doing thousands of kitchens a year.

[00:20:40] David Feinman: Um, their videos don’t get a ton of views, but the people that are visiting them and are interested in what they’re doing. Um, are incredibly valuable customers. Like kitchens can cost quite a bit of money. So, you know, that focused customer. Sometimes is, is better for you to get for some businesses. It just really depends on who you are and who you’re trying to reach.

[00:21:02] David Feinman: There’s a concept that we always talk about, which is called micro viral, which is going viral in the audience that you want something to go viral in. Um, There’s certain videos that all of us have seen, probably like, I think all of the us has probably seen Joe Biden falling off his bike this year. Um, but you don’t need your video to hit that level of virality per se.

[00:21:26] David Feinman: You know, you, you just need it to hit it in your specific audience. And I think platforms like TikTok or Instagram reels have opened and have, have a great algorithm in order for people and companies to hit that right. Audience. Their, their algorithms super powerful and usually will put your video in front of the right people too.

[00:21:47] Kevin Dieny: Let’s say a business is like, okay, well I’m gonna create some videos. Uh, but I would like them to have some consistency or some standards or some, you know, how, like, how am I approach this? You mentioned like, okay, let’s make sure there’s good lighting. Let’s make sure that there’s a good, I’m gonna capture what people are saying.

[00:22:04] Kevin Dieny: So it doesn’t sound like I’m really far away. Um, there’s crazy road noise or someone’s sawing in the background. you know what I mean? Like you’re like, okay, I’m gonna, if I’m gonna make some. The general, what are some of the general tips you’d have for, you know, beginner to, to approach to be like, okay, I’ll I’ll remember, or maybe I’ll write these down, I’ll have this list.

[00:22:24] Kevin Dieny: And then when I approach each video, I’ll have this standard, that way my videos turn out, you know, like you said, of the amateur level, you shoot for that. Um, like, so what are maybe like, what are some of the tips for the baseline beginner amateurs to, to make sure and help them get to that next level?

[00:22:39] David Feinman: So we covered a couple of them.

[00:22:41] David Feinman: So strong lighting would be number one. Um, good sound is number two. And then I would say, um, the most important thing is the first couple seconds of what you say. I always say to go right into what you’re talking about. Um, you don’t necessarily need to. Do like this whole long drawn out intro. Um, there, there used to be like a trend a few years ago and we still get requested this all the time to do like some 32nd intro for, for a company with like logos flying around.

[00:23:09] David Feinman: And it just, there’s just no point you wanna hook people in with something that interests them, almost like the visual version of clickbait. You kind of wanna give people a reason to watch at least a little bit of the video for the first couple seconds.

[00:23:26] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, I have a it’s a principle. I follow with ads, but I always go, okay, someone’s gonna see this.

[00:23:33] Kevin Dieny: Okay. What in the first five seconds, if they’re not interested, they’re they’re gone. So what am I gonna capture the first five seconds? Okay. I won it. Let’s say I win it the first five seconds. What am I gonna do with the next five? okay. And then let’s say they’re, let’s say they read the, you know, the header headline is probably the first five.

[00:23:49] Kevin Dieny: The description is probably the next five. Okay. Now they’ve decided to click. Okay. Now they land on my webpage, my landing page, the top, just the top area, top header section. That’s the first five seconds again. Did I win them again? Okay. Now they’re gonna read the, the byline, the subline. So like I approach it, like I gotta win every five seconds of attention cuz people are, you know, maybe they’re multid, devising, they’re watching a show.

[00:24:14] Kevin Dieny: They’re watching they’re on the website. They’re listening to someone they’re on their phone, on the website. You gotta you’re competing right with like attention constantly. And like things like music and sound, maybe aren’t gonna do it. They’re gonna be turning down their volume. So, you know, am I gonna have captions over the video or on my webpage?

[00:24:30] Kevin Dieny: Is it gonna be sound reliant? Like, is it gonna be visually, do they have to have their attention focused to understand, like, if they have to watch a five minute video and they have to remember the first 30 seconds and the middle 30 seconds to get the ending. Maybe that video’s not gonna do so well. So I, I, I approach it like in this five second, gotta win it each time approach and to my ads.

[00:24:50] Kevin Dieny: So it sounds like something similar is what you’re talking about for video.

[00:24:54] David Feinman: Exactly and that’s why a lot of times with like a more professional video, you’ll see the video cut to something new every couple seconds, cuz it’s like, oh, what’s next let’s stick around and see what’s happening next.

[00:25:06] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, that’s awesome. So how about scripted versus unscripted type stuff? I mean, you, you had said research your topic, maybe have some bullets, but it didn’t sound like. You know, write down exactly verbatim what you’re gonna say. Um, but I mean, and not to say that there isn’t a case for scripted. So how do you see the script in and unscripted worlds of video, videos for businesses?

[00:25:26] David Feinman: So we always do some sort of script, but the script is usually just like a topic and some bullets and a general direction. We’re taking the video. Um, especially if someone is on camera talking. Now, if we’re using a spokesperson, a trained actor or doing an animated video, we’re always gonna write out word for word, what is going to be said and really craft every single word.

[00:25:47] David Feinman: But in corporate videos, like the person that is behind the screen is usually not a trained actor. And to memorize a minute, a video is actually really, really hard. So we prefer to do the question, answer style, and then, um, That could be cut down into something, but also free, you know, free flow speaking as well.

[00:26:08] David Feinman: If you’re just doing kind of one cut or you’re not ex you know, proficient with editing, that works too. So, you know, having the ability to cut down what you’re saying and, and, and splice that in with stuff, you know, that that is a huge advantage too, because it’s tough to be an actor when you’re not an actor.

[00:26:27] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, you’ve also pointed out. I would say another really important tip here, which is if you make a, like, say a 2, 3, 4, 20, 30, whatever it is, long video, longer video, you could take bits of it, chunks of it, quotes out of it, and you could cut those, edit those out and have basically you can take one. One video and turn it into a bunch of videos, right?

[00:26:49] Kevin Dieny: Like that’s, that’s something that I was excited about where I was like, I could take this podcast and I could clip it and then I’ll have a bunch of, you know, consumptive media. I can cut out of one main thing that I did. And that was that’s so valuable. I think as a way to get additional videos out of one video.

[00:27:06] David Feinman: Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

[00:27:08] Kevin Dieny: Now it does, like you mentioned, there is some editing involved, so. In terms of let’s say, okay. So we’ve talked a lot about businesses who at the beginner level and how to get started, how to get going. Let’s say there’s a business who has enough budget and is considering, you know, what I wanna make a video week.

[00:27:26] Kevin Dieny: And I think at that point, they’re they should be thinking about a videographer or a video person, a content manager, maybe possibly freelance an agency. I don’t know something to help them create that volume, cuz that’s a decent volume of output of video. So at that level, right. So what should they be considering?

[00:27:45] Kevin Dieny: What should they be looking for in a videographer?

[00:27:47] David Feinman: Yeah, so I think there’s two things, um, really there’s filming and there’s editing. Um, well the strategy filming video editing, right? So when you’re working with someone, they might not be great on strategy. They might not know how to make something work for marketing or make something work for a certain platform.

[00:28:03] David Feinman: So you wanna make sure whoever you’re working with has some level of strategy involved with them, or you’re giving them the strategy to go from there with a videographer. Um, This is gonna be the person that like gets the right shot, makes it sound good. That kind of can look at something and make sure that what is being filmed tracks to the strategy and tracks to the script.

[00:28:25] David Feinman: Um, and then for the editor, that’s gonna be someone that is actually piecing. Video content together. Um, depending on where you’re sitting, like you can hire an agency to roll everything up into one thing. Um, or, or video production company will do everything for you from strategy all the way to delivering your, your video.

[00:28:41] David Feinman: Or you can work with like a freelancer that does a piece of it, or you can kind of do one thing really well. And a couple things you. Not as well, or you can just work with someone to edit your videos is an option as well. So a lot of ways you can interface with professionals that do it, um, that, that, that do it, um, you know, be it editing a video or recording a video and things like that.

[00:29:06] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, so that’s really, that’s great. And in terms of, like I had mentioned one video a week as an example here, but how often do you think. This is why something people are thinking, how often am I gonna have to make videos? Right? Is one is one a week standard. Normal is two a week, three a week is one a month, one a year.

[00:29:27] Kevin Dieny: Like, I know there’s so many industries, but like what’s what would you say somewhere in what range is like a healthy, like. Creation process for outputting videos. Just getting stuff out there. You may know you may have one come out and it’s a winner. You know what I mean? Something, it hits really something really strong and powerful.

[00:29:45] Kevin Dieny: If you see, okay, I got 50 FAQs. I’m gonna need to make videos for, and I have a hundred videos on the site, 150. Okay. If I wanna get a made in a year, obviously that tracks back to one every three days or whatever. So, I mean, you could do it in a lot of ways, but what would you say? What are your thoughts on how frequently and how many videos a business should be putting out there?

[00:30:05] David Feinman: So I think there’s a couple ways to look at it. There’s your foundation videos, which are videos that kind of are evergreen content that live on your website and there’s your social media videos, which could be sort form content or, or things like that. So you wanna think about making. Some level of foundation videos that are like about us FAQ videos, things of that nature.

[00:30:26] David Feinman: But you also wanna look at, you know, how often should we be putting out content on social media? Um, and you know, we have, we have clients that put out a video every single day on TikTok, and that’s a lot of videos. That’s, 20 videos a month. Yeah. Um, so, um, you know, that’s a whole separate strategy. I think when you’re thinking about it, You want to kinda work backwards from where your budget is, um, and then figure out how many you can make within that budget.

[00:30:56] David Feinman: I hear on the side of like, um, don’t just put out something to put out something, put out something that has a purpose and has a certain quality. I think a lot of people will do it to check a box, which in my opinion, if you’re just gonna do it, check a box, you might as well just lead a B. I think you should actually like put time and effort into thinking.

[00:31:15] David Feinman: What it should be. So I’d rather see people do one really good one than six, four quality ones, especially if they’re re representing their business in a professional way online.

[00:31:24] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s really good advice. I love the idea of, uh, being, having your video part of your video strategy, being purposely driven.

[00:31:31] Kevin Dieny: Right, and organizing it, so, okay, here’s the priority videos we’ll make first, you know, essential, foundational videos, things like that. And then, okay, here’s the other, we also are gonna need some amount of social. So kind of like, sounds like you’re kind of planning out like a calendar. And then from there, you’re like, okay, this tells me how many videos I should make.

[00:31:48] Kevin Dieny: Do I wanna do this on my own? do I wanna hire someone? You know what I mean? Like you can kind of back into that and figure out what suits your business based on your business’s needs and resources.

[00:31:57] David Feinman: Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:31:59] Kevin Dieny: So, okay. Now I want to ask you about, okay. You’ve mentioned the animated style. So I wanted to ask you about that.

[00:32:06] Kevin Dieny: Some businesses are all about in person live captured stuff. You know, people, uh, inter being interviewed, maybe like on the job, here’s the process. Here’s how things are going, you know? And then there’s animation style. We use a lot of animation style stuff, um, because pretty much our product. Isn’t something you can even show visually like a phone call is like, you show someone on the phone, but, uh, you’re not gonna be able to show the, the call moving around on the wires.

[00:32:31] Kevin Dieny: You know? So sometimes it is, we can do that with like an animated concept and people go, oh, now I get it. You know, like, it’s not just someone telling you, it’s like showing them. And that’s why we’ve found animation to be great. So how does, where does animation have place and where does the live per live?

[00:32:49] Kevin Dieny: Real time type of, or not even a real time, but live video have place?

[00:32:53] David Feinman: I think if you have a complicated idea that you need to explain visually, animation’s a great way to distill the words you’re saying into a deeper visual explanation. Even if you have someone talking like a lot of times we will incorporate some level of animation or graphics that, um, take something simple or say something complex or seek something, um, nuanced and explain it.

[00:33:16] David Feinman: Well, visually a lot of SAS products do well with this. And a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, services will do well explaining their offering and their process through animation because it, it’s not enough to just tell sometimes, sometimes you wanna show some sort of visual board in graphics that move and walk people through a journey that way.

[00:33:39] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. So does it mean that let’s we use a tool for it? It’s sort of like, uh, PowerPoint. , it’s sort of like, it’s very simple interface to make these videos, but if a business wants to explore the live side, right, they need to make sure they have the camera, they have the capture, the audio, stuff like that.

[00:33:57] Kevin Dieny: And it’s a little different with, with the animation. Um, so does that mean people are gonna need like animators?

[00:34:02] David Feinman: Well, there’s definitely softwares that you could do to it yourself, but yeah, you could work with an animation company or use an animator to do it as well. So when you’re talking about there’s one called I think Adam Moto, that’s a software that you use.

[00:34:15] David Feinman: I’m not sure which one you guys use. It’s very similar. That there’s definitely a couple different. Yeah. There’s definitely a couple different softwares that people, people use to do it themselves, but you can also hire animators to handle it for you.

[00:34:24] Kevin Dieny: That’s awesome. So now I want to ask you about the pitfalls so.

[00:34:32] Kevin Dieny: What should a business be looking out for what dangers exist, what lurks, you know, in just putting music in your video that you don’t, you know, what, what happens if you know, what are things that a business needs to be like on its radar about when it starts making videos to make sure it doesn’t get in trouble to make sure the videos are successful, to make sure they don’t, you know, trip and fall halfway through and realize, oh, no, I have to go reshoot now.

[00:34:55] Kevin Dieny: You know, like, I’m sure there’s quite a bit of things, but what things come to mind that are pitfalls that a business should watch out for when it’s making videos?

[00:35:02] David Feinman: Well, I think, I think you just mentioned two of them and we’re alluding to me saying this, but, uh, make sure you use royalty free music in what you’re doing.

[00:35:10] David Feinman: I know it’s not the best. It’s not the latest. 20 music hits, but you know, you don’t wanna use music that you don’t have commercial license to. Um, and you know, you could theoretically get yourself in trouble for that. Also, you wanna make sure you’re using license. If you’re using any stock footage or things like that, you wanna make sure you require the certain licenses.

[00:35:30] David Feinman: And if you’re using someone’s face, make sure you have the permission to use their face. Um, so, um, definitely cover your bases with that, but then also, um, In addition to that, make sure that when you do it, um, and you watch that video back and you have other people watch it, make sure it like really represents your brand, right?

[00:35:50] David Feinman: Because, um, since it could work in the opposite, like if you have a poorly done video on your site could be something that you have worked really hard on and you’ve stared at it for a hundred hours. But at the end of the day, it could just not be the right quality video. Um, It could turn people away in the business as well.

[00:36:08] David Feinman: So I think a pitfall too, is like people sometimes will spend so much time on something looking at it. They think the end product is actually still good, but it just, it’s not. So you just wanna make sure that you’re presenting yourself professionally, um, in addition to, you know, it’s everything else.

[00:36:27] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. What, what you’re saying reminds me of the sort. Disregarded, uh, Batwoman movie. I believe that was gonna come out. And then they realized, okay, something’s wrong. This isn’t the way we want we, we made the movie, but now we’re not happy with it. We’re gonna just scrap the whole thing. um, that that’s unfortunate to find out at the sort of near the end or at the end to be like, oh man, everything we’d worked on is.

[00:36:48] Kevin Dieny: Is wrong is off. And that could, that could be savings. You could make earlier if you had sort of maybe checks or feedback or something in place along the way, or if you have a good strategy, a good plan, a good idea for how you’re gonna execute this. So the planning and execution for creating the video is one thing.

[00:37:05] Kevin Dieny: Now you’ve got videos, you’re gonna launch them. So do you have any ideas, tips, or pointers for businesses? Smaller businesses who are like, okay, I I’ve made these videos. I put ’em on my. How do I get more people to watch? ’em how do I get these videos shared? How do I get them out there? You know what I mean?

[00:37:22] Kevin Dieny: Like, how do I get the right people that micro virality to occur?

[00:37:26] David Feinman: Right? So let’s start with no budget. You did the video, you wanna put it out there. So my recommendation is jump in some local Facebook groups. Try not to be spammy. Maybe share your video in there, share your video to your Facebook, personal audience, Sarah, to your Instagram audience.

[00:37:41] David Feinman: Personally, send it out to an email list. Those are like the cheapest. Effectively free ways to do it. Also just posting on all the platforms. Uh, you know, if you’re gonna post it on YouTube, make sure you have the right keywords, the right tags, the right descriptions that people can find it. And it shows.

[00:37:58] David Feinman: In addition to that, um, you could also put some ad money behind it. So all the major platforms, if you’re not familiar offer some sort of advertising program so that you can amplify your video. So YouTube ads, Facebook ads, uh, TikTok ads, Twitter ads, all, they all offer some sort of video ad program that are gonna get more eyeballs, the right customer to your actual video.

[00:38:18] David Feinman: Um, and then also, you know, if you have a website that’s already getting some traffic coming in, you can take that traffic and just simply. Put the video there so people can watch that video as part of their website experience.

[00:38:31] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, those are great ideas. And there are goals in these marketing platforms, at least on the ad side.

[00:38:37] Kevin Dieny: There’s the goals like I want some, I wanna see, I wanna put money here, but I want people to watch the video and something that I love about those. Not all of them have it, of course, but some of them have the ability to take an audience out of people who watched video. Which is, I think amazing. You could say, okay, I want, I wanna be able to show another ad to the people who watched my video at least halfway or 75% or watched the full thing.

[00:39:01] Kevin Dieny: And that audience is someone who’s been educated enough to watch you hope right. From watching a video. Obviously, if you’re using it 15, second video, someone who’s watched half of it. May not have even reacted quick enough to turn it off. so take into account how long it is and what you’re, what you’re thinking of.

[00:39:17] Kevin Dieny: But I think video represents like an amazing retargeting opportunity from my, my expertise in the ad side too.

[00:39:23] David Feinman: Yeah, absolutely. I that’s an amazing point because what you could do is you could show, give them an offer once they, you know, once they’ve found out about you, you could take, you know, anyone that’s watched 45 seconds of your video.

[00:39:35] David Feinman: Throw them a 10% off coupon or like do something to just bring them in or, you know, offer them a free coaching consulting call, like whatever, whatever your offer is to get someone in, you could do it based on people watching a video. So they’re a hundred percent right. And with GDPR and a lot of the changes with cookies, um, video retargeting is kind of one of those, like almost like the last man standing, you know, in, in the form of, of, of retargeting.

[00:40:05] David Feinman: You know, that’s, that’s the other piece of it. And people getting more control of their data. This is, this is one that’s platform controlled in a way. So the platforms are able to still operate and still let you know, if someone watched 30, you know, a certain percent of their video, then you’re able to retarget that person versus like that multi-platform thing that’s being banned on, uh, apple and.

[00:40:25] David Feinman: Probably eventually Android too.

[00:40:26] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s valuable to be building your audience and your website to be building your email list, to be building your, you know, your followers and social media or your, your audience and social media. However you wanna call it, uh, to be able to build a good referral network.

[00:40:41] Kevin Dieny: So a lot of times businesses are doing all these things or doing these things, uh, and it’s, it’s a great way for them to move forward. I’ve um, even like I had some work done our house and the company was like, Here’s what to expect. Looks like you had mentioned with the kitchen and bath company. And they, they were like, we really, also really want you to have watched this video before we work with you.

[00:41:03] Kevin Dieny: And it was like, oh, That’s interesting. The video is a part of a requirement, but in the video they are like, here’s the main things that are gonna help us be successful. And it was very, it was like a minute, it wasn’t that long, but it was like covering the bases so that they knew okay. That you had seen in a concise way, the, the big obstacles that we will face that will throw off the whole project.

[00:41:25] Kevin Dieny: Right. And they were using it in that way. So I think it’s interesting to consider, like, what are, so here’s a question, dude. Maybe one of the last ones, cuz we’re getting close to the, in here. What are the foundational type videos you think a business should consider making?

[00:41:41] David Feinman: I think, um, if you’re gonna pick anything, you should do an about us video, who we are, why we exist in the world for some that might be an explainer video, walking them through like what the product offering is.

[00:41:54] David Feinman: Um, and then FAQ videos take the most frequently asked questions you get on the phone in sales calls, um, or people that walk in your door, what are they asking? And just put a bunch of videos together that cover those, um, those things. It could also be used as a customer success tool as well. So, you know, putting together videos that explain how to use your product in a deeper way, um, are great.

[00:42:17] David Feinman: So, I mean, if you get beyond those first two and want to use it on the back end for not just customer acquisition and strategy, but for customer success strategy, that’s a whole nother. Hour that you and I could chat about. But yeah, I think today we focus mostly on customer acquisition, so.

[00:42:34] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. Yeah, no, I really appreciate you coming on David and sharing all this.

[00:42:37] Kevin Dieny: This is fantastic. Someone who has the knowledge and the experience of doing this and what to expect and, and, and demystifying it, making it less scary, I think is a big thing I’m trying to get out of this too. So if anyone does have questions for you wants to connect with, you wants to learn more about you, how should they, go about finding you or connecting with you?

[00:42:58] David Feinman: Absolutely, so I am very findable on all of the social medias, so you can just go use my name and then just, uh, reach out there or our website, viralideasmarketing.com.

[00:43:08] Kevin Dieny: Great, I really appreciate David. You coming on, sharing all your wisdom, talking with us about Video Marketing for Small Businesses, and you’ve given us such great tips, things that I’m even gonna take back and consider looking at.

[00:43:20] Kevin Dieny: And I would definitely say like we should be approaching video, with a little bit more motivation and confidence than we were before. So, uh, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:43:32] David Feinman: Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it.

[00:43:34] Kevin Dieny: Thanks for listening to the Close the Loop podcast.