It's Time to Ramp Up Your Marketing & Build Your Business Back Up -Shorty EP #088

G', day, guys. Tuesday 12th May, week 20 of 2020.

Time for this week's Shorty. Just finished our coaching call with the accelerator clients, as we do every Tuesday. And today we were focusing on advertising. One of the things that's become clear during this whole current situation is that advertising on Facebook is very, very cheap if done correctly. And so what I shared this morning was an approach to not just Facebook, but actually marketing in general. And I want to share a bit of that with you just today.

You know, many, many filmmakers, video production companies, not many of them actually spend money on paid advertising. And when we do, it can be a little bit ad hoc. I know in the past I have dabbled with advertising. I'm thinking probably before I started learning it properly, you know, with the likes of Ben Simkin on Facebook and Mike Rhodes from Web Savvy on Pay Per Click and in Tom breeze with, with YouTube advertising, I'd spent a fair amount of money, probably close to $30,000, I think, over the five or 10 years that we were playing with advertising. But the challenge was always, it always seems, seems so hard. And that's because. Because it is really hard.

Because I think what happens is we get caught up in, oh, I'll just run some Facebook ads and Facebook make it very easy for you to put your credit card in and boost a post, for example. But what I've learned and what I was sharing with the members this morning was that that's the easy bit. That's the tactic, actually putting your credit card into an advertising platform and setting that up is very easy. So let's start by talking about why Facebook.

Many businesses don't really understand the full scale of Facebook and the network that's available to them.

Which has grown especially in recent months with more and more people at home. And some of these numbers are hard to wrap your head around. But 3 billion people use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook messenger every month.

2.3 billion use at least one of these every day. And 1.7 billion users are on Facebook every day. There are 800 million activities on live streams on Facebook and Instagram each day. I mean, it's just a mammoth number. And I realized we were doing a test on the Call this morning. I was setting up a demo campaign.

And given that Australia's got 28 million people, this particular campaign I set up, I didn't put any criteria. And it said I could reach 18 million people in Australia. So, like, more than half the population by some way are actually on Facebook. So It's a very powerful platform, but it's also a very complex platform with, with lots of variables. It's not difficult to use and it's certainly very easy to spend a lot of money quickly. But really what I wanted to share with you is the idea of where should, where should advertising fit in? Now in our accelerator program we base everything off the nine growth accelerators. So why is, you know, your purpose? Why are you doing what you're doing? Then we look to define your target market or your target audience and then we want to educate that audience in your offer. You know, what is it you do that takes away pain from them? And today we were focusing on Growth Accelerator 4, which is generate, which is how do you generate consistent inquiries. And I know from my previous life in video production that a lot of time I would just network and word of mouth would get me by. And I built a reasonably sizable business, you know, on my own in the UK through word of mouth, through networking. And I guess you always just sort of kind of hoped that the phone would keep ringing. And for the most part it did. But it wasn't a very comfortable existence. It wasn't a very relaxing existence. And I think that things are very much going to change now with the coronavirus and the way that that's impacted the world. And don't forget that we're not yet in recession. So we've had this very big health scare that shut the whole world down. But I, I think it's very important to, to analyze your video business differently. Like you, you, you simply cannot go back to the way things were. That's very naive.

And you know, it's not going to be the same for a long time. And I think a lot of people are really scared. I think a lot of people are really terrified. They're kind panicking because they don't really know what to do.

And you know, if you just, if you're just sitting, waiting this out, then I'm here to tell you to please stop, that you need to start being aggressive is not the right word, but very assertive in your marketing efforts. You need to be making efforts now to get very clear on who it is you serve, what problem you solve, and how you can make someone's life better through the services that you offer. And that is something that's going to involve a rethink. Now if you want support with that and you feel you're ready, then I suggest you pop over to the website@denleny.com and book a call with me.

We've got on the homepage, there's an opt in where you can watch a video which explains some of the process. And at the end of that video, there's an opportunity to book a call and have a chat. But what I can tell you is I got some wonderful feedback from the members this morning about the support they feel from being in this community and how. I want to share a story with Benny, one of our new members who joined us only maybe a month ago.

And Ben had come from a broadcast television background in Los Angeles, and he had always had a production company on the side like many of us do in the TV industry, but, you know, decided he wanted to make a go of it. And, you know, he came on the call and very openly said, look, I need help with this. And on a call three or four weeks ago, we chatted about something. He had an idea. He went out into his local community where he lives.

Struck up a conversation with the Chamber of Commerce, and yesterday was out filming this piece of content that he created that he created from scratch from an idea he got on the call. And we were all very proud this morning to see him go through so quickly through that journey. And that's just one example of the support that we give members on the phone. And also, you know, it's been a challenging time to be a creative. You know, we are very empathetic people and there are times when we feel very challenged and, and there's been a lot of support there as well. So when one members up another, you know, one, one member is feeling a bit down, the other members rally around and lift up. But. But what's more important is that whilst that community spirit and that sense of camaraderie is very, very important and an important part of this group, which is. Makes it different from any other business group I've ever been in or hosted. But. But we are still here to make sure businesses work. So we were focused this morning on the fact that you can leverage traffic on Facebook just now. And the key is to know what to do with that traffic. You've got to think about your sales process. And if the thought of a sales process freaks you out, then listen up. You need to map out your marketing funnel because there are people who are what we call cold traffic, who are unaware of you, your services, and unaware they even need your services, then you can move those people through advertising to an aware market where they become aware that video is something that might benefit and help them in some way communicate their message, products or service. But then you want to move those people into your lead nurture campaign where they are taking, you know, they've built enough trust up with you that they're giving you their email address, name, whatever, and you're giving them something of value in return. And then you nurture that relationship until they are ready to buy. And that is something you need to do. So here's a quick, quick sort of tip for that. You want to think about your sales process, think about the logic of it. Do some research on who you want to target on Google and LinkedIn. Who do you want to get in front of? Then you need to create an approach for how you're going to get in front of them. It might be on the phone, it might be email, it might be some other means. And you want to think about writing a script for what you're going to see when you call them and what that other person's going to hear. Remember, they're only thinking, what's in it for me? And so you want to think about, you know, coming up with ways to approach that conversation. So they are hearing, ah, this person's going to solve my pain points. And then you have to follow up. And those five simple steps, I promise you, 95% of people listening to this won't do anything with. And that is just the nature of human beings. It's as simple as that. But it's quite confronting. So what we were doing on today's call was we were really walking through the process and we've got checklists that we've given the members to kind of help them follow up and get that process running. I just want to finish with the fact that on Facebook just now, we're getting some really crazy cheap clicks, like 0.01 cents, 0.001 cents for a 10 second video view. We've had like six and 32 plays of a 90 second video for $43 Australian, 72,000 video plays. So if you are interested in learning how to do that, then I strongly recommend that you have a look at our website. Reach out to us@denlenny.com and let's have a chat because I've got some capacity now to bring in some new members. We're through the worst of coronavirus. You know, for a period there, my entire focus was on my current members and current clients. But I feel that this is really important. You know, if you're sitting at home, say eight, nine weeks into this and a bit concerned or looking for a way to kind of get an edge, then I can recommend highly coming and having a chat because, you know, we're really scoring some goals here. And, you know, everyone's revenue's down, but people are pivoting. They're reinventing themselves. They're coming up with new ways to generate business, and that is what the Video Business Accelerator is all about. So, look, guys, if I can support you in any way, please let me know and I'll talk to you soon. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Dan Lenny. If you're a video business owner who's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support, and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denleny.com don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes. And we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review. And don't forget to share. If you feel you've gotten value from this episode and you think it would be useful for other filmmakers you know, then please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. See you next week.