The single most underrated marketing channel in 2021. EP #174 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. It's Dan here. It's Thursday. Well, here in Australia might be Wednesday. Where you're listening, Perhaps in the US this is episode number 174 of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast.

So after a really rough week last week, I think just the. The whole moving house thing just caught up with me, and I just went down with, like, just fatigue. I pulled some sort of nerve in my foot and came out with all sorts of skin complaints, which I think is just a sign of overdoing it. I'm sure you can relate to, you know, getting run down after a busy period at work. And, you know, it's funny how our bodies kind of remind us when we need to stop by just shutting us down and forcing us to lay on the sofa. Bill, you know, binge on Netflix. Which is pretty much what I did for a couple of days last week. And it's interesting. I was supposed to do a podcast interview with.

Ryan Coral from Studio Sherpas on Friday, and he called me at the last minute and said, I'll do it. I can't do it. I'm just at a Covid jab. And he had Covid a few months back, and he got a Covid jab, and he was feeling really rotten. And so I think, you know, it doesn't matter where you are on your journey. We're all human. We all suffer from the same things, which is if we don't look after ourselves, if we don't prepare our bodies, we don't consume the right food, get the right rest, stay hydrated, then at some point, we all burn out. And I know as a filmmaker, we've all done that. There's been periods where, you know, a shoot comes along, a project comes along back to back, and you just. You just on it full time. And that means sometimes, you know, working a Sunday, putting extra hours in, and that's okay for short bursts, but ideally, you want to be, you know, creating a more consistent environment to work with it. And the reason that I think, you know, that often we get caught up in these kind of extreme periods is because we've not been consistent in some other area. So what I'm talking about specifically is marketing. And for some reason, when I say the word marketing, a lot of filmmakers flinch, and I'm not quite sure why I'm going to try and explain it on today's episode. I think it's because when we think marketing, somehow it can feel sleazy or that we're trying to convince someone to Buy something they don't need by using, you know, tactics. And that's really not what marketing is. Marketing in its most simple form is simply putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. And if that message is relevant, if it is significant, if it helps the prospect solve a problem that they're having and they're thinking about, then you will become a factor in that prospect's mind as someone who's provided some value. And what I often see is video businesses looking for a shortcut, looking for, like a kind of a magic pill, looking for a kind of guaranteed method to get success. And, you know, if we had guaranteed methods to get clients, then we'd all be using it. Right? The fact is that human beings are not binary machines. They are people with feelings and biases, and so.

They'Re not easy to manipulate into doing something they don't want to do. Now, what we have to do is as marketers, as filmmakers who are running a business who need to market that service. If you want to just set up your website and go, hey, we're here, and wait for the phone to ring, that's fine. You go ahead. You do that. I'm not interested in that. You have to go out and pitch your services to the world so that you have something that is unique and special and different to present to the world. And all marketing is doing is amplifying that message to the right target market. And yet there seems to be a massive gap between those who know who they're targeting and what they're offering and those that don't. And, you know, I want to mention Ben, who's one of my clients, been with me probably a year and three months now. Fantastic guy, runs an amazing business in the UK and has just diligently applied the methods of the vba. Without fail, he's gone back and listened to stuff again. He's just implemented everything step by step. And as a result, he's getting some really, really kind of consistent results. Now, what I love about Ben is he's very realistic that nothing happens overnight and that anything worthwhile takes time, but also that you have to be diligent and put some of your own biases to one side when working in the marketing space. And let me be clear, any business doing less than a million bucks a year is a marketing business, because you might think you're a filmmaking business, but in order for you to get more filmmaking clients, you. You have to market that business. And it's become harder. It has become harder, harder because There are more kids working out their bedroom with cameras, offering to do video for a knockdown price. And I had an experience recently, actually, which I'll tell you about that just demonstrated that and how it's impacting the world. However, when I say the world, I mean, you know, businesses are employing videographers. However, there is still an enormous amount of opportunity for premium service, and there always will be, because certain clients just don't want cheap. They want trusted advisors. They want reliable, you know, premium products. And so all that comes down to your marketing and how you present yourself. So I'll quickly tell you a story here. So we just, we just bought a house. We, we bought a house July last year. It was off plan and we just moved into it. I've mentioned it, we're just by the beach now. It's, it's fabulous. We're loving it. But part of the process was we, we were asked if we do a testimonial video. And, and Sam and I were more than happy to do because we're both used to being on camera and we really enjoyed the experience. So we had this testimonial video filmed. And what was interesting was it was this, this young kid who was filming it and he had, you know, some really fancy looking canon cameras, like R5s or something. Really, really over the top, you know.

And, and he set up this interview against a window. So we were sitting in front of a window, no lighting, zero lighting, a couple of road, little microphones and, and he had one camera locked off on a wide and a second camera on a gimbal. And at the time I was just, I was blowing my mind. I was like, what, what is this going to look like? It was, there was, there was no, there was no, there was no structure to how it was going to work. It was like, I think the epitome of what I regard as, you know, the equipment's become so affordable and there's so much stuff around that, that every kid would, with enough nose is like, well, if I just kind of get a gimbal and some fancy 4K cameras, I can become a filmmaker now. What was interesting was almost everything on this interview was filmed on a gimbal. All the B roll was shot on a gimbal. He didn't give us any direction at all.

And we had our dogs sitting with us and the dogs were literally panting in front of the microphones. And I was just, I was just gobsmacked by how this, this kid was showing up. Now, I've since seen a Cut of the video. And yeah, it looks okay, but. But there's no. There's no formula there. There's no. There's not. There's nothing that kind of tells you this has been filmed by someone who's. Who studied cinematography or photography or, you know, or structure of how to tell a story. It's just kind of like, bolted together with a bunch of shots over it. The shots don't relate directly to what's being said. It hasn't been lit, and. And you can hear the dogs panting. And so what he's done is to kind of overcome the dog's panting. He's just boosted the audio on. On the soundtrack, which makes it very hard to hear. And I was being. I was played it by someone in this company and on their laptop, and I said that the. That. That music track's too loud. You can't actually hear what we're saying. She's like, oh, is it? I'll. I'll talk to the filmmaker. Now, the interesting thing was it's quite a big company that hired this kid, but they didn't know. They weren't listening out for the audio. So it was like. It was like, okay, well, that's kind of crazy. And obviously, because I'm in that space, I did point it out. Anyway, it may be irrelevant. I mean, who cares what I think, you know? But I thought from a point of view of sharing with you, what was interesting was like, the client didn't really know what was good and what wasn't. They were just simply listening to the content. And so as far as they were concerned, it looked okay. It looked like a video. So I think there's always a difference between what we believe is a certain level of quality and what the client might perceive. But I thought it was an interesting example of just like, that's kind of, you know, I don't know what he was charging, but, I mean, it took him like, six weeks to bring an edit to the table. And he was kind of talking about how busy he was and how crazy things were, and he just sort of had, like, a van full of gear. And I guess it's like, you know, we've seen this over the last 10 years. It's just people with gear just, you know, buying gear for gear's sake. And they've got all the toys, but no real concept of how to craft a story. I might just be an old fart. Okay, this. That feels like, you know, this is important. Maybe it's not important anymore. Having said that, I work with Clients at the other end of the scale who are charging 20, 30 grand for a project, and clients really do care about it. So what I wanted to touch on today, really briefly, was just this idea of marketing. And what does it mean? Because what it means to me is you're telling a story of the problem you solve for your target market. And you know, you can. You can fight me on this all you want, but the bottom line is if you want to really expand your business, you need to go niche. There's no two ways about it. You know, I've seen people who don't and people that do and the people that do. You know, 80% of business comes from one niche, and they become known in that area, and life becomes very, very easy.

So when we talk about marketing, what we're talking about, well, we're talking about you being very clear on what it is you do that solves a problem for your market. And this is where I think a lot of filmmakers get stuck, because a lot of filmmakers actually just want to be filmmakers. They just want to make films. And so the business side, the marketing side can be a real challenge. And it was a challenge for me when I first started doing it. But what I've learned to do over the years is see the results of doing something that's not comfortable. And. And I realized that if I wanted to grow my business, and ultimately for me, it was about growing a business and moving away from the UK and living in Australia, because that was something that just felt very, very important to me. It was where my heart lay. I had a connection to Australia that I still can't really explain, but it just feels more like home for me. And so I had to find a way to create a business that would enable that to happen. And that was a very kind of long and involved process, but fundamentally it meant I had to start moving and shifting from waiting for the phone to ring, which is a very freelancer mentality, to generating opportunities. And to generate opportunities, you have to think of marketing. It's the first step, which is who are you talking to? So in any marketing conversation you're having, you need to be thinking about our strategy. You need to think, who are you talking to? Because if you try and talk to everyone, one, you'll end up talking to no one. And this is a common mistake I see with video businesses and freelancers particularly, is that they'll do work for anyone at any price, at any time, and that is okay. As a freelancer, I'm not knocking freelance. Okay, but. But if you're someone who's tired of that roller coaster, tired of that feast and famine. So I just knocked my pop filter off. If you're tired of that feast and famine, and the only way out of it is to start thinking strategically about marketing. And so the first thing you got to think of is who am I talking to? Who is my target market, who do I love working with, who appreciates me, and who would I like to do more work with? So if I think back to when I was running my video production company, my target market were broadcast manufacturers, equipment manufacturers and businesses related to the broadcast and filmmaking arena. So they were Sony, they were Canon, they were Panasonic. They were. And majority of my work at the time was Sony. I mean, I did bits and pieces for Panasonic and Canon over the years, but predominantly it was Sony.

And as I say, you know, my earlier years, I did a bit for Canon and Panasonic. As soon as I started doing big work for Sony, I had to kind of drop away from those other brands because it wasn't aligned and it wasn't good business to be doing work for competing brands. But then there was like, you know, o', Connor, Tiffin. I did stuff for Sennheiser, I did stuff for Road, I did stuff for Zeiss, Matte box manufacturers, Vinton and. And associated brands. So I became known for producing content that. That was in that space.

So.

I have another client, Pat, who does a lot of work with the healthcare space. And so once you understand the market you're in, they have a specific way of describing and talking about that market. So one of the major advantages of going niche or niche is that you get to communicate.

With that market in a language, any tone, and in a method that they feel like you get them. And so.

You know, one of my clients, Grant, works in kind of distribution, haulage manufacturing, and he was recently doing some outreach on LinkedIn. And. And he was. He got a response from someone who said, oh, you know, this is really interesting. I get a lot of people reaching out to me, but no one who's a specialist in haulage and distribution. And so that began a conversation. And so, you know, with that in mind, it's very important that when you have a conversation with someone, you're talking to a market that understands that you know what you're talking about, it's going to open doors far faster than anyone else. And the biggest mistake I see videographers make is they just go, hey, we make video. Yes, we can do it all. The answer to everything is, yes, we can do it and then figure it out on the back end. And that will get you so far. But if you want to be a mature business, one that has sustainable growth and predictability, then you have to start pigeonholing who you work for and becoming a specialist in that field. Because it does two things. One is, is it means you talk to that set of clients in a way that they understand. The second thing is, is that you get to become an expert in those eyes, in the eyes of the prospects. So therefore, what also happens then, as a direct byproduct of that is if you're working in the healthcare space and you're working for a healthcare manufacturer, then they probably worked in other healthcare companies. They probably worked with colleagues who are still friends, who you might see on the weekend. And what will happen is you can expand your network through their network. And that is something that's very, very key. And so when you think about marketing, you're talking about working in a sector that has organizations, maybe governing bodies, it might have its own magazine, it might have its own Facebook group, that you can become the kind of the go to expert for anyone who's got a question about video production. And therefore you can elevate yourself to becoming an authority. Which leads me to the next aspect of marketing, which is writing a book. Now, for most people, the idea of writing a book is terrifying. And I often hear this being said, oh, I don't think my market will go for it, which is a bias. It's a bias that says you might not read a book. But that's not to say your market might not read a book. And here's the other thing. You don't actually have to write a book. You can write an ebook. Ebooks are still highly, highly effective. They're effective because it gives you an opportunity to position your authority as an expert. Because if you've got an ebook and someone else doesn't, it just shows that you've done more work and are willing to explain and express your authority and your knowledge to help someone who is not yet ready to make a buying decision. So with an ebook, where that comes in handy from marketing perspective is that you are entering the conversation in the prospect's mind before they're even thinking about hiring a video company. They're just thinking about a problem they've got to solve. And video might be one opportunity to solve a problem. So if you have an ebook that helps the prospect solve a problem, then then there's every chance as they're doing their research they might just download that and read it. And that's going to put you in a primary position, I would say pole position, against another company who's just going, hey, click this button to get a quote. Some people may not be ready to press the get a quote button, but they might be willing to download an ebook because it's very like all they're giving away is an email address, okay, in return for an ebook. And the chances are they'll give you, you know, an email address that they use specifically for that. So they're not threatening that. They're not being threatened. They're not feeling vulnerable towards their data being used and being spammed. And the most important thing about ebooks and email marketing is that it has to be relevant to that target market, which is why knowing your target market is so important, if you're sending stuff out that people aren't interested in, then, yes, they will see it as spam. But I'll bet there are emails you get into your inbox which you don't unsubscribe to because you're interested in what they've got to say. And that is where email marketing and ebook funnels are still very, very powerful as part of a broader marketing strategy. So the biggest mistake I see filmmakers make in marketing is they pick one or two things and go, well, I'm doing work on LinkedIn and I've got a website. So they, that's my marketing, and I'm either getting enough work or I'm not. And the chances are you're not, because you're just not putting enough effort into the right areas of marketing. So you need five to 10 pillars. Now, if you think about a Greek Parthenon, the Acropolis in Athens, it's got this huge, triangular, heavy roof and it's supported by big marble and sandstone pillars. Now, if you have that weight on the roof and you only have two pillars, then that's a very vulnerable position to be in. But if that Parthenon roof is, is. Is held up by 10 different pillars, then one pillar can start to rot away. And it's not. The roof's not going to fall down. And so the mistake I see time and time again is filmmakers who fundamentally don't want. Do any marketing sort of dabbling in it, and they dabble in it and they may get a result and they may not. But the truth is, in marketing terms, we have an expression which is marketers don't think, they test. So I'll often hear people say, oh, who's tried this ebook thing, or who's tried this email marketing, or who's tried this Facebook thing, what results did you get? And as soon as they get a kind of negative result like, oh, it didn't really work for me, it validates their decision not to do it. And that is a huge mistake because every market is different and every market responds differently to the same marketing. You could produce two pieces of marketing that are identical, and it will absolutely fly in one market and dive bomb in another. So what's critically important is that marketers don't think they test. And so what that means in terms of mindset is that you're gonna have to start putting money and time and effort into things that will not work. In fact, 8 out of 10 pieces of marketing probably won't work in your space. But the faster you get to know, the quicker you get to a yes. So by that I mean the quicker you can test 10 different pieces of marketing, you'll know what doesn't work and you'll know what does. So we have an exercise in our ebook module, which is you have to create 20 headlines for an ebook. And most people that I come across write one or two. And this is not something that I create. This is something from David Ogilvie, who's kind of the grandfather of modern day advertising. He used to get his copywriters to write 100 headlines, 101 00, 100 headlines, and pick 5 and split test the 5. So the true way to market is you would write 20 headlines of your book and you'd pick three and you'd split test all three headlines till you found one that worked. And a great example of this is when Tim Ferriss wrote the Four Hour Workweek. That's exactly what he did. He split test, I think, three or four different headlines that he come up with for the book. And he ran Google Ads to the headline, and the one that performed the best on the ads became the title of the book, the Four Hour Workweek. And so as I wrap this episode up, it's critically important that when you put your marketing cap on as a filmmaker, you stop thinking and you start testing. And this is difficult because as a filmmaker, you're always thinking about creative ways to tell a story. And so one of the most challenging aspects of being a business owner who's a filmmaker is understanding that you've got to work in two very distinct spaces when you're creating. It's when you think and when you're running your business, it's where you just look at the logic. And you apply a kind of binary testing algorithm to everything that you do. And so you have to understand that there's two different mindsets going on. And if you try and think about marketing and try and think about what's going to work and you try and overthink it, you'll end up hitting a wall. You'll end up hitting your head against the wall. The only way to go ahead is to just split test something. I mean, I've. I've had multiple times where I' up with what I think is a great headline or a great, a great landing page. And, and I thought this is really going to work. And you put it to the market and it just dives. And yet sometimes the simplest, ugliest things that you thought you wouldn't think would really represent you end up flying because it's about hitting the conversation in the prospect's mind. And that is the hardest thing. And it's something that we talk about a lot in the VBA is like, you know, and one of the reasons we have the Mastermind group is that the power of the mastermind is that you're not just getting access to me and what I think in my experience, you can be sitting on a coaching call and have a problem and have 10 different businesses throw a solution at you and give you 10 different ways out of that hole. And that is what my members tell me all the time is one of the most powerful things that being in the Mastermind is that it's like, it's like a board of directors questioning and supporting and offering you solutions to every single problem you might have in a video business. So if that's something that you feel like would be beneficial, then we should have a call, have a chat, you know, see, see if it's a good fit because otherwise you're going to just be stubbornly going alone. And, and we've, you know, we're launching a new website very, very soon. I'm going through it just now. We've got so many success stories, so many case studies that, you know, this is a system that works. This isn't something we've just kind of, you know, conjured up. This is something we've been doing consistently for four years and we're seeing consistent results when you follow our system. So anyway, guys, I hope this has been helpful. Marketing really is your friend if you get stuck into it. But it's not going to be easy and it's going to take some time to figure out. Anyway, 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 hits 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 favour and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.