Kathy Cabrera explains how to script and produce explainer videos for B2B clients. She covers what these videos are, why companies use them, and how writers can build a business around creating them.
Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.
Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. Thanks for joining me for episode 64 of the show. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take they're writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes to this episode by going to BTB launcher.com episode 64 this week we're going to talk about yet another little known opportunity for writers and copywriters and that's the opportunity of scripting and producing what are typically called explainer videos and doing that for some of your clients. Now, explainer videos are nothing more than really short, usually about one to two minute, simple and engaging explanations of what a product does or a service does and how it solves a key problem. They're not demo videos, so they're not a demo of the product or the service. Rather they're high level presentations usually involving some sort of computer animation or live action story element to it. There's an entertainment factor in most of them and they've become incredibly popular over the past few years. To discuss this opportunity in great detail, I've brought in a real pro in this area. Her name is Kathy Cabrera and she is from Red Clip Video. And as you'll hear in this interview, Kathy has a pretty unique background that has enabled her to build a growing business around Explainer Video. So she's going to talk about what this work is all about, what it involves, the different opportunities for writers, what you can charge and where you can find business. And of course it depends on how you want to structure this and there's many different ways you could do this. So let's get right to it and I'll come back at the end with a quick announcement. Hey Kathy, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you here.
Thank you. It's great to be here with you today.
Well, we're talking today about videos and specifically something that's really been trending over the past few years in the B2B content marketing world. And it's called Explainer Videos and this is the world you live in. So let's start there. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your business and the type of work you do.
Certainly. Thank you very much. I have a 15 year marketing background and while I was working in marketing, primarily as an independent person, an independent consultant, like many of your audience members, a freelancer. I also pursued. I couldn't get rid of this urge within myself to be a filmmaker. I couldn't kill it. So I decided that I had to actually pursue it. And, and over the course of the last 15 years, in the mid-2000s, I attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and I received an MFA in screenwriting and producing. And while it was, it was all very serendipitous because while I was at film school, my specialty was making short films as a producer, which is pretty much a project manager in the film world, and then using the storytelling element as a writer. And. And when I decided what to do with my graduate degree after I finished, I decided, in addition to doing some fun Hollywood type endeavors and teaching, which I currently do, I also saw the need for businesses to use their own little films or videos or short online videos to communicate with their audience. YouTube was founded in 2006. I actually finished UCLA in 2008. Around that time I saw a lot of businesses communicating well through the digital storytelling platform that is YouTube. In addition to, especially in the B2B realm, there was actually people were trying, but there was definitely some evolution that could take place with small to mid sized companies hopping on the bandwagon of engaging their audience, essentially their customers, but doing so in a way that was savvy, but yet still cost effective for their budgets. Something that's really taken off in the B2B world, especially for if you need to give someone enough detailed information about your product or solution or services to hook them enough to see that you're differentiated in a compelling way from the competitor. But at the same time you also have to pull them in with something emotional or tangible or immediately relevant in the first five seconds. Explainer videos are actually a great way to do that because since it's animated, you have complete control of however you want to illustrate it. Whether it's a word driven words up on the screen, driven storytelling, or if you want to go more of what would appear to be a cartoon. But obviously it wouldn't be a cartoon for a young audience. It would be cartoon type elements like an illustrated character to represent your hero. In most cases is the audience that you're solving the problem for. So explainer videos are sort of the industry term for it, but I really like to think of it as an animated video that entertains, engages and explains so that you're not only presenting information to people, but you're also engaging them getting their attention and you're entertaining them. You don't have to entertain them with the latest Hollywood.
