Do funny sales videos work? With Joseph Wilkins.

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. Today I'm joined by Joseph Wilkins, who's gonna talk to us all about video. Joseph's joining from Salt Lake City in Utah. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jim. It's great to be here.

Now, although you're in Salt Lake City, you've got a very British accent, Joseph. So tell us a little about, about you and also about how video can help entrepreneurs to get noticed.

Yeah, so I grew up in London, lived there for 20 years, and then moved out to the States originally to go to university and then started a business. And just, you know, 20 years basically on either side of the pond, now run a marketing agency that focuses solely on video. So how do we use the power of video to generate sales? And to answer your question, how do entrepreneurs use video today? Well, I mean, frankly, if you're not using video, you're just missing out. It's as simple as that. The opportunities to use video to connect to people, I mean, on pretty much every platform that you can imagine, video can be used to connect with people, whether it's to drive immediate sales, whether it's just to brand yourself, whether it's to educate. There's all kinds of different ways that you can. But the quick answer is, if you are not using video, I promise you your competitors are and they're gaining market share that you are losing.

But now, Joseph, there's one difference between the videos you are making and most of the videos that I'm watching. Because when I watched yours on funnysalesvideos.com, first of all, I laughed heartily at the Renault financing and the detergent video. And then I went online and I bought the detergent video. I actually bought the detergent product itself. Right. So tell us about why videos can be funny. Shouldn't they all be corporate, you know, IBM style?

Well, if you want them to be ignored, frankly, yes. If you want them to be watched, you've got to engage with people. Now, they don't have to be funny. Let's just make it clear. I believe marketing is kind of like a salad. You have to have all kinds of ingredients, and not every single video should be funny. There's a time and a place For different uses. But what we do, real quick, after 15 years of producing television commercials, infomercials, and standard corporate videos, we realized about 5 years ago that people were ignoring boring. They just are. So the very first, what we call a top-of-funnel video, the first impression video, we have found that using humor is the best, most consistent way To not get ignored, to stop the scroll, right? Today, it's not like it used to be where I had you captured between watching your TV shows and you had to watch my 30-second spot. Today, I've got to earn your interest. I've got to earn your attention. I've got to pique your curiosity and then tell you a story. And that's the difference, is the difference between the very first impression video being engaging, entertaining, but ultimately relevant. to advance your story of I solve a problem that you have. Other videos after that don't need to be nearly as entertaining because you've got their interest, you've got their attention, and now it's more about educating and furthering the buying cycle. But for a very first impression video, in 20 years now of running every kind of campaign you can imagine, nothing is as effective as using humor. And just to give you a final example so that your listeners maybe sit forward and say, oh, this guy actually does know what he's talking about. You know, our latest campaign is now close to the laundry detergent you mentioned. So, you know, fairly boring product, laundry detergent. It happens to be a very different kind of laundry detergent and one with a mission, but that campaign has over 100 million views. And, you know, millions and millions and millions of dollars in sales. What could your business do with a campaign that has that kind of reach?

Joseph, and it was so entertaining. I watched the whole campaign. This is for True Earth, isn't it? The detergent. So fantastic. So, but is humor video for everyone? Or do you think some companies need to be, you know, dried in the wool?

I love that question because To me, the more you think humor isn't for your company, the more I say it actually is. Now, there's maybe one or two examples where humor maybe isn't appropriate. Not many. I mean, if your company has humans as their customer, those humans have emotions, and which humans don't like to smile? Which humans don't like to laugh? Now, you've got to be relevant.

Yeah.

You can't be, you know, silly. You have to speak to the audience. So a video for a C-suite executive is going to be much more clever, higher intelligence, and jokes that will relate to those kinds of people and their problems compared to an acne cream for a teenager. That's a totally different kind of video. You've got to speak to the audience. But if you do it well and you can get your customers to laugh and smile, there's all sorts of studies that say that psychologically, They will remember you. And hopefully, you know, the end goal is to do what you did yesterday, to take you from a video that you've never seen before, that you don't know much about the product. Sold in 3 minutes or less is kind of our motto.

Yeah. And I thought what was interesting about that True Earth video was that you had a lot of statistics in there as well. And I actually remembered the statistics about, you know, number of bottles that were recycled and so on. So by embedding the key takeaways into a humorous video, actually they landed much more resolutely than they would've been if they'd just been dull superscript, right? So you're really taking people's key messages and embedding them. Is there a process, Joseph, that you take people through? Because most people are kind of afraid of humor in case they get it wrong. So do you wanna just tell us at Funny Sales Videos, how do you do it?

Yeah, so we actually have made a free ebook that anyone can download where we step through every one of the 8 steps that we take our videos through. Now, our videos take 4 months to produce, and there's a reason why they're so successful is because we spend a lot of time on each one of these steps. And I'll really quickly run through what they are. Step number 1, we've already kind of touched on that. That's do your research and understand who is your customer avatar. You would never write a letter and then decide after you've written it, who to address it to. Yet that's what we often do with marketing, whether it's videos or copy for your website. We just kind of write what we think. We really spend time to research our customer avatar. We read their comments on either the client's product reviews or competing client product reviews, but really understand who you're talking to before you start doing anything. Step 2 is brainstorm as many bad ideas as possible. Now, I say bad because that takes away the pressure. If you just throw out high-level ideas, the more you go through, the quicker you'll come to the diamond in the rough. Step 3 is the scripting, and that's a 2-part. So there's the marketing copy points, and then there's the story. Step 4 is bringing in the comedians to add comedy. Now, I always say, bring in freelancers to do this part. Most everything else you can do yourself, but the writing really needs to be done by experts. So again, I go into detail in all of these steps in the ebook. Step 5 is the production. Now, when I say production, most people think cameras and lights and sound, but the most important part of production is actually casting the right actor. Second to your product, your actor The spokesperson for your video is the most important part. And then obviously production is, you know, I've got my iPhone here in my hand for people that don't see the video. This is something that I would have dreamed of having 20 years ago when I started this company. So I don't want anyone listening thinking I can't do this because I started with a lot less tech than you have in your pocket right now. Step 6 is editing. You've heard comedy is all about timing. And so a really good editor that understands Timing. Nobody stops watching videos because they're too long. Let's get that myth out of the way. Netflix is still around pumping out 2-hour videos. They stop watching because they get bored. They stop watching because it's irrelevant to them. They stop watching because it's not entertaining. So you've got to cut out anything that makes people get bored, zone out. Most of our videos, if there's any critique, it's that they're overwhelming, that you can't take it all in. But that means that you're never getting bored. Okay. Step number 7 is testing. You'd probably be surprised when I tell you every video that we do, we create 36 different versions of that video and we test different elements. We test the opening hook, we test the offers, we test the length, we test the format, whether it's— I mean, there's all kinds that we talk about in the ebook and then step 8, and this is the one that may kind of pop a few bubbles, is forget going viral. This isn't about creating a funny video, then uploading it to YouTube and praying that it goes viral. That's no business plan. That's not something you can predict, repeat, or build a business around. What these are, if done right, are videos that when run as an ad, will double, triple the return on ad spend. So I kind of use an analogy. If I was to build you a vending machine that was full of $100 bills, but it still costs $20 to use that machine, how many times would you want to use it? And that's what these videos are. When you create them and spend a little bit of money to promote them on Facebook, they should return, you know, much higher levels of what that $20 bills that you invested in. So it's a business, not a, you know, a spray and pray kind of an approach. So that's really quickly those 8 steps.

Well, and we'll obviously include a link to Joseph's amazing ebook, although it does sound as though some of those steps one could look at doing in-house, but you really do need that combination of your production expertise, your creativity, the right freelancers. The video I saw, You know, the young actor was brilliant. And in the, in the DeLorean with the female actress in the renovation also, you know, was scripted and was a real proper comedy. So Joseph, what would be of those 8, would there be maybe 2 or 3 of those things that you think a client could think about before coming to you? Because they have to do some work upstream, don't they, to come to you? Or do you like it when they just come to you saying, help me out?

Well, back to your point, I would tell people, don't be afraid when you see our videos that, oh, I can't do that. My position is that regardless of whether, you know, do every one of those 8 steps perfectly, or you kind of say, I'm just going to do them all myself. I believe that even if you do them all yourself, you'll get better results than what you're currently doing. That's my position. Now, obviously the difference between a campaign that gets 100 million views and millions of dollars in sales, that kind of campaign you want to do every step professionally. So it just depends, money in, money out, right? You may not be ready for a full-blown campaign, but at least use some of these steps to improve on what you're currently doing. But I would say there are 2 of these steps that you shouldn't do on your own if you really are serious about results. Okay. And those 2 steps are the writing and the acting. Those 2, I would say, bring in professionals. Now that doesn't have to break the bank. I mean, I'm here in Utah. Rates are going to vary around the world. Here in Utah, a really good actor is going to charge $1,500 a day. Maybe $1,000 a day. So you're not looking at breaking the bank here. And most of our videos were shot in 1 or 2 days. The majority actually are probably shot in 1 day. So it's not breaking the bank. For the writers, there's plenty of freelance sites out there, Fiverr, Upwork, you know, your local classifieds. There are very talented writers that will work for very reasonable rates. So If you just pay for those 2 things, my opinion, your video just doubled in quality.

Okay, Joseph, that's great advice.

So I would say those are the 2 most important.

I am gonna ask you a question though about humor. I mean, you're an Englishman in Utah. I was an Englishman in Singapore and then China. You know, how does someone decide what would be humorous? I mean, you talked about looking at your avatar. What makes humor and will it travel? Because that's also a danger, isn't it?

Great question. So, my 2 responses. Number one is humor doesn't travel across culture. It just doesn't. In fact, there's a Netflix movie about how the guy that created Everyone Loves Raymond tried to transplant that into Russia. It's a great documentary just for entertainment's sake, but it shows clearly how it absolutely bombed until they really hired Russian writers. And that's what you have to do if you want to translate this across languages. It's completely different writing, it's completely different acting. Never try to take a video and just put subtitles on it. It will never work. Now, there's some exceptions. Canada and the US, maybe some into the UK, we have had some success, but even then, you know, if you really want to hit the bullseye, you gotta hire local writers and local actors. So that would be my advice, is the concept may travel, But the execution of that concept really needs to be localized.

Okay. And what about what makes humor then? Let's assume we can't say what humor would be in America or China, but what about in America? What would you say is gonna be the essence of good humor?

So that's why it's so important to start with the research, to understand your customer avatar. And I'm not talking about age, income, and location. I'm talking about, you know, what do they order at Starbucks? What music stations do they listen to? What, Journals do they read? Whatever it is that defines who your target demographic is. And that's why we go through— we will read at least 100 customer reviews so that we understand the voice. We literally steal lines from customer reviews and put them in our videos. What I mean by that is, let's say I'm just holding up a blender bottle here from my protein shake from this morning, right? It's got a little ball inside that you shake and the mixture gets mixed much better. So let's say this is my product. What would I do if I needed to understand my customer? Well, I would go onto Amazon and I would read 100 reviews and I would say, why do people like this? What are the features about this that they like? Now, maybe I'm a startup and I'm making a knockoff and I don't have 100 customer reviews. I'm going to go to Blender Bottle and I'm going to read their reviews because the customer is the same. And so I literally will steal lines that say, This is why I like this product. This is why I won't buy another product. Or I may also steal reasons why people don't like this product and make something different, right? R&D obviously sometimes drives marketing if you do it right. And so then back to how do I make it funny? Well, it's essential that the writers who are writing, and we have a whole process that we spell out in the book, but we make sure that the writers writing are at least in touch with that demographic. So I will have a totally different bench of writers that are writing for older males than I do younger females. I will bring in different people. And that's the beauty of these online freelance marketplaces is that they're at your fingertips. You just have to test on your demographics. So what we do often is before something is said to be final and go into production, we test our scripts and we make sure that people are laughing at them. Right now, how do we do that? SurveyMonkey. We send out emails to customers, or where the client has budget, we've literally brought like 20 people into a focus group room with a one-way mirror, and we will test these to see. Now, not too many people had that kind of budget, but the point is, Nothing is funny unless your customer demographic says it is. So you want to test it before you spend the money to hire that actress or actor. So testing, testing, testing.

Well, that's fantastic, Joseph. And I like the way that you had the hero was, you know, the man at home doing the laundry and not the woman who was on the couch. And that juxtaposition of the role reversal in itself created a setting for humor as well, right? And resonated. I guess I'm in your avatar because I'm a man who's doing the laundry at home.

Yeah, I love that. And actually, that point, let me just really quickly address. That was the second video that we had done. The first video that we did was the woman who was our primary demographic. And once we'd hit that, we actually got some complaints on the video, which you should get. If you don't get complaints on your video or heated comments, The whole point is to create engagement right now. You don't want to be offensive and you don't want to sink the value of your brand. So it's a fine line. But because we got so many women that responded to that video that said, I love that video, but it's a little one-sided, right? It's a little stereotypical of the woman in the home doing the laundry. So that's what gave birth to writing the second video, which was where we left it all to the man. And the title of that video was Real Men Do Laundry. And that one was, you know, it just really hit home with that secondary demographic, widening the number of people that we could sell to.

You know, me counting me in that demographic. Joseph Wilkins, final question for you. How do you as an entrepreneur get noticed for your business, funnysalesvideos.com?

So it's a little, I have an unfair advantage because what I do by definition gets views. Right? So I get huge exposure and anytime you create, I don't care what industry you're in, when you create great content, I think of Elon Musk, create the best electrical vehicle, spend zero money on advertising, and now the fastest growing car company in the world by some people's measurement. So I take the same approach, create the very best product and people will talk about it. The second thing that I do is what I'm doing now. I create free training. I hold no bars back. I tell you exactly how I do things and I get invited onto podcasts. I get invited to speaking engagements. In fact, little plug for VidTal. In August, I'm going to be flying to Oxford University to attend a video marketing conference where I'm going to be lecturing on how to use humor to increase sales. So the more you can do as a business owner to number one, make a fantastic product. And then number two, figure out how can I teach people to do the same kind of a thing and don't hold back, just share everything, be transparent. I think there's more opportunities that will come back to you than anything that you might lose by, you know, customers doing it themselves rather than hiring you.

Joseph Wilkins, that's a wonderful message. How can people find out about you?

Well, first of all, if you like podcasts, I have my own. It's called How to Make a Video Go Viral. It's on all the podcast platforms. We go into a lot more detail. And then secondly, funnysalesvideos.com, that's our website. That's where you can download the free ebook. It's also a place that you can schedule a free brainstorming session where I'll personally take a look at your business and give you some ideas for funny campaigns for yourself.

Joseph Wilkins, thanks so much for joining me. I have experienced and purchased as a result of your videos and love them. So thank you so much for sharing with me and my listeners, my friends in the Unnoticed Entrepreneur community. about how to get videos to be active and to be fun to make and to watch. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Jim. It's been fun.

It's been a lot of fun. You've been listening to Joseph Wilkins in Salt Lake City, Utah, with me, Jim James, here in the UK. 2 Brits on the mic across different parts of the world. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.