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NOTE: The transcription below is from an automated transcription service. I apologize in advance for any errors.

On the podcast today are Kathie Zipp and Bill Baraona, owner of Flex Media. Kathie is a writer and producer with Flex Media with a decade of trade, publishing and marketing experience under her belt. With her journalism background. She combines technical writing and creativity to craft words that help companies tell stories and market messages. And Bill Baraona has over a decade of professional video production experience. And he along with his wife, Jackie founded flex media, but he's not watching YouTube tutorials and listening to marketing podcast which constantly allows him to be trying new things like combining different production styles with emerging technologies to deliver clients type of live video event he loves spending time with his family.

Tell us a little bit first about flex media and all the things that you guys do.

Flex media is a video marketing company. We're located in Cleveland, Ohio. And really the company was kind of founded, at least from my perspective, when I originally started it under the idea of helping clients get more out of their videos that they were creating at the turn. At that time. I didn't really know too much about video marketing or even what that looked like. But I just knew that when a client would get a video and they had worked with the larger production house because I had worked for some in the past that they would spend 10s 20s 30,000 For a video, they put that on YouTube. And then they would get maybe 10 2030 views, most of them probably from family members and friends. And I just it bothered me that they weren't getting a return on investment. And it really just didn't make sense to me. Why would you spend all this money for a vanity piece? You know, it's more than video. You know, when people buy a product, they're not necessarily always looking for the specific thing they're buying, they're looking for a solution to their problem. So at flex media, we try and provide those solutions by implementing video marketing and strategy into our videos. Before we even start creating the scripts or creating the video that way our customers are successful with the choices that they're making and the people they're trying to bring in.

I like that, and that sounds a little bit different than just as the traditional, hey, build me a video that you're actually starting with the strategy in mind for the for that your customer to really help them get out of those results. So we're thinking about virtual events. We're thinking about these these times when we are we don't we're not face to face with our customer. How can video help in that engagement and keep people engaged during the the webinar during the event, things like that.

The big thing with video is and this is kind of across the industry and what a lot of professionals have said is it's the way that most people prefer to learn. It gives your mind a mental break really like you don't have to read you don't have to necessarily always be paying 100% attention because the visuals help with a knowledge transfer. So by using video in your webinars by even including it, like if you're going live, for example, and you say hey, we're gonna take a break here so I can show you a short video. There's a lot of people said there's like a, I guess, connection between watching a video and professionally and actually watching a video like a movie. So you really don't feel like you're working you feel like you're getting to kind of like slack off. But really the knowledge transfer is absolutely unbelievable. One of the stats that we always bring up to our clients and our potential clients, when we do webinars is viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text, and that was actually discovered by wire buzz, which is a video marketing company in Arizona. And it really to me just shows how powerful video can be when you're thinking about people learning at faster rates.

Wow, that is a startling statistic 95% of retention of information watching a video versus 10% when you read Wow, that's That's powerful. That is really really powerful. And I totally get it. But I love what you said about you know, when we get to where we're watching a video, we felt like we're slacking off a little bit. Maybe not. Maybe that's not the the attitude we take but As soon as you said that I thought of when I'm listening to somebody, and I'm paying attention, but there's other things going on and I'm trying to take notes versus, and then they say, Okay, let's watch a short clip. Now I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna sit back and put my pen down. I'm gonna watch. Now I'm focused on that. So you're right. It's our whole, my, your whole body just kind of changes a little bit to it to a different posture. That's fantastic. Well, let's go ahead

and say, and really, it's just the way people prefer to learn if you think about it, I mean, when you think about, you know, sitting back and watching a video, like you're saying, like, it does kind of change your posture. But even like in social media, for example, like I challenge everybody listening like the next time you go to a website or to a social media page, and you see a video at the top of that website or a video on that social media feed. I challenge you to try and not click the play button because everybody kind of wants they want to do that. They want to get that information easier. Because reading takes effort, and, you know, it burns mental calories, and if you think about Donald Miller's building a story brand, you know, He always talks about how your brain has so many mental calories that you can burn a day and after a while, you know, you get if you get confused or there's too much to do, you kind of get frustrated with it and just move on to the next task because your brains trying to conserve that energy, in video actually allows you to consume that a lot easier than if you were to read, you know, paragraphs of text or even like try and go through multiple graphics and try and make sense of something.

Right, and people learn in different ways. You know, if you think about it, some people are visual learners and some people, you know, prefer to listen to a lecture or something and, and, you know, some people, you know, need a little bit of both. So, you know, if you have a video, it really covers all of that the visuals, the audio, and it's a good cover, I think to share a message no matter how people prefer to consume it.

Such great points and Really is hitting home here, because I got to share a quick story that that that proves this point. This was a couple months ago, and it was late at night is probably close to midnight, and I went to go lock my back door. Everyone was in for the night everyone's asleep when the lock back door and the door handle came off my hand. And I'm like, Oh shoot, I've never done this before. What do I do? And thank God there was a 24 hour 24 hour hardware store close by that I was able to go pick up a new door handle, but I didn't like I don't know how to install this thing. So first thing I do I pull up YouTube, how do I install a door handle and within 10 minutes I I wasn't reading something I was watching someone physically do it and so it took all that mystery out of it. That if I were to read those instruct same instructions, I would still be going Am I doing it right? This way I got to see someone doing it right. So the power of video and I've seen some of the work you guys do and that's You do and that's what video does so well is helps take that mystery away and like, like Bill, like you said, the learning transfer is so much more immediate and more permanent, because you can pull those images up in your head over and over and over again versus that text, which may never be pulled up again in your head. So great points. Let's talk about strategy. Because that's where you said the starting point is, obviously, that's so important, but give some general tips for creating a video strategy.

So yeah, absolutely. So the first thing that I would tell everybody and we tell all of our new clients or anybody that we're even trying to explain the process to, is you want to figure out who you're talking to first. So really, and this is no different than any other marketing strategy, you know, who is your ideal buyer, who's your target market? And really, what you want to look at is you want to look at who you already are selling to and you want to look at, you know, who is your product for and try and find between those two things, you know, get that perfect avatar in your mind of who you would be talking to. So we do that with everything we do, whether we're creating our own videos for ourselves, for our clients, even with some of our podcasts and media that we put out there, we get this idea of the person we're talking to we give them a name, we talk about their background, you know, what are their pain points, you know, what are they doing in their free time? You know, what are they trying to do with their business or in their job role. And then once we identify that it allows us to really get a clear message across to that person. And after you get that message across, the next thing we start to look at is okay, so what does our product do outside of that, so that person served by the product or the by the service and is there somebody else so you start to identify multiple different personas or multiple different target markets for your product or service. And then once you go from there, then you can start to understand their buyers journey and how they're actually purchasing your product. So if I was that ideal buyer, where am I going to get information? Am I going to YouTube? You know, am I going to Facebook, you know which platform is going to be better or even LinkedIn, whatever platform you're trying to use. And then once they get to your website, okay, so now what's their path to purchase? from there? Once they get to your website? Are they you know, going to be coming to your homepage? Are they going to be watching that video and working their way down? So web page layouts, a big part of that as well? And then ultimately, you know, what's the call to action from there? So they get to your videos, whether it's on social, whether it's on your webpage, and how are you getting them to commit and reach out to you? So what's your goal? And we always tell our clients it's important to define our goals in the beginning because that determines down the road whether or not we are successful and then we know going into the next video whether or not we have to adjust our strategy because as I'm sure many people have no know if they've ever done any marketing. Marketing is not exact. So you really have to try and split test what you're doing and really watch your animal Linux and make better decisions the next time around. Bill such

that makes so much sense and what you said about creating that avatar. For everyone listening, how many of you have actually done that before go into an event or a live event or are having your virtual event your webinar? Are you thinking in big general terms that Oh, we're speaking to this industry? Are you speaking very, very specific, like Bill said, you're actually picking a person. Maybe this is a female that's age 35. And she is the marketing manager for her company and she is a single mom and has two kids at home and she enjoys working out and running and doing five K's and you know, are you getting that specific? Because if you really want your video or your message to be heard, you have to know your Your audience to that degree, obviously, you're, you know, by getting that specific, you're not, you know, you're not going to hit everybody but your message is going to resonate with a much wider group in a much more specific way than if you're just making if you're just saying, Hey, I'm making this message to everyone in this industry. So just make sure that you are going that deep and that is a that's fantastic the way you said that

one thing to Jim for, you know, for everyone listening, you know, once again, just like I said, Before, I was challenging you to like, try not to click the play button next time you watch a video, and whatever it may be, whether it's a YouTube ad, whether it's you know, video on somebody's website, and this isn't specific to videos, this is really marketing terminology. I think the biggest thing that people think about is they think that video is the silver bullet and once they get into video, like every marketing principle just goes out the window and we kind of have to reel everybody back in. Whether that be business owners, you know, marketers, whatever it is, and really explain like, you know, the principles don't go out the window. You still have to use the same principles. And actually, what video is it's a delivery method. So it supercharges your results because people can learn faster. And because people prefer to learn that way. So the next time you watch an ad or a video, if you're watching that, and all of a sudden you're like, Hey, you know that that speaks to me, I feel like that, that that's all me like that person, everything they're saying that that's relates to everything I feel, I guarantee you that person started with putting together an avatar, you're falling within their avatar, maybe not specifically, like maybe their avatar was, you know, a male and maybe you're a female or maybe their avatar was, you know, somebody that was in their, you know, early 20s you might be in your 40s but that what happens is when you get specific like that, you start to really improve your messaging. And then once you improve your messaging, you start to pick up I don't really know how you would want to put this like maybe we could just call it loose change. I don't know all that loose change. So like it's not, you know, you're not getting, you know, the quarter you set out to get but you're finding you know, nickels and dimes and things like that. So you're really just kind of getting everybody but that messaging is so specific, that it allows you to reach more people

love it. I love that analogy of the loose change. So you're you're picking out that one quarter in that big pile of dollars and dimes and pennies and nickels. So make sure you're you're get you're reaching that wider audience as well. But that that specific specificity is really what's going to help you there. Do you have anything that anything specific that you go through when you start working with a client that can help the people that are listening today? I also go through some similar experiences or similar exercises to create their strategy.

Yeah, one thing that I can touch on a little bit, and I think Kathy can maybe even talk about it a little more, because she might know more of the specific questions but like, you know, we always send our clients, we call it a pre production worksheet, and we'll actually use that As well as we actually borrowed wire buzz. So I mentioned earlier in Arizona, they have a topics worksheet and we actually borrowed that and kind of made our own version of that. And those two worksheets together, basically, we'll start off right away with our clients and say, fill this out. And this is before we even really have an initial meeting with them. And there's a bunch of questions on there that we walk them through that get help us get more specific in terms of you know, what they're looking to do. And some of these questions. It's, it's interesting, because we've had clients, you know, say, you know, I, I've never even thought of that. And I know like, one question I can think of offhand is like, you know, who are your top three competitors. And a lot of that for us is we like to look at the top three competitors that they, you know, are looking at and see what they're doing. And what's a little unique for us as we are very detailed. So we might have actually already looked at those competitors before they gave it to us because we always like to look at before we even meet with a client, you know, their industry and who's doing what, because we can look and see who's being successful. Who's not have been successful, maybe an area that's not even being used. But, Kathy, do you know, any other topics? Maybe that might be helpful for them to think about outside of that?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, like you were, you were kind of, you know, talking about some of the questions that we have on our call, like our pre production form and, and like Bill said, you know, we do really spend time looking at the website, you know, your website and all your collateral that you do have already because by the end of this, we really want to be able to almost, you know, be like a salesperson for your team. You know, we we need to, to understand your product or service to the level that you're a salesperson would, because that's how we really can, you know, help you craft the right message and make sure you're reaching the right audience, and really make your video effective. So we do we ask people to do things, you know, like, why are you having this video created? You know, what do you hope to accomplish? Sometimes people don't have an answer to that question. And like Bill said before, you know, you really want to have a strategy, you know, either existing or we can help you to make sure that you know, you know exactly who you're talking to what you're trying to say. And like most of the competitors, you know, what separates you from some of your other people in your industry competitors or, you know, other businesses. What do you feel makes you unique? That's something that people don't always think about either. But those are really important messages. Because you know, you want to be direct in what you're saying, you have to know what those you know, two or three things are those points that you really want to get across. Because that's also a challenge sometimes is really narrowing in on you know, the topic or exact focus of, you know, what you're trying to convey in your video. So, questions like that, I think really helped people, you know, start thinking when we're talking with our customers about strategy, and gives us a point, you know, as an outsider to say, Here's maybe some gaps you're missing too. So that's the way that we always kind of like to begin working with with our clients.

So, so good. And and this for everyone listening. How are you unique pushing your clients to think about how they're different is so important because at the end of the video, how many times have this and everyone listening? I want you to think about this. And Kathy and Bill I sure you could share stories you get to the end of a video and you're like, wow, that was entertaining. That was good. That was a it was a good video. Okay, what was the company? I have no idea. And, and or I think it was this company, I think was this company and it just blends in because they're not saying anything unique and may may have been, may have been entertaining, it may have been informative, but it's not saying anything unique and it could be any company in that space. So pushing yourself and I want you to really, really think like Kathy said, How are you unique? How are you different? even think of it this way? What is something you can say about your business that...