Decoding Marketing ROI + How to Activate Your Business Video Strategy, with Dane Frederiksen

How can professional services firms get started with video marketing?

Yes, it is possible to get started with video, even right now! In this episode of Spiraling Up, Austin, Joe, and MB explore whether or not professional services marketers can actually measure ROI on their marketing. And then video producer Dane Frederiksen joins the show to play a game called 'fill in the blank.' In this fun conversation, we cover:

• The biggest mistakes firms make when starting with video
• The most important element of a video marketing strategy
• What to consider when scripting videos
• Keys to creating high quality content, consistently
• The best type of video for showcasing thought leadership
• How many times you should post videos per week
• How to use videos for client testimonials
• The future of video marketing

Connect with Dane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalaccomplice/
Visit the Digital Accomplice website: https://www.digitalaccomplice.com/

Transcript

Austin McNair: 0:00

In today's episode of spiraling up our team discusses if professional services marketers actually can measure ROI on their marketing. And then we're playing a game fill in the blank with video producer and marketing guru, Dane Frederiksen. Welcome everybody. This is spiraling up with hinge marketing Joe, Mary Blanche. How are you guys today?

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 0:30

What's up?

Joe Pope: 0:32

Just doing our best to make it through another week, buddy.

Austin McNair: 0:36

Another week, but another podcast episode, another episode spiraling up. We're really excited for today's episode. Uh, we get to talk to, uh, another friend of Hinge. But, uh, someone who I've seen recently really going to town on LinkedIn in terms of making videos every single day. He's been doing videos for over 30 years. I'm excited for our conversation, Joe, uh, with Dane Frederiksen today to learn a little bit more insights on. What's going on in the world of video marketing and what we should be doing about that.

Joe Pope: 1:08

Yeah, yeah. Now, Dane is, uh, is, you're definitely a friend of Hinge, uh, son of Hinge's, uh, out, outgoing, since retired managing partner, Lee Frederiksen. Uh, so, you know, we've, we've had a relationship going back with Dane quite a bit in the video space. I know he's going to dive into this, but in the video space, he's, he's really kind of crossed the spectrum, work B2B, work B2C, consumer products, so on and so forth. But like you. You said, you know, as LinkedIn continues to push video as a median blame tick tock, I guess. But as that has been a thing, uh, Dane has really got that forefront. And as a podcast, it's focused on trying to get the right type of information in the hands of the types of folks that we hope are listening. Uh, Dane is the perfect guest.

Austin McNair: 1:55

That's right. But before we talk to Dane, Mary Blanche, I think this week you have our pivotal story of the week. Let's go ahead and dive into this week's pivotal story.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 2:06

Alright you guys, let's do it. It is time for this week's Pivotal Story and today we are going to dive into a topic that we know is critical for effective marketing, which is how professional services firms are measuring their results. And the findings from this year's high growth study told us a pretty interesting story around a couple really good topics. So as it turns out, companies are still really struggling to both capture and leverage their marketing data effectively. Our research revealed a clear link between high growth and how well firms are measuring their marketing performance. Thanks. The data showed high growth firms were 50 percent more likely to rate themselves as highly proficient in this area compared to their slower growing counterparts and that they were more likely to have the resources, the training and the technology in place to support a data driven approach. Now, the kicker, though, even among those high growth firms, More than half of them admit that they're still not proficient in capturing or using their marketing data. Um, so Austin, you know, I want to, let's go to you first. Uh, were you surprised by the gap between the high growth and low growth firms? What's your take?

Austin McNair: 3:23

Yeah. I mean, in terms of things that are surprising, I wouldn't say I was surprised to see that the high growth firms have an advantage. We've seen that in previous editions of the high growth study. Um, 1 thing that we've measured for a while is this idea of digital maturity and high growth firms tend to be kind of ahead of the curve in terms of how they're implementing and using technology. That piece wasn't really surprising to me. I think the surprising piece was how many, even of the high growth firms are still saying that they're not. That proficient or they're lacking a lot of confidence in terms of capturing and using marketing metrics. Um, I mean, I think so the way that we scale this research, right? Is we ask people to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10. the ones that are highly confident would normally rate themselves as like a 9 or a 10, right? Then and of the high growth firms, that was only 11 percent of high growth firms would rate themselves as a 9 or 10. 90 percent of people were below that. Um, so while the high growth firms do have that advantage, um, wow, I, I just, I, I'm still surprised that so many professional services marketers are still rating themselves, um, as, you know, with lower confidence and lower proficiency. why would that be the case? Joe, I I'm, I'm eager to hear your thoughts. A couple of minds, just more on the marketing side of things. Um, I, I think now that professional services marketing has gotten so, um, just intense in terms of how many different channels and streams, uh, people, marketing managers are running, you know, you have your events, people, you have your paid ad specialists. Sometimes these people are in house. Sometimes they're outsourced. We've got social media LinkedIn, which of course. Goes is it's much more than just your corporate profile, right? You're you. We got to be thinking about how our part, you know, partners and lead experts using linked in. Um, we're looking at email marketing. I mean, you just go down the line of all these different things. How do we integrate these into dashboards that guide decision making? I can relate as a marketer. There's a lot of, it's challenging. I mean, we, we, we at hinge work very hard to kind of integrate all this data together to facilitate meaningful conversations. And I'm sure Joe on the BD side, I think it's even more complicated, uh, in terms of discussing ROI and connecting that to marketing.

Joe Pope: 5:45

Well, this is the promise that has been made by groups like Salesforce and HubSpot, you know, you name it, right? These marketing technology platforms that are supposed to bridge that gap between the fluffy marketing and the, the ROI, the money, the things that your CEO really cares about and tells you, if you can't prove it, you're not getting any more money from them as a part of the budget. That's, that's what those technologies were. I guess the brainchild behind it. That being said, here we are. Right? Salesforce has been around for a while. HubSpot has continued to grow and especially the professional services space drive their focus and investment into this, this arena. But yet, you know, we've got. The high growth folks who are barely cracking that, you know, that 50 ish percent, like, getting even halfway there and the no growth folks are just throwing their hands up, basically saying, I don't know, we're not able to do this. So why I guess it's I'm less I was less surprised from this finding just knowing that I. Talk to people who sit in this arena every single day and hear these stories over and over and over again. I mean, it's, it's how many times have I heard the marketers they've they're spending 50, 60, 70 K on some of these software platforms and they're still not. Able to track these metrics, and it's because there's a lot that goes into this. There's a there's many different ways, both digitally and traditionally, where you can measure effectiveness from marketing effort all the way down to what it turned into. I think the inherent challenge here is, especially with these larger platforms is you can overcomplicate it really quickly. You can. Try to measure every nitty gritty little thing. And a lot of times that's a, that's an, that's an investment that most companies want, they're not going to make. Because we want to be tracking success, not paying to track success. Uh, but but to the, there's a lot of time and effort that goes into making sure that these things are plugged in on an ongoing basis. So, 1 of the big. Recommendations that we almost always will make is 1, you need a strategy, right? You can't just be thinking. Oh, throw stuff at walls and track it and eventually something will work its way out. Basing something in a, something that's testable and, and that you can look at an ongoing basis, making changes, modifications within that structure, you'll find. Uh, you're going to end with a much better result, you know, having that strategy then lends itself to being able to create campaigns or to focus in on various channels. And when you bring that list down from the 50 to 60 different ways. To track success to, okay, well, let's combine a few, but it's all wrapped up around this growth initiative that our organization has, or something that showed up in research that when we were talking to our clients and our ideal buyers, those types of things that it really stood out. Okay. So all these tactics now, let's measure. The KPIs that come across each different item, and then we can lean into whether it's a spreadsheet or a tool like a Salesforce or HubSpot to start to use what's native in those platforms. But the minute you try to overcomplicate this, try to measure every single detail, the effectiveness of somebody, especially those not nine tenors on that scale, you'll, you'll get lost and you'll spend a lot of money.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 9:10

Yeah, I think you touched on it with the KPIs a little bit. Um, I think that has to be part of the conversation, right? It's like, what are these most important metrics? So I know from like an operations perspective, you know, client retention is one of those critical KPIs. Um, and I don't think we've, we've talked about that one a ton, but, you know, acquiring new clients is just, is so often more expensive and time consuming than just, you know, Maintaining those existing client relationships because when you think about it, you know, when you have those high retention rates, it really signals that your firm is delivering the value that they're building the trust. And the longer a firm retains a client. Naturally, the more opportunities that there are to cross sell services and upsell services. Um, you know, I always like to tell clients that just, you know, by focusing on that retention piece, they really allow for the opportunity to stabilize their revenue and then also reduce the volatility that comes from constantly having to find those new clients day in and day out.

Austin McNair: 10:09

Yeah, that's that's really good. I mean, I think in summary here, I mean, we're talking about marketing business development operations. I, I have 2 words here that I, when I think about this topic, I just keep coming back to these words and those words are accessibility. The accessibility is if I need to make a decision, can I access the data quickly and rapidly? Can my team members access that confirm leadership access that? And sometimes that's difficult, right? I mean, and it takes a little bit of training and conversation, but that accessibility part is really, really important. The 2nd 1 is accountability. How often are we actually looking at these different metrics when it comes to the campaign marketing campaigns that we're running the different initiatives that have been ongoing when it's time to make decisions we want to be have not just be guessing or you know going back to conversations that happened over a year ago we want to be constantly making sure that we're building space within our marketing teams within our business development sales operation teams where we're familiar with the most up to date data and for you all you know for listeners out there they might be thinking okay How do I get to that place? We'll build in those rhythms, identify what kind of technology gaps you might have, and start making some moves. Because as we've seen from the data that MB shared, the high growth firms have an advantage here. And there's definitely a positive payoff. Well, it's time to bring in our guest, Dane Frederiksen. Why don't we transition over to our conversation with him? All right. I want to welcome to the podcast. Friend of hinge as we elate alluded to Dane Fredrickson. Dane has over 30 years of experience. In video production business, working with brands like national geographic discovery channel, Google, Adobe, Twitch, and Coca Cola. Wow. Nice portfolio, Dane. Uh, and his, his company digital accomplice helps B2B companies grow faster by developing and executing a video first content marketing strategy. Dane, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Dane Frederiksen: 12:10

I'm good. Thanks. Awesome. You nailed it. That's, uh, that's what I do and who I am. So I'm glad to be here and, um, you know, let's add some value.

Austin McNair: 12:18

Let's do it. Yeah. Well, we were talking in our earlier segment a little bit, as we were previewing the segment, I, I called out the fact that recently you've been just posting every single day, kind of a new video on LinkedIn before we get into today's kind of segment and kind of game. I wanted to ask, how's that going? You've been, you've been posting quite a bit on LinkedIn. Tell us about that strategy. How's it going for you?

Dane Frederiksen: 12:42

yeah. So the, the big idea that I wanted to tackle was, you know, I'm a video professional, uh, with a lot of experience, but I've never been the one on the camera. But I recognize that in this new age of social media and video becoming more important. If I don't build my personal brand, I'm really missing out. I like, how else am I going to get out there? And as a video professional, I think I'm especially sort of like obligated to pick up the mantle and like do it to myself before I can like help advise other people. So I started this grand experiment of building my personal brand with video. And the way that I thought that that could be sustainable was to create A format, a process, a plan that helps me create content on an ongoing basis in a easy enough, sustainable way that's ideally adding some value and, um, what I basically came up with is a video podcast format where I'm interviewing marketers, content marketers, and asking them a set of seven questions. Which, uh, then allows me to, uh, go through that content and make short form video on each of those, uh, questions and answers. And then what I do is I post that on LinkedIn every weekday, and I repurpose also to YouTube Shorts. And, um, it's been a really interesting experiment. So, as far as, uh, my success, I would say it's definitely proven the formula. This is doable. This is something I can do. I was, I think everyone's uncomfortable being on camera. It's just awkward, right? We're face to face human beings. That's what we like. But if you can get over that hurdle, and get on the other side of the fence, you can really take advantage. And you know, the more you do it, the better and easier it's gonna get, right? And so I look at this as a long term thing. I'm going to get better at this. I'm going to learn the lessons and the lessons that I'm learning is, um, people watch this stuff. YouTube is now, excuse me, LinkedIn is now optimized for video as you may or may not know. So the algorithm there is basically promoting that content. So I've seen, I think pretty impressive, uh, impressions, uh, and views and some engagement. I think I would caveat that with, okay. I'm pivoting my business now. So I'm really looking at who my ideal client is and what my offers are. I'm moving from just a video production, um, company where people come to me and they say, Hey Dane, I need this video. This is what I need. And then I go make it. Now I've seen the marketplace conditions are people know they want to do video, but they don't know where to start. They're like, well, what do I do? What kind of content? Like, how do I know it's going to work? All those questions. So I'm pivoting to offering a strategy, right? And I haven't quite offered it as a package before. So I've done all that, like thinking and help people do that, but it's always been after the sale. Now I'm just moving it in front. And so I'm figuring out as a business, Like what's the right fit for my customers and services, but I know that even without that being dialed in it's working as a format, right? So something like Hinge or some other company that really knows your ideal client. You really know your audience, the issues that they're interested in. This is a great format for you and potentially guests or other subject matter experts. To use the video format to harvest for free and kind of it's kind of free, right? If you're just talking and we're doing this with webcams. You can get that content out there on a regular basis, like I am, and you're going to get impressions. You know, even if people are not engaging with your content, if they're connected to you, they're going to see it in the feed. And people, people are coming to me now. They're like, I saw your content. Do you want to be on a podcast? Uh, I need this. There's an opportunity I need help with. So it's not quite as robust as I think it could be for someone like of your size. But it definitely works. So that's a very long winded answer, but that's, you know, how it's working. It's working

Austin McNair: 16:51

no, and it's working. And our research is kind of talking about it has, has proven that this is becoming more and more, um, of a popular technique, especially among the high growth firms that are, have historically been more comfortable with doing some video blogging, getting some, some video out there. Um, but especially with the, like with thought leaders, experts, uh, partners at companies, this is definitely a strategy that we're seeing work, uh, with our clients as well. Well, Dane, uh, we want to get more insights from you here. So today we're going to be structuring our conversation around a game called fill in the blank, uh, MB. And I are going to present you with some thought provoking statements about all things, video marketing. Video production, uh, but with a key part missing. And so your challenge Dane is going to be to fill in the blank for us and to share your insights on what this missing piece is. So why don't we get started with our first one, Dane fill in the blank for us. What is the biggest challenge in video marketing for professional services today? It is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 17:54

getting started, right? I don't want to be on camera. Um, what do I do? How do I do it? I'm too busy. Uh, it has, I have to make sure it's good enough. I know I'm counting too many on my hands here, but like, those are the kind of things that that happened is like, They know they want to do it. They know it's a good idea. They see the potential. They're seeing the data and they're just like, ah, they're stuck. Right. So getting started, I'd say is the biggest, biggest thing.

Joe Pope: 18:24

If you were to give a quick, like, 1 sentence type suggestion on how do you overcome that? Because you got the natural challenges of stage fright, right? Folks are constantly concerned about how they may appear. I mean, zoom. The zoom world we live in, uh, over the last post pandemic few years has solved some of that, right? Because we're all staring at each other on camera nowadays, as opposed to staring at each other and cubicle farms. What what's that tactic? What's that element? That's going to help put somebody's mind at ease to sit in front of the blinky red light

Dane Frederiksen: 18:58

Um, I'll show it to you. Are you ready? Your phone. You can do it right now. Watch. I'm going to do it right now. I'm going to do, you can do it along with me. I'm going to take a video and I'm going to say, uh, Oh, I got to, I got to turn it around. So there's your first thing is right. You got to test. And that's why we're doing this. It's right. Hey, look, I'm on a video podcast. Uh, I'm hoping it's adding value. Uh, we'll see. So I just did a test that you could do in the same amount of time. You can watch it. You can see how that, how that was, how it felt, right? That's your first thing. You rip the band aid off and you say, okay, I'm going to just start. Cost you nothing, took no time, right? And then now you can say, oh, I've started to experiment with video, right? Then, uh, you can start taking baby steps. I'm a big advocate of baby steps. The cool thing about video is unless you're doing a live stream, you can record and not post it right. You like mind blown. I was like, you, you don't have to put yourself out there to start putting yourself out there.

Joe Pope: 20:05

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, some people should take that advice and not post things that they record.

Dane Frederiksen: 20:09

Right.

Austin McNair: 20:11

think that all the time. Yeah. Uh, all right,

Dane Frederiksen: 20:13

Everybody does

Austin McNair: 20:15

Let's get onto the next one here. Uh, fill in the blank. The biggest mistake most professional services marketers make in their video marketing is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 20:25

I guess it would be like making it not clear what the value is, right? Make, making sure that, I mean, really you have to be helping your customers, right? Otherwise you're not doing content marketing. Right. And so I think. It's just easy to make stuff about us, right? To make it about your company, your agenda for us, CEOs, entrepreneurs, it's really easy to go into sales mode. Hey, uh, let me sell you this thing, right? But really we should be helping. And that might not be. of funnel closing business, it might be top of funnel, educating people, helping them along. So I'd say that's probably the biggest thing is make sure that you're adding value to your ideal clients.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 21:06

right. That's a good one. Let me take a stab at the next one. So fill in the blank, the most important element of an effective video marketing strategy is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 21:18

Testing and optimizing, if you're not a video expert, which I'm guessing most professional services companies aren't, there's going to be a learning curve, right? And you know, if we're able to even start, which as we've already talked about might not happen, And we're adding value. You know, you're probably not going to. It's not a direct like you're not going to get to point Z right away. Anything you do in life, you're going to get better at it with experience and let's face it. The marketplace is constantly changing. Look at AI every day. There's a new thing. How can you possibly make a plan now? That's going to be relevant 2 years from now, right? So, baked into your process has to be. The idea that this is an ongoing experiment, we're going to put time into testing, we're going to learn, we're going to review, learn, and then optimize as we go.

Joe Pope: 22:11

What's one of those tests? Give us an example.

Dane Frederiksen: 22:14

Well, we already talked about getting started, right? So the earliest test you could do is like, before launching the rocket, let's just make sure all the pieces are there, right? Like, is there, is there video, is there sound? Like, can we make a cohesive piece of content that has the potential of posting, right? That we feel comfortable. So just getting started would be like the earliest test is, um, making something. Then you get into what I would call live testing, right? You're posting content. You're getting feedback, ideally from people, um, Hey, this performed really well. This didn't, right? optimizing as you go.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 22:51

All right. Let's talk about scripting a little bit. So fill in the blank for this one. The most important thing to consider when scripting a video is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 23:01

The hook, the hook. If you don't make it past that first second when they're swiping, right, or they're scrolling, if you can't get them right away, everything that happens after that is pointless.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 23:13

How many seconds do you think you have? What, like with the hook? Three seconds? Five

Dane Frederiksen: 23:18

how, how long does it take to swipe? That's how long, like if you're really good at swiping, that's how long, or if you're like me, a little slower. You know, or, you know, if you're, if you're a boomer, you might have a couple of seconds.

Joe Pope: 23:31

I was going to say, if your target audience has got arthritis in the fingers and

Dane Frederiksen: 23:34

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, milliseconds. That. So when we talk about hooks, let me just say with video, I know we're talking about scripting. But, a script could, can be just text, like what you say, depending on the format of the video, but it can also be what you show. And you could really have a plan to, there's really three types of hooks. There's a visual hook, um, there's an audio hook, and then there's sort of like the text hook, as you, as you post that video. So if you're checking all three of those boxes, and in that first second, You've got interest, then you have a chance to continue and give them the value.

Joe Pope: 24:16

do you, do you think that one of those three carries more weight? Is there one? That's the king, if you will,

Dane Frederiksen: 24:22

Yeah, so, um, I think it's 60 percent of people on LinkedIn watch a video with the sound off. The sound is off by default, right? So I think the visual hook is the most important one. Text, I mean, it could be that, but think about it, like the real estate of like a vertical video. is a pretty big visual footprint, right? And if it's got something that catches your eye, like motion, color, visual interest, intrigue, that is probably the, the king of, of the hooks.

Austin McNair: 24:56

All right, Dane, next one here. Fill in the blank. The key to creating high quality video content consistently is.

Dane Frederiksen: 25:06

A plan, a strategy, a process. You can kind of like those words are interchangeable to me in some way, right? But you got to have a system in place. You can't leave it to like when we're inspired, we make good content or when we feel like it, when we have time, it's got to be baked into your schedule, you know, your team's process of how we're going to do this sustainably. The good news is video has never been cheaper to produce. There's all kinds of quality levels that you can produce all kinds of use cases. There's AI tools. Now that we're mostly remote or partially remote as as workers that opens up a global audience as well as a global talent talent pool. Right, so like now you can get people overseas to help edit, that sort of thing. So, there are definitely ways to create a sustainable process. And I think that's kind of one of the things that's probably not visible to a lot of professional services firms. When they hear video, they think expensive and time consuming. Because it has been. But there's been things that have happened. Some revolutions with video, the business culture, like remote work. And, uh, AI revolution that have, that have changed things you may not be so aware of, but it's doable.

Austin McNair: 26:21

Yeah, no, one way that we've talked about this internally is having a campaign mindset. And I think video, it's a very important component. But like, I would, I mean, tell me what you think about this. I wouldn't say that, Let's do some videos is a great strategy. Uh, it's like, how do we add video to something else that we're already investing in? You're invested in maybe producing a research report. You're invested in doing a limited series on a case story, you know, a significant, you know, project that has come underway. Like video becomes a, a way to do something that you're already doing. Do you think that that? Is that, is that kind of me saying back to you kind of a bit what you said?

Dane Frederiksen: 27:06

Well, you've kind of touched on a couple of different things, so, like, I guess the way I would start talking about this is, like, saying that you want to do more with video kind of makes sense if you say it, like, you get the value of, like, the opportunity. But if you really kind of, like, look at what you're saying, it's sort of like saying, we need to do more with text. We need to do more with photos. Like, what? That doesn't sound right. Okay. Like no one has a text strategy, right? So I'm saying you need a video strategy, a little weird when you get into it. So really what video is, it's just one type of content. It's a content container, right? A bucket, just like images or text as part of your overall content strategy, which really is your marketing strategy, which is really your business strategy. Right? So it's a tool. It's a way to put information out there. And I think if you think about it like a campaign, um, to me, campaign means a set race. We're going to run right? Which really is kind of what we're talking about earlier is like, it's an experiment. You know, if we do this for a certain amount of time, will we get the results? That we are expecting and hoping for. Right? So it's kind of, again, the same thing. Does our plan, does our strategy, does our, our content marketing strategy account for a test mentality? And is it sustainable for a campaign? However long that is? or a business function, right? You decided a long time ago, you're going to do a website. That's just, we're going to do it. We have to do it, right? That's the world we're living in. Maybe that happened with social media. Maybe some professional services aren't there yet, but they're probably thinking, yeah, we need to do social media. That's just part of what we do. And I think video is the same thing. It's because that's what the audience wants. That's where the audience is. That's what the platforms are rewarding, right? That's just everything is skewing more video. And what you may not realize is that video as a content container actually contains all three content types. It's visuals, it's audio and it's text in the form of transcriptions. So all the things you're doing now to make text or that you're making images with, if you just expand that to add video as a medium, you're really doing all those same things you were doing. You just added this other dimension of moving pictures, right? And so you can work video into your strategy so it can probably replace, to some extent, some of the other things that you're doing. If you are doing long form video and taking those interview transcripts and repurposing those as text based content, you're now saving yourself some time because you've already, you know, that work has already been done. Of creating valuable content.

Joe Pope: 29:46

I think the text example is amazing, especially now with the content farm creation, plug it into AI and let it roll approach that so many folks are taking. And of course, we know that doesn't work. Unfortunately, Google's too smart for that. They either want you to pay for their tools. Or, you know, they are wanting to make sure that they're going to continue their dominancy on the thought process. And the fact that everything is like, well, Google it, look it up. Right? They're not going to people aren't going to keep saying that if their product suffers, because it's a whole bunch of AI generated crap. So you take this type of conversation. It's original, right? We're talking to each other. We're having a, we're going back and forth. Might even make something funny, right? It might make something interesting or original. And that translated to text is not something AI created. It came from this organic experience. So I, I, that hits hard, right? And especially in the marketing space right now, where we have to kind of sometimes explain to folks, no, Writing a blog isn't always just popping something into Gemini or Chatsypt and letting it rip, right? There's some thought that needs to go behind this.

Dane Frederiksen: 30:57

Yeah. It's that's what you're talking about. Sort of like checkbox marketing is like, we're doing it just to do it. And you know, if everyone else can do it at scale with AI. You're not really adding anything and but you touched on the thing is like the the human element, right? Be yourself. Everyone else has taken right? It's like you have a unique life experience unique insights to your industry, your experiences, like all the stories you have to tell. That's all stuff that's not out there. You can put it out there. It's already up here. You just need to get it out and then monetize it by making it the content that's going to get you business. by helping you stand out, right? Because you're different. Other people are probably not doing video content as much because it's still so new that can help you stand out in the marketplace. And, um, it's sustainable because you've always got thoughts. You've already, you've always got opinions. And so anything new that comes up, you can always add, there's your ideation machine is what you think about it.

Austin McNair: 31:57

Well, we've touched a little bit there on the thought leadership content specifically. Let's dive in a little bit deeper on on that thread. So, Dane, fill in the blank for us. The best type of video for showcasing thought leadership is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 32:13

uh, conversational that I think that is the key. If you have rehearsed answers, rehearsed responses, you know, that's sort of canned. Um, I think it's the, it's the conversations just that happen like in between moments. Like, You're coming out of a meeting and you're talking to someone else and like, these little nuggets, they spill out in conversation, right? And if you can harvest those, again, that's going to help you stand out. That's not AI regurgitated slop. That's genuine insights, new ideas. Someone says something to you as you're talking about something you already know about, you get a new idea. It's like, Oh, I hadn't thought of that. You know, idea A, idea B become idea C in real time. And now you've recorded it. In a conversation and it's unique and it's out there

Austin McNair: 33:02

would be like the best if you're a professional services marketer, right? And you're working with, you know, your firm's leadership, you've got a number of different thought, you know, thought experts that are scattered around your company. What are the best ways to bring those conversations together and get them on video? Have you, like, what, what have you seen working out there in terms of what businesses are doing?

Dane Frederiksen: 33:22

Yeah, there's um, there's an idea. It's called video first content marketing. I think I probably mentioned it It's basically the the whole model we're talking about is built around This is really the idea of I would say record once repurpose everywhere, right? So your subject matter experts are busy as uh, they're around the world Um, you know, but now we've got remote video and just like we're doing right now, this becomes a harvesting, uh, capability, right? You set up, let's say one hour a month, right? Hey, give me one hour a month. We'll do a remote interview with subject matter expert. We'll answer the top 10, top 20 questions or talk about the topics you're interested Your audience cares about you cut those into short form video and then that's content that's out there and it can also be repurposed as we talked about as an audio podcast as transcripts. So, for 1 hour of time, you can get a month's worth of content. I think that's really the model. You know, there's other ways to do this. Of course, you could go on location, shoot at a much higher quality level with, you know, cool cameras, lights, you know, really set it up and make it look nice. and take the lift off your subject matter experts plate because it does require a little bit of work for them to get the camera right, maybe get a microphone, some lighting, change the background. There's a little effort up front to do that remotely, but once you got it set up, you've got your regular engine. You could do, take one hour a month of their time on a regular basis and just have a pipeline of content, or you can go on location, Get five subject matter experts and in one day shoot 10 questions with each of them at a higher quality level. And then they don't have to do anything. They just show up and sit in a chair, right? They don't have to worry about their lights and their remote setup. So that may make more sense in some cases.

Austin McNair: 35:12

And in those cases, that would be kind of a bigger investment, right? And, you know, maybe there's a lot of smaller companies out there, you know, one person marketing team, stuff like that. The idea that you, you listed to me, I mean, I, I, I can resonate with that a lot in terms of the amount of content that you're grabbing and capturing. All at the same time and the ability to repurpose, we talk about that all the time with our, with our clients is that just constantly reinforcing how important it is to repurpose content to get it out there just because you've shared it once doesn't mean people won't want to see it again or that they caught it the first time. Um, it's essential. And so I, I like how you're applying that into the video space and kind of challenging us marketers to say. You know, look into these tools to get it to, you know, to, to, to capture more video, um, and to use that as more of a forward part of your, your marketing strategy. And B, what's our, what's our next one?

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 36:02

Yeah, so let's, uh, let's shift the focus for a minute to video cadence. So fill in the blank for this one, Dane. Professional services experts and leaders should post blank number of video posts per week in their LinkedIn account.

Dane Frederiksen: 36:18

three to five.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 36:19

Three to five. Okay.

Dane Frederiksen: 36:21

That that's, that's the goal. if you're only posting content once a month, I don't think that's really enough to keep up with a modern social media cadence. If you're posting daily, every single day you get in front of people, right? You're a top of mind. Like that's kind of what the algorithm wants frequency. That's what people start to expect. They get to know you. They kind of like having you around in their feed. Now, posting every day sounds really hard, but that's because we're used to the old way of producing video, like, Oh my God. But if you think about really what that means in a video first content marketing strategy is remember, we've only taken one hour of time of the subject matter experts, um, uh, time and then edited that affordably into, you know, 20 clips. And then. How long does it take to put a post on LinkedIn? A few minutes, right? So you spend a few minutes every day posting your video and then that model gives you content every single day. So I can't pretend to understand the algorithm completely. Nobody does. They're going to change it. Appetites change, tools change. Like I, I can't really say for sure what like the optimal amount is, but I think once a month is not enough and what's wrong with every day if you can do it right, if it's sustainable, why not? That seems better. I mean, I think we're going to see companies start to realize. Hey, this is really working. This is a good idea. Let's, you know, build out our team. So we have in house expertise to make this sustainable, to do this every single day, maybe multiple times a day. Like what's wrong with that? Like if it's sustainable, if it's doable and it's showing results, why not 10 times a day? I know that sounds crazy, but I think we're going to start to see that right as AI tools. Make it more affordable, more scalable, and remember there's lots of different types of content. It's not all just talking heads like this. There could be photos that you take and you have voiceover, uh, AI voiceover reading transcripts of somebody else. You can make those AI voices sound like someone else. That may or may not be a good idea from a branding perspective, but just to like think about what's possible, if it's useful to people, I think it's okay. You know, there's a lot of like how to videos, let's say you want to explain, Hey, here's the latest about SEO. Here's a technique I want to show you. It's a five minute video and it's, you know, you don't see anyone on, on screen. You just see the screen and you're just hearing AI content that could be useful content added to that mix of like posting frequently. So just to kind of like, Show the range of things that are possible as long as it's useful. I think that's the way to go

Austin McNair: 39:14

My takeaway from that is that we can expect Joe to be posting a video every day on LinkedIn from, from this moment forward. Isn't that right, Joe?

Joe Pope: 39:22

I don't think anyone wants to listen to me talk that much, but, uh, you know, I, I think the, Thing that really stands out to me though, Dane, is that ability to, you talked about it right at the beginning. It's like testing, right? The idea that we can always test. If you're doing something once a month, you're not testing, you're just not going to be able to see what these differences are. You joked it, but it's so true. Like LinkedIn could probably change their algorithm 5 times in a month.

Dane Frederiksen: 39:47

Right.

Joe Pope: 39:47

might want people to leave their site a month from now. We know that's not the case now. In fact, anything that keeps you on a social media site is. Good, right? YouTube, LinkedIn, all these platforms are the same because that's how their advertisers make their money. If you're staying there, then people keep paying to keep getting their products in front of you. So I think there's some, I think, I think I said, woof, right? When you said the 3 to 5, but as you unpack this, there is such a good value in the ability to making content. A commitment, even if it is only an hour or so of your sneeze time, your visible experts time, but that's what the marketers on the team are here for, right? Like, that's what potentially some of these other resources and having this becoming more and more affordable. Heck, I'm using my iPhone as a camera, right? Everybody's got an iPhone or an Android, if you're weird and like green boxes, but the ability to take these tech platforms that are already in our hands and turn it around into something like this You're, you're not going to get me doing it every day, but maybe every couple of days.

Dane Frederiksen: 40:50

And you know, that's why we have teams. Um, and you know, this is kind of a new thing. It's going to take some time to get there, but once you get the formula down, once you get the processes, you start to see, oh, wait, we can scale this, this, you know, we, we have the systems in place. So like, what else are you doing to market yourself? How else are you going to be visible? You know, video is such a great way to do it. It's such a great way to repurpose. I think we're going to see that start to replace other ways you're spending time. So you say, okay, posting every day. Well, what else are you doing every day? What's working better than that? What's a better use of your time. And you may have a better answer, but I think it's just worth asking the question.

Austin McNair: 41:28

I think if I was, uh, listening to this as a, as a marketer with big team and a lot of people, I would, I would think about how could I start this with one person? Like who is a competent speaker? Who's somebody who wouldn't care or mind, or they might be already pretty seasoned in terms of being on video. And I would test this, um, every day, I think every day is, is highly ambitious, but definitely multiple times a week, have that expert, you know, go through around, you know, cut, do that one hour filming shoot. that into seven videos, eight videos and hand them all over to the person. Tell them, Hey, post this, you know, every other day for this month and see what happens. And one thing that I know that we've experienced with our clients is that sometimes in an organization where it's hard to get, Uh, visible experts to, to lend you their time to be a part of marketing. If they see kind of in a different part of the organization, somebody else having a lot of success, that's the trigger and becomes the real motivation to go, I want to do what that person's doing, look at their visibility has exploded recently and you know, they've gotten this new speaking opportunity and this and that, and they see the wins that come as a cross because of the extra visibility, I think that that's one way that professional Services marketers can start in terms of, you know, get one person and kind of, like you, you, you described, you know, building a model and kind of getting, you know, some of the, uh, getting the process ironed out. And all of a sudden you might start seeing other people that you didn't expect jump into the process and say, Hey, I want to do this too.

Dane Frederiksen: 43:01

I think it sort of stands to reason that, you know, the younger generations, millennials, Gen Z are more familiar with social media. They're more comfortable on video and a lot of organizations. I can see that being like the shortcut to get this started is like, right. Just get them doing that to start with. And like you said, it'll start to dawn on them. Wait, I need to be the face of the company. It's not going to be them because they may not be here forever and they may not have the expertise that they have that I can share. Right. But I think getting those systems up and running might, might make more sense, uh, in that model. So, or, and then there's always outsource as well, right? You don't have to do this internally. You can work with an outside vendor. There's all kinds of people out there now just get on LinkedIn. And look at, uh, you know, people who are offering, um, video services, uh, remotely they're out there. So this is doable and it's affordable. And if you can get over that hump of saying, okay, I'm committing to testing, being on camera, then you've already started your journey,

Mary-Blanche Kraemer: 44:02

alright, let's talk client testimonials for a little bit. Um, fill in the blank here. So, the most effective way to use video for client testimonials is to blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 44:13

Well, I mean, case studies, but that's kind of already what you're saying, right? Um, I, I just see case studies as like a, uh, a proof point, I think if you can accentuate the drama of the story and saying, look, things are terrible. And then I worked with this person and here's what we did. And here's been the result. That is a winning case study, right? But you gotta feel the sting up front of the problems. Like my accounting was a mess. I was up until 4 a. m. every day. And if that resonates with your audience, they're like, Oh yeah, I want to hear how they solve that. Right. So I think story is maybe the way I would answer that. Um, A lot of case studies, they seem kind of self serving to, to the, the brand is putting them out there. But if you can speak with story to the pain and the journey that that customer went on to go from the bad place to the good place, And how you help bridge, you know, get them to the other side. I think that's a, that story is going to be. the compelling way to do, uh, testimonials, case studies,

Austin McNair: 45:25

What tips could you give us for like drawing that out more? Because I, I, you kind of jumped in front of one thing I was going to say, which, uh, I've seen a lot of client testimonial videos, uh, you know, across the industry. Some of them are so boring, right? You know, you're not going to get past the first 20 or 30 seconds because it's just, you know, the video is too long. It doesn't have a lot of energy. It's, it's usually just, you know, uh, someone talking, you know, Like how can video production people or like marketing teams collaborating with video producers really, um, draw out more energy when it comes to these kinds of videos and testimonials? All

Dane Frederiksen: 46:08

the way I think about, uh, where case studies and testimonials fit in the buyer journey, the, the marketing funnel is, I'm not quite sure if this is accurate or if you agree, but I think that's late funnel, right? They didn't know they had a problem. They were researching a solution. They kind of evaluating you is the right thing. And then they're kind of at this late stage where they're like, are they really going to be able to help me? We've identified the problem. There's a potential solution. Are they really going to help me? Do they really understand my problem? Now, if you can have really high quality storytelling that, you know, I don't really know the answer other than. Working with people who really know the craft of video production. And I think this is a place where you double down and you spend some money hiring an outside agency, because you probably don't have this in house. You know, this is traditionally hard for companies to have in house, unless you're like a really big company with lots of money. And even then, dubious at best, right? So working with people who really know the craft of storytelling, and you can see their examples of other case studies that they've made or other compelling videos, You know, we're talking cinematography, right? Um, we're talking about emotion, right? I want to feel the pain of that person and that resonates with me because I'm having that problem too. I know that place that they're coming from. So, um, if it's a boring video shot, you know, like remotely and they're just a talking head, I'm not drawn in, right? I want to feel the cinematic quality of that, right? And really get into that story. That to me, those are the most compelling case studies. Those are the ones we love to see and share, right? It's like, Oh my God, look at this. This is so cool. Like it's well done, well crafted, um, high quality, uh, cameras, lighting, um, storytelling, uh, someone who's skilled at interviewing other people who can really emote and pull that stuff out of them, that's a skill. You know, pulling that out of people, editing those, taking the good parts of that story, weaving them all together, adding like in the edit, adding B roll, other shots of things that we're talking about, you know, or metaphors, visual metaphors that kind of like help me feel that music, like all those things kind of play together and videos, the only format that can really do that, but that level of emotion. So if you're not tapping into that, you're kind of like not getting the most bang for your buck. It does cost money and takes time. So I'd say like that is one place to really like double down and invest if you want to have like a good quality case study,

Joe Pope: 48:44

My mind goes to that go to reference, right? Because anybody who's sold this type of work before professional services, B2B, you know, you get to that end stage and there, that pen's hovering over the proverbial Adobe sign button. And they just need to talk to somebody to feel like this is going to work out for me in the long run. And I think we all have our go to references, right? The ones that can amoeba their way into the unique circumstance that this special snowflake thinks that they have and so on and so forth. And that, to me. That type of person, that type of creativity, that, that one who you always rely to, I just think you, you do all those different pieces. You were just talking about this production quality, this video, the post prod B roll, and you take that personality, even if it's not me interviewing them, you find a, you find a voiceover person, whatever it might be, and you feature that. I could see that really hidden just because we know it works without the video element when they're just giving them a phone call or hopping on a zoom.

Dane Frederiksen: 49:50

Right. Yeah. And you know, the, the beauty of video is it's, it's, if you have the right kind of content, it can do that job for you 24 seven, even while you're, you're other people are sleeping or busy with other things. Right? And so like, how much is your time worth? And like that one time investment. You know, who knows how long you can use that for? Maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years. I can even see potentially if you've done a good job and it's relevant and your industry doesn't change too quickly, maybe five years. Is that unthinkable? I don't know.

Joe Pope: 50:21

If something's built right, it can last. We, uh, I was on a call yesterday. We had a former client. We built a website for them 11 years ago, and they just reached out to us and they're like, all right, we're ready for our new website. Yeah. It was a case story. They were a case story on our website for about 5 years and then we personally were looking at and saying, okay, well, that website's now 5 years old. So we're going to move on. They kept it for another 6 years and now they're ready to come back to it. But that's that's really like that doubling down. If you're going to make an investment. This is probably the place, this lower funnel, where it carries such a closing energy for it, where that makes sense. It really resonates to me.

Austin McNair: 51:04

right, Dane, one last one for you before we, uh, let you go. Um, fill in the blank for us looking into the future. What the future of video marketing is blank.

Dane Frederiksen: 51:16

Integrated. It's integrated into your marketing strategy. You know, I, I, I see it very much like the same transition we had, I'm dating myself, but 1999 era. Companies are thinking, do I really need a website? Right, what is this new web thing? And so like all companies had to go through this adoption struggle, right? Their competitors started doing it, like everyone else is doing it. They started to realize, okay, yes, we do need to do this. And I think the same thing is happening with video. It's like, it's becoming very quickly because of the pace of things has accelerated. It's starting to be more of a need to have than a nice to have. Um, I don't know what the tipping point is for companies to kind of get there and believe that. You know, maybe they have to fall way behind before they realize and get the message. Or maybe they're going to hear it sooner and be able to be an early adopter and start testing. But I think it's going to be just like a website's integrated into your marketing plan and your business plan. It's it's just going to be part of it.

Joe Pope: 52:20

We always joke that the professional services space is usually, you know, 10, sometimes more years behind where some of these different elements are. You know, your law firm's 15, 20. Uh, and that type of opportunity as you've kind of just laid it out, and I, I think you've definitely made a good case for how this can be something that gets up and going and we're always looking for what's that next growth hack. What's that next ability to differentiate? Uh, what's what's going to bring in those leads? We know we hear that all the time. So this does seem like something that's just such a no brainer, especially at the low cost of entry.

Dane Frederiksen: 53:00

Yeah, and if you like you just said that professional services are 10 years behind If you start now and do that little challenge that we did earlier like take out your phone and start testing right now You're 10 years ahead Of everybody else, right? Uh, if you don't start doing it, your competition will figure it out. And would you rather do that before them or after them? Like, look around. Is everybody else on video all the time? Is the, are things trending up in watch time? The, uh, is it getting cheaper and easier to make video? Like, I think you know the answer to these. Right, so that's where we're headed. It doesn't seem like it's going away. I mean, radio is still here, right? Print is still here. So it's not going anywhere. So you want to get on the bus now or you want to wait? Yeah, it's never been easier to start.

Austin McNair: 53:50

And it's a good challenging question, I think, for, for companies that are still trying to sort out what, how, how to fit video into their strategy. Um, Dane, thank you so much for such a good, productive, insightful conversation today. Uh, where can people learn more about, uh, what you do, who you are, how to get in touch with you?

Dane Frederiksen: 54:09

So, um, my company is called Digital Accomplice. You could check out our website. Um, I'm in the middle, as I mentioned earlier, like I'm, I'm sort of pivoting. So it's not quite up to date with my latest offers. LinkedIn is a great place to connect with me, um, see my daily video posts. You can look at the examples of what's working for me and you can, you know, um, follow me. I've got a newsletter, um, on LinkedIn and Substack. Uh, every Tuesday I post about B2B, uh, video tips and insights like we've talked about here. And, um, you know, I just reach out. I'm always available to answer questions and provide resources. You know, I'm sort of a evangelist here for video. I've been drinking the Kool Aid for 30 years. There's no need that, uh, you, you can't have some too. So.

Austin McNair: 54:53

Well, I think, uh, you, you've got a few Kool Aid drinkers here with you on, on this call. This has been very insightful. I know that, uh, we as a Hinge team are all in on this. And especially with helping our clients. Um, thank you to everyone who's been listening. Uh, this has been another episode of spiraling up for Joe and B and Dane. Thank you guys. Great episode. We'll see you guys on the next one. Take care.