INTERVIEW: DOUG PATTERSON
Video Marketing for Startups
A comprehensive guide to leveraging video for growth at every stage.
A conversation with Doug Patterson, Director of Content at VSC
In this Q&A, we have the distinct pleasure of catching up with Doug Patterson, who runs VSC Studio. Before joining VSC, Doug worked on an Emmy Award-winning television series and produced a Sundance Award-winning feature film that sold to Netflix and helped John Boyega land his role in Star Wars. He's also written and directed content for brands like Progressive, lululemon, and the Honest Company.We sat down with him to get a better sense of how startups should be using video to market themselves and learn some of the best practices that have informed our Studio's body of work.
Why is video marketing important for startups?
According to a recent HubSpot study, 92% of marketers say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy. My only question: what are the other 8% waiting for?
Making videos and getting them in front of your audience is easier than it’s ever been before. Does that mean you should bust out your iPhone and start shakily shooting your company’s Lunch & Learn? Please, no! There are experts out there who can help you craft your message and story into a video that your audience will actually want to watch -- as opposed to viewing the first few seconds without sound and scrolling past.
There’s a level of expectation from your customers. When they go to your site, the first thing they’ll look for is a video because they know it’s the easiest way to understand who you are and what you do, which is why landing pages that feature videos have 80% higher conversion rates. If there's no video, the tab gets closed. Video also helps you rank higher in Google and nearly double your organic traffic. In other words, having polished video on your webpage and on your social channels isn't just another way to demonstrate legitimacy, traction, and thought leadership -- it's essential to acquiring new customers and partners.
How long does it take to make a startup video these days? What’s the process look like?
The best videos take time: 12 weeks for production, with another 12 weeks carved out for distribution and promotion across social channels.
Here's our timeline template:
https://vsc.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/VSC-DISTRIBUTION-SAMPLE-TIMELINE.png
What kinds of videos should startups be making?
It all depends on the startup, but generally, there are 5 kinds of videos start-ups should be focused on are:
Thought Leadership - We affectionately call these talking head videos, and there’s an art to making them watchable. The more you can do to make your video watchable, the more likely your message will be received.
Click to view examples https://vimeo.com/442202524
Product-Driven / Company Explainers: Either a traditional commercial featuring actors using your product in a way that captures what makes it special, or a talking head style video featuring executives/customers explaining a product. Click to view more examples
Case Studies / Testimonials: When you engage with a new customer, try to get them to agree to appear in marketing materials like video. The absolute best way to demonstrate traction is by showing how a recognizable customer is using your product, or how your product has impacted a real person. Click to view examples
Launches / Announcements: Everyone is always “proud to announce” or “thrilled to share” something via social media. You can make your announcement truly special by making a simple video -- be it talking head style or animated. Click to view examples
Recruiting: Culture videos are so played out, especially since COVID-19 changed corporate culture forever. Instead of making one video that hits every cliche, think about bite-size hyper-targeted videos geared towards capturing a very specific person for a very specific role. Click to view examples
Don’t underestimate the power of video. It’s the best and easiest way to tell your story and get it to the people who need to hear it.
What should a company have prepared before they go down the path of making a video?
First, answer these questions:
What's your goal?
How will you measure success of the video project?
Where do you want to distribute the video?
If you aren’t producing the video internally, expect to spend at least $25k (see more details on budget below). On top of that, you'll need some budget set aside for promotion and distribution. For consumer, the budget varies greatly but for b2b prepare to spend at least $2,000 per month on ads, plus the cost of a person to manage the campaigns.
How much video does a brand need?
Seed / Launch Stage Brands: 1 Product video.
Series A Brands: 3 videos (Product / Case Study / Thought Leadership)
Series B Brands: 5 videos (Product / Case Studies / Thought Leadership / Product Announcements)
Series C Brands: 6 videos (Product / Case Studies / Thought Leadership / Product Announcements / Recruiting)
(Pro Tip) - If you’re shooting interviews, prepare some extra questions that will help you produce other kinds of content -- i.e. if you’re interviewing an executive mostly about their product and mission, throw in a question about team and what it’s like to work at the company and you’ve got a simple :30-second recruiting video as a bonus deliverable.
Besides production value, what makes a good video?
Good videos are short and to the point and feature no more than three speakers for a single video. Conceive 90 second videos with 30 second cut downs in mind. If you’re putting employees or executives in front of the camera, identify your best speakers in house and prep concise answers to questions without committing to a script. A conversational interview will produce the best, most authentic sounding narrative in the edit. On the product side, you want to help viewers understand how much better their lives are going to be with your product. Demonstrate the magic and make it as visual as possible. For example, we created this video for TRIPP's VR meditation and mental health solution. We created customer personas and crafted a video that aims to make the viewer feel as relaxed as they do when they use TRIPP. https://vimeo.com/391581632
The same principle still applies to deep tech and AI platforms that might not be as human by nature. For example, our client, Got It (founded by serial entrepreneur and early investor in Discord, Peter Relan) created a product that uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to help business users manipulate data stacks using simple English and essentially ‘chat with their data.’
In addition to creating an animated explainer that breaks down the complicated way the product works, we also created a product campaign that captures the magic of the product and shows users how it could impact their everyday lives.
https://vimeo.com/374343070
What do companies get wrong in the video-making process?
Startups love to try to do too much with a video. Maybe they’ve only got the budget for one video, so they want their one video to accomplish everything -- for the reasons discussed above, it’s just not possible to do in a compelling way, so you need to pare down your takeaways to what’s truly important for your audience and craft multiple versions with appropriate calls to action.
https://vimeo.com/358395170
Ok, so you’ve made a good video. What do you do with it?
Decide where your video is going to live early on in your creative process. Some people might tell you that distributing on multiple channels dilutes your number of views, but B2B views are a vanity statistic -- it’s more about who is viewing than how many. For us, LinkedIn is huge. LinkedIn has been prioritizing video over the last couple years and has grown into a social network that people actually like using.
Additionally, its targeting system is fantastic for B2B. You can target people who work at specific companies by job title, among other criteria allowing you to be really precise and surgical in your targeting.
Of course there is other ‘low hanging fruit’ such as: Email signature, native social media content, website content, corporate LinkedIn profile, and a pinned tweet on your company’s account to generate additional views.
Video pricing is all across the board. How much should startups be paying for a video?
Or how much do different types of videos cost?Product-Driven Explainers / or Company Launch Explainer- $35k-$50k depending on factors like animation/graphics requirements, necessity for locations, amount of interviews to capture, etc.
Case Studies / Testimonials / Culture Videos / Thought Leadership- $25k
How can folks get in touch with you?
Want to learn more about VSC Studio? Please drop me a line, or fill out our Introductory Questionnaire if you’re ready to get started.