For those of you that attend business networking events and groups, you’ll be familiar with the ’60 second introduction’ element of many of these meetings. You know, where you get up and explain who you are and what you do to the rest of the people in the room. Depending on the group and the event you might hear a little rhyme, a well rehearsed pitch, a nervous reading of a script or a plethora of variations. There are plenty of ways to stand out from the crowd and keep the interest as you listen to 20 or 30 pitches from everyone in the room.
However, while the delivery is important it is also crucial to say the right things, that people – potentially your customers – want to hear. For years I have been talking about CMA Video being a video production company, then I started talking about being a video production company that does video marketing, video strategy and video optimisation in Birmingham and beyond. To be fair, that has done the trick and people know exactly what we do.
I always add in that we make B2B business videos and not wedding videos but I clarify it with details about our work making TV and cinema adverts, promotional videos, website videos and so on. But actually, I’m not sure that that’s what we do.
Ok, it is what we do but is that what we do for our clients? I don’t think it is. Is that what our clients are buying? Yes they are buying a video off us but what they actually want is a method of projecting their business to the world. A communication tool, a sales tool, a way of saying ‘this is our business, this is what we do’. They come to us because video is a great, engaging method of saying these things but what they are really buying is the result of using video to convey these messages
There is a quote by Laura Fitton of Hubspot that I like which sums up what I mean by us not being a video production company:
“Focus on the core problem your business solves and put out lots of content and enthusiasm and ideas about how to solve that problem.”
The problem or issue that we solve is marketing communications – not necessarily a company’s need for video. We help organisations talk to their audience, provide information and be a presence in their marketplace. Its about getting the message out there and we are able to provide the tool to do that.
I see video as an important marketing tool, an asset to be used in an overall marketing campaign alongside other assets whether they are online or offline. Something that is used to achieve aims and objectives set out by the marketing plan. So are we like every other video production company and make videos for our clients? I’m going to say no. We allow businesses to tell their stories. We profile staff culture and personalities. We demonstrate products and services in the most dynamic of ways. We engage with customers and potential customers and followers, fans and subscribers – all through the medium of video.
If you look at the notion of marketing addressing a customer’s wants and needs – what do many of our customers want or need to do?
They need to communicate, they want to tell the world what they do and what’s going on. This is what we do for them – we don’t just make videos we enable businesses to tell the world what’s going on.
But this is not exclusive to video marketing. This should be any industry approach. Why do you think that perfume ads are so weird? They know that they aren’t selling perfume they are selling the benefits of what that perfume will do for you i.e. sex, glamour, adoration, sex, fashion, style, adventure and, of course, sex. Most of the time there isn’t even a mention of the perfume until the shot of the bottle at the end. That’s because they are selling the perceived benefits of the product, not what it actually is.
So what are the perceived benefits of our videos? Sales, awareness, exposure, SEO, improved web stats, information are just some of them but definitely not sex. We don’t make videos like that!
This is why we are not just a video production company. The video is just the conduit with which businesses can communicate to their target audience, what we do here at CMA Video is work with companies to transmit their key messages. If a client is looking to convey key messages we’ll help them to do that.
If you know your audience, what makes them tick, what their problems or issues are then that is how you can fit nicely into their world. That’s when they use you and know that you understand them. That’s what we try to do here at CMA Video – work on what the benefits of our videos will achieve not that we just make videos. Another quote that applies well here is this from Craig Davis, former Chief Creative Officer at J. Walter Thompson.
“Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.”
Consumers and customers are generally selfish when it comes to purchasing and want things that can benefit themselves or their situation so this is how we look at things. We are a video production company that can help you communicate and achieve your aims and objectives be they sales, awareness, communication or anything else. This is where our video marketing element comes in because after we’ve made the video, we can then make sure it reaches the audience and achieves what goals are.
So if you’re looking for video to achieve what you really want or need for your business then come and talk to us. If you want to get your message out there on social media, on your website or generally in the digital environment then we can do that. If you want show what you do, how you do it and even where and why you do it then we can do that. But most importantly if you are looking for marketing campaign results, increased sales, wider reach online, more social media followers, more sales enquiries or more people through the door then that’s what we really do.
Yes we are a video production company but that’s not what we do, we are so much more than that. Remember:
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin
If you want to discuss your business wants and needs and how we can help you achieve them with video then get in touch with us. We love to challenge how video is used and how it should be utilised with all of the channels available. See more about us here and what the team has to offer.
Our video marketing blogs have been recognised as one of the Top 50 Video Marketing Blogs on the internet. We hope you enjoy reading them and gain valuable insights into what we do here at CMA Video and show that we’re not just another Birmingham video production company but we do more from animation videos to event filming, video strategy to social media video campaigns.
