Marcus Sheridan on Video Marketing

If you don’t know of Marcus Sheridan you should check him out. His website is The Sales Lion is where he blogs about what he’s learned about content marketing starting as the marketing guy for a company that sells and installs fiberglass pools.

There are many people who talk about content marketing in theoretical terms. Who repeat what others say in a way that sounds good. Then there are those who truly know their stuff.

You can tell the difference because of what they say and how they say it. Marcus is one of the latter. He does truly know his stuff. His claim of having learned this in order to sell swimming pools is borne out by the fact that he truly knows his stuff.

He recently published an excellent article I wish to comment on.

The title is….  5 Video Content Marketing Myths that Need to Go Away Forever.

Like everyone (and like me) not everything Marcus writes is truly stellar. This one is.

This post is a brief summary of his. I recommend you read his post. It’s not long.

Video Length Must be Appropriate

If someone is just starting their inquiry into your products, services, reputation, etc, very short videos make sense. You need to say something to create curiosity and a desire to learn more, and you need to do so before they get bored and stop watching.

These videos should be about a minute, maybe two.

On the other hand, when someone has become familiar and wants more in-depth information, they will sit through a 20 or 30-minute video, but not until they believe there is a reason to do so.

The idea that all videos must be short is false. The length of the video must be appropriate for where the prospect is in their decision-making process.

Video Quality is Critical

It is, but probably not in the way you’re thinking. Videos do NOT need a high production value. Rather your videos need to inform and to an appropriate level of detail (some will be very high level, others will be more in depth).

To some quality means high production. You need to replace that idea with “usefulness”. How useful is the video to someone who wants to learn something, do something, or find something?

That is the true measure of quality.

Use a Script

This works for some people and fails for others. When I shoot short videos I know what point I’m making or what question I’m answering. That is as much of a script as I need. When I make long screencast videos (which are appropriate for my audience) I write the script in advance.

The key is to find what works best for you.

When I first started making short videos (I call them Inbound Marketing Minute videos) I wrote scripts for videos that lasted 2 minutes. They sounded mechanical.

I then discovered teleprompter software I could run on a laptop. They still sounded mechanical.

I then scrapped the scripts and my videos got better.

Maybe a script will help you. Maybe it will hinder. Experiment a little.

Video Marketing is Expensive

It’s not. I shoot mine with a $49 webcam connected to a computer, use a $20 clip-on microphone, edit them in Microsoft Movie Maker 2.6 (which is free), convert the file format using software named Handbrake (also free), publish them to YouTube (also free), then embed them into blog posts.

Your Videos Must be Amazing

Your videos must be INFORMATIVE!!!

Pretend you’re explaining something to someone.  Then understand that is the purpose of your videos.

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