Video Advertising

In this post, we’re going to post a (rough) transcription of my interview with Chris Inman of Classic Strategic Media.

Chris’s insights into the power and potential scope of video advertising is extremely relevant to the use and reach of digital marketing, specifically focusing on that one tool or aspect of digital marketing.

We discuss why every business, no matter how small or how new, regardless of market, should be using video advertising, as well as how they should be using video advertising. We also touch on the subjects of content repurposing and branding.

So I hope this transcription (“um”s and “uhs,” and grammatical errors aside), is helpful.

Following the text portion will be a video and podcast portion as well.

Video Advertising with Chris Inman of Classic Strategic Media.

David Somerfleck (00:00):

And hello, my name is David Somerfleck. I am your host and welcome to another episode of Digital Marketing Solutions podcast. My guest today is Chris Inman. Chris is co-owner Classic Strategic Media, but his journey to get there has been in working with some of the best video professionals in the Cleveland market.

Chris started his career at classic worldwide productions in 2000 and was hired by his now business partner, Jerry Patton Classic Worldwide. Chris started off as a production assistant and soon began moving upward into the Cleveland video production community.

During those years of Classic Worldwide, Chris worked on a variety of productions from handheld productions at Cleveland cavalier games to traveling to New York as a grip to a documentary about nine 11 now with his position at Classic Strategic Media, Chris spends most of his days helping his clients create social media content as an addict to LinkedIn. Chris has noticed what works and what doesn’t work in gaining attention on social media. Chris loves his career, but will always say his favorite job is being a father to two wonderful sons, so thank you for joining us, Chris. I appreciate it for having me on. I appreciate it. Let’s get started with this. What would you say, because it sounds like you cover a lot in terms of video production. Is there a specific type of video production that you would describe like in layman’s terms that you say is best for the typical business owner?

Chris Inman (01:41):

So I think there’s a lot of different realms of videos out there. There’s companies that are producing giant, beautiful brand videos and you’re spending $5,000 for this two to three minute video that encompasses the, you know, how great your company is. But what I really specialize in is creating a quantity of quality content is the way I put it.

Because I think that when you have a social media account, you should have a video at least once a week on your social media to engage your audience, to tell your story, to talk about your products and your brand and video is the, is is the best way of doing that right now? I think there’s, there’s no argument there.

And then with our system, like you know, you create one video for your social media accounts, there’s so many ways you can use that in the return on your investment is incredible. So that’s kind of the thing that I work with my clients with right now.

David Somerfleck (02:41):

Now let me ask you, Google obviously is the number one search engine in the world. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the number two search engine. So having a video, how does that correlate or tie in with Google and YouTube and Google my business in terms of SEO. And then part two of that question would be, how long do you think a video should be ideally in terms of length and how far do you want to go with these cute animations and whatnot that you see? So it’s kind of a multipart question.

Chris Inman (03:18):

Well, let’s start with the first point. The Google search. So think about when you do a Google search, there’s videos that pop up within that search. Google owns YouTube, you know, those are going to be the number one videos up there on that, in that search. So let’s say you own a power washing company and somebody you know, does power washing get tree sap out of your house or off your, your house or something. It’s something to do with that. Well, if you create a video about it, boom, there it is. If someone does that search, you took your video and you created a blog and a landing page on your website and you integrated that landing page into your, your SEO, again, it brings you back to your homepage and has the video. It has your blog or whatever that might be.

And so it kind of enhances, because when you start scrolling through your search, a picture, a graphic grabs your attention more than just the word sometimes.

David Somerfleck (04:14):

Yes, I agree a hundred percent. And from an SEO perspective, if you make, if you take the power washing company example, if you have say local SEO and use that in your video. Um, the vast majority of companies that are small businesses and local are not going to have video commercials on YouTube with local SEO.

So if the power washing company has, say Miami, Florida, you may have more competition than if you were in Sarasota, Florida. So you say Sarasota, Florida power washing company is the title of your video. It’s probably going to go to the top of YouTube if someone looks at up and that will convert over to Google and you put that, embed that into your website and it’s just going to naturally connect all of them. Do you agree?

Chris Inman (05:10):

Oh, absolutely. And your SEO, I mean, I’m not an SEO expert. I will never claim the bait, but I believe that I’ve been told many times that the longer somebody is on your website, yeah, the higher, so if you think about it, if someone’s going to sit there and watch a three minute video, that’s three minutes that they’re locked in on your website, that really helps your SEO.

David Somerfleck (05:28):

Yes. Because now they’re interested and they’re less likely to leave the website and go back to Google or go to a competitor site, which is the bounce rate. So how long do you think the typical video of that nature should be? Should it be three minutes? Should it be a minute or half a minute? I read somewhere that on YouTube they prefer videos that are much longer so that they can insert commercials. What do you think about that? So,

Chris Inman (05:58):

Okay, so let’s begin with YouTube and longer videos with commercials. You as a company aren’t making money off the YouTube channel. That’s not the purpose of having that. So you don’t want to try to insert commercials in the middle of your, your videos. You don’t want to have the commercials at the front and beginning the pennies that you’re making off.

That should be irrelevant compared to what you’re making in your real company. The purpose of your YouTube channel products to make money off of that. But you as a business owner, that’s not why you have a YouTube channel. You have a bigger problem with your industry and what you’re doing for real. So with that being said, you don’t need to have a long video. Let’s be honest about people’s attention spans. It’s pretty short. So I always suggest a YouTube video being under three minutes long unless the subject matter calls (that) forward.

Chris Inman (06:55):

So if you’re doing a full series, if you’re a financial advisor and you’re going to go down and list the reasons why, you know, you as a 20 year old should be investing how much money in your, your retirement fund and all this and the subject matter is long enough to fill the time without dragging it out and making it boring for the listener, then yes, you can go longer.

But I would be short, concise and to the point in a video. And because people’s attention spans are pretty short, I mean, people get bored during a commercial break and they start flipping through the channels before they wait for their show to come back on. Yes, there are commercials that you didn’t choose to pick, but still their attention span is very low. So they, it goes in point then when, if you’re producing stuff for your Facebook, your Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, stuff like that, I suggest under 90 seconds.

David Somerfleck (07:53):

Now let me ask you what your preferred social media platform is. I think I know what you’re going to say.

Chris Inman (08:01):

Well, I am a business to business person, so I’m after my ideal client are marketers. I love working with marketers and helping their clients succeed and create video content. So with that, I’m on LinkedIn because I’m not going after the average consumer. Right. So that is my favorite. As it said in my bio, you know, I’m an addict to LinkedIn. I spend hours, you know, every day going through people’s posts, interacting, sending messages, and just interacting with my ideal client.

David Somerfleck (08:33):

Would you say it’s a fair statement to say that in terms of social media return on investment, that Facebook is more in terms of reaching everyone like Walmart or trying to anyway, it’s extremely broad. Yeah, it’s extremely broad, whereas is going to be more expensive. But you’re also catering specifically to business owners who are very, very serious and committed to what they’re doing. So it’s the difference between going to a general random networking event as opposed to an industry specific networking event. Would you agree?

Chris Inman (09:16):

I would totally agree. I considered LinkedIn the world’s largest networking event that’s open 24 seven for whenever you’re available to enter it. It’s open for you to go and enjoy the the the networking event. And the other thing is great about LinkedIn. You connect with people you don’t know. You can do a search. I connect with marketers, so I go marketers, Cleveland area, and I can find those people, send a connection. I find my ideal client, I’m not selling them things right off the bat. Don’t send people messages as soon as you connect, don’t unfriend those people or they are the worst.

The idea of LinkedIn is just the create the engagement. They start reading your posts, they start reading your articles that you post on. They’re seeing your videos, your, your infographics have a variety of information out there for them to, to learn more about your company and your industry and have it be in the back of their mind when they think about something like, Hey, I’m, I’m looking for someone to do my taxes. Huh? There’s a guy that, you know, it was always given tax advice on LinkedIn. I guarantee if you’re an accountant and you do taxes and you’re on LinkedIn and you’re putting out great informative content, you will be in the back of everyone’s mind when they’re thinking about hiring a tax accountant,

David Somerfleck (10:33):

especially if they search for tax accountant on 10 now what do you think about video introductions? Because I’ve been contacted, I’m sure you have too and everyone who’s in digital marketing, you’ve been contacted by people through LinkedIn and you get these very short 30 stuck in video intros. Um, I, I’ve gotten many, many 30 stuck in video intros. Hi, this is what I do. I think I can make you a million bucks overnight. Let’s connect. And usually I end up deleting it and if they’re really annoying and in some cases they are where they follow up every day, I just go and unfriend them or remove them and just be like, no, no. For me personally, I need the soft touch, long haul long game approach. Is that realistic for today’s consumer or business owners? Should they be using these video introductions and what the person that I described to you, what was he missing that it just was,

Chris Inman (11:43):

I told her to the Hannah knows, social media is a long game. It’s a long game to attract your clients and your customers. No one’s going to see one magical video, one read one magical blog and instantly call you up and want to hire you and give you thousands of dollars for you to work with them.

Perhaps if you’re selling some widget, some magical, I’d made a this new thing where someone created golf, cornhole, I don’t know if you’ve seen it on Facebook. It’s like instead of growing the bags, they got a little mat and you chip the ball in. Now, if you’re selling a product like that, I don’t want to touch that. I don’t want to touch it. You can create a video and someone is scrolling through social media such as Facebook and see that video. I’m like, wow, that looks like fun.

Chris Inman (12:34):

I’m trapped in my backyard all summer. Anyway. I can play this with my kids and my wife and this will be fun. That is a totally different product. I think. Um, when you’re selling your service and you’re creating a video and sending it to somebody in a private message, there’s some negatives to this. And I fully admit this, the first one being how many people have their audio up on their phone when they’re scrolling through social media. Very true. So now you have this video of someone just talking, but you don’t hear them. You don’t know what they’re saying.

And that’s why when we create social media videos for our clients, we add subtitle to it. So then when you’re scrolling through, there’s a graphic at the top of the screen that gives you the tight with the subject matter is. So it’s kind of eye-popping. So if it interests you, you’ll at least slow down. Then you’ll start reading what the person is saying. Now if you’re in an environment where you could turn on your volume, you turn it up. If not, you still have the ability to read the whole 92nd spot or video through this subtitle, all your, you’re hitting the target no matter what.

David Somerfleck (13:46):

I agree a hundred percent and I definitely have read that elsewhere. I think that’s a very great point. Now, what would you say would be the five platforms that business owners neglect to post their videos on?

Chris Inman (14:00):

Yeah, so the first one I would say is Vimeo. A lot of people think YouTube because it’s the second largest search engine, which is wonderful. But if you are embedding your video into your website, Vimeo has some amazing abilities. One, you can customize your player, your own, your brand colors. Number two, which is even better, is you can create a call to action at the end of the video, sign up, you know, click here to get our newsletter. Click here to download our PDF that goes further into this. You have the call to action and then with that, so if you think about it, when you see a YouTube video, they give you all these little thumbnails of random videos on YouTube. So your website then gets cluttered with other people’s very true. So it maintains your brand on your website. I think that’s a great point.

Chris Inman (14:59):

And what do you think about Facebook and Facebook Premier? Okay, so Facebook, everyone knows about Facebook video. You upload a video, but what’s rarely used is Facebook premiere. So Facebook premiere is essentially going live, but without the stress of going live, you can produce a video and then set a time and a day that will be released and then there’s even like a whole marketing scheme you can have, Hey, we’re going to be live at this time with this video and this and that. And then you have a perfect seamless video going out to your audience.

Almost like a webinar type of experience. Yes. It’s kind of like back in the day when we used to actually have to tune in and watch TV at a certain time because we didn’t, we weren’t able to record everything because the VCR light was still flashing because our parents couldn’t figure out how to set it.

David Somerfleck (15:54):

That ties into the whole aspect where you’re basically telling your audience, tune in at this time for this specific event, be there, be square, and you could also say something like a limited time or we’re going to take it down after a week or after several days. Now how do you integrate these things with a newsletter?

Chris Inman (16:20):

So a newsletter, every video is great newsletters, but the problem is you can’t embed video into a newsletter. That’s everyone’s a little stumble. Well, you can put a thumbnail of it up or here’s another little trick, create a small gift of just a small portion of it and put that in there. So it’s just that GIF image has that little motion. It looks like a video, but it’s not a video. So you’re kind of tricking the system. They click it and it sends them back, which I always say try to send everyone back to your home, back to your website. Always bring people home, bring them back to your website and that’s where they can watch the full video.

David Somerfleck (17:02):

Absolutely. I agree a hundred percent now when you are doing videos like the one we’re doing now.

Chris Inman (17:11):

Yeah.

David Somerfleck (17:11):

How can you better use the type of lobby experience or in some platforms, I don’t remember what zoom calls it, where it’s a lobby or waiting room or something of that nature. How can you better use those in video production?

Chris Inman (17:31):

Um, I don’t know. I can put them in in a zoom lobby. I don’t think that’s a thing. But what you can do if you are a dentist or a massage therapist or whatever and you have an actual physical lobby in your building and your facility, you can have a TV and you can have your own content on that TV in your lobby.

You don’t need to show the view in the morning and you don’t need to do all that. And you can actually sell content and commercials with some of your business partners. Uh, if you own a hair salon, very true, very true. People that provide you a shampoo and all that kind of stuff and say, Hey, would you like to buy a commercial spot in our lobby? And then you can put out your own content in the lobby as well, talking about different types of haircuts and this and that, whatever. You can create some fun little programs. And so it kind of gives them a personalized experience when they’re at your facility.

David Somerfleck (18:31):

I think that’s a very, very good point because I’ve been to doctors locally and I would say without exception, every single doctor that I’ve been to has some type of wide screen TV in the lobby, whether you want to see it or not. And most of them are just cycling through commercials for their own practice or they show testimonials. There was only one doctor I went to who was a very high end surgeon who actually showed relaxing mountainscapes and butterflies to try to try to make you calm down before surgery. E

verybody else just had commercials for their own practice, which I totally understand. So I think that’s where what you just described would be extremely relevant for them. Even in the relaxing landscapes, every couple of minutes you could show a brief clip, uh, where the doctor says hi, here are some testimonials. Or you could even show them silently or the relaxing music in the background is a subtle almost subconscious reminder. Um, and I think that’s what I meant because as far as doing videos in the waiting room section for like zoom or what have you, maybe you could insert video somehow. Yeah, I’m not a hundred percent sure if he can. What would you say would be five questions to begin thinking about what your videos should be about from the perspectives of business owners and then the digital marketing consultant from those two perspectives?

Chris Inman (20:01):

Yeah, so it’s very common that people come and they say to us, and I have a zoom call now because it’s so popular with these times, and they say, I just don’t know what to talk about. I’m like, you do know what to talk about. You just are overthinking it because it’s very simple. If you’re really thinking about what you should be talking about in your videos, I mean the first one is what does your product service do for others? What does it solve? What is the, why would someone want to use your service and need to use your service?

David Somerfleck (20:31):

Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. And I think when people make videos, I don’t know technically if there’s an easier way to do this. I think a lot of it depends on the platform. But I know for myself, I work from lists and I work from outlines. I’m so used to working in a very, very organized, deliberate type of structure that I learned from working with all these different marketing agencies where you, you, you know, you were, so, um, you had the team lead and then you had someone going in where the team lead would go and check in with the director of marketing.

So you worked as part of a team. So if you don’t have structure, you’re lost. So I think, and some people can do things on the fly, some people are not so good at it. So I always work from lists and I’m a big fan of those.

David Somerfleck (21:20):

So I always write down questions before I talked to Scott and there goes my microphone into my lab. So if I don’t have questions written out, then I can feel like I’m meandering. Even if you have a great guest like, like, like you here, you can easily kind of forget and flimflam. So I think it really helps to have your points written out.

I have seen people actually write out outlines and do videos and you can’t see it, but they would tape it onto the monitor. I’ve seen people tape it onto the monitor or you could get a stand where you have your outline right here out of you and just read that.

Chris Inman (21:59):

Another great way is just think about what are the search, what are people Googling when you look for, you’re looking for your product or surface. I mean if you get into your SEO and your keywords and your Google analytics, these are the things that you should be talking about and these are the answers you should be providing for your, your, your clients.

David Somerfleck (22:21):

What do you think are the pain points, the main pain points for your type of ideal customer or client?

Chris Inman (22:30):

Well, I guess it would all depend on what industry you’re in. I mean, you know what I’m saying?

David Somerfleck (22:36):

Yeah. I mean they obviously, they always need more leads. They need more leads. Yeah.

Chris Inman (22:42):

People always need more leads. That is correct.

David Somerfleck (22:43):

Yes. So do is, what do you think that your clients should know about your industry and services and products before they call you? Instead of saying, you know, Hey, how much is the video?

Chris Inman (22:59):

Yes.

David Somerfleck (22:59):

Yeah. From my perspective, I get that call daily. How much is SEO? Well, how much is a car? I don’t know what you want done, how much work you’re going to need, how much hand holding you may need or may not need. So what should they know before calling you? Whether it’s a business owner or digital marketing person like myself, what should we both know before calling someone like you instead of just calling you and say, what’s a price?

Chris Inman (23:26):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, that’s exactly what people should be asking when they create these videos too. But if you’re directly at me, what should people know? I think that the first thing you need to do when you call somebody like me is have all your social media accounts set up, be somewhat active on them to a point already. We can’t start from square zero where you have four followers on Facebook and we spend money on creating a video. Your return on investment is not going to be be very, you need the first to have a following. So you’re, you have to, you have to have the chicken before you start selling the eggs.

David Somerfleck (24:05):

Yeah, I agree. So in that context, your ideal customer would be, like you said, marketers who are working with businesses, but from the business standpoint, it would probably be a digital marketer. And tell me if I’m wrong, who works with what I call enterprise businesses, where they have 50 or more employees. Yeah, those are great because you could work with an attorney who has a small staff maybe, or an accountant or even a doctor or a dentist or what have you. But if you have, it has to be someone who has got some kind of infrastructure. Is that close to accurate?

Chris Inman (24:47):

Very closely with a financial advisory group and we do everything from webinars to, I help them coordinate for guest appearances on podcasts, on TV shows and stuff of that nature as well. We do a full full structure to help them out. And they do YouTube channel videos. They do social media videos. They do probably three to four videos a week with, and they have a staff of about eight people. So they just constantly turn out and their contents out there for people to watch the tune in and do for a webinar. Like every Thursday we have a webinar that goes live from our studio.

David Somerfleck (25:32):

And just consistency is sometimes the key to success, repetition, consistency, running it like a machine. And then I think an example of that is, I keep going back to the surgeon I went to and he was the only surgeon in Sarasota who had more than 10 reviews on Google Reviews or on Yelp, which is hard to believe. But I found him because he had so many reviews. He was on YouTube, he had multiple videos showing the work that he did. Um, interviewing patients afterwards, interviewing other, um, people in the industry. Um, he was all over Facebook talking about the latest news, the latest, uh, surveys, the latest research. So it instilled in me a level of confidence that if this person is going to literally cut you open, he seems like he knows what he’s doing. He’s got, you know, I forget how many reviews he had, but it was like at least a hundred, at least a hundred reviews. So you, it increases this perception of professionalism and commitment to that. Whereas those….

Chris Inman (26:45):

How he’s doing that is how you should do your social media, you need to flood them with information reviews and stuff that makes, builds confidence that you are an expert.

David Somerfleck (26:57):

Yeah, and I would add from an SEO perspective, which is search engine optimization and using Google from an SEO perspective, when you’re flooding social media channels with video content to coordinate that or kind of try to connect it to blog posts to podcasts to connect it to other things as well and use different hashtags and you know, you can re send that video next week or next month. You don’t have to just submit it one time. That may be different with YouTube cause I don’t think they want to see the same video more than once. It’s fine. Yeah. But when you share it on social media outlets such as Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, you can reshare it. I would say once a month and maybe maybe twice a month at the most. And use different hashtags, different titles, different search terms, submitted to different groups and so on. Because again, like you said, for some people that’s going to be the first time they ever saw it.

Chris Inman (28:03):

And then that goes back to like when, when I was talking about the five unique locations to post your video. So you have the one video and like we didn’t get to, I suggest Pinterest. Pinterest is a great idea. You create a Pinterest board and especially let’s say you’re selling women’s cosmetics, you need to be on Pinterest definitely because it’s an entirely visual correct. And it’s just like Instagram, but there’s a whole niche of the market out there. They loves Pinterest. I know my wife loves Pinterest. I never go on Pinterest, but my wife does. So if you’re trying to sell something to a woman in this country, I feel as though Pinterest might be even better than YouTube.

David Somerfleck (28:46):

Yeah. Or, or something that is anything that’s really a very visual product. I agree a hundred percent and it didn’t even occur to me that you could use videos on Pinterest.

Chris Inman (28:58):

It’s funny is because rarely do people put videos on Pinterest. It actually bumps it up in the search. You get this little bump because it hasn’t been over overused yet.

David Somerfleck (29:08):

I have to post this on Pinterest now and um, I’ll use your headshot because you have more hair than me. Um, but yeah, I have a hundred or more infographic images on Pinterest and it’s very, very true. If it’s, and I think that goes back to repurposing content. What is using that content in different ways….

Chris Inman (29:27):

It’s a return on investment. That is in the repurpose. You can take this podcast and you can put it on temi.com and get the transcript for and then instantly you have a an interview blog. There’s so many ways you can reuse video even if it’s initially as a podcast, we have a video and then we have a podcast. There’s two reasons just for this one interview. Just in this one little segment, you have two different segments of the population. The guy that’s working out can listen to us and the person that’s sitting in an office and just has a YouTube channel playing while they’re doing their work. Boom, you got two different video channels. Video is an amazing return on investment. If you do it right, you can be on every single platform. You can reach so many people that just go.

David Somerfleck (30:16):

I agree totally. And I would say to anyone who has any reticence toward using it, just organize your branding and your marketing message and what you want to talk about and why and who you’re speaking to. And don’t be afraid because obviously I’m here. I am by no means Brad Pitt. Um, you know, but it’s not about that. It’s about something that you’re passionate about, that you really, truly enjoy and believe in and want to share with others. And it connects to your business interest as well.

Chris Inman (30:54):

So and the other key I like to tell people is stop selling and start helping. You need to help people with your content always about trying to make that sale, trying to make the sale. It’s, it’s about educating your clients about your industry, about your product and how it can better their lives.

David Somerfleck (31:14):

Yeah. And the thing is, we’re in a, now we’re in a a postcode, 19 world. We’re all hoping that this thing will, you know, fade away or go away somehow or there’ll be a vaccine soon. But the reality is that more people are working from home now than ever before. And even those who are not need to be marketing using the internet using digital marketing. Whereas before it was perhaps optional. Now it’s even more relevant than ever before. So Chris, I really appreciate you being on the show. Do you have any parting thoughts or maybe anything that you know you feel like I should have asked you about or anything?

Chris Inman (31:56):

Oh, no, no. I mean just, Hey, when you’re making content, like I said, make sure that you’re informing your, your, your clients about what’s your product can do for them. I think I always tell people, don’t be Muhammad Ali. When you make videos, you can’t pump yourself up as if you’re the greatest thing ever. Because if all you’re doing is talking about yourself, people turn you off. You need to talk about what your product or service can do for them. Very true,

David Somerfleck (32:22):

very true. I could not agree with you more. It really is about that. What does this have to do with me? That’s what every consumer is asking.

Chris Inman (32:33):

Correct. Nobody cares about your company. No one cares about your awards. Nobody cares how long you’ve been in business. They only care about what you do for them, right?

David Somerfleck (32:40):

They have a problem and their problem is always going to be attracting more leads. Whether they’re clients, whether they’re customers, whether they’re people going to a restaurant or going to a surgeon or a dentist or, or whatever. They always have the same problem, but the specifics of that problem or what’s in or what, what that has to do with their business is what makes it different. So you want to speak to those needs. So, Chris, I thank you so much for being on so much for having me, my podcast, my video. I sincerely appreciate it. And, um, please hang around. We’ll chat some more and for those listening or watching on YouTube, thank you so much for your time. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. Please subscribe and stay tuned. Thank you very much and have a great day.

You can watch a video of our interview below.

To listen to the audio version of our interview please check out the links below.

To listen through a link, you can find this podcast episode on Spotify, ListenNotes, Apple.