How Do You Turn One Video Into a Full Content Library?

Sherri Schwartz (00:02) people don't realize all of the different types of videos that can be created. and it's short to long variant or even by channel that like one video, one interview, one recording can give you. And I think that's the one, the most critical piece that is under recognized. It's like you have a treasure trove at your fingertips you're not maximizing on it because you're not thinking through all of the different channels, the different types, the different lengths. And every single one of them has different Benjamin Ard (01:02) Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Sherri. Sherri, welcome to the show. Sherri Schwartz (01:07) Hi, thanks for having me. Benjamin Ard (01:08) Yeah, Sherri, I'm excited. This is a timely subject. It's going to be a ton of fun. But before we dive in, let's get to know you, your work background, and all of that fun stuff. Sherri Schwartz (01:18) Yeah, so I started my career in sales, selling everything from boots to body armor to underwater robots and mine detectors to the military. I thought it was going to be a quick stopping point, maybe six months till I found the right thing. I graduated college in like the worst time around 2008. But nonetheless, was there for four years, loved it, and then pivoted into marketing. So I've been in marketing specifically primarily in the financial services landscape since 2000. And I've loved every minute. My favorite part of marketing is I'm a startup marketer at heart. I love building from the ground up, whether it's my first time when I was building product marketing from the ground up for a company and for the last four organizations I've gotten to work with building marketing from the ground I've been blessed to be at Ovation CXM now for the last three years as product marketer, well, as marketer, number one. and first three months hired a team, rebranded the organization from Boomtown to Ovation and CXM. And we've been plugging along since then. And, ⁓ video has been a huge part of, think our success in marketing and where we've come in some of the hills and valleys that we've had to maneuver through. I think anybody in marketing, anybody in any business understands what, you know, we've all experienced. In the economy over the last couple of years, it's been hard to be a business. I think that video has been a huge, huge part of the success of our organization and the success of the marketing team behind it. Benjamin Ard (02:47) I love it. So this is amazing. So you have this really cool background with running the marketing team. love the startups from, you know, almost the zero to one growing at all the different hats, all the fun things. And like you said, I mean, there's different economic conditions and things like that, that we've all been going through through. And a backbone for you has been video. And then also a part of this, like the title we agreed to talk about today is making video the backbone of your content strategy with the help of AI. So here's my first question. A lot of people produce content with video. Well, some people do, enough people do. What do most teams like, what do most groups get wrong? in b2b video content like where where are we sometimes amiss when it comes to video Sherri Schwartz (03:34) I think the biggest thing is you don't maximize all of the different ways to be able to use it. And I use that as a great example. We might do one interview with one of our thought leaders at our organization, and it may be a 30-minute long discussion on a variety of topics. But I could package that one 30-minute video and have it as an on-demand webinar or host it on YouTube. But what if I sliced every single question asked along with every single answer and I may have 15 minor short videos that are 30 seconds or up to a minute in length that I can utilize on LinkedIn whenever I want. And so I think people don't realize all of the different types of videos that can be created. and it's short to long variant or even by channel that like one video, one interview, one recording can give you. And I think that's the one, the most critical piece that is under recognized. It's like you have a treasure trove at your fingertips you're not maximizing on it because you're not thinking through all of the different channels, the different types, the different lengths. And every single one of them has different Like those short micro videos, LinkedIn loves those. Loves those. By the way, if you look at buyers and you look at trends over the years, and us as consumers, happens to us, our attention spans are super shrinking to the point where we have less than seven second attention span. yes. Benjamin Ard (05:09) Thank you, TikTok, for that, by the way. Sherri Schwartz (05:12) TikTok is kill it. Like, well, I wouldn't say killing us because I get sucked into it too or Instagram or you name it. yeah. Benjamin Ard (05:18) I love it, but yeah, it's absolutely destroyed my ability to watch a long form video. Sherri Schwartz (05:23) But if you think about it too, when you have a content team, a lot of times you tend to focus in on the written. So you're going, what's my email campaign? What's my drip campaign? What's my ebook? What's my infographic? What's my blog? And those are all great. But again, you have a shrinking attention span. So for a large part of your audience, there is a little bit of a struggle there. because they're not reading your emails. They're inundated with emails. They're not reading your ebook. They might download it, but what's the chance of them really studying it? So how do you continue to capture the attention of the seven to five seconders? Especially those that do not know your brand. If they do not know your brand and they are early on in the buying cycle, then That's where those micro videos are the most important thing that you can do for your audience. Because only 5 % of your buyers are actively ready to buy and know that you're the solution. So that means like 95 % of the rest are in this funnel of like, don't know they have a problem, don't know you exist. Know that they think they have a problem, don't know you exist. know they have a problem. have heard of you but aren't convinced it's you. You know, they're continuing to go deep and deep and deep. And there's a variety of different touch points that happen over the course of a very long time. But that video piece, those short snippets that are one of the most forgotten pieces of a video strategy is amazing to capture that attention of those that don't know you exist and didn't really know they have problem. But you've captured them in that five seconds for them to stay and learn a little. Benjamin Ard (06:58) I love that. That's so cool. Okay. So let's say I'm a business and now I believe in the power of video. need to slice and dice it and do a little bit more with it on the various platforms, everything like that. Let's talk tactically. What is your setup for actually producing, recording and making and repurposing video? How does AI play a role? Are you doing it all on house? You know, do you mind sharing kind of what your setup looks like? Sherri Schwartz (07:24) Yeah, so I've had the privilege in prior organizations of having one to two videographers on staff and we were able to do a lot of that on our own. At our organization, we have decided to outsource the video support. So we use a video as a service agency, the name Spark Portal, and we utilize their team. And so the beauty of that right now is because I only have a team of three other people in-house. So. Time is precious and limited. So if you find yourselves in a smaller organization with smaller number of hands in marketing and you're already wearing a variety of hats, the agency play has been really great for us because we've been able to access more people with video expertise. And where we come in is we provide the idea, we provide the rough script. They'll and we'll provide kind of a rough storyboard. They'll come back to us with some of their recommended edits on video best practices. And then we'll come to an agreeance of what we're kind of going for. And then they'll be iterations. And it may be that we shoot to them a nice interview. And with the idea we want these questions pulled out, we want a long form, we want the short form, we want. in the background as they're talking about these elements, this image to pop up. We will provide a lot of that idea. Now, the beauty is as you work over time with some of these agencies, they get to know you, they get to know your style, they get to know your product. So the iterations can be very, very fast. Where AI has really come in and what we've seen is it's not perfect. Every single one of us has seen the pictures nowadays of can you tell if this picture has been created by AI and it's like, a person's hands or feet or like, you know, it's so things are not perfect, but there are some AI tools and you know, we are vetting and we are looking at that right this second and it changes all the time. The technology improves all the time where there are AI video tools where you can take maybe your blog and upload it and it can turn your blog into a video where and so Then the strategy comes in, and this is something we're perfecting where we're at now of where does the agency come in, maybe for the animated videos that we need, the hype videos that we need, animating our product, doing some of these video interviews, but then maybe using the AI video software to upload your blog and produce a quick video. There are, or if I need to create and utilize AI avatars. So. maybe we need to create more thought leadership videos, but we've got experts that are traveling or it's really hard. Maybe it's really hard to get people on camera right now. So it's, you have got some of these AI avatars that are coming out through these AI video companies that make it as humanistic as possible. Now, the one other thing that we have added to our video capabilities is we're using Storylane to craft our clickable demos. And with that, you can craft the clickable demo. You can also turn it into a video. You can also create a GIF. So there are a multitude of different ways to utilize some of the latest and greatest. I think we'll see some of these AI companies like Synthesia.ai. I think that's one that we've looked at. There's Descript that we've kind of looked at a little bit. you'll start seeing, I think, improvements, right? Where we were two years ago when OpenAI hit the market with ChatGBT to where it is today has vastly improved. And I suspect we'll have that continue, whether it's graphic creation, video creation. But there is an element of never losing touch of the human element of video either. So we have to be super careful if we go fully AI. we may lose and it may sometimes take a lot longer, at least what we have found right now in creating some of those animated elements of our product where it's been nice to work with a human agency. Benjamin Ard (11:27) I love that. So when you're working with either the agency or AI, it sounds like you talked about all the strategy, the ideation, all of that stuff comes from your team. What do you feel like a good deliverable is to an outside group for what you want to get out of your video? Like, do you give themes? Lanks, I mean, what are some of like, I guess, do you follow a brief format? What does that kind of look like? And how would you recommend people know where your team starts and stops in that process? Sherri Schwartz (11:53) We do. We do, and I think it's absolutely important to make sure they have your brand book and that they have understood and that you've gotten to onboard them to what your product, your tone, your style is. I think it's also okay to give examples. We have been known to, if we are creating a hype video for a net new product launch or for a partnership. I've sent over four or five different styled videos that other organizations have done, or I was like, I like this element, I like that element, I like this element and this. We all are visual learners, right? And so if you like elements of certain types of videos, shoot it over. And as long as that agency understands your brand and you've onboarded them the right way, they should be able to give you. what is best for your organization utilizing the elements that you like, but the most representative of your brand and still create a differentiated video that's not copy and paste. And that's always what I've asked. Listen, I don't want it to look exactly like this because then I'm not a differentiator, but I like elements of it. And I go back, they are experts in what they do. I am not the video expert. So I come back and say, is this achievable? or what do you think based on the latest trends? And we find those happy mediums. Benjamin Ard (13:22) I love that. So once you get the videos back, you talked a little bit about your distribution short form video, LinkedIn loves it. What are some of the best channels for this video content to get it into the hands of prospects and customers and people that you're ultimately working with? You have like favorite distribution channels. Sherri Schwartz (13:40) Yeah, so there's a couple things there too. Depending on your audience, it also depends on their inbox deliverability and the type of industry that they're in on what they will accept. So you might easily think, OK, YouTube, great. But in most instances, banks block YouTube. So I could not send a YouTube link. However, YouTube is super important because video SEO is a thing. And it's important. And we need to be able to have it. So what we've found is Vimeo has been a little bit more of a deliverable hosting that banks will allow. as if we want to share that, we'll share it via Vimeo, but we'll ensure it's also hosted on YouTube. We also have our own kind of sales enablement area ⁓ inside of our company where we're breaking down and housing all of our videos by topic. So that is easy for our sales reps to be able to find. and our audience is all, and we'll also host these videos on our website. And then we also obviously are distributing them to our number one social media channel, which is LinkedIn. Now we do have Facebook and we'll share some on Facebook as well. But I think it's super important. Don't go, you need to go in on YouTube because YouTube SEO is a thing and it can be very, very helpful for your business. But you have to also make sure is that the right house for the audience? There's lot of security parameters if you're selling into banking, if you're selling into other IT or very risk averse businesses. So just make sure you have that in mind. Benjamin Ard (15:11) I love it. Well, Sherri, I love your concept of video, how you're using it as a backbone, how you repurpose. There are so many cool insights from how you're using that. Thank you for sharing. As promised, these episodes go by so quick and we have run out of time. If anyone wants to reach out and connect with you though, how and where can they find you? Sherri Schwartz (15:26) I I am on LinkedIn and very active on it. Please send me a message. Would love to be able to connect, can easily set up some time. My work email is sherri.schwartz at Ovationcxm.com. Would love to hear, would love to connect. I think the best part of marketing is the community where you can all learn from each other and all commune. Every business is different. Every marketing strategy works very differently for very different businesses. And I think it's excellent to have a community where we can all just throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. So happy to connect. Benjamin Ard (16:07) love it. Anyone listening to this episode, scroll down to the show notes, we'll link to everything for Sherri there. Click on those links and connect with thank you so much for your time and insights today. Really do appreciate it. Sherri Schwartz (16:19) Thanks for having me.