The World Has Punched Us In The Face 😳

“The world has punched us in the face and yet it also needs our help.”

- Mike Michalowicz

WHOA! Right? I’ve spent the past 3 days hanging out with fellow bosses (virtually) at the Being Boss Conference and today’s keynote was Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First and Clockwork. He said this twice today and I was like 🤯. With small businesses making 90% of the market, it is imperative that we do what we can and work together to come up on the right side when all of this is over.

From toilet paper shortages, to quarantine, from work from home schedules, to countless virtual happy hours, the past few weeks have given me a lot of time to reflect on my business and how I can help all of you. So I’ve put together some videos and information that you can start utilizing today!

Content Without A Camera
There has been a huge spike in social media usage during quarantine; now is NOT the time to slow down your Instagram presence! And as we all know, video is some of the most effective content you can post, as it’s eye catching and has a high retention rate. I’ve put together a quick video that shows you what can be done without ever leaving the house.

Conferencing With Class
How many video conference calls have you been on and you can’t see the other person’s face or can’t hear them? I put together 2 quick (and fun) videos that show you how to properly setup your webcam so you can ‘Conference with Class’. These tips also work great if you’re conducting FB Lives or IG Stories for your business.

Quick Tip

Are you training folks on using new systems to help with remote productivity?
Try using video screen capture!
If you’re trying to teach coworkers a new function within Asana, Slack, Zoom, etc. Instead of a time-consuming training or multiple conference calls, take a screen capture video demoing it with narration.

- If you’re on a Mac, video screen capture is really easy in Quicktime. 

- If you’re using a PC, Android or iPad, here’s several options worth looking at.

Now you have documentation that can be shared with others, saving time indefinitely!

Stay Safe and Be Well Friends ❤️

3 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS YOU NEED TO INCLUDE IN YOUR INTRO VIDEO!

How do you introduce your business on your website? Do you provide some basic text and images? Or do you include exciting elements like animated graphics and video? While many companies rely on just text and images on their website, I highly recommend creating an intro video! Do you want to know why? Keep reading to find out why and to discover the three essential elements every great intro video includes!  

why you need an intro video

An intro video is your chance to make a strong, personalized first impression with new customers when they visit your site. As with first impressions between people who are face to face, an intro video will have a major impact on the course of your relationship with viewers, and you only have a brief moment to make it a positive one. But why should you have a video? Why not wait until they call or visit your location? Here are a few key statistics Forbes highlighted that show just how powerful video is:

• During the decision-making process, 90% of people said they chose a product or service because of a video they saw.

• Conversion rates increase up to 80% when you include a video, such as an intro video, on a landing page.

• More than 60% of people are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

• Using videos will help you gain more than a 4o% increase in web traffic from search engines than companies that don't use them.

• When given the option between reading about a topic and watching a video, most would choose to watch the video.

• Video consumption will account for 80% of internet traffic by 2019.

• 55% of people watch videos online every day.

As you can see by these statistics, incorporating video into your business plan is becoming more important, and an intro video is a perfect opportunity to jump on board.

3 common types of intro video

When it comes to creating an intro video for your business, there are a few directions you can take it. Determining the goals for the video (an essential element that we will discuss further in this post) will help you narrow down which option, or a combination of options, would be the best fit. Here are three of the most common types of intro videos you can create for your business.

1. Welcome. This is the basic type of intro video that any can use, from small startups to large enterprises. In this video, you should tell visitors who you are, what your brand is, and how you're different. By the time people are done watching, they should have a strong vision of you and your business.

In these videos, it's important that the tone and feel you present matches the rest of your brand. If your company is lighthearted and embraces humor, don't be afraid to use this in your video. If your brand is more serious and technical, make sure it stands out through your appearance and language.

2. Testimonial. Your client's opinion of your business is powerful! Where a welcome video is you talking about your brand, in a testimonial intro, your customers speak to what makes your business the one to work with. Don't be afraid to reach out to past clients to ask them for their help. Their word is viewed as more reliable and trustworthy to those just coming across your business for the first time.

3. Portfolio. Don't just talk the talk; show that you can also walk the walk with a portfolio intro video. This is a fantastic opportunity to show off the projects you're most proud of and highlight your range of skills. While you don't want to come across as bragging and arrogant, you want to make it clear you know what you're doing and are the best company to fit your visitor's needs; a video of your best work is the perfect way to share this.

All three of these options can stand alone as their own individual videos, or you can spice things up a bit by including a mix of the different options! Don't hesitate to play with ideas that work for your business, but make sure you keep your target audience in mind as you do.

A portfolio video is a great way to show off your skills, like this one featuring our ability to create animated videos for a wide range of products and services.

Essential Elements of an Intro Video

No matter the type of intro video you choose to create, there are a few elements that you need to include. They will help keep your focus on the video's objective, allowing you to make the best first impression with potential new clients.

Have a Goal: What's the goal of your video beyond introducing them to your brand, services, and team? Your goal needs to be specific and measurable while relating to the type of video you want to create. A great way to narrow down what you want to achieve from your video is to ask yourself questions like these:

1. Do I want people to explore my website?

2. Do I want them to contact me?

3. Do I want viewers to purchase my products or services?

Once you know the type of goal you want to achieve, how much of an increase do you hope to see, and in what time period? As a word of caution, make sure your goals are realistic and achievable. Creating unrealistic goals sets you up for disappointment when you don't achieve them.

Create a Script: Before you start recording, it's important to know what you want to say and how you want to come across. A script will help you figure out what you want your viewers to know and will help you organize your thoughts in a way that makes sense. Here are a few considerations when putting together your script.

Know Your Audience: The audience is an essential element of your video; after all, the video is for them. How can you help them if you don't know their needs? If you want help determining who your target audience is, CoSchedule recommends you ask yourself these questions:

1. What problems can my product or service solve for customers or clients? At its core, this should answer the question of why your company exists and why people need it.

2. What does my current client base look like? Consider areas like age, gender, location, family structure, income, and education level.

3. Who is my competition, and what does their customer look like? You should know who the larger competition is, but don't forget about the smaller guys that are just starting.

4. What can my customers gain by choosing me versus my competition? What can you do better than anyone else in the market? Determining this will help you showcase a specific need that you fulfill.

Focus on Your Brand: While you want to make sure you're speaking to your audience with a specific goal in mind, you don't want to lose sight of your brand. Focus on what makes your business different from the rest and how you can meet your audience's needs.

Keep to the Point: Don't get bogged down in every little detail about your brand. In this case, less is actually more. You have a limited time to share your company, and too much information can overwhelm your viewers or, even worse, bore them.

Add a Human Touch: Don't forget that your business is full of unique and special people. Let this shine through in your video. Including a human touch in your video makes it more relatable.

Before you start recording, don't forget to practice, practice, practice! The more you rehearse, the more comfortable you'll be once you do start filming, and you'll also come across as more confident.

Include a Call to Action: This is your chance to ask your viewers to take a specific action with your brand. Remember the goal you created earlier? Use it as the basis for your call to action. Like your goal, the call to action should be a very specific action you want your viewer to take, whether it is contacting you, visiting a certain page, or filling out a form on your site. While you want your call to action to be specific, you want to give your viewers incentive; let them know what's in it for them when they take action and what benefits they will receive as a result.

This informative video for Marki Microwave incorporates the essential elements of a successful intro video.

Conclusion

One of the best tips I can offer beyond making sure to include these elements is to remember to breathe and relax while you're recording. This should be a fun and exciting experience that highlights what makes your brand the best one to work with.

Your intro video will set the tone for your future relationship; start it off on the right foot with the helpful advice in this article. Want to create an eye-catching intro video but feel like you need help? 

Tabrizi Productions would love to help you build your video marketing strategy and highlight what makes your business special 

Tabrizi Productions is a boutique video production company with a mission to make video accessible for all. We offer authentic, affordable video storytelling for companies large and small.

We are locally serving Oakland, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, and the surroundings of the Silicon Valley area. Sound like a fit? Fill out this form to schedule a free consultation. 

​​​​​​​HOW VIDEO CAN BE A POWERFUL TEAM BUILDING TOOL

Perhaps you have considered videos for marketing, but did you know your teams can also be strengthened through video? As evidence suggests, using video will not only help coordinate and connect departments that are usually separated, but they can also improve your ROI, mainly if you take the leap and become one of the first businesses to use video for team building!

Read on to learn how video can dynamically work to transfer your business culture, coordinate employees in different departments, enable professional growth in novel ways, and overall strengthen your company's team.

1. Transfer Company Culture

Your business culture tells a complex story that is difficult to convey to new employees over time. In fact, the longer your company has been established, the more involved the story becomes! Video enables you to capture the unique picture of your company's culture. It can help you:

• Bring teams up to speed

• Transfer legacy team knowledge

• Reduce onboarding time

Video can highlight the varying perspectives from different departments and be used to bring employees up to speed or reveal comprehensive snapshots of your business' trajectory. Similarly, video can easily allow you to infuse your current teams with legacy knowledge from the past. Video also has the incredible ability to reduce the training time needed for new hires.

Give it a shot! When recording your culture videos, play with different formats. Document team meetings or project deliveries for first-hand takes, screenshots of software for training, interview employees for rich insights, or try a combination of the above by creating a video montage. Check out these culture videos for more inspiration!

2. Differentiated Professional Growth

When it comes to training your team, research suggests that the more individualized the process, the more meaningful the outcome will be. Video instruction has numerous benefits, including:

• One on one learning

• Standardized curriculum

• Ability to reference in the future

The ability of video training to enable your employees to learn in a one-on-one style is priceless. Prerecorded content can be given to new recruits for them to learn at their pace. The material would be standardized without the hassle of leaving out important material until a mistake down the line necessitates the instruction. And because video can be played back as often as needed, it works as a terrific reference tool when a new employee is taking on tasks in real-time and wants to verify their understanding.

More companies are using video as a novel way to train new hires.

Give it a shot! There are many ways to leverage video for professional development. Try using it for virtual coaching, self-learning for employee promotion tracks, or leverage team collaboration outcomes.

3. Business Track Record

While most companies know that videos can share information, some companies miss out on the insights videos can give to the content creators. Video analytics can provide:

• A measure of reach and retention

• The ability to refine training the curriculum over time

Video analytics available through YouTube, Vimeo, or other CRM platforms are a means for your business to measure your team's engagement. Is 100 percent of your team up to speed on the latest training requirements? Were there areas in the training that frequently resulted in pausing or drop-offs? This information can help you better understand your team's abilities and also help to refine onboarding techniques.

Give it a shot! Try creating a video tutorial for team collaboration. Shoot a brief perspective of each team and then share. Ask your employees for feedback on their new understanding. Look at the engagement numbers and the personnel feedback and brainstorm how you might refine future video curriculum, whether by making it shorter, more or less informative, etc.

4. Team Building ROI

Team building is an investment in your business and its future. For many companies, it's an upfront cost without a measurable return on investment. However, team-building with videos can enable you to:

• Invest upfront but continuously reap the benefit

• Analyze learning material in relation to team growth

Rather than continue to invest in printed materials, personnel trainers, or dedicated office space, the use of videos for onboarding and professional development exercises requires an initial investment that can be reused over time. Plus, your ability to compare engagement and retention to real-life outcomes such as performance and company growth will provide a complete look at your business' return on its investment. Team building with video is an upfront cost that saves time and makes money in the long run. The result is an additional avenue to achieve an ROI for your business.

Give it a shot! Try creating a fun team-building video that highlights a problem and then invites employees to brainstorm and share possible solutions. Take a closer look at the numbers and measure every stage of the initiative, from the engagement training video to ideas submitted and ultimate outcomes.

5. First Mover Advantage 

The early bird gets the worm, or so the saying goes. Because team building through video is still uncharted territory, it offers a novel way for your brand to get noticed. Here's how to take advantage:

• Don't overthink your videos

• Share videos outside of your company to gain recognition

The few companies using video for their team building programs are gaining recognition, such as T-Mobile's Magenta program, where employees can participate in training and professional development through self-driven video technology. Excitingly T-Mobile won an award for undertaking this cutting-edge approach to team growth.

Yet, to become a first mover, you have to move! Don't aim for perfection, as videos that have been over orchestrated are less likely to connect with viewers. Plus, early adopters are usually forgiven for mistakes and celebrated for their ingenuity and effort. The goal is to progress over time with a tool that will lead to strong ROIs for your business.

Give it a shot! When it comes to having a first-mover advantage, the key is to jump in and get your feet wet! Don't obsess over perfection, but try to refine your team development efforts over time as you gain data and evaluate your efforts.

6. Tips to Get Started

Ready to begin team-building with video today? Keep these strategies in mind when jump-starting your video team-building efforts:

• Learn from others breaking into videos for team building.

• Consider your company's team building needs: recruit training, cross-team collaboration, and professional development.

• Commit to trying a few different video approaches to team building: first-person recordings of teamwork, interviews of employees or customers, screenshots of work in action, or a montage of different formats.

• Analyze the engagement and retention of your videos! Was there 100 percent participation? Did any participant have a lack of clarity or drop-off during the video training exercise?

• Refine your video content and approaches over time, aiming for progress over perfection!

• Measure your business outcomes in relation to video data and track your business ROI.

• Share your efforts outside of your business to raise awareness about your early adoption of team building through video tools.

Click through to learn more about how to successfully set up videos. Are you new to using video for your business? Take advantage of the internet's changing algorithms that give preference to video content and consider more ways of adopting it for your company, such as marketing with video, ad campaigns, clarifying public relations initiatives, and employee recruitment.

Whether you're new to video or already using it, contact Tabrizi for insights on how to create and optimize videos for your business! Each company has a unique story that can lend itself to both new as well as proven video strategies, and the Tabrizi team is ready to help you navigate this fast-growing tool.

Final Thoughts

Team building is underdeveloped for most companies with outdated practices or none at all. Video offers a unique approach to team-building with many incredible benefits, including:

• Bringing teams up to speed

• Transferring legacy team knowledge

• Reducing onboarding time

• Providing one on one learning

• Standardizing curriculum

• Providing the ability to reference it in the future

• Offering a measure of reach and retention

• Enabling the refinement of the training curriculum over time

• Investing upfront but continuously reaping the benefits

Team building with video is a novel way to transfer an understanding of your company culture to new hires across time. It's a strategy that offers economical training and professional development that provides data for further curriculum refinement. The use of video for team building requires upfront costs, but the potential to save time and money over time results in a measurable ROI for your business.

If your business is already using video for other purposes, such as marketing, consider adding team development content to your video plans. Whether you're new or experienced at video integration for your business, I'm thrilled to help bring your video ideas into reality. 

Tabrizi Productions would love to help you build your video marketing strategy. Tabrizi Productions is a boutique video production company with a mission to make video accessible for all. We offer authentic, affordable video storytelling for companies large and small.

We are locally serving Oakland, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, and the surroundings of the Silicon Valley area. Sound like a fit? Fill out this form to schedule a free consultation.