Episode Summary
Aren’t we all tired of the boring, monotonous videos B2B companies create to present their products & services? These videos may seem like the right way to go, but the reality is different. It’s time to be bold. It’s time for B2B creative…to actually be creative.
Danielle Hope Diamond is the founder of Epiq Media, a company dedicated to creating entertaining yet educational video content. She is a former Broadway playwright with experience in marketing. Danielle knows the way to customers’ hearts.
Launching a campaign and building a brand have different nuances, but you can approach them in a similar way.
“You need to think about both of them strategically and creatively, even though they are very different pieces; they both need to be creative.”
Tune in to hear about the future of B2B brand videos, the importance of creating comedic-style videos, and what you should focus on if you are a newbie in a B2B space.
“I always tell companies, if you don’t have the budget for the comedic-style video yet, don’t do it. I don’t recommend throwing money at one big thing early on.”
In this episode, you’ll uncover more about effective B2B creative, including:
- Why it is always better to have professional actors in your videos
- What CEOs should do to feel relaxed in front of the camera
- Why your videos should feel like a TV show instead of an advertisement
Guest Profile
- Name: Danielle Hope Diamond
- What she does: Danielle is the Founder of Epiq Media, the leading creative team in B2B.
- Company: Epiq Media
- Noteworthy: Danielle was in her senior year of college when she started building two careers. She was working at Drift on the marketing team but also as a Broadway playwright.
Key Insights
- B2B content is very conventional. People in a B2B space use a proven formula that is not creative; it's boring. Using buttoned-up corporative style videos is outdated; it's monotonous. On the other hand, videos that catch people's attention are more like TV shows. They are entertaining and educational. If you want your content to stand out, you need to incorporate both of these creative elements.
- The future of B2B brand videos is around comedic and narrative. Nobody cares about the generic type of videos. People come to your website because they have a specific problem, and they think you can help them solve it. Once they see a video in which you say, "Here's our product, this is our brand; this is our mission," they will leave. The first time a potential client visits your website is like a first date; you need to make an excellent first impression. So make sure your homepage video is welcoming, educational, yet fun.
- Know who your customer is. If you want to create high-quality, accurate videos, you must know what's keeping your customers up at night; what's the actual problem they're having. If you can pinpoint that problem and create a piece of content that tells the story of that problem, you'll get their attention. When you are problem-focused instead of solution-focused, that's when you build a long-lasting connection with your customers.
Episode Highlights
Stop looking at other B2B companies for inspiration
”Look at your favorite TV shows and figure out why you like this. How can you incorporate this into your content? Look at your favorite YouTubers. Why do you like that type of content? What works about it? And how can you take that and convert it into educational content or entertainment type of content?
Then also, B2C content. There’s a lot of cool stuff in the product world. There’s a lot of storytelling that is the new buzzword in marketing; everyone’s a storyteller. Those are the things to look out for when you’re in the B2B space.”
Campaigns versus brand building
”That’s where the difference between education and entertainment comes in. Daily content that positions you as the expert in your space is a great long-term play anyone can do. You don’t even need a ton of resources to do it. That’s the long-term play for building a brand people start to recognize and see you as the expert in your field. Then you have those creative campaigns, and that’s where entertainment comes into play. That’s where you want to create that video that everyone’s talking about.”
The success behind a comedic-style video
”It’s connecting with people on an emotional level about the problem, but it’s also doing it in a way that’s entertaining them and making them want to stick around and watch that whole thing. The idea is to feel more like a TV show than the actual advertisement. If your homepage video feels more like a short episode of the Office versus ‘Here’s a brand style video,’ then people are going to want to stick around to watch it. The more content people watch from you, the more likely they’ll click on your product page and buy from you.”
Tricks to make CEOs feel relaxed in front of the camera
”I was working with a CEO, and I was like, ‘What is the thing you get so excited about that you could talk about for hours?’ His answer was surfing. I said, ‘I want you to think about surfing right now. Read these words, but talk to me as if you’re talking about surfing.’ […] Pick something you are super pumped about and pretend that you’re talking about that.
The second thing is talking to a specific person. If we want something more casual, I’ll say, ‘I want you to pretend you are talking to your best friend or your significant other. Or, if you want to pretend you’re on a sales call, think of a specific customer, not a persona, not something made up, but a real person you can visualize and see and talk specifically to them.”
We think like YouTubers
”A lot of our inspiration comes from watching YouTubers. We have people on my team that were former YouTubers. I don’t know if anyone here is familiar with Filthy Frank; there are members of my team who were the creators of that. So, we think like YouTubers and go, ‘Okay, this GIF right here would be funny.”’
Benefits of the consistent style projects
”The nice thing about the consistent style projects is that at first there’s a lot of testing, and then you get into a rhythm. It’s just, ‘Okay, we’re just going to keep putting out content; you’re going to keep getting results from it. It’s going to work.’ We get into a rhythm that becomes more scalable, more repeatable; it becomes an easier type of process. We know exactly the look it needs to have, what people are responding, so we’re just going to keep doing that.”
