Podcast Episode #11: Advanced Web Video Marketing Strategies

Advanced Web Video Marketing Strategies Podcast Episode

One incredibly powerful aspect of web video is the opportunity to use it to start a conversation with, and build your relationship to, your audience. One of the best ways to do this is to create cutting-edge, captivating content; sharing it; and inviting your viewer to opt-in to you by submitting their email address. If they sign up, they are in essence saying, “I get value from your ideas. Keep me posted when you have new content.”

On today’s podcast, I’m speaking to entrepreneur and visionary, Clay Collins, about all this and more. Clay has many areas of mastery: he’s a guru in web video marketing, copywriting, and software design. He has combined these skills to create elegant products that help people build an audience, expand their email list, and grow their income. We’ll be focusing on one of Clay’s products, called LeadPlayer, in this interview.

Clay has found what he loves to do in life, and has wholeheartedly embraced it. For him, that thing he loves is marketing. To quote Clay:

“Marketing, to me, is the act of taking what you have to give the world and putting it in the lives of as many people as possible.”

I think that is a great way of looking at marketing. So, when you’re listening to Clay’ ideas, try to answer this question: “how can I use web video marketing to take what I have to give to the world, and put it in the lives of as many people as possible?”

Transcription – Clay Collins talking about video marketing

Hey guys, you are with Ryan on the web video marketing show. One of the most powerful aspects of video on the web is the way you can use it to start a conversation with your audience and to build a relationship. And a great way of doing this is to create awesome, captivating content, share it and then invite your viewers to opt in by giving you their email address. In essence, they’re saying, I get value from your ideas, keep me posted when you have new stuff that today I’ll be speaking about all this and more to entrepreneur and visionary clay Collins clay has so many areas of mastery, video marketing, software design and copywriting and he seems to have found a way of combining all these skills to create really elegant products that are super simple to use and help people build an audience, grow their list and grow their income.

And we’ll be speaking about one of his products, lead player some more in this interview. Clay’s one of those people who seems to have really found what he loves to do in life and has just embraced it wholeheartedly. And for him, that thing is marketing. And to quote clay marketing to me is the act of taking what you have to give to the world and putting it in the lives of as many people as possible. And I think this is a great way of looking at it. So when you’re listening to clay Collins, his ideas, the question for you is how can you use web video marketing to take what you have to give to the world and put it in the lives of as many people as possible. So clay, thank you so much for being on the web video marketing show.

Ryan, I’m honoured to be here. That is, that is probably the most well-crafted intro, uh, anybody has ever written for me that, that I didn’t write myself. Like, you know, like a lot of times, um, when I do interviews they’ll ask me to supply something and they’ll just read it. Did you, was that written down or was that based on a set of bullet points? I’m really curious. That was damn good.

That was absolutely written down. I’ve, uh, I like to take time just to learn, you know, more about my guests and thoroughly enjoyed learning about you and your background and my challenges, you know, with all the cool things that you’ve done. How can I just capture that and put that together in one thing. So thank you. And um, yeah, it was, it was a, it was a great process just going through your blog and your videos and that sort of stuff. So we’ll let listeners know, um, later on in the show how they can find out more about you and a lot of the stuff that you’ve written in your videos. So clay, I mean, marketing is a huge passion for you. I mean, I guess you could almost call it a calling. In fact, I love how you wrote, I love marketing and, and that’s, um, being into something a whole lot. So, you know, what is it about marketing that really drives and moves you?

I, you know, a lot of people don’t know this, but when I was 15, I started, I left home and I moved to Southern California and not Northern California, which is probably where I should’ve been. But I went to, I moved to Southern California and I started a software company and that software company failed. And it failed somewhat miserably. We, we raised venture capital [inaudible] it was angel investment. Actually it wasn’t, it wasn’t full VC money, but we raised capital and, um, and it failed. And for a long time that really, you know, I guess you can’t really be that scarred at 15, but it was a, it was a jarring experience, I guess we should say. And it kept me from, um, from getting back into software, uh, for a long, long time, which is really my passion. Uh, and, and I, you know, I believe it’s, it’s related to my purpose.

And it wasn’t until I, um, started learning about marketing that my dreams around software really became a reality. So, um, the reason why I, I freaking love marketing is because it has really made my dreams a reality, uh, in the sense that marketing allows me to communicate the value of what I do to the world in a, in a way that the world understands. And I think so many people are stuck in their own heads with their own cute, interesting concepts that are intellectually stimulating to them. But, um, but when you’re thinking from this point of view, you’re only serving yourself and you’re only entertaining yourself and it really were choirs you to put yourself day in and day out consistently in the shoes of other people. That is what is required to do marketing, right? So really the, the thought process that is required to do good marketing is the thought process of constantly thinking from someone else’s point of view, constantly putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

And, um, and it is from that vantage point that you are best able to serve the customer and communicate your value. So I love marketing, frankly because, uh, it turned my life around. Uh, there are so many things that I have done that have not worked because I didn’t understand the basic, basic, basic fundamentals of direct sales marketing. And, uh, so that’s, that’s why I love it now. And I think people who get it, uh, everything just falls into place for them. You know, things just work out when you understand marketing and for the people who don’t get it, they can have the best product in the world and it doesn’t matter what they do, uh, nobody’s gonna buy it. And I think it’s really unfortunate. Here’s so many people, especially so many entrepreneurs talking about how great their product is, how much value there is, what a good deal it is, how they’re giving.

They’re doing so much more for so much less. And all of that means nothing to the marketplace or the end user if you don’t fundamentally understand how to position your product, uh, correctly. Uh, and in fact, marketing in my opinion, goes much earlier than that. It goes back to, um, actually creating your product with the outcomes that your, uh, that your user wants. Uh, not necessarily the features they want. Like, um, I believe it was a, uh, a Ford, um, who said, you know, if, if I had created what, um, what P if I had asked people what they wanted, they’d probably say they wanted a faster buggy. Right? So I’m not talking about creating something, uh, based on just reproducing exactly what people say, but embedded in faster buggy foster horse. Perfect. Yeah, a faster horse. But, but imbedded in faster horse is the word faster. And so the word faster is an outcome and it is, uh, it is incumbent upon the entrepreneur to figure out the best way to build a bridge between what’s, you know, where someone is in the outcome they want. And so that might not be horse, that might not be buggy, it might be the model T. so that’s the entrepreneur’s responsibility. But it is absolutely incumbent upon the entrepreneur to know the outcome, not necessarily the, the how it it gets accomplished, but to know the outcome that people are looking for.

That’s an excellent way of putting it. And I guess for you, video has been a big part of building that bridge. Um, and connecting with your audience and you know, there’s so many different ways to communicate. Why is video such a big priority for you?

Video is such a priority for me because it really allows me to connect with people, to look at, to look at them in the eye, to, um, to pace the experience, uh, and to create a timeline. It allows me to, um, when I create videos, the salad videos that I create are, are very inexpensive to produce. They don’t require a whole lot in terms of lighting and set up, but they communicate quite a lot. So the types of videos I do usually, uh, have, um, well, let’s see what, what the components are. The components are some sort of like video intro that’s very short, like a couple of seconds long. So, but some sort of like branded intro bumper, usually music at someplace. Uh, I’ll use keynote slides, I’ll use screencast. So I’ll show things like from my computer screen, uh, that aren’t in keynote. So I’ll like demo something and then there’ll be live action of me.

So those five components actually create a really compelling combination that even when you don’t have the best lighting and video camera, when you can combine some sort of professionally made bumper with music at some point with pictures of you and then swapping back between pictures of you and, uh, slides that paste the experience and allow you to post things on the screen, like just a keynote slide using a keynote presentation software on your Mac or I guess it would be a PowerPoint on your PC. And then also, you know, demonstrating websites or showing different, uh, images and things on your computer screen that, that particular combination has worked out incredibly well for me. And it allows me to connect with people on, on a number of different levels. And then of course, everyone talks about this, but I think they talk about it because it’s, it’s quite true. And you, you know, video is sort of the, the, the, uh, the, the King of all media because video can be turned into audio and that audio can be used in a podcast and then that audio can be transcribed and, uh, a decent editor can take that audio and turn it into a good blog post. So I, I really like, uh, the fact that everything is much more leveraged when I’m doing video as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And now, I mean video, that’s like the meal that you’re serving up, but there’s, there’s so much more that you’re doing with video and helping other people to do, which is so interesting. It’s sort of, you know, the, the delivery mechanism, this idea of, of getting opt-ins, of getting people to connect with you. So let’s, for listeners who aren’t that familiar with this process, give them a little bit of context about how video marketing works. And I particularly like the, the sort of dating analogy that you use to explain this. So can you explain this to listeners?

Yeah. So, so, you know, I, I use relationship metaphors to explain almost everything that I teach. And so I’m not sure about the specific example you’re talking about, but I can tell you how I go about, um, building my list with video. Um, so in, in every video that I put out, uh, I do a couple things and here are some, some solid takeaways. So if you’ve been leaning back, just sort of absorbing this experience, I think that’s fine. But, um, right now it would be a good time to sort of take notes. So at the beginning of every video, I’m sure to tell everyone what they’re going to learn in that video. So I’ll be like, like I have a, uh, a blog called the marketing show. And so at the beginning of every marketing show, I’ll say something like this. Hello everyone. My name is clay Collins and in this episode of the marketing show, I’m going to show you how to create a logo in five seconds.

That’s what you have to look forward to in this episode of the marketing show. So I’ll have that kind of intro at the beginning. Um, and what that allows me to do is it allows me to use, um, my software. I have, I have software called lead player and allows me to put an opt in box at any point within the video. And when that opt in box appears, the video stops and um, and that you then see an opt in box and that opt in box, uh, optionally it allows people to opt in, uh, to continue watching the video and they can continue watching the video without opting in, but it provides them the opportunity to do it there. So the reason why I like having an intro is because right after that is the perfect place to put that opt in box. So I can say, you know, in this episode, the marketing show, I’m gonna show you how to make a logo in five seconds.

That’s what you’ve looked forward to in this episode. The market show, and then the video stops. And then the opt in box appears that they can skip if they want. They don’t have to opt in. If, if, uh, if, if I allow people to not opt in, so, um, a opt in box appears and it says want to learn how to create a logo in five seconds, opt in below to get access to this video lesson, uh, and our marketing newsletter. And so when I don’t have that intro, it’s kind of, it’s kind of awkward. Like I don’t know where to put that opt in box, but when I do have an intro it provides the perfect opportunity for me to stop the video and put an opt in box. Um, right there.

[inaudible] and clay, this is, you know, this is such an important thing I think for listeners to note is that so much of the time I’ve noticed when you go to sales video on the web, you’ll see a buy now button or an opt in box that just sits under the video for the whole time. It’s there from the moment you land on the page. And I think this is what you call adjust just in time opt in box. And if you go back to that relationship or dating metaphor, it’s all about timing. That when you, when you meet someone, you don’t sort of pounce and say, can I get your phone number or whatever. There’s a, there’s an introduction, there’s a buildup, there’s, there’s a connection. And that’s, I think what’s so important about, about this type of idea that you’re talking,

yeah, no, so, so that’s exactly it. So now I know what you were getting at, so, right, so you wouldn’t go up to a bar. And like when I was in college, which, um, over 10 years now, but I, I apparently I look like I’m 12 and my videos and stuff, but um, you know, you wouldn’t, when I was in college, I wouldn’t go up to a girl at a bar and just be like, can I have your phone number? You’d at least talk for a little bit. And then you’d ask them for your phone number. Now, if you asked for your phone for the phone number too late, it’s kind of like, you know, you, there’s a window of opportunity and that window of opportunity closes at some point and they’re just kind of wishing you would go cause you’ve been there too long and if you ask for it too soon, you just seem like kind of a creep and like you have no social skills, social skills.

So doing it at the right point, timing is just as important as, uh, as the copy you write to get people to opt in. So what’s important is to establish behavioural inertia. So if someone, uh, goes to an opt in page and they see an opt in box, they’re immediately going to ignore it, which increases the likelihood that they’re going to ignore other opt in boxes on your website. So the way we do it is we get someone to hit play and to engage at some level. And then when they’ve seen a little of me, they’ve gotten a hint of what they’re going to get, then we show the opt in box. And so, um, and that it tends to be the perfect time because they’ve already engaged, they’ve already watched a little bit of the video and you’ve created what’s called the foot in the door technique.

If someone takes one step, right, they’ve clicked play, they’re much more likely to opt in. But if you just show the opt in box from the very beginning, things tend to not work out so well. So when people use lead player, I mean there’s hard stats to back this up. The, when people use lead player, they typically triple or quadruple their conversion rates on their block. So they triple or quadruple the percentage of people that go to their website that end up getting on their newsletter. So, um, so that’s really the kind of effect we’re talking about is, is a 300% to 400% increase in opt in rates.

That’s, you know, that’s incredibly powerful and it’s probably worth mentioning now just in case people aren’t familiar with lead player, that it’s basically a WordPress plugin right now that works with YouTube videos. So it’s integrated into a YouTube video player, right?

Uh, the woods, I mean it’s, it’s probably worth noting that it is a WordPress plugin. Uh, however it generates embed code that can be used on any site. So you don’t need to be running WordPress on the website that you’re using it on as long as you can instal a WordPress plugin anywhere, you know, on any WordPress site, you can, um, use it to generate code that you can then embed in a number of different places. So, um, so yes, yes, it is a WordPress plugin and it creates code that can be used anywhere.

And I think the most important thing is, you know, really guys I know sort of very little or nothing about websites and stuff like that. It was quite easy for me to just go into WordPress, instal it. It’s very easy to use the software. So when you hear plugin, if you not kind of that way inclined, it’s, it’s, um, very easy to use. Now I’m just on, on that topic of just in time, opt in boxes is a similar idea that you talk about, which you call a magic buy now buttons. I can explain to listeners what you’ve learned about this idea of a magic.

Sure. You know, it’s, it’s really the same just in time principle. So the principle behind the magic buy now button is that when you present someone with the opera, when you present someone the opportunity to act on something before they even know what it is, the likelihood that they will ever act on it is substantially lowered. So for example, if you, um, you know, if, if you were, Oh man, if you were selling vacation rental properties and uh, someone walked into a presentation about, uh, purchasing vacation rental properties and when they sat down, they saw the order form, they would suddenly be armed as opposed to disarmed about the experience. They would get that this is fundamentally a sales process that they are walking into. Uh, they would have no context for the order form and the likelihood that they are going to either walk out or when it does get time for you to offer them the opportunity to get in on this, uh, the likelihood that they will just leave, uh, increases or, or the likelihood that they’ll never purchase increases.

However, if you present the order form to them after they’ve heard a little bit of context, they’ve gotten some information, uh, you’ve done some things to increase their desire to show them results that other people have had it, to show some testimonials, to show them the guarantee that comes with it, you know, any kind of bonuses or, or whatever. And when it is the proper time in the sales process to present them with the order form, if that’s when they’re presented with the order form, uh, conversions can in many cases double. So with, with lead player or with frankly with any sales process, uh, uh, conversions can double when you present the buy now button when you actually get to this sales part of a presentation. So if you have a a 10 minute sales video and the first seven and a half minutes are creating some context, talking about the opportunity that exists, setting the frameworks, you know, showing people why something is important.

And then in the last two and a half minutes, you talk about, you know, the price and what comes with it and the guarantee and what they’ll get and how it’s gonna work and the bonuses and that part if you wait until you actually get into the pitch part of the video to show the buy now button and you don’t show it sooner, um, again, you can have a, a, a doubling of your conversion rate. So that’s what the magic call to action buttons are about. They’re simply, uh, called to action buttons that appear in the video at the same time that it is contextually relevant.

And this is, this is so important. This is something that so many people aren’t doing. I mean, you spoke about that idea of making the offer at the right time. It’s all about timing. Give people context in your introduction, tell them about what they’re going to be getting. And then the other thing that I’ve heard you talk about is this idea of often people in sales videos finishing with a long outro or summary or, or animated bumper and, and the risk there is that they start to lose.

Yeah, I mean there’s, there’s a huge problem going on, uh, with, uh, long bumpers. And so both at the, at the beginning of videos, in the end, the videos, we’ve started making our bumpers about a second and a half long maximum. In fact, I have one bumper that’s literally, um, uh, you know, 0.7, five seconds long. And you know, you, you and I both know James Schramko, his bumper is like bam in and out. And it’s important for there to be that branding there. So it’s important to have a bumper, but the longer that bumper is, some people have like 13 second bumpers, but the longer that bumper is, uh, the, the higher your dropout rate is going to be. And so a lot of times people have the bumper. Um, in bumper is just like your intro animation with like your logo and maybe some music or something, but uh, but it’s important that your bumper be short and that you, you actually don’t have one at the end of your video.

So if you have one at the beginning of your video, it’s good to actually start out with you. Like you might say, like for example, at the beginning of my videos, here’s where I’ll put the intro bumper, which is very short. I’ll just be like, hello everyone. My name is clay Collins and this episode of the marketing show, I’m going to show you the magic by now button that can double your, uh, your conversion rates. That’s what you have looked forward to in this episode of the marketing show. And then boom, bumpers in bumpers out. And then we get back to content. So it’ll actually start with me, moved to the bumper, then back to the content and that kind of shakes it up like it, it sort of shifts people’s scenes. They see me bumper me. That’s better than just like bumper me, you know, it kind of breaks it up a little bit.

And at the very end of a video, if you have a call to action where you want someone to opt in or you want someone to check out a product or you want someone to buy, it’s good to not end with one of these bumpers because you want to end right at the call to action and it might feel uncomfortable to you. Um, but it’s going to increase conversion rates and it’s going to be better off your business and it’s going to be better off for your customer if you truly are selling something of value. So the way you might end a sales video is, is you might say like, let’s say you’re selling a, an iPhone. So I might end with this. iPhone is great. It’s going to change your life. It’s changed the lives of millions of people so far and it’s available for, um, for one 97 and the iPhone store now go there and buy it.

You know, or maybe you wouldn’t say go down and buy it, but you’d be like, um, supplies are limited and you just like stop. You wouldn’t say, alright, thanks so much everyone for listening. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and uh, you know, I look forward to talking to you next time and, uh, have a wonderful day and then transition to some long 13 second bumper because what people do at that point is they end up tuning out and, and transitioning to this boring thing that you say at the end. So you wanna you wanna end with your call to action. Then boom, just cut it short

that, that makes a lot of sense. Then. I bet you have statistics to show that once you get to near the end of the video and that call to action and then there’s some fluff afterwards, I bet you would have a graph which you would just see, you know, it, it would start to plummet. People would go away and you’d lose them because, um, they’ve got what they needed to hear. They’ve heard the pitch, they’ve got the story and they’d just started to now.

Yeah, I mean it, one of the fundamental [inaudible] and again this, this goes back to dating. This goes to sales and this goes to online marketing. The best thing you can ever do when making an offer is to say your offer and then shut up, like literally. So like it, let’s go back to dating metaphor. So your, your, uh, back when I was in college, you’re asking you out, Hey, do you want to hang out on Thursday? And you just stop. Like, Hey, do you want to go grab a drink on Thursday? And you just stop. You don’t go. Like, cause it’d be really nice and I know this place and like maybe it’d be great if you know, and I heard you like low, you just say it and you just shut up and you just wait and um, and see how they respond. Um, and it’s the same with sales. So many people just rap the, the pitch and the offer with just so much like bloated nonsense. And it’s important to say what you have to say. And just stop and they’re going to decide what they’re going to do one way or another. Um, and, and, and to soften that offer with just a whole bunch of bloated nonsense language. Uh, absolutely. And this has proven time and time again, uh, statistically, but it lowers conversion rates, you know, 30 to 40% in a lot of cases.

I think that’s what they call talking yourself out of the sale. And it goes back to this idea of people’s discomfort with silence and space and almost like an insecurity and needing to fill that space. I think what you’re saying is so important. If you can just say what you need to say and then send it over to the other person because that’s their time. Now you’ve, you’ve said your thing, now it’s their chance to just sit with it, think about it, and then take action. That’s so good.

No, I think, I think that in my opinion, marketing is not about getting the sale. It is about being relevant enough to force people, not coercively, but by the, by the salience or by the force of presence that you have not, I’m not talking about being forceful or coercive, but when you are by your very nature, a fork in the road or when your product is a fork in the road where after they encounter it, they need to make a decision. One way your customer needs to make a decision one way or another, but they can’t stay on the same path. When you’ve, when you are relevant that actually your existence or the existence of your product is a fork in the road. That’s when you know you’ve made it. Because if, if, if, personally, if I got every single person in my market to make a decision one way or another about my product, I’d be a billionaire because the vast majority of people would say no.

But because I got every single person to make a decision one way or another, the raw number of people that purchase would be much greater. And so to the extent that you can create forks in the road, and again, it’s up to them and they absolutely need to do what’s best for them and you need to encourage them to do what’s best for them, but you also need to encourage them to make a decision. And so in my opinion, and in my experience in the experience of my clients and the data I’ve collected over the course of several years, um, the best thing you can do in your marketing is not necessarily to get people to make a decision, but to create a fork in the road so that after people have encountered you, they simply, their life cannot be the same. That they must make a conscious decision about whether or not they are going to, uh, move forward in their life with your product or without it. But they must make a decision because you’ve created that kind of dichotomy.

And they say that in sales, one of the biggest mistakes people make is not actually asking for the sale. Like, I’ve read about some crazy figure that 30 to 40% of salespeople just don’t actually ask for the sale at the end. So I mean this is not, you’re not necessarily asking, um, people to buy something but you’re asking them to take action. And the other important thing in case some people find it a little bit intimidating or am I going to put people off by demanding that they put their email address in is that you don’t have to, with lead player, um, you can give people the option, right?

Right. So, so part of the, so yeah. So with lead player again, um, with lead player, you have the option to turn on, uh, opt-in skipping, which means that below the, like when the opt in box appears, you, you, you can allow your visitors to see a link that says, no, I don’t want to opt in to watch this video. I want to watch this video without opting in. Like there’s a little link that they can click on and the video continues to play. But because you force a decision one way or the other and the way they decide is completely up to them and most people will decide not to opt in, right? That’s just the math. But because folks are making a decision, one way or another, your opt in rate will increase. Cause when you have a sidebar opt in box, most people are not making a decision one way or another about that opt in box. However, when it’s in the video that they’ve already started watching and you show it, then they do have to make a decision again one way or another. And it’s perfectly fine when someone decides not to opt in. And if they don’t opt in, they won’t be asked to opt in again. It’s for another video. They’re just asked once. Um, but they, uh, they are asked to make a decision. Um, in essence,

absolutely. You know, we’ve talked a lot about timing, delivering your message at the right time. The other really important thing is delivering the right message at the right time. And I think one of the other cool features about lead player is that you can simply update the call to action on every single video of yours. So can you give listeners a sort of context of when they might use a feature like this?

Yeah, so most people have very generic calls to action. So they might have an opt in box on the side of their blog or website that says one updates from us enter your email address here. And that’s very generic. It’s not specific. It doesn’t in on the needs, uh, or it doesn’t zero in on the mindset that people are in and with, with lead player. Uh, when the opt in box appears, uh, you can write a customised call to action that is specific to that video. So for example, uh, let’s go back to the episode of the marketing show where I talk about how to create a logo, uh, in five seconds, which I really do show people how to do that. Um, but in that video, when the call to action appears, it says, want to learn how to create a logo in five seconds in your email address below and we’ll send you marketing lessons like this on a regular basis or, you know, enter your email address and to see the rest of this lesson, to watch video lessons like this on a weekly basis.

And even though everyone across all my videos are opting into the same list, the call to action to get people to opt in is customised to where they are psychologically at where they’re watching that video. So what most people do is, again, they’ve got a generic call to action in the sidebar, but by entering the conversation that the user or the visitor is having in their own mind, we get a higher conversion rate. Who, I don’t remember who said this, but they said there’s a famous copywriter. It was probably Eugene Schwartz. Um, and he said, or, or day David Ogilvy was either David Ogilvy or Eugene Schwartz and um, one of them said, uh, the two things, uh, two interesting points and it’s, it’s, they said marketing is about entering the conversation that the, uh, that the customer is having in their own mind when they’re going through the content.

Uh, and someone else said, uh, believe it was, uh, the same person. They said, if you can describe someone’s needs to them better than they can describe it to themselves, then they will implicitly believe and trust that you have the, that the, that you have the solution to their problems. So merely by describing a problem to someone better than they can describe it to themselves, they will believe that you have a solution anyway. The first one was more relevant. It’s about entering the conversation that they’re having and that you actually started. So it’s kind of kind of cool in the sense that you start a video that gets someone to start thinking about things in their own head and then you provide them an opt in box that is, is not only timed right, it’s not only um, right after the intro. So you’ve sort of piqued their interest, but it’s also a completely contextually relevant to the content of the video that they just watched. And so that combination of timing, uh, plus contextual relevance of the opt in text, uh, creates just an enormous increase in, uh, in your list building. Uh, um, conversion rate. That is so powerful because if you have a segmented

email list and you have groups of people broken up by their areas of interest or need, you can deliver a particular message to them at that particular time. So it may be, Hey, for this group over here, I’ve got a webinar coming up next week, which is going to answer the challenges that this group is grappling with. Whereas it may not be so relevant for this other group. And you can deliver messages specifically for them that are going to help them with what they need at that time.

Yup, exactly. No, that’s, that’s spot on

clay. Custom thumbnails is something that I’ve heard you speak about and this is something that you can create in lead player because with a lot of video players, they just give you a sort of automatic option of a few stills from your video. So I’m just curious to know if you’ve done research or testing on the results of having a custom thumbnail that you’ve created for your video.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, so in, in uh, in many cases you can increase anywhere from like 50% to 100%, um, increase in the number of people that press play on a video. If you have a, um, you know, a, a seductive thumbnail that encourages people to watch, like simply by writing on the thumbnail, click the play button to watch, um, you can get, uh, you can get an increase, um, by, by having the most provocative image that exists in your entire video. If you have that as the thumbnail that can get people to watch, you know, a lot of times with YouTube, they just pick a random, uh, some different thumbnails for you to choose from. They’ll pick like one that’s like 25% in another one that’s like 55 or 50%, and another one that’s like 75% in and, and you’re just kinda stuck with what you have there.

So if your mouth is hanging open or whatever, uh, it’s just tough luck. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s one thing that we built into lead players, the ability to select your own thumbnail for the video. And an another feature that I’m, I’m really proud of and, uh, might be the most powerful feature that we have for a lot of people is the ability to set global calls to action across your entire site. Um, so for example, you can make it so that site-wide across all your videos at the very end of the video, uh, it can say, Hey, my book launches today, click here to, um, uh, click here to check it out. So rather than modifying the call to action at the end of all 100 or 200 or 300 videos, you can set a global call to action across all the videos on your entire site that, um, that talk about something that is going on that day.

So like if I were doing a webinar on a given day, uh, or if I were launching a new product or if I had released a new service, or if there’s a new client video, like, like let’s say I make for clients and there’s a new client video I wanted to show to everyone, uh, I could make it so that when someone comes to any video on my site, even a video that I posted three years ago, when they get to the end of that video, they’re going to see a call to action button that says, um, Hey, I just, um, you know, I, I, I’m launching a book today. Click here to check it out. Or, um, Hey, I just, um, I just created my Facebook page. Click here to go to the Facebook page and like it. Or, um, Hey, I’m going to be on television this afternoon at 4:00 PM, you know, um, get online or you know, feel free to watch me online and let me know what you think or like whatever is going on that is event based that’s happening in that day. You can, you can set that globally so that in in one fell swoop you can um, propagate that button that appears at the end of all the videos. You can propagate that across all the videos on your website.

Absolutely. That just goes back to what we were talking about, having the right message at the right time. And the cool thing about lead player is it makes it so easy for you to do that. Now clay, um, we’re getting close to the end of the interview, but one thing I wanted to make sure that I asked you about is, you know, when I mentioned to people that I was going to be interviewing you and I told them a little bit about lead player and how it works connected with YouTube, that, you know, most of them said, wow, how, how is that possible and what does YouTube think about that? And, um, you know, do they know about and that sort of thing. I’m sure you’ve, you’ve been asked about that, but you know, what do, what does YouTube think about? Yes. Yeah. So,

so we’re in the business of being compliant with YouTube. We go to all their developer conferences. We’re on their developer list. Um, I’ve shown, I’ve personally demoed lead player to their, um, to their development relations team or their developer relations team. So a couple things to keep in mind here. One is that Google and YouTube have released a, an API that allows software developers and even encourages them to build their own players that play YouTube videos. So they not only are okay with this, but they encourage it and, um, they’ve even reviewed the code of lead player and, uh, they’re, they’re fine with it. We’ve shown it to them. Um, you know, they’ve seen it. Um, and again, they’re perfectly happy with it because the way lead player works is it doesn’t inhibit any of the functions of YouTube. Close captioning still works, links still work.

Um, if you’re using lead player on top of a video that has ads, which just, you know, I would encourage you to turn the ads off, but if you do have a YouTube video with ads, those ads are going to show because we’re not messing around or interfering with any of the core, uh, you know, YouTube functionality. So what lead player does is it gives you all the benefits of having your video on YouTube. So some of the benefits are you have free hosting. Uh, also you benefit from being on a video on the, on the world’s largest video platform. And that in, in and of itself can get you a whole lot of views. We get a third of our views from YouTube, which means that if we weren’t on YouTube, we’d be leaving a third of our video views. Um, we’d be leaving those on the table.

Um, so there’s an enormous benefit to having your videos on YouTube. And when we embed those videos on our own site with lead player, we can collect opt-ins and we can embed calls to action in those videos, which helps us get more sales and helps us build our lists. So we get all the benefits of being on YouTube without the drawbacks of being on YouTube. Some of the drawbacks are at the end of a lot of YouTube videos, it shows other suggested videos. When you’re using lead player, you don’t see suggested videos, you see the call to action. Um, you know, with a lot of versions of lead PLA or with, with the YouTube player. That’s sort of the default one that most people use. The players kind of clunky and uh, you know, unwieldy and not visually attractive. Uh, lead player makes YouTube videos look very, very attractive.

Um, the YouTube video player doesn’t allow you to collect opt-ins. Have calls to action, it doesn’t allow you to re um, to remove the ability to pause a video. It doesn’t allow you to auto start a video. And when you’re using lead player, you can have a video auto if you want. Not the, all these things are optional, but you could have a video auto start if you want. You can have a video, not display a timeline if you want. You can customise the player, uh, in, in ways that, um, that fit your needs. And you can also vary the, the visual look and feel. So what we wanted to do was give everyone the benefits of being on the world’s largest video platform within, you know, and also this world’s second largest search engine. A lot of people don’t think of YouTube as a search engine, but it absolutely is.

So we wanted to give people all the benefits of being on the world’s largest video platform, the world’s second largest video search engine, I mean the world’s second largest search engine. And yet we wanted to have them all the, to have all the benefits of the most conversion optimised video player. And lead generating player that we’ve ever seen. So we wanted to sort of give folks the best of those, those two worlds. And what’s cool is that when a video plays in lead player, it counts towards your YouTube view count. So if you embed a video on your own website with lead player and it gets watched 100,000 times, um, that video shows up and YouTube is 100,000 views, which means that YouTube is more likely to share it with, with other people. So they’re more likely to promote it for you because they can see that other people like it. So again, we wanted to merge the best of conversion optimization design and the best of uh, uh, lead generation and list building technology with the world’s largest video platform.

Absolutely. And I’ve started using lead player recently and I can attest that it does all this stuff. It’s really easy to use and it’s something that I, that I highly recommend. So guys, we’re getting close to the, to the end now. And I think clay would be great. Just to finish off and sum up, we’ve spoken quite a bit about lead player, but in a larger context, we’ve really just spoken about video marketing. So if we could give listeners just some key fundamentals and some actions that they can take away for their own videos, regardless of whether they’re using a lead player or not, the same principles apply. So if you had to break it down, what would you say are the most fundamental things for people to bear in mind? The key points for successful video marketing? So

yeah, the great, great questions. So, um, uh, first and foremost, make your calls to action, uh, contextually relevant. So make them relevant to what people are seeing. If you’re showing a video about dog sledding, mentioned dog sledding in your call to action, don’t just say, join into, you know, join my newsletter. The second thing is that timing is everything. Uh, don’t ask for someone to take a specific action right off the bat. Build a relationship with them. And then during the opportune time, ask for, ask them for what you want them to do. Uh, it, you know, invite them. Actually not ask them for what you want them to do, but invite them to go on a journey with you, but give them the decision to do it one way or the other. Um, and, and the, uh, another piece of this is when you are, um, when you are stating a call to action in your video, maybe you’re in inviting someone to get on a free coaching call with you, or you’re inviting someone to join your email list.

Tell them, uh, tell them the opportunity that exists. Invite them to do it, and then stop. Um, uh, another, uh, piece of this I guess is also the importance of building expectation in your videos. It’s always important for people to have a sense of the journey that they’re about to embark on. Uh, you know, in that video, if it’s a, you know, if it’s a fiction video or like a movie, that’s different. But if you’re doing a nonfiction video, give people a sense of what the roadmap is before they go on the journey with you. And that’s a good way to get people watch all the way until the end. If you kind of give them a hint of what’s going to come and then you like fulfil that towards the end of the video.

Awesome. Some brilliant points there. And I think if listeners bear that stuff in mind and implement it, it’s going to have a huge impact on their videos. So clay, thank you so much for joining me today on the web video marketing show and speaking to me. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you and I think, you know, one of the cool things is that, you know, on the one hand you’re a software guy and you get the whole technical side of things, but you also have this other side where you’re able to articulate it and communicate it, you know, really clearly. And that’s just been awesome. So thank you.

Absolutely, Ryan. It is, it is a pleasure to be on this podcast. Just, just, um, um, just, uh, just a word of gratitude to you. This is incredibly well put together and you obviously aren’t screwing around and it is, um, it’s, it’s awesome to watch you, um, just, you know, build up your platform. This sounds like a, an amazing podcast. And having been on this now, uh, I can’t wait to, uh, to just go through the your entire podcast history and hear what you’ve done.

Oh, thank you so much clay, for people who want to learn more about you and connect with you, where’s a good place for them to go?

Yeah. Um, so I’m at marketing show.com and um, you know, maybe we can, can leave a link to a to lead player somewhere on this blog post as well.

I will definitely be linking to lead player and to places where people can find out more information about you so they can, um, continue the journey and, and continue the, the, the, um, the conversation. So thank you again, clay.

Awesome. Thank you so much Ryan.

All right, listeners, as I said, if you’re interested in checking out lead player, head over to web video marketing.com, forward slash clay dash Collins and you’ll find a link there to lead player. And I highly recommended. It’s something that I’m using in my business and it’s just a brilliant way of leveraging YouTube to capture email addresses. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode. If you like what you’re hearing and you’re getting value, please head over to iTunes and put a review on the site. Would love to hear what you think would love to get your feedback. And if you want to get in touch, head over to the blog and send me a message or ask a question and I’m be happy to answer on the show. Stay tuned for another episode of the web video marketing show coming up in two weeks time.