The Content Strategy for Videos

This is an extract from the Tom Ferry Podcast Experience with Jason Pantana and me, where we discussed the content strategy for videos

The Funnel

Think about the videos in three different levels of engagement. You have probably heard of Know, Like, and Trust, or Top, Middle, and Bottom of the funnel, or maybe you’ve heard of Why, How, and What. The social networks and Google call it Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion; Those are all the same.

Start with why; you’re talking about who you are, your family, what you have for dinner, why you go to church on Sunday, and why you really like the Dallas Cowboys, whatever it might be. It may have nothing to do with your business, but it attracts attention.

So you make one-minute videos about what you care about and who you are. So it could be simple things like I went to Whole Foods this morning, and this woman cut me off in the parking lot, and I was going to yell at her, but then I remembered everyone was dealing with something, so be kind.

So you’re just telling a story that reflects your values. Any story can reflect value. So that’s the top of the funnel.

The second is knowledge. If you are in the real estate business, talk about that day’s update on interest rates, the housing market, where you should buy your home, and so on.

So, you’re sharing your knowledge in one-minute snippets, not a webinar, because that’s all people have time for. What do I need to do about the inspection or insurance or working with a broker, how much can I afford? Or how do I buy and sell at the same time, if at all? Just to build that relationship. You haven’t earned an hour of their time yet, so you have a little snippet.

And then the bottom is What, which is your call to action, which is, I’m Tom Ferry. Call me if you want to be able to scale your brokerage, or I’m Jason Pantana, and I put together this report for you. Put in your email address and learn how to do such and such.

You’re going to do all these different pieces. So think about that as “Why, How, and What.” Who you are as a person, sharing your knowledge, which is behind the scenes, and the bottom is you saying, “Contact me, Reach out to me”.

And then the next time they search, they want to refinance their home; they’re looking for something, like a specific neighborhood; whatever it is, they’re on Google, and they’re searching and then three agents pop up. Which one are they going to click on? It’s obvious.

Is the Sequence Important?

A common question that people ask me is when doing the Why, How, and What is if there is a sequence where they have to have seen the why before they see the how, or can it just be all of it blitzing?

You follow the sequence in major markets like New York and LA, where you build remarketing audiences. That way, you’re building a relationship.

However, if you have a small team and it’s a five- or ten-mile radius around your office, or your area is small, then you can have all of these, especially with Facebook and Google changing privacy.

The Algorithm Takes Care of Categorizing

Here’s what’s beautiful algorithmically. This has changed in the last couple of years. The system will figure it out for you. That is just magic. That just blew my mind because, for the last 20 years, I’ve been manually organizing, building this complex web, and figuring out how this whole user experience has to happen. You now put everything in the machine and it does everything for you.

And so for someone like me who has made his living off math and optimization and likes building these really complex things, this is just really scary. It’s like, it puts me out of business.

But then I think, okay, wait, if the system’s smart, how do I make the robot work for me? The robot’s not making your videos. So the way you’re going to beat the competition is to make these short little videos and have the system do the work for you. That’s it. If you get that, you are going to win.

Interested to know more? Here is the full episode:

Want to get started learning how you can leverage the power of videos to tell your story? Here is the One-Minute Video Course that can help!