3 Ways A Videographer Can Differentiate From Competition

On this episode we talk about 3 ways a videographer can differentiate from competition: 

• Differentiation by service - Talk more about your process. How is your process different than your competition?
• Differentiation by niche - Pick a niche. Is it corporate headshots? wedding? babies?
• Differentiation by convenience - How you can make life easier for your target audience?

Christian: [00:00:00] Ohyeah. So we have a ribbon cutting coming up next month. So we have, I mean, wedon't have a lot of information right now, but I think there's going to be a flamethrower.

Aaron: [00:00:12] Aventriloquist.

Christian: [00:00:13] Ventriloquist.I think we're going to bring in an elephant.

Aaron: [00:00:17] Ithink there was going to be like donkey rides, but I haven't- Just kind ofdepends on whether or not the donkeys can get out.

Christian: [00:00:21] Yeah.

Narrator: [00:00:25] Thisis the Marketing Natives, providing actionable ways to grow, improve, andsucceed in your business, and now your hosts, Christian and Aaron.

Aaron: [00:00:39] Howdy,y'all, and welcome to another episode of The Marketing Natives. This is goingto be- Again I think every episode's really good, but this is going to be agreat episode because we interact with videographers a lot. And hopefully theywill get a lot out of this because I think it will really, really help them. Sotoday's episode is three ways a videographer can differentiate from theircompetition, and we know that video marketing is huge right now. So there isprobably a lot of competition out there, and how do you differentiate? Sonumber one is differentiate by your brand service. Same thing we have here isto differentiate- Differentiate.

Christian: [00:01:19] Differ-entiate.

Aaron: [00:01:20] Yeah.So Christian uses that, and it's definitely a difficult word to say a milliontimes. So differentiate your brand by your niche and differentiate your brandby your convenience. So I'm probably not going to use the word differentiatefor that anymore. So let's just get started here by differentiating - dang it -your brand by service.

Christian: [00:01:43] Yes.So I mean, the number one thing here is service. I mean, we call it service,but it's really your process. It's very good to one, be very transparent aboutyour process, you know, from the creation of the idea of this video to sharingwhat we call the storyboards. So if we were making websites, this would be kindof like the wireframe area where, you know, we kind of- Before we get into thecoding part, we want to show, okay, this is the skeleton. This is what we wantto include in this website. The same goes with video. Videos should have, youknow, the initial idea, and then the next step should be, you know, thatstoryboard creation. And then you know, follow along with a process and havethis process be something that it's unique for your business, and it'ssomething that a lot of videographers- We won't say they don't necessarily do,but it's something that they could definitely be better at sharing thestoryboards with the client, letting them know what's exactly going to happenthroughout the video, that way you can actually collect also a lot ofcollateral, images, text, fonts. If you need sound, if you need voice over, allthose things will be figured out right there during the storyboard.

Aaron: [00:03:11] Iwas going to say it's also beneficial if you're a video marketing company andyou're working with another agency like ourselves, then that part of it reallymakes it seamless too 'cause you get to the end of the process and you knowexactly what's going to happen. You can look at one singular document,preferably, and you can find out, hey, this is exactly how the flow is supposedto happen. What's going to happen in this video? We're not just recording it tomake it look good. We're trying to help this other customer grow theirbusiness, and by setting up that flow and that process that Christian mentionmakes everybody happier because clients more than likely are visual as well.And they don't want to just be told, hey, so we're going to do this really coolvideo. It's going to have like this really good shot of your product, and thenthe end of it is going to have this really good offer. Okay, well, I trust you.Thank you, but you know, they're still a little uneasy about that process, andit's just- I don't know. It's not a good experience. So doing that, you reallystand out.

Christian: [00:04:14] Yep.

Aaron: [00:04:14] Thenext thing is to again differentiate your brand by niche. So take a niche. Ifyou're great at "About" videos. Maybe you're great at, you know,explainer videos. I don't know what Christian's- Christian's over here planwith an umbrella. It's raining right now, but he's just distract me. So it'sjust whatever, but anyway, it's to get into your niche, and do your "About"vid- Like for example, I know a lot of people who are really good at the"About" videos because they tell the story of the company. They canwrap it up in 30-45 seconds. That should be something specific you do, and justsell the those types of videos instead of saying hey, I do everything. Youcould talk about that later, but your foot in the door is very- It's very easyfor you to get your foot in the door if you are doing something that isspecific.

Christian: [00:05:04] Yeah,like me playing with this umbrella is very specific. No, just kidding. Butyeah, like I feel like something that's new and hot right now is- What is thatcalled? The drones. Yes, like drone.

Aaron: [00:05:18] Drone?

Christian: [00:05:18] Yeah.Drone footage.

Aaron: [00:05:19] Whatare those drones called?

Christian: [00:05:23] No,but like drone footage. It's something that, you know, is very hot and popularright now, and it's something that you could definitely make a niche out ofjust specifically doing drone footage for a company. And it's something that,you know, if you're very good at, you can definitely be the drone person whereother videographers around the area go to you to get their drone footage.

Aaron: [00:05:48] Iwas going to say it's required by, I think, the FCC now where you have to takea class. You have to actually be certified for commercial use. So you can'tjust grab a drone and throw it up there and say, hey, I'm going to make somemoney off of this. It's actually- That's actually illegal now. So that's agreat niche to be in because not everybody can actually fly a drone and use itfor commercial use. So that is a very good example of it, and I actually- Theonly thing that I know about people using a drone for is like real estate, butit could be used for so many different things.

Christian: [00:06:21] Ohyeah. I know of a pool making company- Pool construction company that they use-I mean, they create waterparks and custom pools, and they use drone footage toshowcase their work.

Aaron: [00:06:37] Right.Otherwise you'd just never be able to see it. That's a very good example. Allright. So this is our favorite part.

Christian: [00:06:43] Whoa.What is going on? Well, if you've been listening to this podcast, this is thearea where we like to talk about our business which is BitBranding. We'relocated in Allen, Texas. We are a creative digital marketing company, and ourcore purpose is to help other businesses grow. If you were listening to thispodcast, we also have a website where we share a lot of our blog posts. Weshared detailed information on how to do different things. We also have a Tipfor Tip show on Facebook. So we like to give a lot of education and freeinformation to all the business owners because we want to help you grow. Nowsomething that we're doing right now is helping you grow by using reputationmanagement or reviews online. So if- And actually this is really good for thisepisode right here. You know, if you're a videographer and you want todifferentiate yourself from the competition, have really good reviews and notjust good reviews but recent reviews. A lot of companies out there, they maythink that, you know, just because they have 20-30 reviews and they're all fivestar, but then you look at the review dates and they're from 2014 or 2013.People look at those things. You don't think people will, but people look atall of those things. They look at the date of the reviews. They look atspecific reviews. They look at, you know, your star rating if it's a 3.4 or3.5. So it's very important to be on top of reputation management of yourreviews, and we offer a very easy way for you to do that. But before you evenlike think about us and using us, we want to help you out by just giving you afree report and tell you exactly where you're at online. So we'll give you anoverall rating on how you're doing online. We'll tell you exactly where yourreviews are coming from, and I think our service covers over what? 200?

Aaron: [00:08:47] Yeah,200 +  review sites.

Christian: [00:08:49] 200+review sites. So we're talking about Yelp, Google, Facebook, and then industryspecific websites that you might not even know about. So if you definitely wantthis review report, go to bitbranding.co, and go to the contact page and justsend us an e-mail. If you want to go a little bit more personal, just go to ourFacebook page and send us a message right there on Facebook and say, hey, I waslistening to your podcast, and I want that free report. See how I'm doingonline.

Aaron: [00:09:17] Onething that you almost forgot that I told you that it would be last.

Christian: [00:09:20] Anelephant.

Aaron: [00:09:23] Ithink there was going to be like donkey rides, but I haven't- It just kind ofdepends on whether or not the donkeys can get out.

Christian: [00:09:28] Yeah.When we know about that stuff, we'll definitely let you know.

Aaron: [00:09:32] Right.We have to get back to the trainers and, you know, work out details, and Ithink that Christian may even create a little flyer or landing page that we'llhave in the next episodes or so that we recorded that way you guys can go thereand find out more details because we want to make this- I mean, you only getone ribbon cutting unless you move to a new place. So we want to make this asbig as possible. So we would enjoy it if you'd come and join us.

Christian: [00:09:54] Yes,absolutely.

Aaron: [00:09:56] Allright. Back to our show, and I almost forgot to do this because this is themost important part so you guys don't get distracted and you know that we'reback to the show.

Christian: [00:10:07] Thereyou go. Now they know.

Aaron: [00:10:07] Nowyou know that we're back to the show. So our third and final tip right here fora videographer to differentiate from the competition is to differentiate yourbrand by convenience. Now Christian wrote this one so I kind of want to hearwhat he's thinking by convenience.

Christian: [00:10:25] Allright. So I mean, the word convenience. What is convenience to you?

Aaron: [00:10:29] Convenienceto me could mean that I'm just at my business. You come out and shoot, and I'm,you know, potentially sleeping or I'm doing-

Christian: [00:10:36] Sothe grand idea behind this is just to think about ways to make it easier foryour clients to use your services. I don't think I have specifics in here, butjust think about those little things that will make their life easier.Actually, I did write some things in here. For example, you know, as avideographer once you're done with the project, are you willing to drop thefiles on their cloud services? So let's say your clients use Dropbox or theyuse Google Drive or they use box . com. Are you willing to, yeah, go in andjust drop the files in there? And they don't have to worry about anything else.It's in their possession. That's something it's a convenience to the client. Iknow we would love to work with videographers that would just say, hey, it's inyour drive, and we don't have to worry about downloading anything or organizinganything.

Aaron: [00:11:28] Right.It's labeled.

Christian: [00:11:28] Yeah,it's label and in the right location and everything. I mean, that's somethingthat would definitely differentiate you from competition because other peoplemight not be doing that. Another thing is like are you willing to providemultiple variations of the project? You know, maybe it's- Again it's just maybea little different service that you offer where, yeah, as part of your servicesand the way that you do business, you give the same file or the same product indifferent formats.

Aaron: [00:11:58] Thatreminds me of the alternate endings. Remember those really popular in, like,2000s alternate endings to movies?

Christian: [00:12:04] Yeah.

Aaron: [00:12:05] Maybeit's the alternate ending to your video project.

Christian: [00:12:08] Thatcould be too.

Aaron: [00:12:09] Hey,the end of this thing, we can do the free donut or we could do the free drink.Now you have either one of them, and it didn't take you too much more work, butit also helps you stand out. But I like the alternate endings or the, you know,the variation with it, and that is convenient because then you can look at bothof them and say, hey, this is- You know, we don't have to worry about re -recording. You already kind of thought about this ahead of time. So it saves abunch of time if we want to do something like that in the future.

Christian: [00:12:35] Yeah.So I mean overall, the convenience just has to do with you, as a videographer,being flexible with your clients and being able to basically meet theirdemands.

Aaron: [00:12:46] Cool.And I think that, yeah, a lot of people don't necessarily do that or they don'tstand out that way. So that would really be a difference there. Especially willingto travel. I think that's another piece too. Just to- Hey, you know, we're onlythinking locally here, but if you're thinking, you know, hey, I'm inCalifornia, and I love your work. Be willing to fly out there. Don't try to getthem to come out here or to, you know, do something different, but just bewilling to fly out there or send a team out there to get the quality of thework that they need. All right. That is the end of this episode. We want tothank you guys for tuning in, listening in. If you came over from iHeart Radio,please let us know because that is a new platform we're on. Christian got us onthere. We're working on some other spots as well, but thank you guys forlistening wherever you're at. And if you would, please leave us an honestrating and review. We love reading those, and we'll definitely give you a shoutout as we gather more of those reviews. So it's very simple. Actually it's notas simple. Maybe we need to create a video. It's really not that simple, butplease go leave a review on iTunes. It really helps our ratings and helps usreach more people.

Christian: [00:13:58] Yeah.Holla.

Aaron: [00:13:59] Yeah.See you next week. Talk to you next week. Dang it.