Jeremy Balius: Okay. There’s so much I wanna unpack. I so much, I just wanna unpack so much within that. when you talk about the TikTokification of LinkedIn.

Jeremy Balius: What does that mean?

Daniel Borba: So it’s really taking place and it’s really changing how people consume video and how companies create, uh, experiences for those audiences,

right now, LinkedIn is testing app features that are just a feed of video content was like the biggest, boldest move that LinkedIn did Why? Because they entered the video consumption world and, uh, so now they’re competing directly with YouTube shorts and YouTube Instagram, Facebook, and, , TikTok.

Jeremy Balius: Welcome to Go to Market Playmakers, where we bring you winning go-to market strategies from the industry’s best. Each episode we sit down with B2B Tech and SaaS founders, executives, and industry Playmakers who’ve mastered the art of taking products and services to market and expanded their reach.

Whether you’re scaling a startup, refining your go-to-market motion, or driving revenue growth through a channel program or partner ecosystem, this is where you’re gonna learn the plays that work. I’m your host, Jeremy Bayless. Today’s theme is Video Marketing Strategy for B2B. I’m very excited because I’m joined by Daniel Borba from Spark Portal Daniel’s, the founder and CEO of Spark Portal, a company that’s revolutionizing video marketing for SaaS and B2B businesses.

In this conversation, we go deep in the way that visual storytelling has been changing for B2B. What leaders need to be mindful of how demand for video content is increasing and how leaders can meet that demand with sustainable, strategies and tactics

I really hope you get as much value from this conversation as I did. Let’s get into it.

 Hey, Daniel, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks so much for being [00:02:00] here.

Daniel Borba: Heck yeah, man. Thanks for having me.

Jeremy Balius: I’m super stoked about what we’re talking about today. I’m, getting really excited about digging deep into, into video strategy. But before we, get into all things B2B video marketing, love to hear your origin story. How did you get to where you are today?

Daniel Borba: It depends how far back you wanna go to.

But, uh, I, I started doing freelance work and then we went to, uh, you know, I, I, I, I, I sort of landed into the software world doing explainer videos for, for that world. And then I said, maybe I could just turn it into a business. But I quickly figured out that, man, it was just so hard to land. Recurrent projects.

And, and I knew that video was growing in demand, so I said, well, let me come up with a new business model. And so that’s kind of how, how I came up with Spark Portal. But the, the original thing that I, that I did or that I got into, you know, was animation, freelance animation. So, yeah.

Jeremy Balius: Yeah. Yeah. So within, developing animation and explainer videos and, and you’re exposed to a lot of business leaders across a whole range of technologies and SaaS companies, in that period of, of freelancing and then starting the agency, how is video marketing evolving?

What have you seen take place over the last few years?

Daniel Borba: It’s, uh, it’s very interesting. So, uh, video is growing on demand, that there’s no secret on that, uh, about that. So that’s definitely, uh, it’s not a change that happened two years ago, but if you keep track in terms of video consumption, it, it cha, it, it, it changes dramatically every year, like it keeps going every year.

Right? Every year is like. Better and more than last year. Hmm. Uh, so that’s definitely, that’s why I bring that up because although it’s not a change that it’s like, well, yeah, nothing has changed. But it’s a, that’s a big factor because it means that you cannot do enough video content. Like you can always do more in benefit.

So that’s a big thing, big change. Uh, and then another change is the TikTok ification of LinkedIn. I. I think that, uh, LinkedIn is changing the way, uh, B2B and software, uh, business is conducted. And that means you need to have a game plan for a better, more robust, uh, distribution plan for your video content and LinkedIn.

It’s a, it’s a huge, huge, probably the biggest part of all of that, of, of that distribution plan. So, uh, those are, I would say the two of the biggest changes. We’ve seen in the last two years. And I guess I can add one more. You, you asked for two. I’m gonna give you, gimme, gimme, gimme ’em all. Yeah. So the, the third one is, I would say so, uh, you know, long form video content, uh, has been around for a while and it’s still a great place.

It still, it still has great value, but what we’re seeing is that, uh, mo higher volume of shorter length video. Uh, creates more touch points with your audience. And so, uh, oftentimes what happens is companies want to create more videos, like two or three minutes. But I would say, Hey, try to see if you can do six videos of 30 seconds, or, you know, or something like that.

Uh, there is a place for a two minute video. There’s a place for a one minute video. Uh, but if you can find a way to create shorter video content, 15 second, 22nd, 32nd, 45 seconds. Uh, those videos perform just on social media specifically. They perform way better than the other ones. So, um, for top of the funnel stuff, for middle of the funnel, obviously, you know, webinars, repurposing and all that stuff is still great.

Uh, but if you can, uh, also focus on the top of the funnel with shorter short form content, uh, I would say that’s definitely a big change that we’ve seen in the, in the last few years. It’s like. Uh, short form video performs very well, uh, in, in social and also through email and other, and other channels as well.

Jeremy Balius: Okay. There’s so much I wanna unpack. I so much, I just wanna unpack so much within that. Let me, let me start with this though. Yeah. Let me start because I, I, I think you explained it in in a couple of the points, but I just want to be abundantly clear for the audience when you talk about the TikTok ification of LinkedIn.

Daniel Borba: What

Jeremy Balius: is that? What does that mean?

Daniel Borba: So it’s, it, some people are like, they say, oh, that sounds cliche. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s cliche, yes. But it’s really taking place and it’s really changing how people consume video and how companies create, uh, experiences for those audiences, right? Mm-hmm. Create video content.

So, uh. In fact, just right now, LinkedIn is testing a, uh, certain, uh, app features that are only available in certain for certain users where, and you probably have seen it if you, if you, uh, go on LinkedIn, uh, they first release the video feed, right, which is just a feed of video content and. That in itself was like the biggest, boldest move that LinkedIn did in the past, I would say 12 months.

’cause it created a new, and, and I’m not just saying that I really mean it, it was one of, it’s probably one of the biggest changes that they’ve made in the past, uh, three or four years. Why? Because they entered the [00:08:00] video consumption world and, uh, so now they’re competing directly with YouTube shorts and YouTube.

Jeremy Balius: Hmm.

Daniel Borba: Uh, and they’re competing directly with Instagram, with Facebook, and also Twitter or well X right? And, uh, and also, uh, TikTok. Uh, and so it also created for them, it created more ad units to sell right spots. And so they’re not, they’re not doing a lot of ads right now, but as there’s more, uh, eyes on the on, on that video feed.

It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna, you’re gonna start seeing more ads just like you see in the regular, uh, LinkedIn feed on the computer or mobile app. So, uh, yeah. And one of the changes that they did just today to that is that before on your, on the mobile app, on the feed, on the regular feed, it would show you the introduction, like a video post.

It would just show you the introduction, introduction, uh, [00:09:00] text. So you would still have three lines. To accompany the video. Right? And so, but now they remove those three lines of text and it just showed the little picture of, of, of your profile with the video below it. So what does that mean? That means that they just want you to, like, they’re saying, well, if they liked video, they liked the video feed.

So now. Instead of us showing the intro, we’re just gonna send you to the video feed without any intro text. So now the hook is your first three seconds of the video, not just the intro text. So, uh, for, for those of you who don’t know, like when you make a post, whether it’s video image or whatever, you still have to write, uh, lines of text and.

LinkedIn, truncates, everything except the la the first three lines of text. Well, now what I’m saying is that they just removed that they’re testing re removing that completely. So it just shows the video and so it, it, it goes to show, that tells me that LinkedIn is saying, Hey, we found great success with the video feed, so we need to start pushing people to the video feed from the regular feed to the, to the.

To the video feed. And so what that means is, wow, like all the content that we were thinking and all those like, uh, posts that we create as a company that have a link like, oh, to learn more go to our blog post even less. So if you were getting some traction before, you’re gonna get even less traction to your, or traffic to your website, which means you have to create more like in platform content and video’s a great opportunity for that.

So. Uh, I kind of nerded out there, but long answer, uh, definitely, uh, huge, uh, potential there for, for video content.

Jeremy Balius: Okay. Nerding Out is the name of the game on this show, so do not hold back. This is why we’re here. This is what, this is what we want from you. Um, tell me about the concept of the shortening of content and what that means for consumption.

I think. I think we’re all very comfortable with the idea of medium or long form content because webinars have been around forever because conversations have been around the, even this conversation publishes in long form as well as in short form, but, but this idea of six to 15 second length posts. Is that the, to ification?

What, what is driving this behavior? Is it, is it the, the, the, the, the, the habits of swiping in the app that’s driving the demand for shorter content.

Daniel Borba: Yeah. I, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think there’s one thing. Okay. I think it’s a combination of things, and this is more like an opinion based thing that I’m saying rather than a, yeah.

You know, uh, back by data. Yeah. Opinion or, or, or, or statement. But it’s clear that when we open our phones, we associate it with the, uh, entertainment value that it has to us. And so it makes sense that apps like Instagram apps, like. You know, YouTube, social media, which is not social anymore. It’s more like aspirational.

You know, what I aspire to be, to learn to do, uh, sort of apps, right? Um, and, and so I always think of any kind of content usually has like two things. It’s either valuable because of its entertainment, entertaining, uh, nature, or because of. The informative nature, right? So there’s companies that do both and boom, even even better, right?

And then you can, we can also talk about the funnel and, and that’s still applicable, but at the core, basic, most valid, most, uh, simplest form, I think that, uh, those two types of content, usually, uh, if you try to do those two things, you will find success at each stage of the funnel, right? So the, the funnel comes kind of like afterwards.

Uh, so in other words, I guess what I’m saying, ’cause marketers, I’m not saying that the funnel is, is not a good thing. ’cause marketers love that and it works and they create a whole business, uh, marketing strategy around the funnel and that’s great. But what we’re seeing is now, uh, is that your videos need to be informative or entertaining.

And so, but because we are associating the phone, our mobile phone and our digital experience with, uh, our aspirations of what we want to achieve, learn, do, be. Uh, it’s important to understand that you’re competing with everything else that you’re aspiring, that the person is aspiring to be and that they consume.

So in other words, when somebody goes to YouTube, for example, even, even if they go on the, on the website, on the computer, right? Uh, they go, they might go and, and search political issues, or they might be into, uh, you know, uh, sneakers or whatever else. And so now. Because of the nature of what they wanna do, uh, or what they aspire to do, to hold, to be, to buy, you know, whatever your content is competing with that as well, because in the same platforms where those companies entertain and educate their, uh, uh, their buyers and, and, and, and prospects.

You are also doing the same thing, and because now attention is, is relatively free with, with organic free content, right? You can put it in the right, uh, in front of the, uh, uh, the right audience, but it ha the co the content has to be entertaining enough or informative enough. So, uh, Gary vs. He, he talks about this all the time, but essentially that is the sort of the golden ticket.

Is your content worthy to be better than an ad that Nike put out or just about in for, in terms of entertaining or aspirationally or whatever else? Uh, and so that’s why that is kinda like the detoxification of thing, which means, uh, when a video is entertaining enough. The algorithm is gonna just show it to as many people as possible.

And so if you create video content that is short format, the algorithm gives it a little, a few more points because it’s short and it fits right into the organic, you know, algorithm. And so there’s some things that you can do to kind of trick the algorithm, but now it understands even better than it did a few years ago.

What is actually, what do people actually want? You know, before you, that’s why search engine optimization was good. ’cause you can optimize it, right, according to the, the parameters. But now that there’s an [00:16:00] algorithm that is more complex than that, so it, it, it favors, uh, realistic, uh, empath or, or it favors what’s performing well today, right?

Not just what has performed well in the past. So I, I’m going all over the place, but what I’m, I’m, I guess what I’m trying to say is the algorithm has changed. It takes into account what people really want to consume, which is entertaining or informative content, but now because of all the platforms are sort of, uh, leveraging short format, to do that, you also need to compete and create short format content that kind of is along the lines of what the algorithm prefers and what people want.

Jeremy Balius: Uh, I think there’s so much value in the way that you’re talking about this and, and, and one of the main things I also picked up there is how critical it  is to be thinking about the context within which the viewer is. And yeah, I just picked up on the fact that you were talking about how people are online and.

When we’re thinking about marketing or promoting or going to market with, with B2B SaaS products or, or technology services, that the communication of that. Its value is in the context of someone else consuming all sorts of whatever else. Yes, exactly. And I think what’s fascinating in the way that you’re shifting the paradigm of the strategy is, is the competition for attention, but within the life of the person.

Of all their other interests at the same time. Yeah. And that’s a complicated and complex strategy.

Daniel Borba: It is. So the the good thing though,  the, the opportunity there is not so much that, oh wow. Now I have to be competing with all these other things. Yes. But not entirely. Mm-hmm. So, uh, you touched on the context of the person.

So, um. Let’s talk about a very real example, and I, I’ve experienced this through our clients, uh, but also with like, through myself. This is like personal experience and also through our clients, uh. Oftentimes, uh, let’s say, so I, I’m, I’m in the B2B SaaS world and in the marketing world, and everybody kind of knows already inbound the, the big event that HubSpot puts together, they sponsor, you know, uh, you know, so it’s a huge event.

Well, when I went to a last year, um, I posted that I was going to go and, and then I posted a few videos while I was there, and then afterwards. What I saw, I was like, wow. Like it’s, it’s, uh, I was able to tap into a lot of, like the, the performance of tho of that, of those posts, of that content did so well.

But then I was, I was wondering why, why did it do exceptionally well? And the reason for that is because, not, not because I was there. It’s because. People wanna know what’s in, like what matters to them and what matter to them is not so much Daniel at HubSpot, what mattered to them is, sorry, Daniel at Inbound, right?

Mm-hmm. Hmm. What mattered to them is what’s going on at Inbound that I should know about.

Jeremy Balius: Hmm.

Daniel Borba: What am I missing out on? What, so at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter that it was me or that I shared it, right? What mattered is that they are interested in inbound and so. That’s, you know what I’m saying might sound obvious and might sound simple, but it, it goes to show that when you focus a piece of content on your audience and what they care about and you make it to, to them about what they are interested in, then you have a, a good marriage and then you have a good, uh, strategy.

So, uh, in terms of video, uh, com, where companies are not. Leveraging that, or they’re not tapping into that potential is oftentimes they, they, they create video content that is just kind of like, we’re gonna create a content for this thing, for this purpose, for this one thing. And they forget the, the leading up to it, the thing itself, and then the afterwards.

And so, uh, sort of going along with the inbound example, it’s great that you post. Leading up to the event, what you plan to do, what you plan to learn, what you’re excited about, then while you’re there, and then afterwards. So companies can do the same thing with their product updates. They can do the same thing with, uh, new leadership at their company.

They could do the same thing with the lessons that they’ve learned. So now instead of making a a a, a webinar, now you’re making videos leading up to the webinar. So you can get people to sign up instead of just creating written posts about it. Now, those, those video posts can be less, uh, you know, quality.

In other words, it, it could be less with less production quality because it’s leading up to the event. Right? And so, um, I don’t wanna get into production quality right, right now, but basically what I’m saying is there’s a huge opportunity. If you take into account the context in which the person is consuming that content, and when it comes to video, oftentimes, uh, if you were too much about production value, you’re gonna miss out on creating additional touch points with video.

And so, uh, that’s what that’ll be. My recommendation is to, uh, be willing to try to be willing to try. Lower production value of videos leading up to an event or leading up to a release of something, uh, and then afterwards as a summary. And I think that it’s, it’s a great, great way to, to leverage video. Uh, that is, that is low.

The, there’s low, relatively low cost. Low cost.

Jeremy Balius: I agree. I think there’s a direct correlation between. Uh, a, a lower production quality and the authenticity and the realness of people because it seems behind the scenes, or it seems mm-hmm. Like it’s off the cuff. And even if it was. It’s tactically planned.

It just seems like a camera was, or a phone was quickly switched on and, and mm-hmm. Uh, and that you’re engaging with that person. But, uh, sorry. You go ahead. You, you

Daniel Borba: know, I have an example of that, so,

Jeremy Balius: okay.

Daniel Borba: Uh, earlier this year in February, so right now we’re in March, but, um, in, in February, uh, or if you don’t want to date it, I’ll just say this, a few months ago.

Okay. One of our clients. Uh, we were, I, I attended their sales kickoff and we were talking, so it was a good opportunity for me to get some, uh, you know, face time with, uh, with our, with the marketing team that we often just are on Zoom and, you know, just kinda like business oriented. So I got to talk to them.

It’s like, oh. So I’m like, Hey, what, what kind of videos have done very, very well this year that you like, that you personally liked? Like, I know we have our data and everything, but, uh, he’s like, you know, um, excuse me. I said, you know. Uh, I remember she’s like, you know, I posted a video the other day of a different event that we went to, and it was just me walking the floor, like the phone.

I didn’t even come out on the video. It was just me. And then she sped it up. So she walked through the floor, [00:24:00] reached her booth, well their booth, and it was only like, I don’t know, like 15 seconds, seconds, you know? And then she put a little music in the background and she just kind of sped it up so it doesn’t take, you know, a minute.

It was just like 15 seconds. That video was one of the, like the best performing videos that she did, but also one of the quickest ones to produce because there was no, like, there was nothing magical or high production from it, right? Like it was just high. There was nothing high production value. It was literally her with the phone like this walking and that’s it.

That’s all, that’s what it was. But that goes to show that people wanna consume video. That it, that it, that feels natural. It feels natural. Hmm. And I’m not saying there’s, we shouldn’t do any video, uh, with, you know, uh, with a, with a great camera or, or there is a place for that. My point here is there’s a great opportunity for video and the cost of entry in, in terms of effort and price is lower than you expect, than you, than you think.

Jeremy Balius: Isn’t that interesting because I would imagine that a lot of marketing leaders. Are still of the mindset, um, uh, maybe from a controlled parameter perspective that the all video content needs to be either high production or in studio or high-end, um, uh, uh, microphones and cameras. Mm-hmm. Uh, in a controlled environment when, uh, when the reality is, is to meet the sheer demand.

For video, um, and keeping costs that are manageable, that the lessening of the, the production value actually creates an ongoing, engaging conversation with your prospects. But it doesn’t seem like they’re there. It seems like there’s a journey that they have to go on to understand that.

Daniel Borba: Yeah. So it, it’s a journey and I think.

Now we’re gonna tap into leadership and, and, and. Mm-hmm. You know, uh, a bunch of other stuff. But I think, I think it has to do with the fact that any major shift in a market takes time mm-hmm. For people to adapt. And if you really think about it, some marketers, uh. Naturally, you know, if you’re a marketer and you’ve, you’ve been a, a VP of marketing or a CMO or even a director of marketing for 10, 15, 20 years, it’s, it’s been, you know, it’s been crazy the, the last 10, 15 years, you know, uh, you had content website stuff, then you had, uh, social media, right?

Then you have, uh, now, uh, you can. Advertise anywhere you want now. Uh, I mean, it just changes so fast and so often that it becomes very difficult to get buy-in for certain initiatives. Uh, and in addition to that, it becomes very difficult to change and shift strategies fast. ’cause you just sold an idea earlier this year.

Now you have to change everything next year. It’s, it might be hard to do that, so it, it, it’s not all on the marketer. Uh, it has to do a little bit of, with the, the, the people that they have to sell their ideas to. Uh, but at the same time, it’s, uh, it’s tricky. So I, I would say the, the, the, the mindset shift do you have to, uh, realize, or that you have to make is that you need everything.

You need to test and see what’s working. And to be able to reiterate, I, I feel like. Past five years and [00:28:00] before, uh, it was all about, Hey, what’s, what’s the best stand? Like, what’s the industry standard for this? What’s the best practice for this? Lemme start there. And there’s, I think that’s good, but now it’s a little bit more, it’s a level playing field now.

Like you have to actually try to develop a, a voice and a brand and, and like a, a, a position. You have to develop an op, like a set of opinions, of strong opinions that your company has. To be able to really differentiate yourself because, uh, again, up until during covid and stuff, it was all about, Hey, let’s survive.

And there was money to go around, but now we have to be profitable because, uh, money’s tight. So you, you, you actually have to go back to strategy and let the strategy, strategy, strategy drive the, the actions and the tactics versus before you could just rely on tactics because there was just so much money.

And so now you have to be more strategic, more scientific about it. You have to test different things and say, okay, here’s what we’ve learned. Hmm. Let’s try this. Let, let’s reiterate, but let’s try this other thing as well. And so what does that mean for video? What that means for video is let’s, let’s mess around with LinkedIn for a little bit.

Let’s mess around with repurposing, web repurposing, webinars, let’s. Let’s do some explainer videos. Uh, let’s do some thought leadership stuff with our CEO. Let’s do. And so now you have like these, like, you know, five or six different things that you should try and, uh, you should do, try one at a time and see what works until you kind of polish it and you know that it’s gonna succeed and then keep doing it.

But then start to, uh, test other, other things, other video types, other initiatives. And so, uh. The reason why some companies can’t do that is because, uh, they, they video has become so difficult and like a dragged out process and such a, a multi-skill technical thing to approach that. It’s very difficult for a regular marketer to really, uh, leverage.

And so, but the reality is that you need it and that you need to test, you need to be able to test different video types. Different video styles in different channels. And so, uh, you, you, before you could just get away with doing okay, this year, we’re gonna spend this many money, this much money, and we’re gonna get this many videos.

Well, now if you really wanna succeed with video, you need volume and you need the quality, and you need flexibility to test things. So, uh, that’s basically our opinion, like a strong opinion that like you need everything.

Jeremy Balius: I, I, I really appreciate how you are coming at this with empathy because you’re really thinking about the ways in which these businesses are facing these challenges.

And I think you rightly pointed out that they see hero as this. Large, detailed project and therefore there’s a lot of risk attached to it because so much investment and so much. Mm-hmm. Time cost is going to make this one hero piece. We have to make this be the game changer. It has to change everything.

But what you’re really saying is let’s flip the script. How do we create bite-size touchpoints constantly in a way that makes sense. So that you’re not so dependent on the one hero piece. You are sustainably constantly communicating to market using video. Is that right? Is that how you’re, you’re coming at it?

Yes.

Daniel Borba: Yes. And going back to the strategy piece, it, it needs to be strategic. So initially you need to assess. [00:32:00] Which channel or which video initiative could give you the most success? So because again, if you start with a limited mindset of we need one or two videos, then you’re already setting yourself up for failure.

Because what happens if those two videos don’t work?

Jeremy Balius: Hmm.

Daniel Borba: You, you lost. But if you say, Hey, let’s do an experiment to see which video types. Work well for our audiences. Now you’re, you’re changing the whole mindset. You go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. You’re saying, what can we learn as a company to get buy-in, to get my company to kind of buy into more into video?

Because video is really a strategic differentiator for, uh, for your company. And so, uh, that’s another sort of, uh, you know, uh. Strong opinion that we have. Video shouldn’t just be like a marketing, uh, line item for, for, for, for the marketing department. It should truly be a differentiator. Why? Because it’s very difficult to replicate if when done properly.

It’s very difficult to get right and to, uh, and to really win with video. So. And it’s, it’s because of that reason. It’s because you have to approach it with an ex, like an ex as an experiment to say, Hey, what can we learn from, if we were to use this budget, uh, how can we, how can we make the best use of it?

So we went into some explainer videos, but. What are some other areas that we could use video? Let’s, let’s do some, like a, a preliminary assessment. And even if you research two to four hours, you know, total in, in, in, in a span of a week or two, you will quickly realize that you can do LinkedIn. You could do YouTube, you could do video ads on LinkedIn.

You could do, uh, like a email se like a video series that gets published on the blog post, but it gets distributed to the email campaign. And so, I mean, you can. You know, you could think of endless ideas, but if you’re, if you, again, that’s, if you approach it with a sort of like a scientific approach with, Hey, let’s experiment.

What would work well for us? Or what if we were to do video, which initiatives could probably give us the most success, right? If you approach it like that, then you start to understand better what’s available out there. What’s, what are the channels that you could most likely succeed in? Uh, and what videos types.

You can approach realistically and then the budget and, and who’s your vendor and who can do it, and what kind of video style all that gets decided Laf afterwards, not before. Um, and so yeah, it’s, it’s sort of like the GPS, right? Like whether you turn here or there, it doesn’t matter as long as you know where you’re headed.

You can still make a wrong turn, but if you have the GPS guiding you where you need to go, you can still come back around and know where to go. Mm-hmm. Uh, but if your goal is just to, you know, drive the car, then you know, you, [00:35:00] that’s, that’s your there the moment you get in the car there, you just experience what you, you accomplish the goal.

Right? Mm-hmm. So, uh, again, I think that has to do a lot with the fact that marketers are just used to approaching tactics because it’s been, we’ve relied on that for so long, especially with through covid. Uh, but now we we’re shifting more of a strategic mindset, and, uh, and I think that’s why, uh, this type of approach is, is, is better suited for, for these times.

Jeremy Balius: So within taking that strategic mindset, the friction or the pain point has been how to produce the volume or how to Yeah. Uh, ramp up to meet the demand. And within that. You’ve pioneered video as a service. I’d love to hear more about how that is resolving those pain points. And in what ways are you enabling organizations to meet the, the demand of the volume?

Daniel Borba: So that’s a good question, and I’m glad you brought this up because, uh, the biggest pain points that a marketer has is, uh, I can get my boss to. In their mind, they say, I can get my boss to approve this budget, or I can get, I can probably get them to try a few videos and this and that. Perfect. But then the next step is, okay, how can I maximize this budget so that I can actually get this, like these experiments done?

And what you will quickly realize is that, uh, a lot of video companies, they focus just on production on quality and. There’s other, uh, sort of things that they should look out for other than quality. Uh, and you have flexibility, and then you also have, um, strategy. And so, uh, and, and then obviously volume.

And so, uh, your, your ven your video vendor should help you solve for that because if you find success with the video types that you do, you will quickly realize that you kind of like, uh, run outta budget. Because it’s not scalable. So, um, because what happens is the agency has to, has to charge for the fact that you’re not gonna give them work.

You haven’t signed a contract with them, you just signed a contract for like a one-off project. And so, uh, and so they just passed on the, the cost to you basically. And so, uh, I would say, go, going back to your question, what are the pain points that they, and how do they solve? For volume, uh, you need to find a partner that can develop systems in place, train you on how you can quickly create videos and plan them, right, because that is the biggest time suck.

And or I would, I should say resource suck because anytime you rely on, uh, on people, you have to get alignment. Any, anytime you involve two people, three or four or five, you have to get everybody aligned. And what happens with video is everybody has a different idea. But if you can work against the, the, the getting everybody aligned, in other words, or not against, but for four, um, you remove a lot of friction, a lot of wasted time.

And so, uh, your vendor has to solve for that. And so, uh, that’s one area that they should solve for, which is helping you understand the, the creative production process and how long each te each thing takes. Because the last thing you want is a video project. Taking two or three months, you’re not gonna be able to, sometimes you have to make videos within what, a week or two in order to be able to use video in your campaigns.

Right. And, uh, and so yeah, so definitely efficiency in terms of collaboration to solve for volume. The other aspect is develop, uh, a, a production system that says, Hey, here are the video types that we’re gonna leverage initially to, to be able to create the volume that we need. Again, focusing on initiatives rather than just.

You know, ideas, initiatives with a strategy. And in fact, and that’s my last point here about, uh, about volume, is you can’t get to a, a good amount of volume without strategy in place. Strategy needs to lead a. The tactics and the execution and the, and the production. So, um, a big sort of selling point, uh, that we have is that when we’re a video agency, but we don’t just take orders, we actually help you create a video roadmap that is linked to your campaigns because otherwise.

The client is working in a silo, like they’re working on their own stuff. They’re dealing with their own marketing meetings, and they’re coming in and outta meetings and they’re coming in, you know, the CEO just dropped like 15 ideas to do something right? And they’re already dealing with that. And then you come in here and you just say, Hey, well we’re just gonna wait until you submit an order for us to, to create a video.

And so you need to be able to. Uh, solve for the strategy piece. Train that marketer so that when they, by the time they meet with their CEO and their marketer, they already provide ideas and processes on how we’re gonna get to the volume that we need to their CMO or to their CEO. And so, because we’re not gonna be in those meetings, and so that’s how, kind of how we’ve solved is in short, we come up with a, a production strategy that is rooted in video styles that match.

That, that are obtainable for each individual client. Then we also train them on what’s the most effective way to get videos done without a lot of back and forth. And then on top of that, we, which is the most important thing, is, uh, we help them create a video roadmap, a, a, a strategy behind the initiatives that they’re thinking about.

And so, uh, that’s the piece that is missing from other video vendors that often, uh. It just gets overlooked. Right? And so, and the marketer doesn’t know that they need these things either. That’s, that’s why it’s so key. And so, uh, the, the marketers that know this are the most, the ones that have the biggest budgets.

But then the smaller companies don’t know that. They, they, they know that video, they wanna do video and that the video works great, but they don’t have the budget. So they end up overspending in video because the agencies that serve them, they just charge ’em for production. Strategy is not included, and then they, they can’t get buy-in for strategy, right?

Mm. And so, uh, so that’s, you know, long, long-winded answer. But, uh, those are the sort of the blind spots, uh, or the reasons why it’s hard to reach a good amount of volume.

Jeremy Balius: It makes a lot of sense to me. It’s really, really good. Um, say I am a, uh. Uh, SaaS founder or executive, I am, uh, leading a B2B Tech company.

What would your advice be to me to, uh, why should I be considering visual storytelling and video in my go to market?

Daniel Borba: Well, uh, so you and I were talking before we started the podcast, and one of the things that I, and I know everybody knows this, but, uh, video is projected to grow in demand. Like 30%, 35% in the next five years.

And this is kind of go, we’re going back to what we talked about in the beginning, but essentially, uh, it’s a, it’s the new, it’s the new, it is not a new way, but it’s the, the newest, hottest thing that you can do. And we also talked about the production quality aspect, and then we also talked about how it’s really hard to replicate because it’s hard for a CEO or a founder to just get in front of.

An audience. And so if you had a thousand companies, a thousand founders, right? Uh, I don’t, and I don’t, I don’t know exactly the, the data on this, but, uh, I can tell that only a, a single digit percentage will be willing to be out there every day presenting, explaining the problem, explaining what they’re trying to do, getting the vision out there, much less recording themselves.

Alone within, with nobody looking right. And so, uh, and everybody can tell that this is the case. And so on LinkedIn, for example, out of 10,000, you know, founders, uh, only a very small percentage would just post regularly on LinkedIn as an example. And so my advice to them would be, find a way to leverage video on a regular basis and don’t worry so much about the production quality.

Uh, get the reps in. If you’re scared of not sounding, uh, eloquent, then just practice on your own time. You know, spend the time practice, and you don’t have to post any of the videos, but a lot of those videos could be leveraged by, uh, in new email newsletters. It creates additional touchpoints. It could be repurposed on different channels.

So, um, so that’s what, that would be. My advice is to spend time creating, uh, video content for, for your own channels.

Jeremy Balius: Yeah, look, that really lands with me, especially the point about, I don’t know how aware people are of how little is produced. You know, they see the streams of content on LinkedIn, but they’re not thinking about the fact that how few people are actually.

Producing content, it’s a very small percentage of people. Mm-hmm. And, um, so it’s an opportunity to differentiate by moving faster in these channels of communication, um, because you’re able to differentiate and cut through in ways that your competitors aren’t. That really lands with me. Yeah, that’s awesome advice.

Daniel Borba: Yeah. It, it’s, again, we’re shifting our mindset from tactic. Base thinking to strategic thinking. So if you were an alien coming to Earth and you’re able to see, you know, the globe. Somebody’s kind of reporting to you like, Hey, here’s planet Earth. Uh, if you wanna be a CEO of a company, there’s about a hundred thousand companies, and the opportunity right now is basically only a few percentage of them are actually creating video content.

So if you were to create content that, that alone already kind of like creates a, a, a competitive advantage. Now the second  hurdle you’re gonna have to overcome is. Uh, if you wanna kind of excel in this role as a CEO, then uh, you’re gonna have to create content that is not only great in your industry, but also contextually interesting, uh, for a broader audience so that the algorithms can kind of give you, uh, you know, exposure.

And so that’s what the, that’s what the alien would say to that person, right? So. Uh, and so the same thing for us. It’s like, man, like the opportunity is in video and in, in the social media and, and in getting the, the word out there with, through video to stories tel to storytelling. And so you, as you’re approaching earth in that, in that, uh, in, in that ship, you would say, man, how you should ask yourself, how can I create content on a regular basis that is relevant to my audience, but also that it might be a little entertaining and a little bit.

Educational so that the algorithms can kind of help me. Uh, that’s what I would kind of advise in the simplest form.

Jeremy Balius: Yeah, man, this has been so awesome. There’s so much to take away from this. There’s a lot to reflect on. I, uh, appreciate, I appreciate how you are, um, yeah, really thinking hard about how to elevate, uh, uh, business leaders out of the tactics and into strategy and that you’ve deployed a, a service to help them along the way.

This is very much appreciated. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Daniel Borba: You welcome. Thank you.