How to Create Effective Videos without Breaking the Bank

Don Wexler [00:00:00]:
Because we’re marketers, the first question we ask people when they’re going to do a video is what do you want your viewer to do after they watch your video? What is the action you want them to take? The internet has changed the whole landscape. It’s changed everything. If you don’t know who you are, your audience is not gonna know who you are. 

Jeffro [00:00:26]:
Alright. Welcome back to Digital Dominance. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for listening to this podcast. I know there are lots of options out there competing for your attention, and I truly appreciate you tuning in. I will continue to do my best to bring you high quality guests to help you grow your business. Now speaking of competing for attention, when you’re promoting your business, you can’t ignore the fact that you are you aren’t just competing against your competitors. You are competing for the attention of your prospects, and that includes going up against YouTube and TikTok and everything else. Your prospects are constantly bombarded with ads and deals and distractions.

Jeffro [00:01:01]:
The expectation of quality media content being produced by any business is quite staggering. It used to be that only larger companies were creating video content, but that trend has been shifting for a while, and the number of companies who have not created any videos is quickly shrinking. At a time when prospects are demanding it and when video is getting easier to make, you really don’t have any excuses anymore. Video helps legitimize your business and your brand, and it gives people permission to consider you as a viable option. That’s why today, I’ve invited Don Wexler to join me as we talk about videos for small businesses. Back in 2010, Don noticed that the Internet was moving more and more towards video. He started making videos in his living room with a laptop on a ladder using the built in webcam, and the screen has a teleprompter. Today, his company has evolved into a warehouse sized video and photography studio serving small to large businesses to develop their concepts, scripts, in studio, and on location shoots, art direction, and editing for online and broadcast media, including television commercials.

Jeffro [00:01:59]:
And impressively, he does this all at a price that most businesses can afford. So please help me welcome Don Wexler. Yes. I should put in the little clapping sound effect. I

Don Wexler [00:02:11]:
was gonna say, where’s the soundtrack? Where’s the applause?

Jeffro [00:02:14]:
Here it comes. Here it comes. I pressed it. It’s supposed to be playing now. Oh, Riverside, you’re failing me.

Don Wexler [00:02:23]:
There you go. I’m telling you. It’s hard to get good help nowadays.

Jeffro [00:02:27]:
Yeah. What’s up with that?

Don Wexler [00:02:29]:
There you go. Please. No. No. Please. No. Please. Please.

Don Wexler [00:02:35]:
No. Please. Really. No. Please.

Jeffro [00:02:37]:
Alright. Now that we’ve learned our technology, I just wanted to say, you know, Don, I love that you’ve continually met your clients where they are. And and by that, I mean offering ways to make video a reality for them. You have remote filming options. You hire actors if they need them, and you do so much and somehow manage to keep it at a reasonable price point. I I did also wanna clarify real quick that we’re not talking about daily social media clips right now. We’re talking about fully produced content, which could be an explainer video, a company overview video, a product demo, or something like that. Right?

Don Wexler [00:03:11]:
Yeah.

Jeffro [00:03:12]:
Okay. So let’s start. Can you talk a little bit about your philosophy of videos for small businesses?

Don Wexler [00:03:18]:
Sure. So, you know, historically, video has been really the the purview of large businesses because it was television, and advertising. So you need to have a mammoth budget in order to really effectively promote your business in a meaningful way via video to a to a a large audience. The Internet has changed the whole landscape. It’s changed everything. So now you can communicate your message. And then here’s the also the reality is today’s climate, most people are getting their content on these kinds of devices. So the ability and and the screen size is not very friendly to copy.

Don Wexler [00:04:06]:
So people don’t really enjoy reading a lot of content, navigating through a website to try to find the information they’re looking for specifically, whereas video has become sort of the de facto way for people to consume information. Mhmm. I mean, YouTube being the 2nd largest search engine actually to Google, for how to and number 1 for how to content. So video you know, most people today would prefer to digest information through a a visual means, through a video. We’re not and we’re not talking long video. We’re talking, you know, short form somewhere between 45, 30 seconds to maybe 45 seconds, a minute and a half. So it’s concise. It’s to the point, and it it addresses their question or need quickly and Right.

Don Wexler [00:04:55]:
Easily.

Jeffro [00:04:56]:
So what do you typically recommend when someone comes to you wanting a video? Do you always start with the company overview, or does it depend on other factors?

Don Wexler [00:05:05]:
Well, what makes us think a little bit different than most videographers is that we’re marketers. And because we’re marketers, the first question we ask people when they’re gonna do a video is, what do you want your viewer to do? After they watch your video, what is the action you want them to take? Because most videographers, when you go to speak with them, you say, hey. I I wanna shoot some video. I’d say, great. We can do that. And that’s true. They can. But it’s really not about shooting the video.

Don Wexler [00:05:33]:
It’s about what are you communicating, how you’re communicating it, and, again, ultimately, what’s the call to action? So we ask a lot of questions about what’s the point? Why are you doing this? Why do you wanna do this? Is video the right answer for you? Maybe you should do billboards. I mean, who knows? Right? So it’s really digging deep into what the client’s objective is to determine how best to structure the video and scripting.

Jeffro [00:05:57]:
Yeah. And quick sidebar here. I mean, we do similar things for when we do a website. We got a bunch of questions that we ask people. So if you’re gonna get serious about this stuff, don’t fear the questions. Don’t get annoyed. They are there to help us do a better job for whatever we’re creating on your behalf for your business. So that gives us insights that we need to make better decisions on the video or the website or whatever it is.

Jeffro [00:06:21]:
So with that in mind, you know, let’s say you you create a video for someone. Do you give them a strategy for how to use it as well? Do you just tell them, oh, post on the website, on YouTube, run it as a paid ad? I mean, what’s the next step from there?

Don Wexler [00:06:33]:
Well, that’s part of the intake. Right? So when we’re asking the questions, again, one of the questions we ask is where are you going to use it? So is it going to be on your website? Are you going to use it in an advertising campaign? And if so, is it is it gonna be on Facebook? Is it gonna be on Google? Is it gonna be on YouTube? Where is it gonna reside? Because that’ll also determine whether we need to shoot it in landscape, which is the the wide format or more of a vertical or portrait format or square for that matter.

Jeffro [00:07:01]:
Mhmm.

Don Wexler [00:07:02]:
So, we’re typically asking, you know, who’s the target audience that’s you’re trying to, address with whatever the content is, and where do those people reside online? Where you’re most likely to bump into them. Because that’s gonna tell us how to frame the shot, if if you will. And then that combined with the call to action helps us understand what the objective is, how to script it, all that rest of that stuff. And we are speaking of websites, we are big, believers in incorporating video into websites, on the home page and and the main anchor pages so that people can quickly understand why they should stick around on your website, to get the information they’re looking for. And so a quick 30 to 45 second intro on on these key pages lets them know, oh, okay. I’m at the right place. I need to dig deeper with it on the site and really spend some time here.

Jeffro [00:07:58]:
Right. And yeah. It’s so important to know kind of how you can use a video, because otherwise yeah. You pay all this money and then it maybe you post it and you cross your fingers and you it’s like nothing’s gonna happen. Right? There’s no strategy. ROI.

Don Wexler [00:08:12]:
Yeah. We’re we’re we’re ROI focused.

Jeffro [00:08:14]:
Mhmm. And I imagine you help follow-up by looking at statistics and, you know, give guidance on how to check if things are actually working or not.

Don Wexler [00:08:24]:
Yeah. Well, we work with I mean, we have capabilities in house. We work with other agencies as well. So depending on what role we’re playing in the project, we may just be shooting video. May that may just be our role. It may be that we’re shooting video and helping them market the video, in which case, then we’re looking at, you know, getting in tighter with the analytics and whatnot. But we work with a lot of agencies as well, to help with their clients, not just our own that we solicit directly.

Jeffro [00:08:49]:
Yeah. So and and you mentioned kind of traditionally, you know, one of the big barriers was cost for doing videos because you gotta pay for a whole crew, and they got all their equipment, and it takes a long time. But you’ve come up with some ways to help do this at a smaller budget for business owners. Can you talk about some of those way that you do that practically?

Don Wexler [00:09:08]:
Sure. Well, when we first got into this, as I as you mentioned, we kinda started in the living room on a ladder with a laptop. Right? So it’s very, very kind of, you know, bare bones kinda gorilla video shooting. And then as we progress, I realized, you know, again, what’s what’s keeping a lot of small to medium sized businesses out of video marketing is the is the cost. So we kind of broke it down into 2 different categories. There’s what I call the big shops where it’s like 2 grand to walk into the studio into their studio before you even start filming. And then there’s the group that I call the run and gunners, which they don’t have a studio. And they basically whatever they can fit the trunk of their car, that’s what they can use.

Don Wexler [00:09:51]:
And and that can keep your cost down. But the problem is that you can’t control light and sound when you’re on location typically, whereas we can control light and sound in the studio. So the question became is how do we do it in studio if it’s gonna be that kind of a shot at a price that’s doesn’t break the bank? And so because we came at it from the very beginning with that thought in mind, we’ve streamlined things in such a way that we can do it very cost effectively. And the key is we charge by the session, not by the video. So as an example, since we’re shooting, you know, we’re not doing full length documentaries here. Right? We’re not doing, you know, several hour videos. We’re shooting short form video for the most part. I mean, we you know, if it’s educational content, you can get up to, let’s say, 5 minutes or so, 7 minutes per video.

Don Wexler [00:10:41]:
But for marketing video, short form, which means if you’ve got your act together and let me stress, you’ve got your act together, meaning you’ve rehearsed your script, you’ve actually read it once before you come in the studio, at least A lot of people don’t. You can bang out multiple videos in a session. So you can get your cost down per video to, like, you know, 3, $400, maybe less if you’ve already prepared ahead of time. That’s the key.

Jeffro [00:11:09]:
Yeah. So it’s batching. You know? A lot of people talk about batching for various, you know, productivity, hacks, and, you know, keeping your tasks on on schedule. But, yeah, this is just that. Right? Because if you’ve gotta spin up the cameras and you don’t spin them up anymore. But

Don Wexler [00:11:23]:
I get the point. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You get the idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffro [00:11:26]:
Yeah. So so that’s a good way to do it. And and I know you’ve got on in person options. Right? Someone flies to your studio. Okay. Sure. They can record a bunch of videos in one day, but you also have some remote options too. Correct?

Don Wexler [00:11:38]:
Right. So you’ve got on location shoots, but where that’s not practical because there’s some it’s not close enough to our studio to make sense. So we shoot all over the country and actually the world. We have the ability to do something, you know, this kind of a thing, like or like a Zoom on steroids essentially we call it, where we’re doing broadcast level video. So we had a couple you know, we had an agency as an example in Michigan who had a client in Boston who was interviewing some people in London. And the problem with using a typical Zoom type of a screen share is it’s very difficult to edit in post, meaning after the shoot’s over because Zoom, as an example, puts all of the content through one pipe. So you got all your video and audio no matter how many people you have on that call or or on that Zoom comes through one pipe. You can’t edit it, really.

Don Wexler [00:12:30]:
It’s you’ve got something out. You’ve cut everything out.

Jeffro [00:12:33]:
Yeah.

Don Wexler [00:12:33]:
Whereas what we do is, let’s say you’ve got 4 people or 3 people on a, you know, quote unquote Zoom call. It’s not Zoom, but let’s just you know what you know what that is, audience. So there you go. Everybody’s has their own pipe, their own audio stream, their own video stream, which means if, you know, if Bob’s interviewing Sally and Bob’s dog starts barking in the background for whatever reason, we can cut that dog out without cutting out what Sally is saying because of completely 2 different audio streams. You can’t do that in Zoom. Once that dog starts barking, that dog’s in. So it gives us a lot more flexibility in the final product.

Jeffro [00:13:11]:
Okay. And that makes sense. Now another challenge that, we’ve touched on in past episodes is when an owner doesn’t really know their own brand. You know, they don’t know what makes them unique. How do you work with someone like that who comes to you and wants an overview video? I know you have you’ve got questions, but they don’t know how to answer them.

Don Wexler [00:13:27]:
Interesting question. So that’s gonna vary a bit depending on how invested that person is in their own business. You know, if it’s kind of a, you know, it’ll it’ll be fine, kind of thing. It went to us. Okay. Just we do we throw all of our caveats out there and say, it may not be fine, just so you’re clear, because you’re not communicating clearly to your to your audience who you are. Because I can assure you, if you don’t know who you are, your audience is not gonna know who you are. It’s really your obligation to understand who you are and the benefit you offer, the core value that you’re offering to your client base.

Don Wexler [00:14:06]:
Because if you’re relying on them to figure it out, you’re gonna you’re the one who loses, not them. Well, perhaps both because maybe they could have used your service and they they won’t.

Jeffro [00:14:15]:
Yeah. I mean, you’ll have a video, but it won’t work. And then Right. You can’t just blame the video.

Don Wexler [00:14:21]:
That and that’s why we stress, and that’s why I said we come at it from a different perspective than most videographers that we don’t just, yeah. Sure. We’ll shoot it. What do you wanna shoot? We’ll shoot anything. And, you know, to some degree we will, but not without a lot of inquiry leading up to it and making sure everyone’s clear what they’re gonna get at the end of the day. So Right. For for businesses who don’t really know their branding, we have a whole strategy, educational training that we put people through. It’s quite extensive.

Don Wexler [00:14:48]:
It’s a whole different product. So I don’t think I wanna muddy the water here with that conversation because it’s a real deep dive. But it takes, like, 3 to 6 months for that exploration, and it’s it’s quite involved. But at the end of the day, you you’re it’ll transform your business.

Jeffro [00:15:06]:
Yeah. And and that goes back to what you said. Like, how committed are you to the business? If you’re just doing this because, hey, it was in front of me, I inherited the business, or I just gotta put some food on the table. Like, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but you’re not gonna get as far without diving into it and kind of really spending the time and the effort to get clear on what you’re offering, why you’re different, who can benefit, all of those things. And that really comes through in the video.

Don Wexler [00:15:33]:
Yeah. We’re big believers in front loading the system, front loading the process. One of our things we like to tell people is implementation is relatively easy. Thinking is hard. If you want your business to be successful, unfortunately, it’s gonna require a lot of thinking. We can help guide your thinking, but, ultimately, you’re the one that has to do the thinking because it’s your business. We can just guide you.

Jeffro [00:15:55]:
1 of my, past, bosses had a a shirt that said, I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Don Wexler [00:16:03]:
There you go. There you go. It’s nice.

Jeffro [00:16:04]:
You gotta you gotta take the effort.

Don Wexler [00:16:06]:
That’s right.

Jeffro [00:16:08]:
And, sometimes, I I also wanna point out, it doesn’t always happen the first time. Right? The like, this is an iterative process kind of figuring that out, and that can sometimes be true with video too. Like, you might get to the point where you’re like, I think I’ve got it. Let’s try this, see if it works, see how it’s received, and see how it comes together at the end. And then you watch it, and you’re like, okay. We were almost there. We gotta tweak this, or, oh, wow. That really worked.

Jeffro [00:16:33]:
You know? So you gotta go through the process in order to get that feedback because now you’ve got a feedback loop and you can make it better.

Don Wexler [00:16:39]:
Well, any kind of marketing is really an iterative process, meaning, it’s best guesses. So you start out with best guesses, and if you’re doing it properly, and I’ll say that with some prejudice, meaning, you know, there we think there’s a proper way and not proper way. But the point is, particularly in video, you wanna be tracking, as an example, where the weak link in the chain is. And since we’re trying to get people to take an action on your behalf, you wanna monitor, as an example, the watch time on the video that you’ve created. How much how long are people watching? Are they watching the whole thing or they’re not no. They’re watching 25%, 40%, 75%. And if you can detect a pattern, as an example, let’s say you create a minute and a half video and you see a pattern where people are dropping off watching the video at, let’s say, you know, 50 seconds in. And you say, okay.

Don Wexler [00:17:33]:
What’s happening the 5 seconds before 50 seconds that’s turning the audience off? Let’s get in and go like, not all that interested. So you can sort of, like, look for the weak link in the chain as it were. Mhmm. And then look to shore that up so that you make a stronger presentation.

Jeffro [00:17:50]:
Yeah. And and TikTok, has kind of really amplified this, for creators especially to give them the detailed, statistics about when people are dropping off. Like, you get nice little graphs of, like, okay. People watch here, and then they dropped off immediately after the first second or something. And so you can just, okay, edit that video, repost it, see if you got a little farther. Oh, people got bored at this point. Okay. Let’s chop that out or let’s add something on screen.

Jeffro [00:18:17]:
And the if you do that enough, you’ll start to see the patterns, and you’ll get it right the first time or second time next time. So it’s, you know, much faster, the more you do it. Right.

Don Wexler [00:18:28]:
I I always And there’s no I’m sorry. There’s no one answer that you can extrapolate across a lot of different things. So there is no shortcut, unfortunately, for just, you know, making your best guess and then trialing it and then modifying as you learn.

Jeffro [00:18:45]:
Right. Well, I mean, yeah, there’s some best practices, but you have to remember there’s different audiences. So business a might be talking to boomers, business b is gonna be talking to teenagers, and they’re gonna have different interests. Right? It might take different things to hold their interest. Something that this audience likes might be a turn off for this other audience. So you just gotta keep that in mind and know who you’re talking to. That’s, again, back to why it’s so important to kinda know those things up front.

Don Wexler [00:19:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffro [00:19:12]:
Alright. We’re talking a lot about kind of setting expectations with video, what the process is, how you can make it work. What about pricing? Because if someone’s never done video, maybe they just heard it’s super expensive. What are ranges of pricing for different types of videos so that people kinda know what it takes to make a good quality video?

Don Wexler [00:19:33]:
Sure. And that’s gonna depend a lot on how much time and energy it requires of us. Mhmm. Because time, as they say, is money. So if you come in studio, that’ll be your least expensive option because we have everything set up there. It’s the the setup time and breakdown time is relatively short. We could even build custom sets. So the way we’re structured financially is that, we supply everything.

Don Wexler [00:20:06]:
Scripting would be on you unless you want us to do that, and that would be a slightly extra charge. If we’re just, you know, talking back and forth about a prewritten script, we’re okay with that. Then we can include that in so it doesn’t drag out for a long time. But the actual shoot itself, we charge $1,000 per session, and a session is, 1 hour. Mhmm. So this is where I get back to my earlier conversation. In a session, you should realistically be able to shoot 4 to 5 videos. If you know if you it’s not the if it’s not the first time, because this will include teleprompters, by the way.

Don Wexler [00:20:42]:
So you don’t have to memorize. Don’t feel intimidated like, oh, look, I gotta memorize all this stuff. No. You can read it, but understand that the more you read it before you get to the studio and the key is to read it out loud because your ear will hear things that you your eyes won’t observe. In other words, the way you write and the way you speak is different. Right. You might write something a certain way, but as soon as you say it that way, like, I would never say it that way. So you have to change it so it sounds much more conversational.

Jeffro [00:21:14]:
Yeah.

Don Wexler [00:21:14]:
Once you’ve done that a few times, you get your intonations. You should be able to knock out 4 to 5 videos. So now you’re you got your costs way down. And we, in the $1,000, we include one edit, and then it’s usually, like, $95 an hour for future editing after that. So maybe if you get, like, 4 or 5 videos in there, you know, you probably amortized across your maybe $300. Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s

Jeffro [00:21:42]:
a great way to do it, especially if they’re close to you, obviously. But batching videos, if you come prepared, is gonna be the best way to get your costs down.

Don Wexler [00:21:50]:
That’s the key.

Jeffro [00:21:51]:
Because if you show up and you know nothing, then you’re like, I need help with my script. Like, you’re gonna waste half of your time, and you won’t get as much done.

Don Wexler [00:21:57]:
So We actually have people fly in but it’s cheaper if they’re gonna on their they’re on a southwest credit corridor kind of thing.

Jeffro [00:22:06]:
Yeah.

Don Wexler [00:22:07]:
They’ll fly in, write the whole thing off. They’ll take a nice weekend in in San Francisco, make a kind of a little visit for themselves Mhmm. Get their videos shot, fly back, and the whole thing was, you know, relatively inexpensive, and they had a good time. And by the way, we’re funny. So we’ll have you’ll have a good time. I mean, we’re you know, we think we’re funny.

Jeffro [00:22:27]:
Well, I always enjoy talking to you. I mean, you got a lively personality. So real quick, before we wrap up, I know we’re getting kinda close to the end, do you have what are some common mistakes that you see people making with video content when they’re trying to do this?

Don Wexler [00:22:41]:
I’d say that there’s several. First of which would be not being clear on what they want their client to do. What’s the what’s the point behind the video? I mean, you can indulge yourself if you wish, but an ego boot you know, an ego stroke is not probably the most efficient use of your time and money. Right. So if it’s just about, I wanna see myself on camera because I think that’s awesome, well, that’s great, but understand that it’s gonna have limited effectiveness. Number 2 would be not practicing before you come into the studio. That’s that’s huge. I mean, I’ve had attorneys come in, and they’re I’m like, okay.

Don Wexler [00:23:20]:
So, you know, great. You know? Got your you know, we didn’t you didn’t send our your script into us to front to load into the teleprompter. So let’s, you know, let’s have it, and we’ll load it up. And, you know, we’re excited to get this going for you. And then, oh, yeah. Yeah. No. It sounds great.

Don Wexler [00:23:34]:
So, did it take you long to write high you know, did you practice much? Oh, I haven’t even looked at it yet. Wouldn’t be even looked at it yet. Oh, I had my assistant write it. So let me understand this. You came into the studio to shoot some videos. You haven’t even looked at your script yet, and you’re expecting this to come out well. Understand it’s your nickel in your time. So if you if it takes you an hour to do one video, because we have to do 10 retakes, that’s your nickel.

Jeffro [00:24:06]:
Right?

Don Wexler [00:24:07]:
So that’s and that’s I’d say that’s number 1. The other thing you need to do is not just practice tone and intonation, but hand gesture. A lot of people when they get in front of a camera, don’t know what to do with their hands. So they either start, you know, for picking up picking up their nails or, like, you know, it just get used to doing it in front of a mirror before you come in so you get a sense of, okay, here, I’m gonna emphasize that. I’m gonna 1 I got 3 points. 123. You know, the things that go with your script. So that, again, it’s not the first time you’re having to do it on the fly.

Don Wexler [00:24:42]:
Mhmm. Those are the

Jeffro [00:24:43]:
things a lot more natural.

Don Wexler [00:24:45]:
And that’s the key. You wanna look you you wanna look like you’re not in front of a camera. That’s what the teleprompter helps with. You know, so you don’t have to memorize it, but you still have to know the script and act, you know, have appropriate body language. We we tell people, hey. You know, bring out the Italian in you. You know, get the hands moving.

Jeffro [00:25:03]:
Let it loose.

Don Wexler [00:25:03]:
You know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying? That’s right. So

Jeffro [00:25:07]:
Alright. I appreciate that. And and those are good reminders for people. So thank you for sharing all of your advice with us, Don. It’s always nice to know what options are out there too and what people can do to get started with video. So for the listeners, go check out Don’s website. Connect with him on LinkedIn. He’s a great guy.

Jeffro [00:25:23]:
He’s good at what he does. And before we wrap up, you know, I usually ask my guest for closing thoughts. But since your LinkedIn profile says that you are a teller of dad jokes and you have proclaimed that you are funny, I’m gonna ask you to do your worst. Give us a dad joke. Fire when ready, captain.

Don Wexler [00:25:40]:
You know, it’s funny you mentioned you’re gonna do that just a little while ago. I I I’m not gonna I don’t I don’t have a dad joke for you. I wish you had told me earlier. I know. I would love to tell you Just a lot of the jokes I’ve got, you wouldn’t want me to record.

Jeffro [00:25:54]:
Okay. That’s fair.

Don Wexler [00:25:57]:
But I do have clean jokes as well. I just, off the top, It’s not

Jeffro [00:26:02]:
That jokes are best not on the spot. So we’ll we’ll we’ll let you off the hook this time.

Don Wexler [00:26:06]:
Thank you.

Jeffro [00:26:07]:
Well, like I said, folks. Yeah. If we come back, you’ll be have to be ready. Okay?

Don Wexler [00:26:12]:
Oh, I’ll give you a litany of them. Alright.

Jeffro [00:26:15]:
Alright. Well, like I said in the intro, guys, it’s all about competing for attention. You know? Whether you’re telling jokes or doing these videos, the question is, what are you gonna do with that attention? So just remember that. That’s all for today, and, keep dominating, guys, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Don Wexler [00:26:31]:
Thanks for your time, Jeffro.