Jesse Buckley

Director, Media Production

@jessebuckley

Early Days

Rob Walker, Inc. Magazine Aug 1

2004

Enterprise implementation: part of the founding team at The Grommet, launching 1000’s of Maker Stories; video is integral to our daily launches

• Every launch has a video produced in-house• Many CPG verticals: kitchen, toys, problem solvers, fashion…• Founder content is the heart of the story, video can function as a how-to as well as sharing the “Aha” moment

The foundation of a good video experience.

“The presence of video can increase the AOV by about 50%...About 88% of brands said their conversion rates increased when video was placed on product pages”

-- MediaPost 1.28.2015

Tips

• What is effective today may not be tomorrow – it’s competition for eyeballs and attention. Adopt a “Permanent Beta” approach.

• Know you audience, have an authentic voice, be willing to experiment (but also be reliable).

• The Grommet content strategy is unique in our positioning of video at the conversion point for our customers.

• It’s a community (customer)-building tool, an information gathering touchpoint for Makers, and we have the authority of a third party - which allows us the flexibility to act as brand journalists and champions, and to give personal testimonials as well as product demonstrations.

Tell a personal story with relevant content

NOT “We got that broll”

Keeping it Real

“Your videos are GREAT. They explain the product SO much better than just having a picture and a written description!” -- survey response

Measuring Success – KPIs and ROI

There are many tips on creating an inspirational story arc vs. aspirational content that makes

people feel inferior without your product.

“Where once our great stories called us to adventure, higher values and citizenship, most of our current myths play on fear, insecurity and an

endless need to passively consume.”-Winning The Story Wars

What’s Your Motivation?

“in a world of zero marginal cost, being trusted is the single most urgent way to build a business. [Trusted content is] relevant, it isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely it’s going to build trust.”

- Seth Godin

Increasing Social Currency

Be comfortable letting your content go into the wild

Creating an effective video

Millions of dollars are spent on TV advertisements (they can cost more per second than Hollywood movies).

This bias can make the cost of entry prohibitively high (both psychologically and technologically).

Yet the process is relatively simple, and the cost per video can be pretty low.

The most important thing is to start, at whatever scale and budget you can afford.

“Every Company is a Media CompanyEC = MC”But don’t make media about yourself.

-Tom Foremski(founder of SNCR, awarded Grommet in 2009)

Media as a Service

Our process is deeply collaborative, crossing internal company verticals – (yes even my boss!) To keep the production efficient (and keep costs down) get the storytellers as close to the source of the story as possible

The 5 P’s: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

3. Playback & Hosting: YT vs Others- ID the cost of doing business (bandwidth)- Assess the amount of control you’re comfortable with- Consider advanced programming potential (HTML-5 shopping

APIs)- SEO strategy (don’t forget the meta data) = long tail of content marketing

4. A/B testing & Segmenting- a/b testing requires significant sample size and increased

production work (x2 at least)- Easier to segment content to appropriate audience- Depends on the scale of your operation and its sophistication

• YOY Growth on YT is one of our

strongest social media

performers

• great for long tail brand building

(YT owned by Google, evergreen

search integrity)

BUT…

• low conversion rate from YT

Channel – the challenge is to keep

them on your site

YT Pros and Cons

Testing and Analytics

Video hosting analytics gives you a quick lens into demographics and engagement – ideally these should inform your content strategy.

Waka WakaLaunched 1/10/13

Engagement and Affinity

Working with Freelance Producers

“In addition to having a deeper interest in your marketing strategy, a great in-house videographer spends time educating people about the video process and helping to get everyone more involved.”- Wistia.com/blog

However,sometimes specialists can do a better job than the staff.

Video communicates emotion more than

any other medium, people feel like they get to

know you, which translates to knowing the brand – and they get clarity before their purchase, one of the biggest stumbling blocks in ecommerce. With clarity comes fewer returns and more loyalty --which translates into a higher LTV & more likelihood that customers will share your brand story, decreasing CAC as well.

QUESTIONS?

Twitter@jessebuckley

Instagram@jesse0matic