Arlen
[00:00:27]
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast. Everyone. I am your host Arlen Robinson. And today we have a very special guest David Feinman, who is the Co-Founded Viral Ideas Marketing with Zach Medina which creates online video content for clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 Brands. The company’s mission is to help brands ‘create to inspire.David began his online career marketing concerts in high school on Facebook. He took a 200 person monthly concert and turned it into a 1600 person monthly event through Facebook Advertising. David went on to start The Zombie Run which grew from 0-35,000 participants in 9 months in 16 major markets. The race was featured in Wired, Anderson Cooper and is known nationally throughout the country. Welcome to the podcast, David.

David
[00:01:21]
Hey, so Austin to be here. Yeah. So

Arlen
[00:01:23]
Austin be here. Great. Thanks for joining me. That’s quite a resume you have, and yeah, so, you know, before we really get into it, I know we’re today. We’re gonna be talking a little bit about VI video marketing specifically for e-commerce businesses, but yeah, you’ve got a diverse background. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started and how you got into what you’re doing today?

David
[00:01:43]
Yeah, so, so I’ll kind, I’ll kind of pick things up from the, from the viral ideas days. You know, I, I had a couple companies before then, but really about three years ago, started working with some companies doing some social media management and videos, and really found this awesome niche in creating video content for, you know, online social media and really built that up over the past three years, made over a thousand videos. And actually through that whole process have developed out a platform called fixation. So flextion does basically video editing on the back end for, for brands. So, you know, basically we have two arms of the company and, you know, really, really built, built them both up over time through, through awesome client relationships.

Arlen
[00:02:27]
Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, that, that, that’s awesome. And I think this episode is really timely, especially because we, I mean, we’re, we’re just literally in the age of, of video, if you’re not doing anything video, then, you know, you’re, you’re kind of, you know, almost in the dark ages these days, because there’s, that’s, that’s really where, where it’s at. You know, as far as e-commerce businesses are concerned, we’ve got a lot of listeners that have e-commerce businesses that are always looking for ways to market their business. Now, if a business, an e-commerce business has never done this really before and never really ended the video marketing space, how, how do they really need to prepare a video marketing campaign? Where do they even begin?

David
[00:03:14]
So we always like to say, start with strategy, right? So if you’re prepping for a campaign, you want to really consider the three phases of the marketing file and those are awareness consideration decision. So when a, when a customer is thinking about buying a product, you have to think about, you know, where are they gonna first become aware of you? So, you know, in general, with, with modern marketing, what we’re seeing is a lot of people are becoming aware of products through Facebook and Facebook ads. So, you know, making your first video to be something that, you know, drives people towards, you know, towards some sort of video that showcases your product, you know, is, is really the first, first place that we suggest that people start. So they can start working, working on building out their, their online audience.

Arlen
[00:04:00]
Gotcha. Gotcha. And it really doesn’t matter what it is that the business is selling, whether they’re selling, you know, women’s fashions, whether they’re selling home products, doesn’t really matter that starting with that first video is really where it is as far as them doing some type of overview of, you know, even if they have a whole suite of products, I guess they wanna focus on what are their, their main products, what are they known for? I take it

David
[00:04:32]
Exactly, exactly. You know, focusing on focusing on that set of products to, to build up an audience, got it. And F figuring out exactly what piece of content to, to put there. And there’s, there’s a lot of different options out there for that one resource I can drive you to, you know, if you’re thinking about creating that first video, don’t know where to get started. If you go to our site, viral ideas, marketing.com/video builder, we actually have a whole tool there that shows you, you know, all the different facets of the marketing funnel and what videos fit into what part of the funnel. So that way you can start thinking about, you know, whatever your product might be in the E eCom space. You wanna start thinking about how you can build, you know, that sales narrative for yourself and build out video assets. Cuz you know, like we said, it’s, it’s, you’re approaching 2019 video is going to be running the internet. It already is running the internet. Right. So if you’re a brand that hasn’t, hasn’t started with that, it’s it’s time to do it. You know, it’s time to time to, you know, at least dip your toes in the water, if not go all in on it.

Arlen
[00:05:33]
Right. Right. Now I know one of the things that businesses are probably thinking, you know, at this point, you know, they know they need to do it. They know they’re, they’re probably gonna get ready to get started doing something related to video, getting that first video out there, creating an overview video of their main products, their best sellers, whatever it is. They’re probably thinking, okay, you know, I don’t have any experience doing this. I don’t even know where to begin. Does, do they need to hire someone? Do, what do you suggest do they need to outsource this? What is your initial advice?

David
[00:06:08]
Yeah. So I’m gonna give kind of three tiers, right. You know, I I’m obviously, you know, make these for a living, but there’s definitely a number of ways that people can approach it depending on where people are at in the process. So the first one is do it yourself, right. And if you are gonna do it yourself, you know, make sure you get yourself set up with a decent amount of baseline equipment. So, you know, make sure you have some sort of lighting, some form of sound to pick up quality sound and you know, and, and some, some decent camera, it can even be your phone.

David
[00:06:41]
And once you do that, maybe make sure you plan out, you know, what video you’re gonna create. If you use the video builder tool that I spoke about, our idea is marketing.com/video builder. You figure out what you’re actually gonna create and then go out and create it. You know, for most people, this is actually, you know, once they try to get into it, it actually becomes quite a bit of a challenge, right? So the next, the next tier to that is what I like to call like the, do it together, video, you know, working with a, a partner to handle that. So we actually, on our end, we actually use software that enables us to remote into a business anywhere in the world and help them be their producer. So, you know, we’ll have them set up actually their phones and we’ll have them buy some basic lighting and sound and we’ll do it with them, you know, on site for an hour, two hours and direct them on how to, on how to shoot what camera angles we can adjust to. We can adjust the lighting and everything from their phone, the next tier to that would be higher freelancer. So, you know, if you’re, if you’re local, if you’re local to, you know, if you’re local to the area you want to, you want to go out there and see if you could find, you know, an individual or couple small companies to hire, to, to produce your video. This will give you a nice polished look finding, you know, finding that freelancer. But it’ll it won’t exactly, you know, won’t break the bank as much.

Arlen
[00:08:00]
Right? Right. Yeah. When

David
[00:08:02]
I was last year is the high end video production where you’re actually producing something, someone that’s working with you on strategy, scripting, storyboarding, and taking your concept from, from nothing to a reality, you know, laying above it all too is, you know, edit the editing part of it. You know, if you’re, if you are doing yourself or you are working with a freelancer, you know, making sure you have a plan in place to edit the, the actual video. Cause that’s, you know, in my mind it’s the new coding, right? Like if, you know, you need to have a plan in place to get it edited, whether you’re using our solution, which is ation or using another solution to do it, you, you definitely need to have a plan to, to get your video looking nice.

Arlen
[00:08:38]
Right. Right. Yeah. I love that breakdown in the different tiers that makes it pretty kind of sweet and simple. And I mean, these days that just even starting at that first tier, like you said, just doing a basic video with your, with your iPhone or with whatever smartphone that you have is, is really where could easily just get started. You know, before we, we, we started recording, I was telling you a little bit about our, our history at OmniSTAR. You know, we were founded in 2000 and things were a little bit different back then. I mean, there was pre smartphone or where, you know, everybody just had flip phones that had the, the cheap, basic cameras that had just, you know, you know, a horrible resolution. So it was a little bit more difficult then, and then you had to be concerned about, okay, where do you, how do you get the video file from the phone to the computer?

Arlen
[00:09:25]
And, you know, it was a whole, whole other thing these days, it is super easy. You know, everyone that has a smartphone has a video recording capability on there. And I think a large part of the video and you touched on, on video production. And when you touched on it is lighting and, and sound, you know, at a, at a bare minimum, if you have halfway decent lighting and sound, you know that, you know that that’s a, that’s a big win for you right there. People can clearly see you. They can clearly hear you, whatever it is that you’re, you know, saying that’s, you know, that’s really half the battle from, from what I see.

David
[01:10:01]
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you, if you can, if you can get your lighting and sound right. You’re exactly right. You’ll, you’ll, you know, you’re through half the battle, but the other thing too is, you know, having a plan and you know, it, it is fairly simple to, to, to, you know, once you get the lighting and sound on to get your, get your recording. Right. But to get your editing down is a different story. So, right. You know, if there’s one part of the co one part of the process that I would personally suggest outsourcing, it would be that editing, you know, find a trusted partner, be it fixations, shameless plug, or be it, you know, anything else, you know, any other solution edit, you know, right. To see if that’s something you can, you can work out. So you don’t have to, you don’t have to be sitting there for, for a ton of hours making fucking look great. Right,

Arlen
[01:10:43]
Right. That, that is true. That’s not some great advice because once you get it together, you know, there’s even some small things does take a little level of knowledge as far as editing. You know, like if you want to add some sound, some background sound to it, you want add an intro outro, you know, those little small things that for, for a layman, somebody that’s not doesn’t have any experience with any editing tool that can take you, you know, hours and hours to kind of figure out how to do. Whereas if that’s something that a freelance can do in, you know, a matter of minutes and then you really wouldn’t pay that much. So that’s, that’s some great advice and we’re definitely recommended as well. Now, of course, we, we’ve already established that the video marketing and creating videos is really applicable really for almost really any e-commerce business. That’s pretty clear. Now, once these businesses have created the video, they’ve got something really nice and, you know, fairly polished what, and wanna get it out there. What, what really social platforms lend? Well, the video that you recommend,

David
[01:11:46]
We’ve seen the most powerful tool being Facebook and Instagram. Okay. So, you know, running, running Facebook, Facebook video campaigns works incredibly well, making sure you’re using that Facebook pixel. You know, if you don’t know what that is, definitely give that, get a good rabbit hole out on Google, just to investigate that a little bit for yourself. Right. LinkedIn video too, if you’re selling, you’re selling B2B, that that works really well. LinkedIn’s really pushing it right now, too. So you’re gonna get a little bit more of that organic reach right now,

Arlen
[01:12:14]
Right?

David
[01:12:16]
Yeah. And then, you know, simple videos, Instagram stories, right? Like you working those every day, cuz a lot of the engagement on Instagram right now is happening through the stories, you know, but, but really, but really it’s a matter of, you know, it’s not just about creating that video, editing it, playing it out. It’s also about that distribution. So having, having a plan of, you know, what channels do you have as a business, you know, sit down and write out, you know, where your business is online and figure out if you could plug your video into that. Cause it might be a matter of, you know, making one video into a couple different versions for a couple different PLA if you’re different, couple different places on the web. You know, if you, if you’re selling your product on Amazon, you might want to, you might want a video on your Amazon product page or a few videos on your Amazon product page. So, so figure out where, where you’re gonna distribute that video, why you’re gonna distribute that video there and to make sure the format’s right for the place it’s gone.

Arlen
[01:13:11]
Right. Right. That’s, that’s so true because all of these different platforms, there’s slightly different specs based on, you know, what, what they require for the formatting. So you definitely wanna make, you know, make clear on that. And one thing I wanna, you mentioned LinkedIn, I know LinkedIn, like you said, they’re doing a big push for video. It it’s one area that is not really fully, fully saturated yet as far as video. So getting in there doing video, I think can have a, if, if you’re in the B2B space that is, can definitely have a, a nice impact where it’s not, you know, they haven’t been totally just saturated with just so many videos that yours gets lost in the shuffles. So yeah, that’s, that’s definitely a, a great thing to, to consider as well. Now, whenever we talk about video and video marketing and the most people that think of video marketing, they immediately think of a viral video.

Arlen
[01:14:01]

You know, everybody wants to make a video that goes viral. And then, you know, I can think of a, a few that have gone viral. I know the company Squatty potty, they had a viral video. That’s the, the company that makes the little stool that helps you, you know, eliminate and, and do the number twos in the bathroom a lot more effectively. They, they really got big cuz they made a, a kind of a crazy viral video of a unicorn that was doing the number two and then, and what was coming out was like a rainbow. And so that was one that really just kind of took off. But you know, not everyone is going to have that magic and, and make a, an instant viral video, but are there things that a business can do to, you know, if they’re really trying to push something and they, and they want to make something catchy that has the potential to go viral, is there certain things that they need to do to, you know, to try to make that happen?

David
[01:14:57]
What we always have to say is, go think, think a, think a little bit about who your audience is and think about going microbrial. So I’ll tell you a little story. We, we actually have a, a client who they sell a device for trucks, and there’s really only, you know, a couple tens of th you know, maybe 10 let’s call it tens of thousands of purchasers of this particular item in the entire country. So for them going viral is reaching the entire list of purchasers okay. Which they have on a list already. So if all of them are able to watch their video and become aware of their new product, they’ve gone viral because gotcha. That’s that’s their market. So you really have to, you know, a lot of times when we’re going through these campaigns, it’s often oftentimes a little bit of a therapy session with, with the clients, figuring out, you know, who, who are, who’s your actual target market. A lot, a lot of people don’t know that they think that everyone is their target, right. In reality, you know, if you are a business that’s going after everyone, you’re really going after nobody, because there’s so many micro niches within, within the world that, you know, if you’re able to serve one, you’ll, you’ll have a great business. So, you know, just kind of focusing on, on that niche and creating that video for that niche is really where virality starts to happen.

Arlen
[01:16:22]
Right. Right. Definitely. That is so true. I mean, everything you said as far as, you know, going viral really is just reaching the majority of people in your particular market. It’s not everyone. I think people have a kind of a, a glamorized idea of really what going viral is and, you know, viral, isn’t just, you know, having your ad mentioned on the local news or anything like that, that’s not, that’s not really viral because, you know, yeah. You may be reaching a lot of people, but all of those people aren’t necessarily your target market. So that’s, that’s some great advice, you know, you really have to narrow down who’s your target and, and what would it, what, what’s the goal and how many people are we trying to meet and then what, what’s the most effective way to do that via video. So, yeah, that’s a, that’s some great advice. Now, as far as videos are concerned, I know there’s a lot of elements of things that you can put into the videos as far as content is concerned. And I know you of course have seen your share of, of marketing videos because as you do, what, what do you feel are some elements of unforgettable videos that you’ve seen

David
[01:17:28]
Unforgettable

David
[01:17:33]
Squatty potty videos was, is actually up there with one of my favorites, slack put out a video. Okay. That was awesome. I, I would drop that in the bucket of what’s called a story testimonial. Okay. So for those who aren’t familiar, slack is like a messaging app for your computer used amongst B2B B2B clients. And the video company that put it together was a video company called sandwich video they’re out in California. And they, they actually used the product and the whole video was about them using the product. So it really, and, and it was, it was humor as it was funny incorporated, you know, all the, the trappings of the internet, the cat photos, you know, everything that you would, you know, you would expect to be in a nice little viral video was in, there was in their video. It was, it was, it was long, it was a nice little, little pitch. It did really, really well for them. So that’s, that was, that was one of my favorites, Squatty, potty Squatty, potty, I think did well on the back of a shark tank, shark tank success.

Arlen
[01:18:38]
Right.

David
[01:18:40]
And they actually run, ran tremendous amounts of ads against that video as well.

Arlen
[01:18:44]
Right. Right.

David
[01:18:45]
And they use that kind of shock factor humor of like, if you actually look at the way that video was made, that that was like, it’s a very, it wasn’t by chance that they went, they spent, they spent a really large amount of money that work.

Arlen
[01:19:01]
Right. I, I could imagine. Yeah. For, for sure.

David
[01:19:04]
They actually built a mechanical unicorn.

Arlen
[01:19:06]
Okay. Wow. Yeah, no, that wasn’t cheap.

David
[01:19:10]
So, so, so, so for, for any of these videos, I mean, they, they are, they are the ones that you could say go traditionally viral, which is, you know, millions and millions of views. They are really, really, really well thought through videos and campaigns that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Arlen
[01:19:25]

Yeah. Yeah. That is true. And I think what you mentioned as far as one key element that I’ve seen in a lot of just advertising and really commercial advertising, you can, you can definitely learn a lot from these big companies that, that are actually produce commercials and, you know, kind of take elements from what they do into put into your own video. One big thing is the shock factor. I see so many ad campaigns and, and commercials these days where they’re pushing that shock factor because especially these days when people are so accustomed to just skipping through ads or forwarding through ads or, or just tuning out, doing a commercial, the shock factor, you know, element is something that really pulls people. I’m thinking of some, the ads that Geico runs and, you know, they’re, they’re notorious for doing the shock factor ads. The, the one that they did, where it shows the woman, I think she’s getting a massage and then they show the window, the screen kind of pushing over.

Arlen
[02:20:21]
And then the whole room kind of gets tumbled over. And when you first look at that, you’re like, wait, what the, the hell is going on here, everything is toppled over. And then the whole screen opens to just, you know, their Geico logo cuz their, their whole thing was, you know, the limited amount of time there. And so things like that I think is, is really key. And you have to be mindful of the fact that people are so conditioned these days. And so impatient and not gonna really sit for just a, a traditional video, unless you catch them right there at the beginning and have something captivating to pull them in. Then I think you may lose them. They will tune out or just click away.

David
[02:21:00]
Exactly. You wanna, you wanna really capture them and hook them with that first couple seconds.

Arlen
[02:21:04]
Yeah. That’s that is truly key.

David
[02:21:06]
You can stop scrolling.

Arlen
[02:21:07]
Right. Right, right. Yeah. And so, so David, yeah. I appreciate everything that you have provided to our, our listeners. You’ve provided a wealth of information on, on how to get started with video marketing. And I know it’s gonna go a long way amongst our listeners. And one of the things that I’ve, I’ve always liked to do now is kind of switch gears and just find a little bit more about yourself that I always ask my guests. What’s, what’s one thing that you think our audience would be surprised to know about. You

David
[02:21:32]
Surprised to know about me. Yeah. That’s good question. So I’m outside of business. I’m, I’m, I’m someone who likes to stay pretty healthy. So I I’m actually training for an Ironman right now. Oh, okay.

Arlen
[02:21:43]
So

David
[02:21:44]
I bike, swim and run probably too much for my own good, but okay. It’s always a good time.

Arlen
[02:21:50]
Okay, great. That, that is awesome. Yeah. Those things are intense. I think I’ve, I’ve watched a few of those several years ago. They televised one of those and those things. Wow. Yeah. I can’t imagine its

David
[02:22:00]
It’s intense. The one I’m doing is actually in Maryland. Okay. So it’s you do for those of who don’t know Ironman, you swim 2.4 miles, you bike 112 miles and then you run 26.2. Wow. All back to back, you have about 17 hours to do it. Okay. And then, then your days wrapped up. So, you know, I’ve kind of been on this little journey to, to do that. So I’m excited for that.

Arlen
[02:22:23]
Okay, great. That’s awesome. Well, I wish you well with that, I know it takes an intense amount of training to get to the point where you, your body is just, you know, at, at a point where it can handle all of that. So

David
[02:22:34]
Yeah. I’ll let you know when I hit that point.

Arlen
[02:22:37]
Okay. Great. Sounds good. Definitely keep us posted. Well, David. Yeah. Well, thanks again for everything that you’ve shared. Now, if our audience wants to get ahold of you, what’s the best way to do it.

David
[02:22:47]
Sure. Just reach out through our website. I’m gonna give you guys the flextion website. So it’s flextion.io. FL I X a T IO n.io. Just reach out to us through there. There’s chat right on the site. And for, for your audience, I guess I can give you guys like two free editing hours if you wanna try out. So just plug in the code OmniSTAR and we’ll, we’ll hook you guys up with some editing to get, to get whatever you guys need edited.

Arlen
[02:23:14]
Okay, great. I appreciate that bonus to our listeners. I, I know that they’ll take advantage of that.

David
[02:23:20]
Yeah. And editing hours are like 35 bucks each, so it’s like 70 bucks for free, so okay. I hope you guys can take advantage of it.

Arlen
[02:23:26]
Okay, great. That sounds like a great deal. Alright, David, well, thanks again for joining us here on the e-commerce marketing podcast, we appreciate your time and your information on digital marketing. You have a great day.

David
[02:23:37]
Thank you so much for having me.

Arlen
[02:23:43]
Thank you for listening to the e-commerce podcast. 

Podcast Guest Info

David Feinman
Co-Founder of Viral Ideas Marketing