The Video Marketing Trifecta: Why Most Service Businesses Get It Wrong

Jeffro (00:01.34)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Now, if you’ve ever felt like your marketing could use more spark or you’re wondering how to turn casual browsers into committed buyers, you’re going to love today’s conversation. Video has become one of the most powerful tools for building trust, educating prospects and moving people from interest to action. But most service businesses either delay too long or they use it the wrong way. Today, I’m joined by Tim Bradley, co-founder of Pennant Video. Tim has nearly two decades of experience.

helping B2B brands like Cisco, Hitachi, video strategies that don’t just look good, they actually drive results. So he’s here to break down when to start thinking about video, how to fill the gaps that most businesses miss, and what service brands can learn about storytelling from other sectors like cybersecurity and sustainability and things. So Tim, welcome to the show. I’m excited to dive into this with you.

Tim Bradley (00:52.386)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. That’s an awesome intro. This is gonna be good conversation. Thanks.

Jeffro (00:58.024)
Yeah, definitely. before we started, we commented on how our backgrounds are very similar and flexible because we can change the lighting color. So it’s not that hard to get a setup here. It’s just a curtain and a light. So you can do this too, So let’s jump into this. You know, I know there’s a lot of business owners who wonder when is the right time to even think about video in the first place. When should a service based business start weaving video into their marketing strategy?

Tim Bradley (01:05.548)
Yeah.

Tim Bradley (01:09.454)
Yep.

Tim Bradley (01:25.516)
Well, when is the best time to plant a tree? No, I mean, we all know that analogy, right? yeah, mean, it’s the most sort of challenging medium, right? And for that reason, the sooner you start towing the line, embracing it, understanding the functions and nuances and distribution of it all, right? You’re better off and you’re ahead of your competition in that way.

I always encourage like a video first approach whenever possible, because that is that kind of this, the preferred medium by audiences everywhere. It is the most sort of complicated in, you know, production value and visual and tone of voice and messaging and, know, music and sonic identity and sort of all, all the components of, what makes the medium so like rich and robust, right? Is like, you can start sort of conquering each one of those.

You’re going to be a savvy marketer.

Jeffro (02:23.812)
Yeah, I mean, can you talk a little more about the impact it has when you integrate video early as opposed to it being an afterthought like, yeah, we should add video too, right?

Tim Bradley (02:32.302)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Especially in this day and age where there’s so many good tools to support that sort of like grander marketing ecosystem you have going. So for example, it’s like, let’s say you or one of your subject matter experts or your C-suite is like getting on camera and honestly just in a conversational way like this and you do this quite well yourself, right? It’s like you get the personality, the tone of the person, the…

spokesperson for the brand or the business, right? You get all the messaging, the communication of that messaging, right? Then you, then you can have a long form piece. You could have many cut down or shorter pieces. You can get the transcript that can then be turned into whatever myriad case studies or excerpts or quotes and things for, for media and press and, and, and what have you, right? So it’s, it’s sort of like leading with the richness of this medium has such a like ripple effect across your brand or ecosystem.

Jeffro (03:28.804)
Yeah. And I think once you get started, you realize that there’s, there’s, you have to do and think about to make this work as a strategy long-term. Because if, if you’re like, okay, we need to make one video for our website. All right. You’re going to talk about your business, how it started, what you do, right? Done. But if you start saying, I need to post a video every day. Some people are like, what am I going to talk about? Like, why are people going to keep watching me? Like, I’m not going to just keep talking about the same thing every time. So how do we figure out?

What are the gaps that video should fill? You know, does this even fit into a customer journey? it how did you get people to get their head around that so that they can actually use video effectively?

Tim Bradley (04:09.644)
I’m going to double click on what you just said of the customer journey. It’s like any type of content that you’re creating should be with your audience’s wants, needs, desires in mind. Your responsibility as a marketer is to enable and empower decision making for your prospects. So that is definitely true when it comes to video. It’s like especially when

Jeffro (04:22.245)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Bradley (04:35.358)
And there’s just so much content out there and the volume is so, loud. it is just, there’s noise, right? So like, how do you assure like the signal that you’re giving across is, is right. And is resonating and your audience is like seen and heard in what you’re communicating, right. And you’re building trust along that journey. So yeah, I mean, you, you called it out early, which I love that like

No one video is like a silver bullet. It’s gonna solve all of your marketing problems by any means, right? But like having that video first mentality, the strategy of like where and how you’re showing up responsibly in the way you’re producing your content that is effective for your audiences, like that’s the best sort of like mental approach first and foremost.

Jeffro (05:21.465)
Well, and it takes a while to figure that out too, right? You might not know at first and you’ve got to test stuff, which is, I know some people find that really annoying and it might be the reason they never start because they’re like, well, I don’t want our brand to look bad. If I put out a video that doesn’t look perfect and polished or anything, or if I’m too silly on the other extreme, people are going to think, they don’t want to hire me because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And so it’s a weird balance to try and find that.

authentic connection with the audience that’s actually engaging that people want to watch.

Tim Bradley (05:54.222)
Yeah, I mean, you’re absolutely right. so again, using a, and I’ll appreciate it’s not all linear in the way a funnel is like, know, form and function, right? But approaching it with those key phases of like awareness, consideration, conversion, and then nurture, and affinity building, right? Like those are all really good center of the target.

approaches for how you create your content, your videos in this case. So I always encourage higher production value, the sort of further up in the journey your audience is. It’s like first impressions count. So lead with quality, do it really well, do something that sticks and positions you in the mind of your prospects as you’re the best.

the buyer, you’re the best business for their pain points, their problems, right? And then the further along they are in their journey, and especially when they’re like, they’re a client already, like they wanna know more about you and your personality and the inroads of the brand, and they wanna see you and take comfort in the relationship that they’ve established with you, right? So you can have a little more like…

grace, I guess, when it comes to the production value. So it’s funny, like the inverse of the funnel as a metaphor of less but really quality content at the top and then more but less quality at the bottom.

Jeffro (07:27.544)
Yeah, I think the most important thing is starting, right? And you’ll kind of figure that out. But I think to kind of further define this for people, you you talk a lot about the video marketing trifecta. I think it’d be helpful for you to talk through the anthems, explainers, and endorsements, and how do those fit into this?

Tim Bradley (07:30.88)
Yes.

Tim Bradley (07:43.544)
Sure, yeah, so that is our IP in a way, but it’s meant to be a framework to help marketers in their strategy when it comes to video marketing, right? It’s like most brands that we’re working with either have some semblance of a marketing agency that’s supporting the top of the funnel initiatives, right? Like helping them like sell the click, like get that click to a landing page or to the website, right?

From there, that’s where the hard work really begins. It’s like, all right, you’ve got the eyes and initial attention of this buyer, but then what? So the trifecta is meant to help brands express their why, their what and their how, and their who and their where with three key videos, anthems, explainers, and endorsements, AKA customer stories, respectively. So to summarize that, they help you differentiate

demonstrate and validate what you’re doing while building trust along that journey, right? And so there’s all sorts of nuance into like approach and sort of style and, you know, runtime and all of those things that are really like nuanced to your audience and your industry, et cetera. But that framework really helps you in your initial strategy and approach into how to even begin to create a journey when it comes to video.

Jeffro (09:06.467)
That makes sense. So you mentioned, know, reviews and things. Is there a way that business owners can capture those testimonials without it feeling forced? Because I think sometimes people are like, I don’t want to ask for that. when they do ask somebody, they sit on the video and they’re like, John was the best landscaper I’ve ever hired. You should hire him too. Like, and nobody’s going to trust that essentially.

Tim Bradley (09:24.045)
for us.

Tim Bradley (09:28.758)
No, it’s yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s just it. It’s like, can be your own, sort of gut check into like, well, would I believe this? Would I trust this? Right. So that’s kind of the, the early, the earliest thing you can do, of course, but I always encourage folks that have like written, written case studies and, and, sort of like deeper storytelling in their content already. And to, to leverage that to then step into the medium of video. Right. So

What I mean by that is say you have a longstanding customer, you’ve done a case study with them, they’re happy to support that initiative. You’ve got some really rich like data or ROI or whatever it is that’s sort of like the point of this story. You have a person like the hero on your customer side that’s willing to be the voice and face of this thing. That’s such a good inroad to create an endorsement video, a testimonial video sort of all synonymous, right? It just goes deeper.

And so going on site with a small team, but with production value to show versus tell, show what’s going on behind the scenes, let the voice of the customer authenticate, validate what you’ve got going on. And I think just leading with story and circumstances and pain points that you help solve, that is the testimony in and of itself. So you don’t have to do the like, this company is the best.

Another way we’ve found a lot of success with our clients is like, you know, trade shows or customer experience events, right? Like you’ve got a lot of your customers on site. They’ve come to you in this way, right? You’re not on their site, but like you can go broader. What I mean by that is like ask a handful, you know, half dozen, 10 or whatever customers that you have on site, a set of questions that relate to like a theme or a situation or a pain that they’ve

holistically each had, but then you combine all that into one video, right? And it’s like a montage of voices that speak to like a critical thing that your prospects are trying to overcome, right? So it’s another way that it’s less like, they solved this for me in more, in more, a voice of collection, you know what I mean? Which is really powerful too.

Jeffro (11:44.512)
Yeah. Well, and I’m sure the way you come up with those questions and the way you phrase it is going to help a lot because if you’re getting, if people think, he wants me to say he’s great, then that’s not going to come through. But if you’re asking it to come around the side and answer what the experience was, they might actually think about it and give you an honest answer, which is really what people want to hear. So that’s the trick.

Tim Bradley (11:50.126)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Bradley (12:06.54)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And double click on that is like when you’re setting up a situation of a story, it’s like invariably the current customer was seeking a solution to something they’re trying to solve, like either in their individual role or on behalf of their brand or enterprise at large, right? that is such a ripe like hook to draw future customers in because they are probably currently or have experienced the same thing. So just that like

initial moment builds that little bit of trust of like, okay, they know where I’m coming from, I can put myself in this current customer shoes, right and go along with the story to see what the resolution is. And that resolution is you as the brand, right, which is awesome.

Jeffro (12:49.824)
So let’s talk for a second. Obviously we make these videos, you got the three different kinds, but where do we put the platform? What platforms do we put them on, right? Because there’s social stuff you can post for free anytime, but at a certain point you probably want to run paid ads, put some money behind some of your videos. What types of videos should you be putting money behind? Is it the testimonials? Is it something else? What does that look like?

Tim Bradley (13:13.708)
Yeah. And I’ll lean in further that it’s like, there’s lots of channels. There’s also your own channels with your website and your landing pages and your, your presence at trade shows and your one-on-one sales opportunities, like in a room, like you’re trying to close. Right. So circumstantially you want to think through again, that strategy, right. Of like where each of these little puzzle pieces plays a holistic role in your business. to be more direct in my answer to you is like,

You’ve sold the click, you’re on your website. This opportunity, this prospect is on your website. That is a prime place to express your why. Like why you exist, why your audience should care, right? Why you’re different than the others. Like that anthem video front and center on your website is such a great magnet or not. Like if someone watches it they’re like, this isn’t for me, great. You just saved your sales team like so much time on unqualified leads, right?

Jeffro (14:07.018)
That’s good.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Bradley (14:10.86)
So like having that, that like flagship asset, call it like front and center, huge, huge amount of work. The opposite side of that coin is the, is the, like the explainer video, right? The one that describes what you do and how you do it. So having that like front and center on your, on your service page or your product page or your industry focused pages, right? Like you can have iterations of these things that are specific to your, your like ideal customer profiles or your industry segments. Right? So from there,

a lot of those customer stories lately. You should have innumerable, you should have several of those things, right, because based on, again, industry sets, buyer personas, pain point solution sets that you’ve overcome, right? So that’s the sort of holistic wrapper. Put as much of that on your website as you can because Google and all the search engines are really promoting video by and large, right? So then that’s time on site.

Like people staying on your site is all the betterment. Right. So, and you have control over that, that user experience, that, that, that journey that’s on your site. we use a platform called Wistia. It’s like really great. Cause you can customize like all the, all your sort of color, the color palette you’re using, like you can have CTAs in there. You could have forms. can build an experience that is like inclusive to, to the video platform in and of itself. Of course, the, the second biggest search engine.

to Google is YouTube, which is attached to Google, right? definitely put your content on there. Think really thoughtfully about those titles that are good for search, good thumbnail, good description, have that transcript, metadata. Put all of that information in there to enrich that search experience, right? And then social, you got to think about your own experience on the different platforms, right? It’s like, I’m really big on LinkedIn in particular. And it’s like,

Jeffro (15:39.347)
YouTube.

Tim Bradley (16:07.01)
I don’t always have the sound on, right? So it’s like, want to consider what, you know, a closed caption experience looks like, what emotion graphics, typography experience looks right. Like, you know, especially when it comes to branding, consider all of those things and also typically shorter, the better, right? So like when we’re doing the trifecta, like each of those like prongs, there’s like that premier asset, right? Like that piece that’s like that 60 second anthem or that 90 second explainer or that

Jeffro (16:09.983)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Bradley (16:34.338)
you know, 90 second to two minute customer story, right? Like those are like the quote unquote long form versions definitely have like 15 second versions, 30 second versions, whatever you can sort of like, like make work in that type of length, right? Based on story and engagement. Those are awesome to put on your social channels, you know, and publish those regularly, right? Like I always, it’s not that I get discouraged as a creative, I get discouraged as a marketer.

when a brand pushes a 30 second piece on their social channel once, right? And it’s like, think of your own experience. Like, are you always seeing that brand in your feed? Are you always seeing the same? It’s infinite, you know? And so, like, refreshing, reprising your content on your calendar, especially with the medium that is preferred and is the most sort of enriching and engaging, know, republish that is my point. Like, repurpose it early and often.

Jeffro (17:06.716)
Yeah.

Tim Bradley (17:30.572)
Then yeah, think through your marketing, sorry, your email marketing campaigns and your, your presence at trade shows and just like, can you package those for those mediums too? So things like animated gifts, really great for, for emails, right. And then have that link pushed to where the longer form video is. So traffic pushing it all to, to the, your actual destination, which is invariably your website. Another thing in, and I promise I’ll, I’ll shut up here is the,

Wistia just did their state of video, video marketing report recently. And, some of their data was that, video, resource pages were hugely popular, right? So like some people come to the website and they’re like, all right, cool. So there’s this journey like industry journey and sort of like, you know, I sort of know where to click through, but some people just want to just watch the videos. Right. And so to have a hub of all of your videos that are like easy to curate.

based on like the, audience’s needs, right. Is, is really thoughtful. in meeting, meeting your audience in the way and medium they prefer, right.

Jeffro (18:28.07)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (18:38.172)
Yeah, now on the one hand, somebody might be listening to this who’s not doing video. Like that sounds like a ton of work to make all these different videos everywhere and have it be cohesive and all of that. And yes, of course there’s work involved, but the benefit here is that you’re becoming someone’s trusted person or source. If your videos are helpful, they’ve seen you enough times, like all you’re doing is now they’re getting to know you like you and trust you. And that

removes the pressure from you when you’re recording a video. It’s not like my one-off infovercial, I’ve got to sell hard and this thing can get you to say yes by the end. You don’t have to do that. All you’re doing is showcasing your expertise, showing what other people, you know, their experience was with you. And so over time, when that person’s ready, it becomes a no brainer. And so for you, it’s like, okay, sure, great. I didn’t have to be the sales guy because a lot of people don’t like doing that. Do you agree that that’s kind of what happens?

Tim Bradley (19:33.678)
Oh yeah, I love it. And what I’ve been talking about a lot is like the marketing of it, like marketing videos specifically, but like just using the medium of the power of video to like give value, right? Like give insights, give tips and resources and all of those moments, all those little touches that you can have, those impressions that you can have with the prospect is building trust, right? And like, yeah, like, you know,

getting on camera as tough as it is the first few times and understanding your performance and posture and just how to communicate in this medium and the discomfort of it, you overcome that. As you said, you’re building trust with every single moment that you’re showing up on feeds and channels. And then, yeah, then the buyer, by the time they’re ready to engage, it’s like,

In theory, they already have a sense of who you are. And they’re like, I’ve been listening to you for so long, I feel like I already know you. You get that so much, and that is a huge thing when you’re trying to close a deal.

Jeffro (20:43.607)
You don’t have to close. They’ve already decided in their mind, all you’re doing most of time is answering their questions and saying, all right, here’s what we do to move forward. And it becomes way easier.

Tim Bradley (20:46.338)
Yeah, exactly.

Tim Bradley (20:55.392)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Jeffro (20:56.669)
So another thing we could talk about, you know, there’s a lot of talk about the short-form video and going viral and things that’s of course very appealing to our ego, like to be, to go viral and be seen by millions and then all my problems will be solved, right? But if you’re a business that’s selling a service, maybe it’s a higher trust service, I think you need to approach video a little differently instead of trying to go viral. So what would be a better metric for success rather than just views or likes for that scenario?

Tim Bradley (21:25.9)
Yeah, I would, I sort of call that like drumbeat marketing, right? It’s more in your own sort of like habit building and consistency and goal setting of like, cool, I’m gonna show up on this platform in the medium of video twice a week, whatever it is, right? And like, cool, that helps you like strategize like, what are the things that my prospects, my buyers are constantly thinking about and how can I show up and provide value in this way? And like,

You start developing little bits of scripts and you know, lighting and sort of elements that just like up level what you’re doing every time. One really good piece of advice is someone gave me that even I have a hard time with is like, what, like watch your stuff back. Like what, like you have to watch it. You know what I mean? And you start to understand like, like I can improve the production value in this way. can improve my performance in this way. can, you know, so a lot of that’s in, in, in the sort of things you can control.

then what you’re describing is like engagement and likes and comments and all the analytics that you can see on the back end of any of these platforms, right? It’s like, is definitely an accountability responsibility thing to review that and see what’s working, what’s not. that’ll just, you you’re sort of like aligning a couple things together, like your own.

self-confidence and habits of doing it, like working in this way, and then what your audience is really getting out of it at the end of the day, right? And honestly, just making that part of your sort of sales cycle and process too is ask, like, what brought you in today? Like, what made you want to fill out the form? And it’s like you start hearing those are those qualitative signals that really probably matter the most. It’s like, I keep seeing you.

in my feed and you’re providing a lot of value, like I’d love to learn more about what your program is all about.

Jeffro (23:17.563)
Yeah, those are the things that you don’t see those numbers in a dashboard anywhere. You have to actually draw it out of people and it’ll never be perfect, but you know it’s working when you start asking.

Tim Bradley (23:27.33)
Yeah, exactly.

Jeffro (23:28.806)
So last thing I wanna make sure we talk about today is AI tools. Obviously they’re getting a lot better at generating quick videos and they’re looking pretty good. You can even like take an image and it’ll animate it according to a voiceover stuff. I’ve seen the Talking Baby podcast. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one, it’s very entertaining. But I think it’s very tempting with all this stuff to just try and automate everything and kind of sidestep the uncomfortable part of getting in front of a camera. So I wanted to hear from you. Where do you think the human storytelling element still

matters the most, and when should the business avoid going towards the cheaper automated route?

Tim Bradley (24:06.548)
Wow, what a great question. mean, you’re your own best gut check most of the time, Would you appreciate this? Would you find value in this? Would you want to engage with a company that produces their work in this way? You know what I mean? So you have to, again, always put yourself in your audience’s shoes.

look at it as best you can from an audience’s perspective, right? So I always caution that or encourage that first and foremost. From there, like for us, we love it for the craft, right? We love producing for the creative. So like we don’t necessarily want to like forego all of that, but yeah, like we’re embracing tools that help us develop transcriptions quickly, AI tools that help us develop transcript, transcriptions, sorry, I say it quickly. And then,

close captions, Like animated captions that are on brand, right? That’s super helpful. Extracting the parts of the story or the case study or the thought leadership, right? Extracting those and making shorter form pieces has become so much easier in recent years, right? So it’s just that, you know, the balance of like, how do you…

What do you want your presence to be in the world? What do you want the impression that you’re giving to be in the world? And marketing is hard. Running a business is hard. This is hard. So you have to embrace that, I think. And you’ll be the better forward on the other side. And especially when you’re compa- It’s hard not to compare yourself to competition. But if you know that you’re doing what’s right for your audience, that’s what really- your buyers, that’s what really matters.

Jeffro (25:51.875)
Gotcha. Totally agree. Well, Tim, thank you for joining me today. I thought there was a great conversation and I think a lot of service business owners are starting to realize and hopefully embrace guys that video isn’t just for tech startups or an e-commerce brand or something. This is a trust builder that can help you regardless of the industry that you’re in. So for those of you all listening, go connect with Tim. You can learn more about pendant video. His links will be in the show notes. I’ve got one last question for you, Tim.

a service business, someone’s listening could only make one video this year. What type of video would you recommend they create and why?

Tim Bradley (26:29.838)
Ooh, I always encourage the customer story first, right? Cause it’s like, then it’s less, like spotlight on you and more about the success that your customer is having because of you. Right. So, and, and those also like really help infuse the relationship you have with that customer too. Right. That it’s like the, you’re putting the care and attention. So yeah, I think those are, those are always the most sort of,

Jeffro (26:41.828)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Bradley (26:58.966)
rewarding at end of the day.

Jeffro (27:00.942)
Awesome, I agree. Thanks again, Tim, for being here. Thanks to all you guys for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, it would mean a lot to me if you leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps us reach more business owners looking to achieve digital dominance in their industry. Now take care and we’ll see you next time.