In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda interviews Robert Weiss, President of Sales & Marketing at MultiVision Digital, on the critical role of video in B2B branding and growth strategies. This episode covers strategies for beginning with video marketing, maximizing production value on a limited budget, and highlights video’s increasing importance in digital marketing. Robert also stresses the significance of message clarity, preparing but not scripting conversations, and viewing video as a long-term investment.
Robert’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertweissnyc
MultiVision: https://www.multivisiondigital.com/ and https://videoformanufacturing.com/
Linda’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
Linda’s book, Claim Your White Space:
https://www.amazon.com/CLAIM-YOUR-WHITE-SPACE-CRITICAL-ebook/dp/B0CLK8VLYV
Millennium Agency: Brand Strategy | Marketing | Web Design: https://mill.agency
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mill.agency/
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand CEO of Millennium Agency. And we’re here today to talk about branding and growth strategies. But before I start, I just want to take a moment and thank our audience for tuning in. And if you like what you hear, just hit like, share or subscribe. So today I am very excited to bring in Robert Wise, president of Multi Vision Digital. They’re a New York video production and marketing company. They offer video strategy, production and marketing services, and with over 1400 videos under their belt, they understand everything video. Their clients range from single entrepreneurs to global 500 companies. So welcome Robert to the B2B Brand 180 podcast and thanks for joining me today.
Robert Weiss:
Thank you for asking me to be on and hello, everybody who is listening.
Linda Fanaras:
I would love for you to start and take a moment, tell everybody about yourself, give them a little bit of information on you and your background.
Robert Weiss:
Thank you. I’ll make this quick because who cares about me, but first time entrepreneur, I started a video production company without any background in video. And over the last 13 years, we’ve done about 1500 videos. Across every single business objective. So that’s what I think we’re, I’m really proud of is that as video is adopting still adopting after all these years, right? All the digital marketing technology from websites to email marketing, to social, to video has all been, you know, something people never did and now they do it. So all those technologies have been adopted, and one of the things I’m really proud of is helping our clients to see video, not as this big video production, but as a communication vehicle for sales, for marketing, for thought leadership, for social credibility like we’re doing here for all these different business objectives that happen to be video. So I’m really proud of that. And you know, we’ll continue doing what we do.
Linda Fanaras:
So I would love to start with this question because I think a lot of companies struggle when they think about. Doing a video, it just seems and feels like such a huge undertaking. So if you were to talk to a company or even a sole entrepreneur, where should they get started when they start to think about
Robert Weiss:
video? Okay. So you just gave me like a softball to one of my favorite phrases here. So the first thing to do when you start thinking about video is to forget about video. It’s about what you’re doing from a business standpoint. So is it a new product that you’re launching or an innovation of the product that you already, you know, have? Did you just get HubSpot and you’re developing an email nurturing campaign or a new website? Now you have to do content marketing. These are all business objectives. Or if it’s a bigger company, they probably care about sustainability, right? And they’re putting money into their sustainability report. So lead with that first. And once you decide what your business objectives are, what types of messaging Or content would you create if video never existed, Oh, we need to explain the product and we need to answer questions about the product. We need to talk about the numbers of our sustainability. Here’s 10 topics that we want to become a thought leader in. And then once you have those, that becomes your, roadmap for long term video strategy. But now you need to accomplish that in short term projects and your current business objectives are going to check off your first projects. And once you do that. Then you go back to the drawing board and you, what are your next projects from a business standpoint and check that off. And one of the great things about video is that it lasts for a long time you build a library of video content, very similar to the way organizations have a library of brochures now. And that’s, that’s the longterm goal. So, you need to start doing that sooner rather than later, and that’s the answer to the question of where you get started. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
and what I really like about what you said, because I think this is important for anybody, especially if they’re planning on either being on video or thinking about having a video, is stop thinking about video. think about it as telling a story, whether it’s a story or a testimonial, maybe it’s a corporate brand essence video. What, what are you trying to get across? What’s the point that you’re trying to get across to start that process?
Robert Weiss:
Many times they have that in a brochure on a website page in a PowerPoint. They’ve already done that messaging, because your video content on that particular subject should not be far off from. The other mediums that you have, it should, they should align, right? So therefore when people think that way, you’re like, Oh, well, this video is really not that hard now. Right. I can understand the starting point.
Linda Fanaras:
How do you talk to, or how do you discuss, you know, there’s costs associated with video and it’s absolutely worth it, but I think some companies feel like maybe it’s not worth the cost. How do you tackle something like that?
Robert Weiss:
It, that, that’s a hard one to sell against, but here’s the, the methodology of approaching an investment with video, every company is going to have their own level. I would say the open and transparent with your video production company and let them know you have. a reasonable budget, right? That means 5, 000 to you, 15, 000, 20, 000, 30, 000, 50, 000 for another, right? Right. That’s reasonable to that company and challenge that, that video production company to give you the most value out of that. That is mostly done by not producing one video and creating, it’s called batch producing. And I use the analogy of baking cookies. Would you ever like take all the ingredients out, mix the bowl, spark the oven to make one cookie? Right? No. You would make many cookies, right? So when you make many videos, the investment. Is amortized across more pieces of content that happened to be video. And thus the, the ROI goes up now that all, that being said, a video for sustainability that needs to be shot probably at different locations, have some nice music behind it, motion graphics. Is very different than a thought leadership talking head type of video project where I can do five or 10 videos on location or even remote one day. Very different investment than that sustainability or product video or case study where I need to be on location for those things. Right. So, so again, that’s where some of the conversation comes in. Let the professionals help you make decisions. And how to leverage that budget. And you can only do that by not saying, Oh, how much is this going to cost? Cause every video is going to be like, well, do we go on location for five days or no dates? And that’s very different. But if you come to them and say, okay, here’s my objective. Here’s about what I want to invest in this. How can I get the most amount of content? From that, and that’s a great conversation we’d love to have. Yeah, I
Linda Fanaras:
like that strategy because I think companies can think about that in a longer term perspective. So just, instead of just pushing out one video, maybe if you take some time and take some additional B roll and think that through a little bit and think, okay, maybe in the future I might need another video on this product, or I might need another video that highlights this employee. How can we use that video production time? While they’re on site and take advantage of getting some B roll and maybe using that at a later time Maybe you’re not putting everything together immediately, but it’s something that you’re maintaining, you know, you’re you’re actually shooting
Robert Weiss:
I’ve got an example here on a whiteboard that I did today this morning Around kind of this this topic. So I’ll flip it up and hopefully okay people I’ll explain it So people are just listening can hear but basically this company had to two products Azure and some Pineapple product and what we planned on is doing two product promotional videos, one for each, but when somebody is going through the initial stages of understanding the product, they get it and then ultimately they have questions about that. So this, this particular project, instead of doing two promotional videos. We’re now doing two promotional videos, but then we’re doing like FAQ videos on each product to answer common questions that their sales team knows are going to come up. And yes, they will spend nominally extra investment for this because we’re doing more videos. Then just the two, but the per video cost is going to be driven down and considering that those follow up questions are germane to generating qualified leads. The return on investment is there for, for a nominal Delta on an increase in investment in the entire project.
Linda Fanaras:
I think the other thing, you know, I’d love to share with the audiences because maybe they don’t necessarily think about this all the time. If you’re looking at marketing from a. From one perspective, and you’re talking about maybe putting together a podcast or a radio spot versus writing a blog or putting together a case study. The beauty about video is that you do get that audio visual component and you’re hitting on a lot more senses than you would if you were to just write a blog or if you were to just, put together a radio spot. So being able to. See the emotional aspect of a video is really powerful for any company who’s interested in getting their message across. And that’s one of the beauties, I think, about video that, you know, companies should really consider. So what’s your thought on scripting, Robert? Do you think companies should be scripting or do you think they should wing it? Neither. Okay,
Robert Weiss:
they should not script it, but they should not be prepared and I’ll go back to, I’ll go back to my chart here with the two products. Okay. This, this particular company I do a lot of manufacturing trade shows and I met them at a manufacturing show. And I know that when people walk up to the booth. And their people talk about this, this product, they don’t have a script, they’re professional, they answer the questions, they’re personable. And that’s what we want to mimic in video, that, that personal interaction by having people on camera. So we want to be prepared. We want it, we want to do this and we want to know what the key messages are of the product and we want to know what the questions and answers are of the questions. So everybody is prepared, but this is not something that these people have not done a hundred times already. Right. They’ve done it. They just need a little bit of professional services. around the planning and the coaching and the editing to make them come across Like who they are on camera and that’s that’s what we do for for a living. I don’t like scripts when Every time with the exception of like a really kind of like a ceo message that has to be super on point You don’t use scripts or teleprompters Because we want people to be who they are, and if they mess up with just a little bit, that’s fine. That means you’re professional and you’re human,
Linda Fanaras:
You know, video has really taken off over the last, five plus years. Why do you think that’s the case? Especially on the digital side.
Robert Weiss:
I think there’s a lot of reasons for that, and I’ll say there’s, you know, soft reasons and hard reasons, and I’ll start with some of the soft ones where you mentioned, two minutes ago about it conveys emotion and really shows. When you’re selling a product or a facility, people will be able to see that and they’ll be able to make their own decisions. Video is quick. It’s easy. It doesn’t allow the buyer to have a lot of effort to figure things out. You’re telling them video lasts for a long time. It showcases people. When people can’t be there, you know, literally if I send you a link, you can watch three or four videos of me in a, in a, you know, black shirt right now. But then I’m in a suit, I’m at a show, I’m in a studio, I’ve got long hair, man, I might be scruffy at one point and over those little pieces. You’re going to kind of see the different looks of, of Robert and get the information that you need to either enter into or go through a buying cycle. And that’s what video does for both the buyer and seller, right? And then it lasts for a long time. Most videos last for four or five, six years. My client’s using videos that are created seven years ago, right?
Linda Fanaras:
Those are great reasons.
Robert Weiss:
We are becoming a nation of watchers first. That’s a fact. Yeah. I should have led
Linda Fanaras:
with that. Oh, it’s okay. We got it in. So before I go on to my next question, I just want to take a moment and thank our audience. And if they like what they hear today, just hit like, share, or subscribe and I’ll provide a review to the B2B brand one 80 podcast. So since this is a B2B. You know, channel, Robert, I’d love to hear from you. What do you think the most important part of B2B video is if you were to pick out maybe one or two critical components of B2B video,
Robert Weiss:
The message, the message, the message, the message. I say this all the time. What would you say to somebody standing in front of you? Cause people are like, Oh, I need to write a script. I need to do this. I’m not sure what to say. That’s the message. You know, what, what, what do buyers want to know? And that’s where it starts. And my job is to put visuals to that. So don’t start with what you want to see. You know, that’s not initially important. And then the second thing is videos a marathon. It’s not a sprint. Mm hmm. So just because you’ve done one video or five videos, you should be getting into a flow and a cadence of doing X amount of videos per year, whether that’s two projects, four projects. You know, you’re going to figure that out. You should be having a cadence of working with professionals, like my company, doing videos on your own, because you will learn how to do it better and get into your own flow and develop a culture of, of video. Okay. And that’s, those are two key points that I would say to anybody listening.
Linda Fanaras:
There are so many important factors of being effective, I think on the B2B video piece. And one of the things that, you know, we found over the years is sometimes companies have a lot of things to say. And when it comes to video, it seems if you can be as clear and concise and. Point when it comes to a key message, not too many messages, it can be much more effective because that peer, unless you know, unless you have a law, unless it’s a long video, it seems to me that a very succinct message and maybe one or two key messages versus like three or five or six messages could be much more effective. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah.
Robert Weiss:
I mean, never make a video longer than it has to be. That’s Thanks. That’s the golden rule. I wouldn’t stay focused on the length so much because that’s for television advertising, right? So get in and get out with the key messages that you want. And you’re right. Don’t shove five messages into a video, right? We did, we did a a video project for a steel company and they did it. They have an inspection line of this, of the steel coils. And this inspection line had. Eight different parts to the, to the line. So we did one like high level overview video of the line that really kind of highlighted the line, the technical parameters and going into all the different parts, that video is like eight minutes long. Right. Right. But think about the alternatives of somebody evaluating this 2, 000, 000 plus purchase. Mm hmm. They need to get PowerPointed to death multiple times. They need to maybe go visit the location, go through the sales process, versus watching an eight minute video. So who cares about length at that moment in time? Mm hmm. You’re getting all the information you need piece by piece. For this huge purchase. We did also five other videos that pulled apart, like key differentiators of this line that were kind of new innovations to this line that people didn’t understand. So we, again, we highlighted them in that eight minute overview, but then we did kind of like follow up videos that drilled into the, those five key aspects. And in totality that gave buyers everything that they wanted to know. Yeah. Those follow up videos, they weren’t, weren’t eight minutes. They were two minutes, or one and a half minutes, or three and a half minutes, whatever they ended up being to really explain that one particular piece of technology.
Linda Fanaras:
Do you have an opinion on, when you’re putting together video and you have plenty of B roll and then also incorporating stock of video and also voiceover versus, you know, maybe an individual talking, do you have any thoughts, preferences, mixing that up? Good idea. Not a good idea.
Robert Weiss:
I guess no, because we’ve done all of that. Okay. You know, we’ve done strictly voiceover with Okay. Live footage. We’ve done strict voiceover with all stock footage. We’ve mixed stock footage with live footage. We’ve mixed voiceover with person talking. We’ve done all of that. But that’s where I would say the secret sauce comes in with working with a video production company and not making those decisions up front. don’t come to us and say, I want to see this. I want to see this. I don’t want my video to see that. And I want a drone. Right. Right. Why do we need a drone? explain to me why we need a drone to show this, this product. Right, right, right. Different. We need a drone. Exactly. So again, going back to the messaging, the messaging, messaging, meshing is going to drive the visuals. And sometimes. We’ve applied either somebody talking or the voiceover talks about the industries that that particular product or application has, and as they’re talking about the different industries, you know, automotive, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals will pop stock footage or visuals of those industries up. Right to be able to relate to the customer. But again, that’s driven by what the message is, not by what we’ve decided we’re gonna show.
Linda Fanaras:
So do you have two, three tips that you think, I know, even if it’s a recap of what you could share with the audience before we jump off?
Robert Weiss:
just from a recap standpoint, it’s probably nothing that we haven’t said. Messaging, messaging, messaging, yeah. And be transparent with your video production company. There’s a lot of good ones out there. They’re not trying to screw you. The more budget you give them, I’m not going to say the better video, right? Because you can do a really good video for 5, 000 and, but you can do an amazing video for 50, 000. It’s just the amount of the resources that you will allow them to be able to execute your, your project. And there’s a lot of variables. So they’re experts. They want repeat business from you, right? So if they don’t do a good job the first time and use your budget wisely, you will not go back to them. And that’s not what they want.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Robert. That was fantastic. I’d love for you to absolutely, I’d love for you to share how businesses can get in touch with you. I know also we’re planning on putting a link in the comments. I don’t know if you want to speak about that as well, but I would love for you to share that. To get started here. Yeah,
Robert Weiss:
this is just a, it’s a video about building qualified leads, you know, with, with video and some examples there. So it’s a minute and 55 second video. If you’re a manufacturing company, go to video for manufacturing video, F O R manufacturing. com. If you’re just a regular B2B company, you can go to multivision digital. If you’re a manufacturing company, you can also go to multivision digital, but we’ve got a manufacturing portfolio there, but we have manufacturing video for manufacturing. com set up specific. For the different types of manufacturing companies, because we love that we love that area. It’s a lot of fun. That’s awesome.
Linda Fanaras:
Great. Thank you. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you again for tuning into the B2B Brand 180 podcast. We hope that you found all the insights and strategies shared today helpful and valuable to your business. And again, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. Feel free to visit us at mill, M I L L dot agency, or just connect directly with me on LinkedIn. And just to help our channel grow, love for you to hit like, share, or subscribe. Thank you. And have a great day.
