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Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott
The DocuShort Strategy: One Video, Multiple Marketing Wins with Leigh Laird
00:29:17
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- [00:00]
A
All summer long on the Everyday Vopeneur podcast, I am giving Everyday Vopeneurs the opportunity to come on the show and ask me one of their pressing business and marketing questions. We call it the Everyday Veopreneur Summer series. And hopefully I've got some good advice to offer, and hopefully the things that we talk about are of relevance to a number of people who are watching the show and listening to the show so that you can get some free advice from this as well. So today I welcome to the show. Lee Larratt, it's good to have you here.
- [00:27]
B
Thank you so much. I appreciate being able to be on. It's fun.
- [00:30]
A
So tell me what your question is.
- [00:33]
B
Well, okay. So you and I have been connected on LinkedIn for a long time, and I've been following your content there, and I'm loving your documentary that you're doing. So. Because I know that for both of us, this has been a goal to get into this particular genre of vo, because it's just fascinating. There's just so much depth there. So. So what I want to know is how you create your videos and also how you know what the response has been. Are you getting traction within, you know, with producers who produce this type of content? But first, I want to know, how do you come up with your ideas, your content, how do you write it, and how do you produce the videos? Are you doing that in Canva? Are you doing it here in Riverside? How do you do that?
- [01:21]
A
Okay, so lots to unpack there, and I think that I can give you some insight into all of those different things. So let's start with topics. The topic, the foundation of the topics comes from there are certain networks that I would really love to be able to get in with.
- [01:39]
B
Okay.
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A
And so part of what I'm thinking about is what kind of show would air on Discovery, what kind of show would air on History Channel, which kind of show might air on Nat Geo or whatever? So I'm thinking about that first. What are the networks that I want to be a part of? And then from there, I can branch out into, okay, let's do some documentaries around ancient history. Let's do some documentaries around extreme weather and natural disasters. Let's do some documentaries around science and nature and that sort of thing. So I can start to kind of figure out what are some of the topics that I'm interested in.
- [02:15]
B
Okay.
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A
From there, AI becomes my friend. I know I'm gonna catch crap for this, but it is what it is.
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B
So I wondered about that. Yeah.
- [02:22]
A
Yep. So I. I can go into ChatGPT or Claude. I use both of them.
- [02:27]
B
Okay.
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A
And I can say, I really want to do some documentaries under these subject matters and give it a series of subject matters. And, and then I can just say, give me some ideas. We can start coming up with some, some ideas. And then from there I can say, okay, I like this one, I like that one. Don't like that one. I really like this one. Ooh, let's up with more like that. And we kind of work through there. So that's one way that I do it.
- [02:51]
B
Okay.
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A
And then the other thing that has happened is because I have been doing these for a while now, I'm also able to take my analytics, so I can take my YouTube raw data from YouTube that shows my view counts.
- [03:05]
B
Okay.
- [03:06]
A
I can, I can download my raw data from Instagram, which shows my view counts.
- [03:11]
B
Right.
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A
And I get that from Facebook as well.
- [03:14]
B
Okay.
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A
And I can feed that to the AI And I can say, based on what you're seeing here, are there certain themes that seem to work better than others and maybe can we lean a little bit more into that as well? And so I'm using it, I'm using the data to help me identify trends that may be worth making note of.
- [03:35]
B
Right, Right.
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A
From the scripting. A lot of the scripting starts with AI.
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B
Okay.
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A
And I give it a format that I want to follow, but then I can go through and kind of double check certain points, certain facts, and I will tweak things from here and there often. I, you know, I don't like this line. I'm going to change that, or I want to say this this way or whatever, but I'm definitely using it as an assistant for doing the scripting. And again, I know I'm going to catch crap for that, but look, the reality is I don't have time to do all of this. And this is one of those ways where I can use a tool like that to, to be of great assistance to me.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And, and so then I've got, you know, now I've got a long list of, of ideas that I can work through and I, I take into other consideration. Like, you know, in, in December, I did a bunch of videos that were more focused around Christmas theme and.
- [04:27]
B
Sure.
- [04:27]
A
And you know, when, when tornado season is very active in the US I take that into consideration. When hurricane season is active, I take that into consideration. When we're in the winter, you know, talk about polar Vorte, you know, so I try to play seasonalities and things like that as well. Not that that matters as much because these videos exist evergreen, but in the moment when you release it, if it's relevant, that certainly makes, that certainly makes an impact. So that's kind of the pre production, we'll call it, creative process is. That's kind of how I'm working through that. And then I have a table in notion, which is software that I use. It helps me keep track of, of everything.
- [05:07]
B
Okay.
- [05:09]
A
From the production standpoint, I record the videos on my phone. So I just have a ARM mounted in my booth that I can just connect my phone to. So that just points to record the video. I record the audio through my studio, you know, through my microphone and onto Adobe Audition and then I can sync those two up. So I use Adobe Audition for recording the audio and then I use Adobe Premiere for editing the video so I can.
- [05:36]
B
Okay, okay.
- [05:37]
A
So when I put the video into Adobe Premiere, I can sync with the audio that I've recorded so that it's not my phone audio, but it's just phone video. I don't have any special equipment or tools or anything like that.
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B
Okay.
- [05:48]
A
And then I am also using a subscription to Envato Marketplace, which is where I get the music, the stock video, the stock photography and everything like that. I've got this Envato Marketplace subscription and I've been very happy with what I've been able to get from there. Side note, when I am brainstorming topics, that is also one of the things that I have to think about. Can I find video to go along with this?
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B
Okay.
- [06:16]
A
And so there have been some topics that have come up that I've thought, oh, this would be a great one. But trying to find footage for that would be really, really difficult.
- [06:24]
B
Okay.
- [06:25]
A
And so I just kind of have to put that one to the side until I can figure out a way to, to do it. Maybe later down the road or maybe I find a new source or something like that. But, but Envato Marketplace by and large has been fantastic. And so that's what I, I'm using. The reason why I chose to do the videos the way I did, where I'm in the upper corner of the screen, is because the, the whole point was to showcase. This is a human narrator.
- [06:50]
B
Ah, very good.
- [06:51]
A
Right? I want people. Now, do I still, every once in a while get comments about, oh, this guy's totally AI. No, I, I do. I still get those comments every once in a. I wanted. It wasn't just about creating the documentary and telling that story. Obviously that's a big part of it. But I really wanted to demonstrate I'm a human. This is me in the booth doing this voiceover, telling this story. And so that's why I chose to do the video the way that I did.
- [07:21]
B
But I didn't even think about that aspect of it. But that's key.
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A
That's.
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B
That's key, you know, and. And I think it all just sort of, you know, from a marketing standpoint, it makes you all the more memorable. You know, somebody who's, you know, happens. Happens upon it on one of your platforms. That's just, you know, it makes a difference and does. Yeah.
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A
And for every comment that I get that's like, oh, this guy's totally AI, There are five comments that are. It's so nice to hear a human voice.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because there's so much of the content is obviously not.
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B
Right.
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A
Now to the second part of your question. Is it working?
- [08:00]
B
Yeah.
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A
Have I booked a documentary as a result of it? No. No, not yet. Have I expanded out my network as a result of posting this content? Yes.
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B
Okay.
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A
And there are a few other things that are going on behind the scenes as well. So I'm. It's. It's a overarching strategy that I'm building.
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B
Okay.
- [08:22]
A
So doing the videos, the whole point is to showcase the narration and, you know, hopefully get in front of some producers who will see it and take interest. And. And that has happened. I have had people who have commented on the videos and some people who've reached out to me through LinkedIn or whatever. It was a slow build, and I think that's one of the other things. I think a lot of people give up on this way too early. You. You post your first five or 10 videos and you don't go viral, and you think, what the heck, it's not even worth it. So just this week, the, the week that we're recording here in, In June, mid. Mid June, I had my first video cross 40,000 views. So up until that point, like, I think. Yeah, but it's been like a year. Right. Like, it's taken. It's taken a long time of consistently posting.
- [09:13]
B
Yeah.
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A
And so, and, and irony, that video has crossed 40,000 views on Instagram and it died out at a thousand on YouTube. Like, and really, you know, like, it's hard to. It's hard to know where it's going to take off or which one's going to work or whatever. But there are a couple of other things that have come up as a result of this that weren't part of my initial plan, but have certainly become part of the overarching plan now. So one is I have created multiple playlists or I've created multiple clips rather, for my online casting profiles. So I'm taking all. I'm taking a bunch of these different docu shorts that I'm doing and I'm cutting them up into 15 or 20 second clips. And we created an actual docu series playlist. Now, because I have so many clips, what we're actually going to do is we're going to break that down even further. Science documentary playlist, travel documentary playlist, natural disaster documentary playlist. Right. Like we'll turn all of those into multiple playlists and every single one of those clips becomes another SEO opportunity through the online casting. And so that has. Has certainly opened up some opportunities because I'm starting to rank really well in the Voice123 search. And this week alone I've had four. Four direct invites, including one direct booking, not for documentary. But they've all. It's all been because of how well I've ranked. And a couple of them have referred to certain reads that they saw or heard.
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B
Oh, okay. Okay.
- [10:42]
A
So that's one. That's one part of the strategy. The other part of the is every single one of these videos that I'm creating, I'm building a page for on my website.
- [10:52]
B
Okay.
- [10:52]
A
And that page on my website is being optimized for geo generative engine optimization. And so the idea there is I'm going to have so many pages on my website that are going to ultimately build me as an authority when somebody's looking for a travel documentary narrator or a historical documentary narrator or whatever. I'm going to have pages that are gonna direct people to me because I've built that content out. So I'm using this as part of a bigger SEO geo strategy as well. And that again, I've been working on that for, I don't know, probably six or eight months at this point. I just started popping up about two weeks ago into a couple of the LLMs for a couple of the documentary searches. And so it's starting to work. I've got a real uphill climb because what I have learned is that when you are looking for a male documentary narrator, you are going to be fed Morgan Freeman and you are going to be fed David Attenborough.
- [11:50]
B
Oh, yeah. Okay.
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A
Those guys literally own all the SEO in the documentary space.
- [11:55]
B
It's only a matter of time before Mark Scott's name is.
- [11:58]
A
That's right. So, I mean, I've Got. I've got my work cut out for me. But, but that's the. I think that's the other side of this that people don't see. You see the video because I post the video on social media. But what you don't think about is all the different ways that that video can ultimately be reused.
- [12:17]
B
Okay.
- [12:17]
A
Right. I can make entirely new demos from all of these different clips. I can make entirely new and separate playlists on online casting from all of these different clips. I can build all of this content on my website for SEO Geo, all from all of these different clips. And so I'm taking this, this one thing that I'm doing, which are these videos, and repurposing them in so many different ways. And so to me, at this point, it's just a matter of time. It's.
- [12:46]
B
Oh, absolutely, right.
- [12:47]
A
It's showing up consistently. And, you know, I'm, I'm evaluating the strategy every once in a while. So I talked about this in a, in an earlier episode, but recently I downloaded all of my analytics or all my raw data from Google Analytics and from Google Search Console and I gave it to Claude and said, I want you to take a look at this and tell me, is the strategy that we're trying to do working? And Claude's able to go through and analyze and say, well, here's what's working, here's what's not working, and here's what I think we can improve. And so then I can go to Claude and I can say, okay, I want you to go fix all 50 of those pages that we built.
- [13:24]
B
Really? So how did, how does Claude do
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A
that with Claude Cowork. So if you are on the paid subscription for Claude, there is a feature that is in Claude that is called Claude Cowork and it can actually take over your browser. It works in Google Chrome, and it can literally log into your website. And you. I'm so, I'm sitting there doing something completely different, and over beside me is another browser window that's open and I'm watching Claude go through and update all the webpages. Right. And so totally rebuilding those web pages to accommodate this new strategy. Now, that would take me weeks, if I even did it at all. Yeah, in reality, I probably would never do it because I don't have time. But so this is a continuously, continuous and iterative process as I try to make it all work. But. And the other side of it is that I'm just, I'm having fun.
- [14:13]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Because you're doing. You're you're creating content that's, that's interesting to you, and it's, and it's, it's a direction that, that you want to go. So, so given the different platforms, because you mentioned YouTube, it went viral on, on Instagram, but, but like only about a thousand. So, so what platforms? So You've got Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. Which ones are working best? Which ones? What kind of trends do you see there?
- [14:41]
A
I would say that I have just now started seeing the most traction on Instagram.
- [14:47]
B
Okay, okay.
- [14:48]
A
And I think one of the reasons for this, one of the challenges of social media now, is these algorithms are built for you to do one thing. If your account does multiple things. You post about being a mom, you post about being a voice actor, you post about gardening, you post about baking sourdough bread, whatever, the algorithm can't figure out who you are, and so it can't figure out who to feed your stuff to. Whereas if you're only posting one type of content consistently, then the algorithms can start to identify who the audience is for that kind of content.
- [15:26]
B
Okay.
- [15:26]
A
And so I've recently started really just narrowing the focus of my Instagram channel to the voiceover side of things. I'm not posting podcast stuff there right now, and it's all an experiment, but as I have just been posting only the documentary short content and, you know, strictly voiceover related content, it seems like that's been something that has helped. I've watched my view counts on Instagram go from a couple hundred to I started getting a couple thousand. Then I had some videos that got around 8,000, I had one that got 12,000, and now this most recent one that's got 40,000. And I think it's because the algorithm is finally starting to identify an audience. I still say, though, that there's massive value for me to post on LinkedIn. And I will continue to post them on LinkedIn because on LinkedIn, I am directly connected to documentary producers, video producers, stuff like that. Right. And so I will continue to post there because ultimately I know that people will see them there. And the reality is, once the video is created, it's not hard to share it across different platforms. But how I write the post for Instagram is going to be different from how I write the post from LinkedIn, from LinkedIn, which will be different from how I write the post from YouTube. So I'm not just writing one post and blitzing it everywhere either. I'm. I'm trying to be strategic based on. On audience and whatnot. I Don't get as many views at this point yet on YouTube, although I've had a few videos that have taken off and done, you know, 10,000 or whatever. But I'm also building just this giant back library of really evergreen content. Right. Like when Christmas comes around and people start searching for, you know, why does Santa use reindeer? I literally have a docu short about why Santa chooses reindeer. Right. So that, that will stay relevant for every Christmas for, you know, as long as I leave it there. And so I, I think that's the other side of it is I'm continuing to build this library that will continue to stay relevant.
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B
Relevant. Yeah, absolutely.
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A
I just think though, there are ways, and obviously we're talking documentary because that's the genre that I'm going after. You could just as easily do this if you were into character and animation.
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B
Oh sure.
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A
And you generate some sort of character and you create some sort of video. I recently edited up some clips from my new commercial demo and I've been posting those short clips from my commercial demo.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And again, just using some stock video and putting something together and you know, does it look like a fully professionally produced, high end commercial? No, not really. But that's not the point. The point is that it's just, it's another piece of content that's got my voice on it that I'm able to put out there. And so I just think, even though in this particular use case we're talking about one genre, I think that it's fully adaptable to any number of different genres that you would want to be able to do. But the greater point here, I think is taking advantage of content creation in all the different ways that it can be taken advantage of. So it's not strictly just about posting a video. It's about creating clips and playlists and making demos and content for your website and. Right. It's all the things all tied together that make it work.
- [18:42]
B
Right, Right. So how long would you, how long would you say it takes you to develop one, one video from start to finish? From the time you kind of nail down your topic and you know, your, your AI helps with the content and then to the finished product. How long does that take you?
- [19:01]
A
I would say probably one to two hours, I think.
- [19:03]
B
Okay.
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A
I think it depends on the video. Some videos it's just, you know, you go into, you go into the Envato marketplace and start doing a search for tornadoes. There's a million tornado videos and it's really easy to just download a bunch of tornado videos and Edit something together. Whereas a different topic that has different themes or tells a different kind of story, you might have to think a little bit harder about what kind of video could I use for the visual for this sentence. And so sometimes it's just that side of it that takes a little bit longer with AI helping me come up with the topics and then doing the writing and then me just going through and cleaning up the final draft, tweaking a few things, fact checking a few things. I mean that's not super time consuming. It's just a couple of minutes to go into the booth and record really is just about the amount of time that I'm, that I'm spending on the edit. And yeah, that just really comes down to subject matter and what kind of.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Stock footage that I can find.
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B
Yeah. But when, you know, when you think about the, the long term payoff for you in this with just the massive content and how that's, you know, how that's boosting you on, on voice 1, 2, 3 and any other platforms that you're on and, and your Geo, you know, just your, you're being able to be found. I mean it's, that is time very well spent. So.
- [20:27]
A
Yeah, One of the things that I've often talked about when you're doing this type of marketing, you know, the direct self marketing, is that it is a long game and I am playing a long game. I started making the first videos a year ago, did a bunch of them, had to take a break just due to life and some things that were going on. But then in that break, I was able to sit down and go back through everything that I had already created and look at the strategy with a little bit of hindsight and say, okay, here are all the videos that I created, what worked, what didn't. Where can I make improvements? What do I have to do differently? The amount of art and nuance that goes into something as simple as the text that you put on a thumbnail. Right. Like that can literally be the difference between whether you get views or don't get views. Understanding the importance of that first three seconds, that's, that's something that I've been working a lot on lately. And so I might go through five or six different versions of the first line of a script, just trying to figure out which line is going to be the one that hooks me and makes me want to watch a little bit longer. Right. Because if you can get them for the first three seconds, then they're, they're likely going to stay a little Bit longer.
- [21:47]
B
Yeah.
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A
And one of the things that I have consistently found because most of my shorts fall into the 50 to 55 second range.
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B
Okay.
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A
And I have average view times as much as 40 seconds, which is really high. That is for most short content, people are watching for five or 10. And so if I'm able to have an average of up to 40 seconds, that means that most people are actually staying and watching to the end.
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B
Watching to the end. Yeah.
- [22:13]
A
But you got to write a certain way in order to make that happen. And so that's something that I've been learning a lot about with this last round. This probably the last dozen or so that I've been working on is just thinking more about the structure of the story. What is that hook going to be, you know, how does it pay off in the end and all of that sort of stuff. So, I mean, there is some nuance to it which admittedly I did not understand in the beginning. And that's part of where using the AI it's not just do this for me. It's what's working, what isn't. Okay. Why didn't that work? Okay, help me understand that. Why did this work? Okay. Help me understand that. And so I'm learning this process as I go, which is helping me to do better and better with the actual, the behind the scenes stuff before the video actually makes it out. And then, you know, that doesn't mean I'm still going to post a video that's going to fall flat. I mean, it's just, it's going to happen. Right. It's not like, oh, I hit 40,000 on one, so now they're all going to be amazing. No, I, I, that, that's not the expectation. It's, it's still a constant learning process and trying to figure out.
- [23:25]
B
Yeah.
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A
The right, the right formats or whatever. But I'm, I'm having fun doing it and so that makes it easier.
- [23:32]
B
Yeah, yeah, I can, I can see how, I can see how that would be. Okay, so since you've offered such inspiration, are you, Will you be offended if any other voice talent like this one here might, might take your inspiration and kind of do my, kind of go my own direction with it Because I'll tell you, my dream job. This is my dream po job for anybody out there listening. I want to do in show narration on hgtv. I love, I love diy. I love home Improvement. We've done some really cool like a couple, couple years ago, in fact, I have all this video footage of our bathroom Reno that we did in our. When our kids were all. Had all left home. You know, it's like, okay, this bathroom is sad. Let's redo it. And it was, you know, it was quite a journey, but I've got it all on video and. And I, I just, just need to put it all together and do it. So, you know, so that's an area where I thought I need to just get started on this and put these up on Instagram for starters, and then maybe on LinkedIn.
- [24:37]
A
So I would be more offended if you didn't do it at this point because what is the point in sharing all the. As a coach for me anyway? I'm like, what is the point in giving all this advice if you're not going to do anything with it? So I say go for it. I mean, the other big place and there are opportunities for all of us. And so, yeah, okay, I say, I mean, obviously, yes, of course, go and do it, but go in realistically.
- [25:07]
B
Okay.
- [25:08]
A
Don't go in thinking, you know, I just got to create a bunch, create a handful of videos and you know, it's going to go viral and blah, blah, blah, and maybe it will. I don't know. Right. You could create that. Like, who doesn't. Who hasn't been through a bathroom renovation? Right. That's something that resonates with everybody, regardless of who you are and where you're at in life. That resonates, but have an overarching strategy for how this all comes together. I think that's where you really draw all the value from it. It's not just about creating the videos. It's thinking through who do I, you know, what shows do I want to narrate for and what kind of content could I do that would. That would attract those producers potentially or get me in front of those people. How can I leverage this into. Are there opportunities that are being posted in that space? In online casting, do I have a home renovation playlist or a DIY playlist where home builders, paint companies, wallpaper, whatever. When. When they come on to voice 1, 2, 3, and they do a search and my name pops up because, oh, my gosh, she's already done a wallpaper spot. Let's have her, you know, let's invite her. How do I leverage this into creating new pages for my website that now when somebody's doing, you know, I'm creating a new series for HGTV and I need to find a narrator and you happen to have a page on your website that talks about you being an expert narrator for HGTV DIY series. You get to be the returned result in ChatGPT. And now somebody just landed on your website. So just think through the whole strategy of what that looks like and be prepared to do it consistently over the long term. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're building an audience on LinkedIn, if you're doing in person networking, if you're doing email marketing, if you're doing content creation. All of this stuff works when you do it consistently over the long term.
- [26:54]
B
Over the long term. Right, right. Yeah. Consistency is key. Yeah, yeah. How many, what is your goal in terms of how many videos you try to push out a month? Is it like couple a month or do you do one a week?
- [27:08]
A
I was doing one a week. I was doing one a week. I started doing two a week, which sometimes is more manageable than others. And so, but, but yeah, the goal was to ultimately get it to a point where I could do two a week and I was doing two a week and I had gotten ahead, which gave me a little bit cushion. You know how it is, Life happens and then cushion disappears. And so, you know, like, so it is now, as we're recording, it's Thursday afternoon at 12:30 and I don't have a video for tomorrow yet. And so I've still got a couple of podcast interviews to record today. I have to go to my 13 year old daughter's grade eight graduation tonight. Like, I don't know, am I going to be up until 2 o' clock in the morning editing a video for tomorrow or am I just going to have to skip it? I don't know. Right. But I'm trying. At the very least I want to try to get a new one out every week, but I mean, you got to do what's realistic for you too. But I, I think with this type of strategy, I think once a week is a good place to start.
- [28:05]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [28:06]
A
Seven days is an eternity on the Internet and so that's true. You post a video on Monday and maybe by Wednesday it's, or Thursday it stopped getting any traction at all. And now you're gonna wait until Monday to post the next one. And so you've, you, you had this big ride up initially, but then it falls off and you're starting at the bottom again. I would rather have the ride up and then just when it starts to dip.
- [28:30]
B
Boop.
- [28:30]
A
Here's another one.
- [28:30]
B
Another one? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's good strategy. Okay. Okay, that's good.
- [28:36]
A
All right.
- [28:36]
B
Oh, wow. This has been great. Thank you. Yeah.
- [28:40]
A
I hope it's been helpful.
- [28:41]
B
Oh, it's been very helpful. And yeah. Because I just, I have loved watching them and they've been very inspiring. So I appreciate the chance to visit with you about it. And thanks for having me on your podcast.
- [28:52]
A
Thanks. Let me know when the first video's out. I want to see it.
- [28:54]
B
I will. I will. Okay.
- [28:56]
A
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