This is an article about producing B2B videos: the kind you post on YouTube to bring in prospects. In this story, it was actually about the slick home-page video we were creating for a client’s new website. 
 
For these types of videos, the approach is usually pretty straightforward: You send off your approved two-column (“Video” and “Audio”) video script to your video editor, who does the rest. This includes finding stock footage and music, building titles, editing the footage, and farming our the voice-over or V.O. 
 
It’s that last part we want to talk about here. 
 
Sure, you can proceed the way we just described. But we don’t recommend it. Here’s why. 
 
We’ll use the case of our client, and their new website, as an example. For their new site, they were also updating their brand, and, more importantly, the audience they wanted to target. Specifically, they were going more upscale in their demographic. Very high-end. 
 
Sure, this was conveyed in the video script. And we could have entrusted our video editor (who is fantastic, by the way) to source the V.O. on his own. 
 
Instead, we worked with the client to produce the V.O. first, before sending the script to the editor. This gave us the advantage (“luxury”?) of casting that part ourselves, letting our client listen to audio samples of different V.O. artists, and then narrowing down to the final one. 
 
Then we were able to work with this voice-over artist very directly and intently, explaining to him the exact audience we were looking to target, the similar reads on his reel that would be relevant/close to what we wanted, the intended look and feel of the finished video, and so on. 
 
Armed with all of this info, that V.O. artist delivered. He nailed it. You could just see the gorgeous video it would accompany… even if that video hadn’t been created yet. 
 
Take 2
 
Now we could send that V.O. recording—along with the script, our client’s logo, and other files—along to our brilliant video editor. 
 
And think of this: Not only did our producing the V.O. (whose cost was ridiculously nominal, by the way) save our editor work and time, but it also provided killer input to help create a better video.
 
All he had to do was listen to the thing. It helped him pick just the right background music—on the very first try! It helped him source the right stock-footage candidates, with minimal back-and-forth from us.
 
We knew, all along, how this video was supposed to come out. That’s our job. It was tougher for our client to visualize in advance; that’s neither their job nor their skill-set. But boy were they delighted when the final product came together. 
 
And note that nothing mentioned above increased the production budget of this video. It was simply a matter of choosing to sequence it in this way which elevated its production value so much, and so efficiently. 
 
Have a creative project you need help with? Contact us. We’d be delighted to pitch in. 

​We had a client who recently showed us a whole new program they were going to present to their clients and new prospects alike. 
 
It was well thought-out. It was super detailed. It had lots of impressive features. It promised to deliver a ton of value and ROI. 
 
And it was terrifying.
 
Who sees what—and when
 
This may seem contradictory, if not counterintuitive. Here it is, we’d just lauded this new program which our client had created and unveiled to us. And then we undercut that review with the dreaded T-word. What gives? 
 
We can give you a little more detail now, and you’ll certainly say “Ohhhh…!” 
 
Our client—like many business owners—lives and breathes in spreadsheets. So that’s what they’d shared with us. Indeed, they screen-shared it with us. 
 
And this spreadsheet (was it Excel? was it Google? who cares?) was about 40 rows deep by about 25 columns across. 
 
All at once. 
 
Yep. Terrifying. 
 
The good news: We were the first, and only, ones to see it in this state. Our client was justifiably and understandably excited by the cool new program they’d worked so hard to develop. But boy was it ever un-exciting when presented as a swimming sea of spreadsheet cells. 
 
This is hardly a tragic story. And you likely can see exactly where it’s going, even if our client wasn’t able at the time. 
 
We patiently listened to the whole presentation, which took about a half hour. We took notes. And then we asked some pointed questions: 

• Which part of this program comes first? 

 

• Which components does it feature? 

 

• Which part comes next? 

 

• Which components does it feature? 

 

• And so on. 

 
The idea was to turn down the spigot on this fire hose so it would better resemble a soda straw. The client—they’re very smart—immediately saw where we were going. 
 
Easier than you think
 
Once our client realized that they needed to carve their presentation of this new program into bite-sized chunks, all that was left was the execution. And here we can describe a kind of MVP or minimum-viable-product version of that effort: 
 
Sure, the client could have gone on and created a snazzy new PowerPoint deck, with discrete slides for the different phases of this proposed program. But that would take time, effort, and resources—and at this point, the client really just wanted to test out this idea: socialize it with existing clients and see how receptive they’d be. 
 
So why even make a PowerPoint? The solution was even simpler: Tabs.
 
Yep. That’s all they needed. If this program has five phases, then carve the spreadsheet into five clickable tabs. Simply screen-share a single tab when you present it. And if the conversation leads to a discussion of Phase Two, then click the Phase Two tab. Done. 
 
Steve Jobs famously said that simple is hard. But sometimes it’s hard to see what’s simple, and staring right at you. Do you really need to spend a fortune on a shiny new CRM (customer relationship management) platform when your Excel is still working fine? Of course not. Wait for the expense to be more than justified. Ditto for things like learning management systems or LMSs, or even slick PowerPoints as we’d described in this story. 
 
Have a marketing challenge that you suspect is simpler than it appears? Contact us and let us put a fresh set of eyes on it for you.