Wow. It’s a tradition (almost) as big as Thanksgiving here at Copel Communications. In which we devote our mid-November blog post to that which we’re thankful for. And in which, of course, we ask you what you’re thankful for! In other words, feel free to chime in, in the comments!
 
The title of this article is a tad misleading. Last year, we wrote about what we’re thankful for. 
 
“What” implies things. 
 
You can already see where this is going. That’s why you read these. Just to stay two jumps ahead of us!
 
Not what, but who
 
Sure, there’s plenty of “what” that we’re thankful for this year. Our technology and systems keep chugging along, relatively unimpaired. The economy, doom-and-gloom headlines notwithstanding, has been pretty good to us. Heck, at the more primal/Maslowian (??) level, we’re happy every time we flick a switch and the lights come on. Or open a spigot and get water. 
 
Don’t take anything for granted. 
 
But enough of the stuff. Let’s talk people. 
 
If you’ve read any of these articles of ours, you know we’re sticklers for anonymizing details when appropriate. This article is no exception. That said, if you’re reading this, and you’re called out in our little honor roll below, we’re confident that you’ll know who you are. 
 
Boy are we lucky to be surrounded by great people who help us do our job and make us look insanely better than we actually are. 
 
Here, we’re talking about other creatives. We’re talking about vendors. We’re talking about members of internal client teams we work with. We’re talking about SEO nerds and knob-turners. Some examples: 

• We’ve got a great graphic artist we’ve worked with for years. She turns our crappy thumbnail sketches into masterpieces. And she’s simply a nice person to work with. 

 

• We’ve got a designer who’s also a video editor we work with, at one of our clients. This person exhibits a degree of can-do attitude and positive professionalism that’s at once inspiring and humbling. Bonus: When the higher-ups at that same client get delayed on, say, providing us input for a project, this one person transforms into the world’s most polite yet effective squeaky wheel on our behalf. Bonus-bonus: This is also one of the nicest people we’ve ever met. 

 

• There’s a video editor out there whom we’ve never even spoken to, but boy is he great. Why haven’t we spoken to him? It’s because he resides behind the wall of one of the major gig platforms, so we have to effectively email him our input and feedback. (See our article about how you can navigate these sticky wickets yourself.) The talent from this person is blinding. Even better: He’s got great taste. We can describe stuff in broad strokes, and he translates it into just the right music cut, just the right amount of white space in a title, just the right kind of transition or effect. We hope, someday, to talk to this special person! 

 

• There’s a voice-over artist we’ve been using for years who is flat-out awesome. Here’s proof: Every time we get one of his reads (via an intermediary; it’s complicated), we always respond, not with “Oh, here are the flubs to fix,” but rather, “Wow is this guy ever great.” Double bonus: Both his turnaround times and his pricing are amazing. 

 

• We’ve got a web designer who is so smart and professional, that they make us raise our game when it comes to providing input and/or working with a mutual client. And the deliverables—the websites—are just gorgeous.

 
Not to leave out… 
 
We’re happy to sing about these unsung heroes. They’re vital members of the Copel Communications pantheon, which includes some really great clients who make it all possible, and the love of a family that makes it all worth it. 
 
What, and who, are you thankful for this year? Post your reply in the comments, or feel free to contact us.
​

​We love continuous process improvement here at Copel Communications! 
 
In this article, cash in on all the tweaking and optimizing we’ve been doing, literally for years, with different clients of ours, to make things as efficient and repeatable as possible. 
 
Today, we’re going to talk about B2B “demo” videos. Does your company ever make these? We’re talking about those “watch this screen and see what happens” kinds of explainers which also, of course, sell.
 
So it could be a product demo. A software demo. A service. A SaaS platform. A training session. There are tons of these. They are common. And chances are, if you need to make one of these, you probably need to make a ton of these. 
 
And this is where optimized efficiency—that “Big Mac-ifying” of the process—really comes into play. 
 
In this article, we’ll describe (in broad strokes, with the details purposely blurred) how we do this for a couple of clients of ours. Pay attention: We guarantee that there are elements of this process, perhaps many elements, that apply to your situation. And the more that apply, the more you can benefit. 
 
The challenge at hand
 
As we’d stated above, we’re going to anonymize these specific client assignments. But you’ll get enough detail to follow the process, and recognize opportunities to improve your own workflows. 
 
In the first example, this client of ours will do a screen-sharing demo of the prototype of a use-case solution they create for their clients. And they do lots of these. The big opportunity here: If you could anonymize these brilliant solutions, and pare them down into, say, little two-minute stories, you’d have marketing gold. You could use them to quickly populate, say, a dedicated playlist on your YouTube channel. You could use that to show to prospective clients, who stand to be awed, once you hit the critical mass of sheer videos posted to that playlist. Not to mention your ability to feed the voracious appetite of the SEO algorithms and web crawlers of YouTube, Google, and so on. It’s one big virtuous snowball. 
 
Turning those client demos into marketing videos, incidentally, was not as obvious a choice as you might think. You’re starting with a lot of sensitive material. You need to see the bigger marketing picture, strategically… and be able to literally blur the lines of sensitive information, tactically, once it comes time to execute. 
 
So. This client does more than have one of their reps conduct (and record, via Zoom) the client demo of each new prototype. The prototype itself is based on a use-case that was presented/sold to their client beforehand, in order to get the green-light to make the prototype. Follow? 
 
Between the raw footage of the demo Zoom call and that original use-case PDF, we’d almost have everything we need to script the video. But not quite. So here, after lots of back-and-forth and tweaking with the client, the third of our three pieces of input evolved. In this case, it’s a super basic Excel sheet. In one column, it lists the timecode of the demo video; in the column beside that, there’s a quick description of what is happening on screen at that time. 
 
Example: “00:32 – 00:41  User logs into platform, using two-factor authentication with an emailed six-digit code.” 
 
Someone on the client side makes that little Excel, typically only about ten rows deep, for us. It takes them about 30 minutes. 
 
And that’s all we need! From there, knowing this client well, we can pen the video script using a basic three-act structure: 

• Act One: The problem which this demo will address 
• Act Two: The demo of the prototype, showing it in action 
• Act Three: The call-to-action (“Book your initial consultation today!”) 

 
Even easier
 
As you can clearly see, the big lift, for the client, in the scenario above, is to create that little Excel sheet for us. But more recently, we’ve started making videos, for a different client, with no Excel required. 
 
That’s because, for the cool things that this client is creating (we can’t share details, sorry), they already create three PDFs which are not only goldmines for us, but they’re also all we require to start scripting. The three PDFs, broadly speaking, are: 

• The output deliverable, shown in a graphical format 
• The metrics by which the first deliverable is measured 
• A “heat map” comparing the first PDF to the second one

 
These PDFs are so detailed that we’ve been able to write video scripts from them, using their details as the visuals, with the simple addition of a basic voice-over. So there will be shots such as “Zoom in ultra-tight on the detailed box at the lower right of Page 3, and pan across the different functions listed in its flow chart.”
 
In other words, no “lift” from the client at all! It reminds us of Craisins. 
 
Huh? 
 
You know Craisins. Those “dried cranberries” originally created by Ocean Spray. While making cranberry juice, they would throw out all of the skins of the actual cranberries used. Until someone got the great idea of drying the skins and adding sugar to them, and coming up with a clever portmanteau name like “Craisin,” which implies “cranberry + raisin.” 
 
(Read our article about portmanteau names and how you can profit from them.) 
 
Think about that: All those cranberry skins were not being used. Today, they’re a massive source of newfound revenue. 
 
Ditto for the three abovementioned PDFs. They were used to create a client deliverable, and then effectively shelved. 
 
Today, they’re the basis of a “found money” marketing effort. With very little effort!
 
Need help “McDonald-izing” some of your existing deliverables and processes into efficient marketing gold? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help!