​If you’re reading this, you’re targeting executives as part of your business. Read on. And learn. 
 
We were once directing a young video editor, in a Zoom call, about how to approach a project we’d handed him: a script for an exec-focused video. Our client wanted to be on this call, too, and kept mentioning that we wanted to be at “C-level.” 
 
We saw the look on this kid’s face. And quickly realized: 
 
Oh my goodness. He thinks our client is saying “sea-level.”
 
We were right. He couldn’t figure out what the video had to do with being submerged in the ocean. 
 
Once we explained it to him--“C”-level and not “sea”-level—he understood his marching orders better, and went on to deliver a perfectly good video for us. 
 
But back to your challenge: Marketing to executives with purchasing power. 
 
Sure, we can embrace some basic tenets here. This isn’t about flashy images or breathless claims. The tone should befit the audience. 
 
And of course you want to convey the value of what you’re offering, whether it’s a product or a service. Those are fairly given. 
 
But here’s what isn’t: 
 
We recently produced a marketing piece for a client of ours which was showcased on a global media platform (can you tell we’re being cagey here? we need to be). This piece we created was exposed to literally billions of people. 
 
Checking the metrics on it after it had been published a while, we saw that it had garnered just 300 views. 
 
Failure? 
 
Nope. Success. Deeper diving showed that it had reached exactly whom we’d wanted it to. Execs. 
 
In other words: This is a small audience.
 
Remember the quote “Speak to the target. Let the others listen”? It certainly applies here. 
 
Unlike mass-market approaches, this is not a quantity game. It’s a quality game. And here we’ve learned, from some of our incredibly astute clients, some interesting, if counterintuitive, tips: 

• Call ‘em out directly. We’ve penned YouTube descriptions, for example, which start out with: “Attention: C-suite executives. In this video…” Why bury the lead? Why make them wait to see if this is for them? Help them along. 

 

• Speak their language. This certainly isn’t counterintuitive, but it requires good research and attention to detail. Take verbatim notes (or record the call) when you treat with other executives. Pick up, and use, the exact words they use. This is where we’ve learned phrases such as “operating leverage” and “scalable capacity.” 

 
So if that executive leader is looking to advance their strategic roadmap via automated decisioning, you’d better 1) know it, and 2) say it. 
 
This is a very subtle and nuanced challenge, that you shouldn’t entrust to a junior writer or AI. The stakes are high, and you’ve only got one chance to get it right. 
 
Need help? Contact us. We work on these kinds of projects—sorry, “initiatives”—all the time. 

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. 

​In case you were unaware, here at Copel Communications, we alternate our blog articles between those directed toward business owners/consultants (at the top of the month), and our “creatives” audiences of ad agencies and other creative folk (at mid-month). 
 
This article is one of the latter. 
 
And it begins with a story. A colleague called us up not long ago, bemoaning the fact that her creative agency (we’re obfuscating/anonymizing here) had seen a sudden drop in business, since all of her clients were switching to AI for their creative work. To say she was unhappy was an understatement; there was a distinct edge of panic in her voice. 
 
But was she right? 
 
And how does this story relate to you, and your business? Are the ubiquitous doom-and-gloom headlines correct? And what the heck is an “Upwork moment,” which we’d teased in the headline? 
 
Let’s unpack this part-by-part. 
 
They’re going where?
 
A little more (fudged/anonymized) info about this colleague of ours. Her creative agency serves big you-know-them national brands. They’ve entrusted her and her great staff, for years, to deliver beautiful hand-crafted creative which elevates these brands to their respective audiences. Collectively, there’s billions of dollars of brand equity at stake here. 
 
Now ask yourself an obvious question: 
 
Are these huge brands suddenly asking ChatGPT to do the same thing for them? 
 
Yeah, we’re laughing, too. 
 
These huge brands know that ChatGPT can’t come close when it comes to quality. They also know that ChatGPT (or any other widget of its ilk) treads in very murky waters when it comes to copyright clearance. 
 
Do you honestly think that they’d risk their billion-dollar brands on that? Do you think that they would dump our colleague and her team, in order to get such sketchy and legally-questionable content… merely to save a few bucks? You think they don’t have “a few bucks”? 
 
Or is the answer perhaps far more mundane? 
 
Spoiler alert: It is. 
 
As we’d told our colleague: “This isn’t AI. It’s just a downturn. A basic dip in your business, wherein a few accounts happen to be slow at the exact same time.” 
 
You could hear her sigh of relief. “Oh,” she said. “That, I can deal with.” It was, in short, familiar territory. Solve-able via old-school tricks like shaking the trees and good old-fashioned business development or biz-dev. 
 
Beware the ostrich
 
Does this mean that AI isn’t a threat, or at least a factor? Get your head out of the sand. It’s a real thing. But then again, so was Google. So was the internet. We’re still breathing. The world didn’t end. The sky didn’t fall. 
 
Which brings us back to our “Upwork moment.” Several years ago, back around 2013, Upwork and other gig-economy platforms, such as Fiverr, burst onto the scene. Many people predicted that they would rob us of all our work and that we here at Copel Communications would promptly go out of business. 
 
We’re still breathing. The sky is still blue above us. 
 
But Upwork and Fiverr are still here and thriving. So what gives? 
 
As it turns out, Upwork was a really great find for businesses who, say, wanted dirt-cheap copywriting and didn’t care too much about the quality. So if you wanted to hire a writer from India who would create a 2,000-word blog for 15 bucks, Upwork was a godsend. 
 
This did not put us out of business. All it did was to better delineate various strata of clients and providers—and we don’t interact with either of them. Our work is higher-end than that, and our clients are, too. If you’ve read this far into this article, 1) thanks, and 2) you’re likely in the same watertight boat. 
 
Which gets back to AI. Sure, there are tons of people, worldwide, for whom AI/ChatGPT-generated content is good enough, and you certainly can’t beat the price. That is, free. 
 
For them, it’s a godsend. For us—and for you, and for our now-breathing-again colleague—it’s just another way the rest of the landscape is evolving around us. 
 
The sky ain’t falling tomorrow, either. 
 
Have a comment? Leave it in the comments below, or feel free to contact us directly. 

Wait. What? SEO for YouTube? Is that even a thing? 
 
Here at Copel Communications, we are not SEO gurus. But fortunately, some of our clients are. So we learn a lot. And when it’s prudent and discreet to do so, we’ll share some of the love. Hence this article. 
 
Short takeaway/spoiler: You can, and should, max out the SEO for your YouTube videos. In this article, we’ll discuss how. 
 
But first, the genesis of this story. 
 
As we’d noted above, this comes to us from an actual client assignment which, as we write this, is ongoing; they have tons of YouTube videos (most of which, incidentally, we also scripted). 
 
The challenge, as our client made clear, was to drive more search-query traffic to this huge repository of videos, spread across multiple playlists on our client’s YouTube channel. 
 
But how? 
 
There are two parts to this. Both are basic, yet nuanced. They are: 
 
1. The actual title of the video. 
2. The YouTube description of the video
 
Let’s review each. 
 
1. The title
 
We’re talking B2B videos here. So you might have an existing video about a product or service that you offer to prospects. And what’s its title? Sure, it’s something like “Our Great Product.” 
 
You must understand that there’s the real world, and then there’s the SEO world. In the real world, populated solely by humans, “Our Great Product” is a perfectly good title. It tells people what the video is about. Simple. No clutter. Great. 
 
But in SEO World, it’s unfortunately insufficient. You want to “think backward” from what someone who would ultimately want that product or service would be searching on in, say, Google (or in AI; more on that in a minute). 
 
So if your Great Product solves Challenge X for, say, logistics executives, you might want to revise and expand the title accordingly: “Challenge-X-Solving Product for Logistics Executives Seeking Productivity Gains.” 
 
Not terribly exciting in the real world, but a step forward in SEO Land. 
 
But wait. That new title is pretty darned long. Aren’t there limits on this, imposed by, say, YouTube? 
 
There sure are. Titles max out at 100 characters, including spaces. The one we just noted above was only 66. So there’s room to play. 
 
Often, depending on the viewing device (desktop or laptop browser, tablet, or phone), that title will get truncated and lopped off with just an ellipsis (three dots or “. . .”) after the first few words. Meaning, the first few words are the most important. Because those are the ones that will stick. So factor that into your re-naming. Put the most important stuff first.
 
It's not the real world. Sure, humans will read this stuff, too, but they’re only part of the audience. The rest is web crawlers, spiders, and all the algorithms that the search engines employ to serve up results which hopefully include your video. 
 
Now that you know about 1. The Title, let’s proceed to 
 
2. The description
 
Clearly, this is much longer than the title, but some of the same rules apply. Stuff will get cut off before you see the clickable “…more” to reveal the rest of the copy; a quick test on our desktop browser clipped it off at around 60 words. 
 
The max is 5,000 characters (not words), which can include links, text, and hashtags. 
 
That’s a lot of copy. It’s almost like a blog. About 1,000 words. 
 
Again, you want to fill this with info that your human searchers are searching for (what problems will the product or service showcased in your video solve?), as well as what the web crawlers want to find. For our recent project, these videos often offered solutions that helped with numerous arcane technology platforms, so we included bullet lists of those platforms in the description. 
 
The search engines like stuff like that. 
 
Know what they don’t like? Verbatim copy stolen from your website; they’ll ding you for that. So you want original copy. 
 
And you want it written by a human. All the search engines can spot AI-written copy from a mile away (as can we), and they’ll ding you for it. 
 
Which gets back to AI-based search vs. classic Google search. The landscape is still shaking out as we write this; even the term AEO (“ask engine optimization”) may not have legs. But what we’re seeing already is a refreshing overlap of what makes for good SEO content vs. AEO content. If you can nail the SEO side, the AEO side will likely catch up. 
 
Bottom line: Depending on the number of YouTube videos you already have posted, this could be a quick or long-term retrofitting assignment. And it should definitely shape your efforts for future videos; write the new titles and YouTube descriptions at the same time that you write the scripts. It will save you time and effort. 
 
Need help with any of this stuff? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help. 

We have a client who’s an accomplished executive speaker and wanted to book more bookings. We were tapped to help.
 
If you, too, want to build business by building your live audience outreach, this article is for you. Or if you know someone with the same desire, share it with them. 
 
Teaser: we’ve got a killer tip to help you, toward the end of this article. 
 
The lay of the land
 
First off, we’re not talking about using some high-priced speakers’ bureau that books A-list celebrities at Fortune 500 corporate events. We’re talking about getting our client booked at things like regional association meetings and conventions of larger national business organizations. 
 
The point here, in case it wasn’t glaringly obvious to you, is to place our client in a target-rich environment. This isn’t about ego or garnering some kind of Tony Robbins-like adulation. It’s about presenting to business prospects, and then getting opportunities to close them, afterward. It’s a very narrow use-case of biz-dev. 
 
So. No big booking agency. No chanting crowds. But there are tons of these more-realistic gigs, across the country, all the time. And they’re booked, typically, ages in advance: we’re talking anywhere from six to 12 months, easily. 
 
How do you find them? 
 
These days, there are digital exchange platforms that connect speakers (such as our client) with event planners (i.e., people who seek to book speakers for their gatherings). An obvious one is eSpeakers; we’ll talk about that one here. 
 
Load up your ammo
 
If you want to get booked as a speaker on a site like eSpeakers, you need to stand out. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume that you, like our client, are a stellar speaker with a great stage presence, absolute command of your thought-leading/breakthrough material, and have also done this before/are a published author/have been featured on podcasts, and so on. 
 
Yep. A high bar to start. 
 
Assuming all of that, you’ve got to let all of those eSpeakers-seekers know. Which means that, after you sign up for a (pretty darned affordable) eSpeakers membership, you’ll need to upload a lot of stuff about yourself to entice that audience. And herein is the gist of this article.
 
Here’s what you’ll want to upload, with some notes and thought-starters to help you along: 

• Your bio. You already have one, right? Well, this one should be tailored just to speaking engagements. You want to show off how many events you’ve spoken at; you might want to include, for example, an aggregate audience total (“Has presented to more than 50,000 people”). Include locations (“…across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico”). Be sure to mention any awards won; if they’re not recognizable, like Oscars, just say “Award-winning speaker…”. 

 

• Your headshot. Sure, a basic headshot is fine. But what’s better is a shot of you, on stage, doing your thing. Guess what? AI can help. Start with preferably a low-angle pic of you (as if taken from “the audience”) and ask a common tool, such as Grok, to add the catwalks and lighting way up in the stage ceiling behind you. 

 

• Your programs. These are the different topics you’re available to speak about. Each needs a sexy title, a bullet list of take-aways, and an “ideal audience” (such as “middle managers and their teams who are eager to take their sales production numbers to the next level”). These need to entice, entice, entice, and sell, sell, sell. 

 

• Your sizzle reel. Your what? This is a brief (about three minutes) compilation of clips of you on stage, doing your thing. Bookend it with an intro title, featuring your headshot and bullet-list of top credentials, and closing titles that include audience testimonials, your website, and where to book you. 

 

• Other stuff. You’ll want a nice 3-D image of your book, if you have one. You’ll want to create a doc known as your Presentation Rider, which includes all of your on-site requirements (time allotment for sound check, technical requirements, video recording limitations, etc.). You can also include discrete video clips of you, speaking at different engagements; these can be longer slices of the quick clips you’d featured in your sizzle reel. 

 
The best tip you’ll get
 
What’s the best way to find out how to put the best stuff up on a site like eSpeakers? Simply visit the “other side” of the site and pretend that you’re an event planner. 
 
Use the filters to drill down to direct competitors of yours. Take a look at them. You’ll easily see who the most impressive ones are. Then you can simply see what they’ve included in their “packages,” and use that as a baseline for you to, well, blow out of the water. 
 
Need help with a challenge like this? Contact us! We’d love to help you. 

​Question: As the year draws to a close, are you merely older… or wiser? 
 
Not to flatter ourselves, but we think we can help with the latter. That’s because it’s time for our year-end round-up—an annual tradition here at Copel Communications —of our top posts for creatives like you. 
 
Catch the ones you’d missed. Or revisit those that helped. Enjoy! 

• How to keep your business videos on the rails—and on budget.  There’s a technique, developed in Hollywood, which will actually make the production of your B2B videos go faster, easier, and cheaper. Check it out. 

 

• What are website “pilot pages”? And why should you use them? Be efficient. Be frugal. Adopt best practice. And learn just what the heck “pilot pages” are, and why they’re an essential step in your next website or site re-brand. 

 

• Where do you draw the line, literally, with creative direction? When should you purposely create low-quality input and/or downplay the quality of the input itself? This is a fine line to walk, both literally and figuratively—but it can yield stellar results from other creatives who work for you. 

 

• How do you get good creative input from non-creative types? If for no other reason, click on this article to see the awesome AI-generated “nerd” we created for its illustration! LOL! Seriously, though: Great tips in this article, too. 

 

• When will real intelligence serve you better than the artificial kind? If AI makes things easy, isn’t it better for challenges like marketing taglines? Well… no. Read a true (anonymized) client story here, and grab some useful takeaways for your business, too. 

 

• How can you update your brand, yet keep it familiar? It’s a paradoxical challenge: Update your brand, keep it from going stale, yet keep it familiar, too. But how? Get the guidelines and guardrails you need, right here. 

 

• One blog is worse than none. Really! Even if you’re not a marketing guru, you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot. Ready to cringe? Read this true story about a supposed marketing guru who did just that! Yikes! 

 

• The biggest shifts in book publishing since Gutenberg. You want your exciting new manuscript to be picked up by one of those famous New York publishing houses… or do you? You might be quite shocked to learn about the new reality of book publishing. Get it, quickly, right here. 

 

• We made a Gantt chart in Word! (And so can you.) Talk about counterintuitive: Here’s a way to make a Gantt chart not only in Word… but in reverse! Trust us: This will make you look like a hero to your client or boss. 

 

• How to live with a ghost (writer). There is a very specific way to structure your relationship with the ghost writer or copy-editor you choose to develop your thought-leading book. But what is it? You might be pleasantly surprised to find out what it is. So find out here. 

 

• What we’re thankful for, 2025 edition. It’s become an annual tradition here at Copel Communications, dating back over a decade. And we haven’t run out of things—or more importantly, people—to thank. Sit back and enjoy this one; it will inspire you to appreciate others in your life, even more. 

 
Well, that’s all for this year. Have a suggestion for a post for next year? Contact us. We’d love to hear from you! 

​Wait, it’s December already? We must have blinked. 
 
Because it’s already time for the round-up of our top posts for consultants from 2025—an annual tradition here at Copel Communications. Here, then, is your chance to catch any articles you may have missed, or to brush up on others you may want to re-visit: 

• The most stress-reducing marketing tip you’ll read this week. This is, without a doubt, the most counterintuitive advice you’ll ever encounter. And you’ll love it! A ridiculously easy way to boost your marketing effectiveness. 

 

• Trade-show prep made easy. You’d be surprised how much stuff is already yours, for free. And how many “wheels” have already been invented. Get the tips here. 

 

• Is your business branding missing out on a blend word? Wait, what’s a “blend word” Or a portmanteau, for that matter? You’ll love this article; we’ve gotten great feedback from it—and it can really help boost your business, too. 

 

• A ridiculously easy trick for generating fresh marketing content. It’s staring you in the face: A source, right in your office right now, of endless custom marketing content for your biz. Read the article to find out where. 

 

• How to out-Google Google to broaden your marketing reach. We’re not SEO gurus, but some of our clients are, and we learned some wild tips that we freely share in this article. Take advantage! 

 

• Selling a client story is more than anonymizing a client story. You want to tell the world how you helped a client succeed. But sometimes, there’s a slightly different path to take, which will generate more business. Find out what it is. 

 

• So you want to be a podcast guest… What now? If you’re a thought leader, there’s nothing better than a podcast guest appearance for showing off your expertise, and engaging with new prospects. But becoming a guest is hardly straightforward. See how you can crack the code. 

 

• ChatGPT Doesn’t Wear Shoes. And if you think it does, stop reading right here. Seriously: This article points up a big weakness in generative AI, which you can easily exploit, to your sales advantage. 

 

• Sometimes it’s okay to ask the customer what they want. Wait—was Steve Jobs wrong? And if so, how can you profit? This is one of those staring-right-at-you revelations… you’re welcome! 

 

• You’ll never believe the best way to tease your webinars! You’ll likely laugh out loud when you discover this surefire trick to boosting attendance at your next webinar. Who said marketing isn’t fun? 

 

• How to McDonald-ize your B2B demo videos. Can you make a custom marketing video, showcasing your services… without any video footage on hand? And if so, how? Cash in on all the years of process improvement that we, and our clients, have been honing in this field. 

 
Phew! That should be enough reading and tips to tide you over for a little bit. 
 
But how about next year? Any topics you’d like us to address? Contact us and let us know! 

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!