She's Busy AF

EP 138 | Lights, Camera, Conversions: How to Leverage Brand Videos with Emmy Winner Mariana Henninger

• Lauren Loreto

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Ever wondered how the emotional pull of a well-told story can transform your brand's presence? Emmy award-winning filmmaker Mariana Henninger joins us to reveal just that. Through her lens, we discover how to harness personal tales that foster trust and prompt action—crucial ingredients for any business looking to make a lasting impact.

Find Lauren Loreto online:

Find Mariana online:

  • http://brandmagnetic.com
  • http://instagram.com/brandmagnetic
  • http://linkedin.com/in/marianahenninger


Timestamps:

  • Mariana's background and Brand Magnetic (00:03:23)
  • The power of brand video (00:06:06) 
  • Maximizing exposure of brand video (00:15:48) 
  • The longevity of brand videos (00:19:32) 
  • Client results and metrics (00:20:46) 
  • Organic marketing and paid advertising (00:24:28) 
  • The brand video creation process (00:27:59) 
  • Preparation and comfort in front of the camera (00:32:19) 

Topics discussed: podcast, She's Busy AF, Lauren, Mariana Henninger, Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Brand Magnetic, brand video, storytelling, emotional connection, trust, marketing tool, audience, sales cycle, customer loyalty, unique, social media, email signatures, website homepage, about page, website visitors, brand success

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of she's Busy AF, a podcast dedicated to creatives, entrepreneurs and brands to help you guys smash barriers and scale. Today we have Mariana Henninger on the podcast and, guys, you're in for a treat. So Mariana is an Emmy award-winning two times nominated, by the way filmmaker who is equally obsessed with business and marketing as she is, about beautiful, intimate and personal storytelling that compels people to take action. She has been published on the homepage of New York Times, wall Street Journal, time Magazine, peacock and NBC, among others, and has worked in countries like Afghanistan, haiti, israel and Guatemala. She is the founder of brandmagneticcom, where she works with coaches and experts to accelerate trust and convert on autopilot using a single two to four minute brand video that uses their story to create an unmistakable emotional connection with their audience.

Speaker 1:

So this podcast today, if you can't tell by the title already, is about brand video and the importance of brand video as a brand. So we talk about why it's a killer marketing tool and how they work to really make you stand out, build trust faster. She drops a lot of great nuggets of knowledge in this. We talk about why telling your story is important. If you haven't listened to our episode with Kyle Gray. I would go back and listen to that too, because this really ties into that very well. We talk about the secret sauce of a brand video, what you should think about when creating one, where should it live in your business? How can you maximize the ROI on it all of the above, so really excited to bring you Mariana today. She is just an absolute joy. So without further ado, let's dive in. Welcome. Welcome, mariana. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so great to be here, Lauren. I'm pumped. We had such a great conversation last time and I'm like let's do it again.

Speaker 1:

We did. We had a really great conversation. I also keep meaning to tell you this, so I'm just going to do it on the podcast. But so we decided if we're having a girl, we have our name picked out for girl and boy, and Mariana is actually no, I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, wow, and you're so honored because clearly named after me. Clearly.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, no. The quick story is that it's my mother-in-law's middle name, but her middle name is Mariana, and so our first daughter's name is Cesarina and it's a family name, italian and I. We wanted to do the middle name after my mom, so Catherine, and I'm like, oh my god, like MK would be so cute, or like Mary Kate, yeah, I don't know. Love it, so we'll see.

Speaker 1:

It's a boy or a girl good taste, yes, and I keep meaning to tell you. So I'm doing that here on this um on this episode today, but welcome, I'm doing that here on this episode today, but welcome, I'm so excited. So, for those of you who don't know, I was on Mariana's podcast. Mariana owns Brand Magnetic. She has an incredibly awesome background that you probably just heard me talk about, and she is really good at this brand video situation, helping you tell your story, be magnetic all things that founders and thought leaders need. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today, stoked as always Okay, so let's just dive in First and foremost.

Speaker 1:

Do you want to give a little bit of a backstory into your background and just how cool you are?

Speaker 2:

Sure, sure, sure. So my background is in documentary filmmaking. I started as a journalist, as a photographer, originally, and then the quick story of how I I don't want to say evolved. I kind of graduated or I don't know progressed into video. I love photography, by the way, so I don't want to ever discredit photographers and their work and I am so passionate about that as well. But as a photographer, I realized that people's voices were missing and I was like, oh my gosh, that's video, that's what I want to do.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and so 15 years as a documentary filmmaker, I've been all over the world, four different continents. I've kind of lived all over the world as well, as when I was growing up, my parents moved around a lot, so speak five languages, have been in like in Bedouin tents and in war zones and in you know crazy places in Afghanistan and Haiti, and I've just kind of been everywhere and I feel like what that taught me was to I had to work very quickly to get a really good story sometimes, and so I learned what it took to get people to trust me. And, as and in the, in doing the work of documentary filmmaking, I learned what it took to get people's stories told in their voice, in a way that got other people to not just trust them, but to see the world through their eyes, to be moved ideally, to be moved to take action or to think about the world in a different way. Go out there and review what you think about a specific topic and then fast forward to what I'm doing today.

Speaker 2:

I decided to step aside from the documentary world because I've always had an entrepreneur living inside of me dying to get out, and I said, if not now, when I'm going to start my own business? And I realized that business was bringing this idea of connecting through somebody's personal story to the entrepreneurship and business worlds, specifically in the online space. But anyone with a business should be doing this, and why the heck we're not doing this? Enough is like beyond me should be doing this, and why the heck we're not doing this? Enough is like beyond me. But yeah, so that was the transition, and so I started Brand Magnetic, you know, not too long ago, you know a year and a half ago more or less, and have been working with clients ever since. Seeing the results, seeing the connection, the trust build. It's been amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, so let's talk about it. Let's talk about these brand videos and why you feel they are such a killer marketing tool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'll start by explaining what a brand video is, because I use that term brand video. I could call them maybe conversion videos or origin story. You know they're different names that kind of sound the same and are sort of tossed around a little bit. I just went with brand video. I don't think it's the best name ever, but this is the name I've chosen.

Speaker 2:

It's a two to four minute video that tells the story of who you are. So it focuses on your values, your personality and, ultimately, your mission. Your mission is kind of the manifestation of your business. Like you've brought all of this into it and now you're helping other people or you serve other people. So that's kind of the kicker of the brand video. It's two to four minutes and the entire purpose of this video. It's not a marketing video, it's not. You don't have a call to action at the end. You don't guide people like hey, buy my program, this is what it's called, this is what's in it. Like none of that.

Speaker 2:

What you're doing is building an emotional connection. That is the very foundation of trust, and so the idea is it lives on the top of your social media profile, lives in your email signature and in a few other places as well. You want people, as soon as they come into your website, as soon as they start following you on social media, as soon as they're hooked by whatever other thing that hooked them your value you commented on somebody's post, somebody introduced you, whatever it is they come in, they watch your brand video why? Because it's going to shape every other touch point that comes afterwards. It's going to be shaped by that experience of getting to know who Lauren is, what she stands for, and having that feeling of like wow, I like this girl, I could be her friend, she could be my friend, I feel like we could work together and it would be awesome because of who she is.

Speaker 2:

And then afterwards you still have your marketing pieces in place where you're selling essentially, but you're sharing more about what your offer is. But it's being seen now through the lens of like Lauren, this awesome gal who has like an incredible story that I resonate with, or that I see her values through this story and I can feel that what she's saying is legit and she really is going to take care of me if I buy this thing, like I'm going to be in good hands. Typically, that's the feeling you want to achieve. You know it's the know like and trust. But what does trust actually look like for your audience? That's the feeling you want to achieve at the end of a two to four minute brand video.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I'm going to skip ahead in a couple of ways. No, no, no, it's. It's a great answer no-transcript in front of someone very easily with voice, outside of maybe a voice memo, but like that can be weird to open up your dms from a random person to a voice memo. You know what I mean. So it is a great. I see it as an incredible way to warm up someone who doesn't even know who you are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. That's such a great interpretation of that experience because, by the way, in our conversation on my podcast, you talked about how you're looking at your website with different eyes and thinking about the customer journey, like what is a customer experiencing every step of the way. So I highly recommend that you act upon that task in your project manager. I know I know right, but what I wanted to say too was that I recently followed someone. He has a following of, I think, maybe 135,000 people, so pretty big following and he responded to me or he DM'd me very soon after I followed him and the message was like an introductory message about how he really values connection. The thing that really stood out for me from the text was that he said this is actually me, not a bot, and I was like I'll actually respond and I won't ignore, you know. So that, that point aside, he linked to what could be conceived as a brand video, so not quite um the direction I would have taken it, but it sort of has that purpose. It was a YouTube link and it came with that introductory message that he DM me as soon as I followed him and I was like this is an awesome way to use a brand video too.

Speaker 2:

It's the idea that, to your point, you're. You're not always, we're not doing this right. We're not getting on zoom calls with everyone that comes into our universe we're. We're hoping that they're going to stick around long enough, that they're going to be micro-dosed, which is how I describe it. They're going to be micro-dosed for like six to 12 months before they're ready to reach out potentially right. Ideally it's less time, but studies have shown that it can be like six to 12 months of consuming somebody's content on social media before you're ready to actually interact with them or buy from them, et cetera. And so why the heck are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we submitting ourselves to such a long tail sales cycle?

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying don't show up on social media. I'm not saying don't send your weekly emails. I'm not saying don't do your podcast, send your weekly emails. I'm not saying don't do your podcast, continue doing those things. But if there's a piece of that puzzle, right, or if there's a piece of that system that you can have at the very beginning of your interaction with someone, that will shape every single point along the way, that will catapult the intensity and the impact of every single point along the way. Why would we not want to do that? And the reason why this works is because once you've had a conversation with someone, once you've gotten to know them, every time they show up in your inbox. Every time you see them on social, it hits different. You remember them, like all of those emotions, all those triggers, those sparks fly again. They're reactivated every time you see that person's face or their name. But you've created that connection.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's dive into that connection and what that connection is. So what is the secret sauce of a brand video? What makes this so outstanding and creates that connection?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. So you have to reverse engineer from know, like and trust. So we talk about know, like and trust as the second step to business. The first step attract the eyeballs. The second step build know, like and trust. Now, what nobody tells you is that that can take so long, right Now. The last step to that is the step right before somebody's ready to buy from you potentially, if they're your audience, if they're going to be a customer at some point, they typically do it after they trust you. We know that.

Speaker 2:

So what you want to do is understand what trust actually looks like for your audience specifically. So it boils. Listen. This is not. This is not. It's the secret sauce of the brand video. But I'm not the only one preaching this, thank God, like.

Speaker 2:

Anyone who understands branding or business will tell you know your audience in and out, be in their heads, you know, use their words, and so those are all the pieces that we're going to use in connecting with them. So when you really dissect what trust means for your person, what does that actually look like? What do they need to feel in order to be ready to buy from you? Then you reverse, engineer and you look at. So that's the first step. The second step is to know yourself, know what is unique about you, what's rare about you, what's different, what makes you who you are, both from a personal standpoint but also as a differentiator in the marketplace. So own, know those things and own those things. Now you've got two sort of data sets right.

Speaker 2:

The third step is to kind of connect them, to understand what parts of your story are going to create those emotions in your audience and that's what you're going to tell in your brand video.

Speaker 2:

That's the superpower, that's what creates the connection is understanding what parts of you and which stories that you're going to tell, in what way to create that feeling of like Lauren's my girl, like, if I ever need a website, if I ever need her services, I'm going to her because she's conquered that space in my heart and I trust her. I trust her because I now know her story and, of course, like listen, all the other marketing pieces come into play. I always say this like, the brand video doesn't take away the need for a website or the need to show up consistently and be a top of mind. But again, when I if once I've framed who Lauren is in my mind and then I see testimonials. And then I see an awesome sales page or you know, an offer that makes sense for me and also is speaking to me. Bam bam. We've got a winning, a winning situation where you know there's no turning away away. I'm going to do this.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. Okay, let's say we have the asset, we've created the asset, we have the video, we're proud of it. How do we maximize the exposure of this video? How do we turn around, get this scene? How does it fit into marketing?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so you're going to think of where your people land as soon as they come into your universe. So this is not an exhaustive list, but this is the list of like, at least these five places where your brand video should live. There are a couple more that I'm adding to this list. It's probably going to be 10 at some point, but we're talking. Pin to the top of your social media profile, ideally with a cover that says like. Either it could be as simple as watch my story, or here's my story, or get to know me, or whatever it is, or maybe there's a hook that's very specific to your story, but obviously the real estate for that cover is very tiny, so you have to keep it short. Pin to the top of your socials, all of them Email signature Every single person who gets an email from you should have your brand video available to them to watch it, because think of how many people an email is maybe the second interaction with that. I was just on a networking call and I didn't want to connect with them on social necessarily. I was just like, hey, what's? I knew we were going to have a conversation, so I was like what's your email? And so she just got an email from me and I've got links on my signature, you know. So that's where your brand video should live. Second place, the third place is if you are the face of your brand, then you know if, if I'm going on your website and I'm seeing Lauren's face right away which I think for your case is not, but then your brand video should be on that homepage. It doesn't have to be top of fold, but it has to be where you would kind of be introducing yourself.

Speaker 2:

The About Me page is the second most visited page on any given website. Why People want to know who you are, so serve the brand video there as well. They might've missed it on the homepage. Whatever it is, it's there. Again, you can kind of play with the hierarchy of where it lives, but it should absolutely live there as well.

Speaker 2:

And then the fifth place is potentially this is not a hard and fast rule but your sales page. If you have a part of your sales page that says meet your teacher or about me, or whatever it is, think about when you're in the middle of a launch. You've got people coming in cold. You've got a lot of new faces coming into your world that might be landing on your sales page as the first kind of page they're seeing from you. Maybe they didn't see, you know, maybe they're not following you on social yet, maybe, you know, whatever the case may be, they didn't get your welcome sequence. That's where it should live as well, so sales page it should be there as well. If you do, if you have a section where you're kind of introducing yourself.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about the about page component real quick, and so I'm assuming most of your clients you work with they're thought leaders in some capacity or they're like coaches, consultants, people who brand, people who work one-on-one with their clients, correct?

Speaker 2:

They either work one-on-one or they have a mastermind or they have a course. They're a course creator. They could be an agency owner if they're kind of the face of their brand. So not necessarily one-on-one, but brand so not necessarily one-on-one, but there could be a one-on-one component there yeah, I.

Speaker 1:

I am one of those people who actively seeks out the about page of like pretty much any website I ever go to, and if you don't have one, I get really frustrated but that just goes to show the like natural human connection that we seek and to have video on top of that has to mean something.

Speaker 1:

I mean like I was saying on the home page of a website like hey, welcome to the website. Whatever, like it's not cheesy, it's not. I think that's another thing people come across is like is this too cheesy? And is it like will it stay relevant too? Do Do you find that at all. Are people like is this going to stay relevant for a long time if I invest in this now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the brand video is not attached to a specific offer, which is what's so awesome about it. You're not creating, you're not investing in this asset to promote a specific thing, not in the framework that I work with, right? I want to know your story. That's not going to change. Unless your branding changes, unless you pivot your business and you're speaking to a different audience. That story is going to pretty much remain the same, regardless of what exactly you're promoting or what exactly you're offering at any given time.

Speaker 2:

So there is a really nice longevity to the brand video that will stick with you in business unless you visually really change, in which case you can decide to revamp it or not. But again, the main sort of core factor or aspect of the brand video that's tied to something. It's tied to your audience and how they need to feel in order to be ready to buy a specific suite of offers, right, and so if your offers completely change or your audience completely changes, there might be a need to review. Otherwise, no, you can keep rolling with it for quite a while.

Speaker 1:

Have you? Okay, so I know you've been doing this for about a year and a half in terms of like your business, right, but you have this background and you know how important all of this is. Are there any like outstanding metrics you have for like before versus after having a brand video?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So we're still in the process of collecting those, believe it or not, but the results that my clients have gotten sort of fall along the lines of so. One of my clients says that people are now getting on a call with her so much faster and when they get on she's like, in her own words, we skip about five email exchanges and we get directly on a call. And once they're on the call we get straight to it because they already feel like they know me. So there's less effort on her part. She works one-on-one with people and so her sort of funnel leads them to a call and in that call she's used to first of all again having like several email exchanges, getting on the call and then having to sort of introduce herself, like really warm them up, they're warm them up, they're warm coming in. So that's a huge ROI that she's had for her business.

Speaker 2:

Another client of mine she so this is another place. You can use your brand video her idea, which I thought was brilliant. She took her brand video and created gifts from it and inserted it into her welcome sequence. So folks have opted into something, her lead magnet, and on day two or day three, that about me email they would normally get now has gifts from her brand video and a link to her brand video. Well, her click-through rate and, more importantly, her response rate have gone through the roof. So she's always had that email. It's always said at the bottom reply back and let me know what your story is. And now people are actually replying back and letting her know what her story is. I don't want to misquote, but I think the response rate has like either tripled or quintupled.

Speaker 2:

One of the two like she's gotten so many more responses when she's posted the brand, where all of my clients have posted the brand videos. They've gotten so many reactions from people. One gal said I've been listening to your podcast for over a year and after watching this I feel like I truly know you. So, just like in branding some things, we would wouldn't we all love to have these beautiful ROI numbers that, let's say, an ad can get you like that. That's a fast sort of response mechanism where you can know exactly what's working, what's not, by the minute, but you're also paying to play.

Speaker 2:

If you turn it off, if you're not giving meta more money, you won't know and you're also not bringing in more people with that asset but the brand video because of the way it's done. First of all, it's going to live and work in your business. While you're not working, while you're not recurrently investing in this thing, it's just going to be done once and keep working for you. But it's also going to build emotions Sign me up if anyone has a formula for quantifying emotions. You're going to feel it, just like they're going to feel it, because of how people are reacting to your content, because of how people are coming into your business faster.

Speaker 2:

And then the last thing we'll say I'll say it because I am constantly thinking, like, how else can we measure ROI on this thing? Like, I know it works, I'm seeing it works, but how else can we still test this thing? How else can we, like, put it through the ringer and get the results? And so we're starting to test the brand video in different funnels. So, for example, if you're an author and you have a book funnel, what does it look like? Let's A-B test your funnel with a brand video and your funnel without a brand video. So somebody who's coming in cold or maybe they missed it now they're getting to watch your brand video right next to your buy my book button.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, this also shows the power of organic marketing and also how hard our jobs can be. There was a meme Do you follow DTC newsletter on Instagram? I don't, oh my God, they're so funny. So again, we are mostly B2B what we do, but there's just great marketing newsletters and content out there.

Speaker 1:

And it's basically a cheerleader with another cheerleader on her shoulders and the cheerleader on her shoulders is hugging someone in the stands, and so on the bottom, the person, the, the bottom cheerleaders, organic marketing the tops paid and then the person they're hugging is conversions. So it's basically like organic marketing holds up paid so that conversions can happen, and it's yes, but it's so true but it's so true.

Speaker 1:

And it's not to say that conversions can't happen without organic. But in 2024, like we're not in a place where you know, I think paid has to be considered for many brands at a certain stage once you get past a certain threshold.

Speaker 1:

Paid hat like is kind of a non-negotiable in terms of reaching new audiences and getting results faster, but not without the basis of organic, but not without the basis of organic and not without the basis of knowing your story, having a solid offer suite, having like foundational marketing, being able to drive leads from an inbound point of view. It all has to work together and it does start with organic and so that's. I think you know I love organic because with that equals, usually we have more time and so we really get to build the relationship with clients and I just love working in that space. But it has the double-edged sword of okay, organic can only get you so far, but it is foundational and necessary.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's almost like talking about building a house and just talking about the decor, just talking about, like dude, if you don't have a foundation, if your walls aren't going to stand. Yeah, you know, if I think about you, know my own experience as a consumer and this will happen to a lot of people. Where they see an ad, they're attracted to it. Quite likely, the very next thing they're going to do is be like who is this person, right? What do they look like? What does their socials look like? How many followers do they have? Maybe they're hopefully they're not judging you just on that, but they're looking at your content, they're sussing you out, right, and I have yet to see people who will buy a high ticket offer purely off of an ad.

Speaker 2:

The reason why most of these ads will lead to either a class or a webinar or a challenge or is because we need to spend time with you in order to trust you, and your content will do that as well while you're not there. So, build the content, put it on for free on these platforms, and it will be doing the work for you of building that trust, of spending that time, of adding. I think it's seven hours that they say that you need to consume somebody in order to trust them and that that will be like the biggest point of ROI Lauren, when I can get, when I can be like. Instead of seven hours, this person spent two hours instead like, because they watched the brand video first. Instead of seven hours, they were ready to buy in one hour. You know that would be really hard to measure, but this is, this is the psyche, or the psychology of sales that's happening in the background.

Speaker 1:

yeah totally, totally okay. So I mainly I'm curious how this works, you know, with you know this being a podcast and not having a direct visual in front of us, but how do you work with your? I'm assuming you work with clients remotely and all over, not just based in your locale. So what does the process look like of working with you, from like figuring out the story down to like actually recording the video?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally so. I have a couple of different tiers. I'll just speak to sort of my main tier, which is brand video signature and the way that I work with clients. There. To your point, it is remote, no-transcript a script. Now with my signature clients.

Speaker 2:

This is pretty much the part of the process where it becomes more done for you. It's funny the very first iteration of my business, I was teaching people how to do this and I was like this is so much work to teach them what I learned in 15 years. Why am I doing this? And I work with a lot of really brilliant, awesome documentary filmmakers, such as myself, but I'm always making sure that we have the angle of marketing and conversions. That's what you don't see in a documentary film, clearly documentary filmmakers such as myself but I'm always making sure that we have the angle of marketing and conversions. That's what you don't see in a documentary film, clearly. So we're working basically on that script. Part of that script is obviously, it's what you're going to say, but it's also what we're going to see.

Speaker 2:

What is your audience going to see while we're experiencing a brand video, and so that's a whole thing in and of itself. Talking about non-literal visuals, visuals that evoke emotions. What do people expect to see and what should they see in order to be really taken on this emotional journey? It's called narrative transportation. We want to shut off the part of your brain by you I mean the audience's brain that is thinking about the features. How much is this going to cost? At what point am I going to be sold to? Do I have the time for this? Do I have the money for this? Will my spouse agree? Is this something I need right now? All of these questions that we the objections, the typical objections that you would normally get when you're selling. They are not welcome and they're not present.

Speaker 2:

When we're watching a brand video, All we care about is who are you? Do I like you? Yes, I do. You're awesome and I'm going to. I feel great after watching this and I feel like I'm going to tell my friends about you. Like, if I'm not your ideal audience, then I absolutely know somebody who is. I'm going to be doing the connections and I'm going to tell my friends about you. Like, if I'm not your ideal audience, then I absolutely know somebody who is. I'm going to be doing the connections and I'm going to follow you more intently now. So the visuals play a huge role in that. Because of that, of that narrative transportation, because we want to carry them through and and really kind of click them away from the rational part of their mind, we're in the emotional space. And then so, in a very practical way, we've gotten to the script.

Speaker 2:

We plan your shoot day. We hire a cinematographer and it's a very small team that's local to you, that's vetted by my team and is coming to your house or to wherever going to film. We might rent an Airbnb, you know, depending on where you live, et cetera. They come and they film for one day. It's one day of filming which, by the way, you'll have an amazing amount of B-roll footage for your socials, for your promos, for your ads. Like, all that footage belongs to you. There's no licensing, it's all yours. That footage gets sent back to my team by the filmmaker and we edit it for you and typically, with my clients, they look at the video. They might have one request. It's really close to the vision that we've had, that we've communicated with them, obviously in alignment with what works for them. It's all about what works for them so typically, but because there's so much prep work in advance on our end, then the brand video edit is very, very close to done. The first time you see it.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So this is amazing. I love the whole process. Is there a lot of like prep work you do into helping someone feel comfortable and confident in front of the camera Because, like for me, I know that's a huge issue. I will feel so good. And then I and confident in front of the camera because, like for me, I know that's a huge issue. I will feel so good. And then I sit down in front of the camera and I'm like uh what you know you feel like such a dud for sure.

Speaker 2:

So the idea is that this is kind of a mini documentary right where you are going to be doing certain things that we script out or that we've agreed to in terms of visuals that we're going to film. None of those are to camera, if you will. So the idea is to kind of capture as a fly on the wall. This is why we work with a very small team. We're not sending an entire like Netflix crew to your house and we really vet for personality of the cinematographer. So this is why I love working with documentary filmmakers, because they're used to having a very low profile. They're used to like being very quiet and very comforting, and so already you're going to. That's going to help you feel comfortable in terms of the interview, right, so we're going to, we're going to record the audio. That's sort of driving the whole piece. That happens.

Speaker 2:

You speak straight to camera and there are a couple of things that I do with my clients to get them at ease. The big one is they rehearse, they practice their script over and over. You don't have to do it in front of a mirror, because I think that's weird. You can also record yourself and kind of watch back and sort of see where you're hiccuping. But the key here is just to like say it over and over until it's like second nature. You are able to improvise. Sometimes when you improvise it sounds even more like you, so we run with that.

Speaker 2:

And then there are kind of some mechanisms in the actual interview where we do several takes and each take is a little bit different, and at the end we throw the script away and I'll ask you some questions as if we're just chatting. So I'm basically on Zoom during the interview and then I ask you some questions. Essentially I'm making sure that you're coming off natural. So there's a lot of live coaching that's happening. There's some stuff that we do before and then during the interview itself. Like I said at the very end, I'm asking you questions so that your answers are very conversational. At that point and in the edit we kind of pick and choose what worked best between the script and between the sort of off script.

Speaker 1:

That is so cool and that's the power of your background right there you can really tell that comes through. You know this is not just another thing you're doing, it's. You know you. You know all the pieces that make for an incredible shot. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, I mean, I feel like I wouldn't be able to do this work if I didn't have this background. Yeah, I feel like you could do something similar that would help your audience, and I highly encourage people to do anything like even if it's literally shoot yourself to camera on your phone and have that. And as I'm saying this, I have not done this myself, but I am working on my own brand video, which I can't wait till it's done. We're finishing filming right now and maybe by the time this is out, it'll be ready. I hope so, but I just I believe in the power of doing this so much, but there is also a higher level that you can achieve when you really put in the effort and the time and the know-how in terms of the visuals and the delivery and the actual words that are being said.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so powerful. All right, well, I want to leave with this. Why do you feel like brand videos are more important now than ever?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, where do we begin, lauren? I think, between the rise of AI generated content, the exponential growth of the online business world, where every day, there are more and more people competing for attention, competing for your money, competing for your loyalty, there's just no room not to come out of your shell of providing value or being the go-to expert on something and not show up as yourself. And we talk about authenticity for a reason. I believe so much in being authentic, but what that means is also letting your audience get to know you, and so it is absolutely crucial in terms of standing out. It's absolutely critical in terms of being memorable.

Speaker 2:

I talk a lot about going from unknown to unforgettable, and even people who have a million followers at some point are unknown to somebody. Right. At some point there's somebody new coming in that they're unknown to, and sure, a big following might sort of expedite this sort of okay, you have a massive following, I'm going to pay a bit more attention to you because other people are. So there is that effect. Clearly there is.

Speaker 2:

I'm not trying to diminish that, but at the end of the day, there's only so much that other people's testimonials, other people's experiences, are going to influence how much we pay for something, especially if that something is higher cost.

Speaker 2:

We are making decisions for ourselves, and so here's the third reason why it's so important to do this because you're going to have more and more people who have spent money already, who are not like fresh, and where marketing tactics that worked before are going to sound rehearsed or reused. Or I know exactly what you're doing and I'm not going to fall for it, or you know I'm not going to be as easily seduced into your offer because you sound exactly like these other people, and so the moment we establish ourselves as different, as unique as this is, you're getting my offer, but this is the person behind it, this is my soul, this is what I value, this is what I believe in, and if we vibe, you're going to be in good hands, right? So, for all those reasons, I believe that, now more than ever, having something like a brand video is absolutely crucial.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insight on this, and even just the behind the scenes of your process. I think it's fascinating, so I know the audience will too. Last thing where can people find you and connect with you and learn how to work with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Lauren. So I am at Brand Magnetic on most socials Instagram's kind of where I hang out the most, and then you can also find me super easily on brandmagneticcom and I'm the host of the empire secrets podcast. So if you're into podcasts hop on over uh, and we can definitely get to know each other there yeah, and I'm gonna shameless plug for you.

Speaker 1:

Her podcast is so conversational, light-hearted, it's not heavily edited, if you like listening to mine, because I'd mine, because we hardly edit it. We denoise and then slap an intro outro on. It is so raw and unfiltered and I just think that's the way you got to be these days. Conversation yeah, exactly, yeah, definitely. Go tune in Her solo episodes and her guest episodes. She's got some great guests over there too. So if you like she's Busy AF, you would like her podcast too. So definitely go check it out. We'll make sure that's in the show notes too. But overall, mariana, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure, lauren. I'm a huge fan of yours too. I'm always like in awe of everything you do Every time you show up, every like. Your design is flawless, your branding, your message, so I'm a huge fan too, for sure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

You're just tooting my horn. Thank you, thank you and thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in. We will see you on the next episode. You.