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Video is critical to your digital advertising, social media, and your sales funnels. With so many of your potential customers scrolling platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, you’ll need to create videos that get attention.
But what goes into a video that’s going to not only stop the scroll, but create awareness, interest, desire, and action? Krista Mashore is here to explain exactly how to do that, as well as how to incorporate videos into your sales funnel from pre-funnel to purchase.
Rich: My guest today has been in the top 1% of realtors nationwide for 20 years. She has personally sold over 2,200 homes and averages a hundred homes a year. She’s the author of four bestselling books focusing on digital marketing. She’s been featured in forums, in the news, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, Fox, and so much more.
She recently took her new business from zero to $10 million in just 35 short months using online digital strategies. She’s now on her way to hitting her next $10 million. Always being a teacher at heart, she loves serving people, and has turned her attention to sharing the secrets of her success to agents and entrepreneurs across the nation.
Today, we’re going to be diving into video and how it fits into your digital marketing funnels with Krista Mashore. Krista, welcome to the podcast.
Krista: Hi, Rich. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Rich: I’m very excited that you’re here. This is awesome stuff. We’re going to be talking about video today. So let’s start with just, what is it about video that’s so compelling when it comes to digital marketing?
Krista: You know, there’s something called a ‘parasocial relationship’. I’m not sure if you knew what that is, but our brains have been built to see somebody on the other side of a TV screen or a phone screen or a video, and to see them as somebody of importance. And we start to develop a social one-sided relationship with them, where we feel like we know them. And we kind of feel like they’re friends, right. We see them as the authority figure. And so that’s the power behind utilizing video.
There’s also so many stats about video and conversions that would just rock your world. If you compare a landing page of video to one that doesn’t, you have 800% more conversion rates. If you use video, and I can just go on and on about the different stats and why video should be used, but we can save that for Googling.
Rich: Yeah. Show notes or something like that. Yeah. So you mentioned landing page videos. So that wasn’t even one that I was thinking of. So what are some of the top places that you think video has the most impact for entrepreneurs and marketers out there?
Krista: So I’m actually speaking at Funnel Hacking Live in three weeks on this. So Russell has me speaking about the pre-funnel and how you get conversions pre-funnel.
So the strategy that I use is, a lot of people will create a lead magnet and they’ll just say, “Hey, give me your contact information”. But they’re doing that, and people are afraid to give the information in many cases. But if you first take video content, and so my strategy is taking video content, pushing video content out to my audiences without any call to action. It’s just maybe a prolific video or a video specifically addressing the problems people are having and solutions to those problems. It’s just giving as much value and information as possible and positioning me as the authority before I ever asked anybody to convert. So it’s dating and flirting before you get married, it’s the pre-frame.
So, what we do is we get the information out there and then we send a video out there with a call to action just to click ‘download’. So it’s one more thing. And then later on down the targeting process, we’ll then say, okay, now give me your name, phone number, and email for this extra something special. But we don’t ask for their information until we’ve earned the right to ask it by developing trust with them and positioning ourselves as the authority.
Rich: All right. So to use the right word, you’re building trust right off the bat. And you’re not necessarily looking for the sale. You’re just kind of warming those people up, creating some sociability between you and the viewer.
So with that being said, obviously you’re not just throwing those videos out with no idea where they’re going to end up. What are you doing to get them in front of your intended audience, whoever that audience might be?
Krista: So we use Facebook ads as well as YouTube ads. Up until about 30 days ago, we’ve just done primarily our marketing on Facebook. And you know, to give you a good idea about how this works Rich, I was in real estate, primarily prior to about like three years and eight months ago, I launched my coaching business. And nobody knew who I was across the country. And we’ve done, in just over three and a half years, we’re at close to $17 million in sales online from this strategy. So we started by just putting an ad spend behind the videos to our specific audiences, whether it be real estate agents, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, whatever it might be. And just giving them value, and really positioning ourselves as the authority. And we spent initially around 60 days, like just 30, 60 days just getting in front of people and then continuing to retarget more information.
Because research shows that the more people see you, the more they start to like you. Right? So at first if they see me and they’re like, oh, she annoys me. But the more they see of me, the more they’re going to start to like me. And the more I’ll be able to position myself as the authority figure. And so we started that and now we’ve got over 1,000 students in my program right now, and we coach them on how to utilize video and social media to actually get hundreds of thousands of views. And we’ll get hundreds of hours of watch time on any one given video.
So if you can imagine doing that, like creating a video and getting 400, 500, 600, 700 hours of watch time, and 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 clicks, shares. The power of that for a business is just so, so powerful.
Rich: Now you have a coaching course that you’re selling right now. So a lot of the videos I assume that you’re creating is around this course. Is the course for just realtors or is it for everyone, or do you have different courses depending on industry? And I’m asking because I have a follow-up question after this.
Krista: Yeah, no problem. So we have a specific one just for real estate agents, and we have a specific one for like local professionals and entrepreneurs. So they’re very similar. They really could be taught coincidentally, but since I do have such a strong real estate background, we made a specific one for real estate to give them specific examples.
And the examples that are in the local professional and entrepreneurial course is just a little bit more general, but we’re teaching the exact same topic, teaching exactly how to do it. It’s just more specific for the real estate.
Rich: Excellent. And so my point being, or the thought that I had is, so you are going after one audience that you’ve identified on Facebook in this case as real estate agents. And other ones might be entrepreneurs, owners, whatever the case may be. So you’re creating similar channels of content, but then you are targeting people based on who they are on Facebook, correct?
Krista: Yep, absolutely. And then the call to action, who I’m speaking to in the beginning. Like I’ll create the same video, but I’ll just change the beginning. So it speaks directly to a real estate agent or directly to a local professional or entrepreneur.
Rich: I’m sure a lot of people are listening to you right now, and they’re like, okay, I know I get that. But the bottom line is, I need sales. And so what would you say to them who want to skip over this pre-funnel stage – for lack of a better phrase – or maybe that’s what you call it? What kind of content are you creating in that pre-funnel stage? And do you recommend that people skip it and just go for the conversion?
Krista: So it takes a tad bit longer in the beginning, but the conversions are much, much stronger in the end and they stick around much longer.
Rich: If you’re doing the pre-funnel videos.
Krista: Yes. If you’re doing the pre funnel. And so it’s like, our conversions are insanely high, like insanely high. We’re converting, on a two-day live or a two day live virtual event or a 5-day event, like 40%. And it’s because of all the pre-work that we’ve done to really position ourselves as the expert, to develop the trust, and to get people to take that action. So what I would say is we can teach you how to do things fast and you’ll start to notice it fast.
So think about this. If you were going to get a divorce and there was a divorce attorney that was constantly talking about ways to divorce that makes it more friendly between the couples and how to divorce without involving the kids and how to divorce amicably and save money and all these different things, and you’re thinking about getting divorced and you saw this attorney for the year or two, six months, whatever it might be. You’re thinking about her way before you ever think about divorce. In most cases, if they don’t know about you prior to making the decision, you’re too late. I don’t want somebody thinking about me when they’re looking for a divorce attorney. I want them thinking about me prior, and already knowing who I am, that I’m top of mind when that decision comes available, right? When there’s 50% of people getting divorced, same thing with buying a house, same thing with going to get a massage, you want to be thought of before they’re ready to make that decision.
Rich: Buying a car, getting a website, whatever it may be, totally onboard with you. So you kind of already did this but walk me through what a video might be like if we’re not asking for the sale, if we’re not asking for a conversion. And this may be a weird question, but how do you sign off on a video if you’re not trying to get them to do something right then?
Krista: Yeah. Well, in every single video you can still say, “Hey, if you want more information click below”, that’s fine. But you want to make sure it’s more serve, not sell more. Value-driven, right. The more value you can give, in order for you to be considered a solution, you must be solving a problem. So the more problems that you solve, the more you’re gonna be able to be considered a solution for somebody.
So let me give you my five step framework to creating a video that somebody actually watches.
Rich: Perfect.
Krista: Number one, we’ve got to hook the viewer, right? So we’re not going to start out by saying, “Hi, I’m Krista Mashore of Krista Mashore Coaching. And I teach people how to…” You know, blah, blah, blah. Like, no, we’re not doing that. I want to hook them. It might be something like this, “Are you tired of constantly creating lead magnets and funnels? Do you feel like you’re just constantly spinning your wheels? Did you know that there might be an easier way for you to be able to attract business, and that is with video?” Okay. So that’d be one example.
Or now let’s just use a real estate example. Let’s just say that I am a veteran buyer. And I’m a veteran, I’ve got money in the bank, not a lot of money in the bank, not the best credit, but I’m a veteran. If somebody says, “Now’s a great time to buy a house”, if I’m a veteran with not the best credit, not a lot of money in the bank, I’m probably not thinking I can even purchase. But if I say, “Are you are a veteran, you don’t have a lot of money in the bank and your credit’s not great. If you’ve got a job, do you know you could possibly buy a home!” Blah, blah, blah. Right? So now I’ve hooked them. I’ve given them a reason to want to listen.
Let me give you another example. I don’t even know this, but if your website takes like more than like five seconds to load, your conversions decreased by let’s just say 60%. I don’t know what the number is, but it’s a lot. So if I don’t know that, I’m not concerned about it. But if somebody says, do you know that if your website takes five seconds or more to load that you’re losing 66% of your customers. All of a sudden, I’m like, no, I didn’t know that. Oh my gosh, I want to learn more right now. Now all of a sudden, I’ve gotten hooked. Okay. Better than just teaching on why you got to hook the buyer.
So number one is you hook the viewer. Number two, you align with their feelings. So you get them to understand that you understand where they’re at. So it might be like, “I know it kind of might seem really scary to think about creating video. I remember being there, too. Until I realized just how much it’s helped me to convert.” So you hook them and then you got to think of what are they’re thinking right now? What are they feeling right now? Align with that center. They’re probably thinking so they know that you understand them. That’s the second step.
Third step is you want to position yourself as the authority without bragging or boasting. So instead of saying, “I’m number one. Oh my gosh. I’m the best trainer in the world, the best coach, the best realtor, the best lender, the best divorce attorney, you’re gonna show them that you’re the authority without saying it, if that makes sense. So it might be like, “Hey, in the past four years I’ve generated over $17 million online using video.” Now I’m not saying I’m just so great, but that’s pretty darn good numbers.
Rich: It shows you’ve been doing it and you know what you’re talking about, for sure.
Krista: Yes. I’m solidifying why. Or let’s say I was going after realtors I’d say, “Hey, I’ve sold 2,200 homes in my career. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Just last month alone, I helped 18 people do X, Y, and Z.” You’re just showing that you know what you’re talking about to give them a reason to want to continue to listen to you. Why should they listen to you?
Okay. So step one is hook. Step two is align with their feelings. Step three is position yourself as the authority. And then step four is start giving your teaching points. Now I’m not going to actually teach, I’m going to help. Now, this is when you’re going to want to tell them and help them as much as possible. And don’t worry about giving everything away. Because even if you give everything away, they still need your help. Right? You can Google anything. But without the proper, what I call ‘GPS’, we need our goals and our guidance, our plan and our blueprint, and our support and the systems and strategy. It’s difficult to do anything that you Google, right? So give everything away.
And then the last call is the call to action. And it might just be like, “Hey, hope you liked the video. Watch out for the next one.” Or, “Hey, click if you’d like a download”, or “Go ahead and feel free to…”. You know, in the beginning stages pre-funnel, we are attracting people that haven’t really seen you yet. Don’t ask them for your email. You can have them download. You can have them watch the next one. Just don’t ask initially. As you start bringing people down and they’ve watched one video about, let’s say why video is important, if they watched a whole video on it and they go to the next video and watch it again, then most likely we’re thinking about doing video, right? So then I could have them download my five step process on how to do videos that will convert. And maybe the third time, okay, now name, phone number, email for an extended two hour webinar or a two hour discovery or whatever it might be.
Rich: That makes a lot of sense. Now you mentioned those five steps in there, and just wondering, is this all in that first pre-funnel video? And if so, how long are these pre-funnel videos that you’re creating?
Krista: So good question. So it really depends upon are they cold, warm, or hot audiences? Right. So depending on where they’re at on my funnel is going to determine how long they are.
As I start bringing people down the funnel and re-targeting and even watching, the videos can be longer. You want to try to keep them around 30 to 60 seconds, max, top of funnel, just enough to grab their attention.
And yes, you can easily get everything I just said in that top video. And that top video might be, “Hey, do you have X problem? Well, guess what? Here’s a few solutions”, and then “If you’d like to learn more, click on the next one.” Right? So there’s not really any given answer. If anyone wants to say to you, “Oh, the first video should be 30 seconds. The next on…”, it’s really not the case. It depends upon who your audience is, what your outcome is, and where they’re at in your funnel, will depend upon the length. And as long as your content is valuable, it’s targeting the right people and solving the right problems, your videos will be watched.
Rich: Talk to me a little bit more about the process. So now we’ve built some awareness with them, they know who you are. So when they start thinking about a course or a video or a website or a new car or a new dog, you’re in the back of their mind. What are some of the other types of videos you might create along the line? Could you tease the fact that you have like a two or a five day video summit, which is probably more work perhaps in some people listening right now want to put in, but how do we move? How do we walk with the customer down the customer journey to kind of hook them in?
Krista: Okay. So, as far as the videos go, are you talking about how do I get them to the two day or five day event?
Rich: Yeah. Like if that is one potential video, which is a lot more than just a video, but if that’s one of the end goals which then converts, what are some of the other videos along the way? We’ve talked about this building awareness and not asking for their email as a call to action. What do you do to kind of continue to build on that relationship and ultimately show them that your course is the best course or they’ll be better off to buy your widget, whatever it may be?
Krista: Yes. So you’re just going to want to do regular videos of you giving tips, something you learned, being a reporter basically of your day being a reporter, of a book that you’ve read or learned, or podcasts that you listened to. Just talking about regular life. Even doing things like showing them, you know, wow, I had this thing that happened to me today and it was actually really this negative thing and here’s how I actually adapted to it. Let them see you in life. Like you’re gonna let them see you in life and continue teaching and training and coaching.
Like for example, whatever their profession is. Like think you should know every single problem, every single question that your client avatar has and constantly be answering it, constantly be teaching, constantly be helping. So you’re just going to continue to provide value, continue to position yourself as the expert. And the more that you do that, you’ll start to break down their barriers. And they’ll start seeing you as the authority and seeing you as the expert. And a lot of mindset stuff. Like I do a ton of mindset videos and getting that out there. Personally, especially because I believe that with mindset you could teach them and do anything, but they don’t have the mindset part of it. Right? Like it’s, especially with video, they need help with that because everyone’s so worried about what they look like or if they’re going to make a mistake or mess up or whatever.
Rich: All right. Now, a lot of what you have talked about so far definitely involves a little bit of Facebook advertising. But you kind of mentioned that you started exploring YouTube in the past month or a few months. So what are some of the different approaches one might have when you’re thinking about a Facebook funnel and a YouTube funnel, or are they primarily the same?
Krista: You know what, from what I can tell so far – and again, I’m very new with YouTube – is they’re so similar. I do believe Facebook is the number one platform to market on for any marketer. You know, it’s been insane with the results that we’ve been able to get. I do think that once you’ve mastered one platform, it’s safe to go onto the next. We’ve been doing Facebook advertising is like eight years now, so we’ve definitely mastered it. We understand it very well.
But the nice thing I do like about YouTube though, is that you’re able to specifically search for people that are searching for specific terms or specific people. I really do like that about it. But the content and the videos are very similar, right? The beginning time I’m hooking. like I just finished doing eight videos for YouTube and all eight had a different problem in the beginning, but the main content throughout the rest of the video was the same, and a different call to action. Or the same call to action. Sorry. So it was like just the first two minutes was different calling out different things that realtors would be thinking. And that’s the same thing that we do with Facebook video and ads. Those videos were quite a bit longer. They were like six minute videos they have me record each for the YouTube ones. And for Facebook they’re much, much smaller in the beginning. But the nice thing with this with YouTube is if they’re watching that much initially, you know, it’s something that they’re interested in,
Rich: Are you putting those videos up organically, or are you still doing the advertising? So you’re targeting is a pre-roll video before they watch another video.
Krista: Yeah, we’re absolutely putting and advertising budget on both sites, so YouTube and Facebook. We’re on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and we’re pretty much all over.
Rich: What have you found as you’re working with all of these real estate agents and entrepreneurs, what mistakes are people still making when they’re creating videos for digital marketing?
Krista: They’re just not consistent enough. It’s all about consistency, right? I always say progress, not perfection. People are so worried about being perfect and making a mistake, and so they’ll create this content and never even put it out there because they’re so worried about being perfect. I always say progress, not perfection. Let’s be perfectly imperfect and just produce. We want to be producers. Not so much as a consumer, be more of a producer and do it on a consistent basis. It’s all about being seen over and over again. Right.
When I first started teaching this four years ago, I used to say, oh, it takes like around six times for something to click. Well, now it’s like 36 times. And people need to see you so much more because they’re being bombarded with stuff and their level of trust just keeps going down and down. So you’ve got to just be, you know, I always say you gotta commit to consistently producing content correctly so you can make a connection, and you’ll convert more clients and customers.
Rich: That’s an excellent alliteration right there. I will give you that one, Krista.
Krista: Well, it’s true though. All those things are very important. It’s an important thing to be consistent, it’s important to make a connection, it’s important to correctly distribute it. It’s important to convert and it’s important to make a connection. So all those things are so important. And if you just do it consistently enough. I see so many people that stop when they’re like three feet from gold and it just takes time, you know. Things take time. Anything that’s good takes time.
But what I will say is, it’s either going to be hard now and then so it can be easy later, or it can be easy now and be hard later. One of those was going to be the case, right? It’s going to be one of the two, what are you going to choose? And so I cannot tell you how many times Rich, over and over again, I’ve seen something like, I’ve been doing it for four months and it hasn’t hit yet. And then all of a sudden, by like month six, they’re like, oh my God, my business has exploded, I just got 12 new clients this week. And they’ve just never seen such success because they stop and give up. When you do work here, you don’t see the results until here, when you do work here, you see them here. I can just keep going, but people stop right here and if they just don’t keep going, you’re never going to have that line. That line will just kind of keep doing this, but people are afraid to give it the time it takes.
Rich: I 100% agree. In fact, I’ve seen that with my own business, and I’ve seen that with all of our clients, is the ones that give up early don’t see that success. But the ones who go longer than you think they would, like all of a sudden on the 10th or 20th or 50th blog post, suddenly all their blog posts take off, all their videos take off. And I think the idea that you’re going to have a viral hit is ridiculous, and it hurts entrepreneurs and business people, because you do have to put in the work and at some point it all starts to come together. Plus, you get better at it over time.
Krista: You don’t want anyone to see you in the beginning.
Rich: Exactly. Nobody should look at my baby pictures. All right. This has been awesome. And if people want to learn more from you and they want to check out some of your classes and videos and everything else, where can we send them, Krista?
Krista: You can send them to kristamashore.com/2dayslive. That URL is going to take him to more of a real estate based type of course. But I would just say, honestly, if you can just replace real estate for whatever your profession is, it’s the exact same thing.
We have one that’s being launched October, I think 13th and 14th, that’s not for real estate. So if you at least find me there, we’ll figure out how to get you moved into the right one.
Rich: Sounds awesome. And we’ll have those links in the show notes. Kristen, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time and expertise today.
Krista: I appreciate you having me, Rich. You’re amazing.
Show Notes:
Krista Mashore is leading the way when it comes to video marketing. Check out her website to learn more about how she’s helping businesses and entrepreneurs excel to the next level. And don’t forget to check out her latest course.
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, a web design & digital marketing agency in Portland, Maine, and founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his 20+ years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.