"Pictory is magic, get it, play with it, you will be surprised what it can do for you!"
Today we talk to Brain Killeen who owns and runs a video marketing agency. Brian tells us how Pictory has helped him produce videos for clients. How it's magic, easy to use and cuts hours off his busy schedule. Also how re-purposing video content has helped his clients get on the first page of google.
Pete Bennett: I'm with Brian Killeen from Website Marketing First, who's been a long-time Pictory user.
I'm going to be talking to him today about how he's using Pictory for both himself and his clients in the realm of video marketing.
Brian Killeen: Hi, Pete, how are you? Great to meet you.
Pete Bennett: Very well, nice to meet you, too and thank you for making time to talk to us.
So if you wouldn't mind just recapping a little bit about what you do and how Pictory is helping you do it?
Then we can get into a discussion about video marketing, which I know will be of interest to the people watching this.
Brian Killeen: My wife and I started Website Marketing First in 2010. And our agency is a freelancing aid.
We've developed quite a number of clients over the years and it has become a full-time business.
We started using video from day one. But we really got into it about six years ago, using a video on the homepage of one of our client's websites.
It was an explainer video and that developed into us becoming video marketers.
We're actually using video as a tool for marketing and as it became more prevalent on social media, and the different styles changed that we could use as far as landscape and vertical, one-to-one ratios such as on Facebook.
We found that we needed to have a really good programme that was easy that was great speed-wise, because there were only the two of us.
I was changing over from face-to-face marketing, with small businesses where I was servicing our existing clients.
And the video marketing aspect just developed, I didn't chase it around like that, I thought this is a good way to go.
Pete Bennett: Well, that's certainly the way that the market has been moving over the last few years, moving away from just text into video.
So for instance, if people are producing written blog posts, then there's more of a trend now to make videos from that written content. Have you had an experience of that?
Brian Killeen: I found that the written blog posts and descriptions people use for social media, with the aim to get people to their websites, and to their blogs were too long.
People just scroll past this sort of stuff. So what I'm actually doing now in my video marketing section, is to take snippets of their blogs, turn them into a Vlog and learn something new every day.
I've only just started using Pictory snippets and I'm investigating using them.
Pete Bennett: Well, we're here to help you if you need to get started on that. But just to explain to people what snippets are and the concept of snippets.
It's taking long-form content, whether that's video content, such as recordings of zoom sessions like we're doing now.
Whether it's videos, which are made from long-form blog-type posts, or article-type posts, and taking golden nuggets from them, making very short videos, even shorter than a minute sometimes.
Then using those video snippets as videos to upload to YouTube, TikTok and other social platforms to generate interest.
People can then be sent to watch the longer form content which may be on a different platform such as your own website, for instance.
Brian Killeen: We have a lot of businesses that service plumbers, electricians, hairdressing salons and similar businesses, the more progressive ones do write blogs every month.
We are now converting those blogs into Vlogs and putting out snippets on social media. This attracts customers to their website, and gets the SEO rankings up on their websites.
Pete Bennett: I think that's something many people who are outside of the SEO space probably don't realise. Those videos are like catnip to Google, that if you put a video out there, then it will get indexed quicker.
You will be given higher ranking positions because it's not just plain text, because everybody's doing plain text. Not everybody is doing smart video marketing.
It sounds like you're at the forefront of that or at least you will be in terms of your direction.
Brian Killeen: I stumbled on video marketing through my own efforts to rank my website.
I realised if you use Google's products like Gmail and YouTube, they favour a higher ranking for you for your website.
So I set up my YouTube account, just to rank my own websites. And now we've transferred that to two of our clients.
Some of our clients we have on page one of Google with a video that I did eight years ago, because nobody else was valuing that at the time.
Pete Bennett: I think what most people don't realise is actually this stuff isn't that difficult, you've just got to do it. But until software like Pictory came along, the barrier to entry was quite high.
This is because you needed to learn complicated desktop-based video editing software, or you needed to have deep pockets and be able to find the right people and outsource it.
Brian Killeen: I've gone through a lot of the programmes. There are stacks of them out there. But I found that Pictory is the easiest one for me to get my head around or continually do it.
I don't actually outsource, I do it all myself. And if I can do it, anybody could do it.
Pete Bennett: I'll let you into a secret I often use Pictory myself for doing things like editing this kind of zoom recording.
I can finish the editing in less time than it would take me to write the description of what I want to do, and then outsource it. So it's actually quicker to do it yourself quite often.
Brian Killeen: I've found that time is my biggest killer at present and I want to do other things. I've been doing this for a while and we want to travel.
There's a whole mix of things happening at present and I really haven't got time to try to explain to somebody what I want.
I know what need, I know what I want but I don't think I've got the patience either to try and explain something to somebody too. I've tried it. But I didn't get very far.
Pete Bennett: Now you'll often end up writing the job description and then getting something back which you end up doing yourself anyway because they got it wrong.
Pictory is a way of doing things, I think it makes it easier to do it yourself because you don't have to mess around with timeline editors.
Now, if you've never used and I'm sure you have that many people probably won't have used things like Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, brilliant editors.
So long as you've got the 1000 hours to learn how to use them first, and the 100 hours to create what you need from it.
That's down to the timeline concept where you have assets on a timeline and then you have to synchronise it all up.
With Pictory, all you need to do is edit the automatically generated transcription, and the videos are edited.
It's also it also has captions added automatically which, again, if you've never tried to add captions to a video using a traditional editor, you won't realise how much time that saves.
Are you using AI voices? Or are you uploading your own voice to Pictory?
Brian Killeen: Some of my clients don't like to use their own voice. I've trained myself through experience.
Pete Bennett: Well, one thing that is innovative about Pictory is that if you upload your own voice, it will automatically synchronise your words with the script and the words that appear on the screen.
We're trying to take away that very fiddly process of synchronising the voice with what's happening in the video. Because again, that can take so long if you're doing it with traditional editors.
Brian Killeen: That's magic. I found that out. I've got three or so clients that are prepared to and regularly give me their blog posts.
I put them there the blog article from the URL, straight into Pictory and it pulls out the best parts.
We make the video, I send them the script, say read that and shoot it back to me. It's fantastic.
Pete Bennett: Wow, that's a great workflow. I was going to ask you actually how you interact with clients. And that sounds like a very efficient way of doing it.
Brian Killeen: In fact, I started off building the video, sending them a video and the script and saying I need your voice to the script.
But that slowed things down, it was easier to send them the script because they've written the blog, they know the influence they want on their expression.
And I think the video slowed them down in the process. So now all they do is read the script, voice it over the phone, send it to me and Pictory puts their voice to the video perfectly. It's fantastic.
Pete Bennett: That's amazing, and that saves you a lot of time as well and means you get a better result if you run a marketing agency.
Thanks very much for the tip. I'm sure people will want to copy that.
Brian Killeen: Go for it. There's plenty to go around.
Pete Bennett: I'm sure that viewers would love to hear more video marketing tips. If you are prepared to share any more of your secret sauce.
Brian Killeen: I wouldn't call it a secret. I just do it. Now that we've been talking about it, because it's the first sort of conversation I've had with anyone about it. Because I work on my own.
Pete Bennett: Doing it is often the best way of marketing yourself because people see you out there, and then you become the expert authority in that space.
You don't have to go out and sell your services, your services sell you.
Brian Killeen: It's true and it works.
Pete Bennett: There's no longer the need to go to networking events because your network is online 24/7. Video puts you in front of your prospects.
Brian Killeen: When you have a face-to-face, you can't hide the look in your eyes.
Pete Bennett: Well, we've got towards the end of our discussion. Now. It's just one thing that I'd like to ask you, if I may.
Brian Killeen: Of course.
Pete Bennett: If somebody hasn't used Pictory before and was thinking of doing so, what would you say to them?
Brian Killeen: I would say, get it and just play with it and you'll be surprised what it can do for you.
It's not what you can do for it, it's what it can do for you. Because as long as you put in the information you'll get good results.
Pete Bennett: We have a Facebook group where people are in there helping 24/7. And I know you particularly Brian, have reached out to support.
The support people do a really good job of giving you the support that you need and the help that you need to get started.
Brian Killeen: It's magic. I'm not frightened to ask questions if I don't know what's happening.
And I can understand with a fairly new company, that there are things going on in the background.
To get the information back from Pictory, both through support and yourself Pete and Vikram is amazing.
In the last 10 or so years that I've been in the marketing and internet-type business, I've never come across a company that is so good at
Pete Bennett: Well, thank you. That means a lot to us all and it's going to stay that way. We're committed to providing great support to the point of even getting on a zoom call and talking you through and giving a demonstration.
So never feel that you're on your own. You can always reach out we're always here for you.
Brian Killeen: Fantastic. I love it. Terrific.
Learn How To Repurpose Long Form Videos To Short Videos For Maximum Engagement!
