Title: Green Eggs, Ham, and Why Video In 2024
Guest: Erich Meltvedt
Peter: What’s our warm up here? Do we do what do we do? Do we do a rah rah cheer or something? Seriously. They were back.
Yeah. 2024. Right on. So today I’m joined by Erics Meltvedt. He is the founder of Integrity Media.
Eric and I got together in 2022 and talked about video for business. And he thought it was a year ago. It was actually two years ago.
Erich: Time flies.
Peter: So Eric, in addition to being the founder of Integrity Media, which is a video production company for small and large businesses, Fortune 500, is also an award winning documentarian. What was, one of those documentary documentaries that you did, Aaron?
Erich: Living with the odds. It’s about a guy that, basically was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Peter: Mhmm.
Erich: And we followed his his last day basically and how he wanted to live longer. He lived each day to the fullest and interviewed the top doctors, physicians, trainers, coaches, therapists on how to do that, even guiding the spiritual side as well. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a huge hit all over the world. I still get calls from universities around the world asking to
Peter: Really?
Erich: See it to to to pre for the nurses and doctors actually. Oh, wow.
Peter: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Erich: Well, that we’ll give you a link to watch the preview. And if you want, we can give you a special link to to review it. Oh. It hasn’t officially been out yet.
Peter: Oh, got it. Okay. Cool. Cool. So that is, the documentary that you’ve done.
I know you’ve done some other ones as well. You do a lot of video work. You and I have worked together quite a bit with clients. We’ve worked with a roofing company. We’ve worked with a startup in the hearing industry, and then we’ve also worked with
Erich: Pet grooming.
Peter: Pet grooming. There you one of my biggest clients.
Erich: Of Australia?
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. And so today, again, we wanna catch up on 2024, why is video so important for business? So I’ve got a couple questions I wanna walk you through You know, this is kind of the you’re on the hot seat today, Let’s get
Erich: into it.
Peter: So what’s changed with respect to video for business since we last spoke? That was a couple years ago, or what’s accelerated?
Erich: Two years ago, we talked about how important it is to get into video because it is starting to grow rapidly. 85% of all consumer buys are technically or product wise are definitely through the iPhone or through a mobile device, essentially.
Peter: Okay.
Erich: Since then, all it’s done is that it’s increased. People are watching more and more of it. It’s accelerating. I don’t think there’s a stop to it. Yeah.
I mean, right?
Peter: Yeah. The two things that I see big time is TikTok, I mean, which is just this almost, you know, scary phenomenon, Right?
Erich: You’re right.
Peter: And YouTube. And what I’ve seen in the stats, and we’ll get into some of that later, is that the YouTube viewing has just skyrocketed in addition to TikTok. So they each have their kind of own form of video. I’ll tell you a little funny story about TikTok. We recently took a trip to Europe.
I don’t know if I told you this story. No. And my daughter, my adult daughter, well, seemingly adult, was making TikTok videos. She’s been making TikTok videos, and we were in Italy, and we were driving. I parked in this really tricky spot, and I started going down the road, and I realized I was going down the wrong way.
Well, there’s some yahoo coming up the right way right on my bumper as I’m backing up. So I put it in reverse. I turn around. We’re driving one of those BMW x three brand new, you know, with all the bells and whistles, literally. So I pop it in reverse.
I turn around. Grace is holding her phone here, and I say, do not record this. And then I’m backing up, and then all these, you know, everything’s beep beep beep. And then we finally get out of that, and then she shows me kinda like when we’re casually pulling away, and these people are standing there staring at us, and I’m like, oh, okay, ciao. And she posted that on TikTok.
Yeah. Million views.
Erich: That’s insane.
Peter: And 500,000 likes. Yeah. It had you know, people could relate to it.
Erich: People can
Peter: connect it. Relatable. We were looking at the comments, and they were funny. Oh, that’s my dad, or, We had the same experience with a car. You know, it’s like renting a car in some place that you don’t know, right?
That’s the whole theme. But anyway, so that TikTok is killing it. YouTube is, you know, over the top. You know? I mean, I personally watch YouTube videos.
I watch it on my TV. I probably watch just as much time on YouTube now that I used to watch just regular TV, which I don’t watch nearly as much.
Erich: Most people are finding themselves watching YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram more often than are watching any type of broadcast. Yeah. And that’s why you see so many commercials on there. It’s amazing. Yeah.
I mean, if you even for the littlest, like, somebody may have just posted a video of them there for family dinner, and you still get an ad.
Peter: Yeah. Yeah.
Erich: And I might pray to that. I just literally I was telling you earlier, I just did this ad of how this hamburger is being made in slow motion.
Peter: It’s a pesto burger.
Erich: And it was like, it was a pesto burger, and it was like, from this hamburger place down our street, I’m like, I’m going there.
Peter: And it
Erich: turned out to be as good as it looked.
Peter: Yeah. Video, I think we’ve established that video is, you know, it’s here to stay. It’s everywhere. It’s, you know, it’s ubiquitous at this point. I think you made a good point when we were talking about this earlier as well, like why video works is because you said we buy from people, we don’t buy from corporations.
And with video, you’re actually relating to I mean, if it’s done right, you’re relating to a person. You’re getting into the story. Right?
Erich: Right. You’re connecting with that story, for instance. I mean, I think I was telling you about, you’re looking for an auto part, for instance, your starter just went out her car, you need a new battery. Sure. There’s a ton of companies making batteries out there, for instance.
But if I scroll through there and I find out a company that, for instance, has a video and they say, we’re family owned, we’ve been making batteries since 1806. Yeah. I feel a connection already.
Peter: Sure.
Erich: Smaller business, I have a family owned business. Yeah. I would probably buy from them. Okay. And that’s what the story I think a lot of people should be telling.
Yeah. Telling your story as simple as is that. You gave a great example to me Right. Last week about the roofing company.
Peter: Okay.
Erich: Tell me about that again.
Peter: Oh. How
Erich: that roofing company got started.
Peter: Yeah. We have a client. Simple, but fascinating. They have a great story, and Chris Goldman, our marketing messaging guy, developed this, kind of pulled it out of the client, a company called Bloom Blue Roofing, and they were talking about how they got started, and it turned out that the owner of the company, Mark Blue, his grandmother needed a new roof, and he had some experience doing roofs. He was in his twenties, I think.
And so he did her roof at her place, and it turned out all the neighbors needed roofs too, and so a company was born. Their tagline is, If it’s good enough for grandma, it’s good enough for you. The cool thing about that is I remember that story.
Erich: Yeah.
Peter: So yeah, that story about Blue and Blue Roofing and grandma’s roof kind of begs the question, does every business have a story, Eric? What do you think?
Erich: Good question. We always say that everyone has a story to tell. You’ve got a story, I’ve got a story. You’ve a story on how you built your business. Everyone has a story.
Most people might think, well, what I did is I just opened this business up from one day to the next. No, there’s a story behind that. But when you tell your story, you want to make it relatable. You wanna make it interesting. You wanna make it to where consumers can connect with you.
Right. Essentially. Right. I can go on and on and on, but Sure. Basically, make it interesting.
Make it relevant to your product or service.
Peter: So let me ask you this, just off the top. How many stories do you think you’ve videoed since you started doing business videos?
Erich: Hundreds. Literally, I know it sounds crazy, but it probably has been at least over probably, you know, in the hundreds. Yeah. Yeah.
Peter: Got it. So you’ve got an eye for story.
Erich: I got an eye for story.
Peter: A lot of works.
Erich: Yeah. And that’s one of my talents is I can sit down with you and identify your strengths and weaknesses on your short on a story, for instance Right. And give you a good Right. Vision of where how we can drive that story for your product
Peter: or service. Cool. Obviously, the next question is, Eric, how do I get started? What what’s what do I need as a business? What what what do you recommend?
Erich: I recommend you giving Peter a call today. Of course. Seriously.
Peter: But what am I going to you know, what should I do as a business owner?
Erich: What want should I be looking sit down, develop a strategy on how you’re going to tell your story and who that story is to. Who is your customer? Who are we going to tell this story to? That’s the very first step. And once you identify that, then it just gets easier and easier.
You can start to develop whether or not you’re gonna do social media ads, you’re gonna do 15, you’re gonna do have someone in the office actually be in the story. Do you need to hire actors? I mean, it all comes down to just kind of building off of what you initially But
Peter: can do scripted, unscripted, all that sort
Erich: of It’s easy. It’s really easy to get to start right away. I told you earlier, you can have someone grab an iPhone, start telling your story, get testimonials from your clients, Have them do a Zoom call with you and get a testimonial. Right. And then if you want, send it to us, we’ll cut it up add a lot of B roll to it, make it interesting, but make it interesting.
Peter: So what is B roll?
Erich: B roll is if you’re telling me how you got started in this business, I might show B roll The customer. Talking to a customer, shaking hands, developing that strategy that you’re so good at.
Peter: B roll is, like, if we were having b roll associated with this shot here, it would be something you would hear our voices in the background, but then we you would be showing something else. So that’s b roll.
Erich: Right.
Peter: The actual video that you should start with, I think we’ve agreed that the brand video, which is a sixty second piece that you can put on your website, put on YouTube, put on socials, is is kind of the basic table stakes. It kind of where you get started, right?
Erich: You really should. If you have a website, that is your first brick and mortar. It’s the very first impression that you have. You have eight seconds. Remember we talked about this in 2022?
Yeah. It’s probably now down to six seconds to capture somebody on your website, but if you’ve got a video there
Peter: They see a video.
Erich: Gonna probably end up Press It’s already gonna be playing. Right. It could be just a bunch of B roll shots of your company playing squash, for instance, or, you know, pickleball.
Peter: Right, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to Molly, my wife, about, she works at her brother’s dental practice. There’s a video that was created a long time ago, and it includes Doctor. Coontz, and she said people come in every day, Oh, I saw the video of Doctor. Kuntz. Even today, and it was done well, but it still has a lasting impression on people because they related to the doctor.
So it’s they’re buying from a person, they’re not buying from a company. They’re actually seeing a story that they can relate to and it triggers something.
Erich: It does. You’re absolutely right.
Peter: Yes. So you’ve got brand video is kind of the basic table stakes of where to get started. So one thing that we’ve been thinking about as our companies, Eric is our trusted video partner for all things video and biz marketing. We would like to put out an offer for 2024 for the first three businesses that contact us about creating a brand video. So you wanna tell folks kinda what we’re thinking here, Eric?
Erich: Yeah, no. We, I mean, we believe in this so much. We believe in video so much, and the statistics do not lie. It is going through the roof, and YouTube’s a great example of that because they just keep shoving it down our throats, right? But the offer is basically create a story, a brand story of your company, come in one day, shoot for one day, and out of that also create you, give you five social media videos that you can use on a social media platform to advertise your company.
We’ll do this for $3,500
Peter: Woah, 3,503
Erich: thousand $500 I know it sounds crazy. Normally we don’t look at this stuff for like, unless it’s 6 to 15,000 a day. We’re still gonna shoot it at $25.50000 type quality. I mean, it’s gonna be, it’ll be broadcast quality. But we want you to become a long term client with us and biz marketing, And
Peter: part of that offer also is, as you know, if you’ve watched our channel or you’ve listened to our podcast, we’re huge proponents of the one Page Marketing Plan by Alan Dib. My team and I are certified coaches for the one Page Marketing Plan, and in the book of the nine stages there are several phases that actually can use video. So what we’re offering is a one page marketing plan audit of your marketing. So we will use that, sit down with you and interview you about different steps of your marketing plan that you currently have in place and maybe you don’t have a marketing plan in place, but you’re still doing marketing. If you’re in business and have been in business for more than a year, you’ve definitely done some marketing.
You just might not know it. We’ll sit down with you and interview you and get an understanding of where you are with the one Page Marketing Plan and actually offer you some advice and feedback as a consultant to figure out where you can do marketing even better. And then if you want, you know, course you could hire us to do additional work, but the audit is something that we’re including. It’s not free. We normally charge businesses $1,500 to connect that audit.
So we’re going to include that in this. So the first three companies that contact us, dollars 3,500. You’re gonna get a lot for $3,500 You’re gonna get a brand video, and you’re gonna get five pieces of content that you can put on social media, like five videos. What is not to like about this? You know?
It’s like I think here’s the thing. We gotta get people to try it. Right?
Erich: Right.
Peter: And that reminds me of one of my favorite books, Green Eggs and Ham.
Erich: I love Green Eggs and Ham. Uh-huh. Thank you. Thank you.
Peter: Uh-huh. Sure you did. So I do have to tell you the story about green eggs and ham. There was a I learned this lesson early in my career. I was talking to a friend of mine about getting car dealers to get websites.
Okay. And we were talking about, well, they don’t even know what a website is, and we just got to get them to try it. And my friend Jeff Fusi, he says, well, that’s the classic green eggs and ham clothes. I’m like, What are you talking about? He’s like, You know, green eggs and ham.
Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox? No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to try it. No, no, no, no, no.
And then eventually, you know, he tries it, and it’s like, Wow, I really like it.
Erich: I love green eggs
Peter: and ham. This is a classic green eggs and ham situation here, folks. We’re looking for the first three businesses that want to really step up their video game in 2024. Again, it’s $3,500 You’re going to get the brand video. You’re going to get the five pieces of social media videos as well, and you’re going to get a one page marketing plan audit conducted by my company as well.
So go ahead and do it. I mean, what do you got to lose? It’s 2024. You’ve got two marketing experts here who are really willing to help you grow your business and show you how to make the most of video and your marketing opportunities. So I mean, maybe I’ll sign up for it too.
Erich: Let’s go, let’s go. We did one for you last year. Let’s do another one. We’re gonna do testimonials actually for you. I don’t
Peter: think I’d be disappointed.
Erich: It’s okay. You pay me back in many ways. All
Peter: right. So let’s wrap it up. Eric, thanks again for this enlightening conversation, and again, let’s not make it two years. Let’s try to get together a little sooner than that.
Erich: Absolutely. No. It’s been fantastic. Thank you for having me on board, and I look forward to another great year making video for you and your clients. Great.
Yeah. Thanks. Alright.
Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.
