Why Your Video Content Should Reflect Who Your Brand Really Is
In this episode of Notes from Video Village, host Dan Lichtenberg chats with B2B tech marketer Becky Hobbs to explore the power of personality in video, the importance of authenticity in brand storytelling, and emerging trends shaping the future of video content.
Note: This is a podcast transcript and is best experienced through the audio version above. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Intro
Becky: I'm Becky Hobbs. I'm COO of OLarry, which is a bespoke tech-enabled startup focused in the tax space. And my background is really in looking at different tech industries and how we can revolutionize them. Spent the last 20 years working for different startups, starting off with Monster.
Joining Monster was a point for me where I realized you don't just have to work for a company, you can really work for a company that changes the way that things are fundamentally done. On from there, I worked in many different industries, but all tech-focused and or SaaS.
Dan: We first started working with you when you were a VP of Marketing at State's Title, and then it was rebranded to Doma. Tell us a little bit about that.
Becky: So State's Title was a really interesting company in that they were focused on title insurance, which is something a lot of people don't even think about. It's one of those extra costs that you suddenly have to pay at closing when you buy a house.
We looked at how do you make that true insurance instead of what it generally is, which is a warranty. When I first started working with them, they were around 25 people in an office in San Francisco. And then they did something a little bit crazy.
They purchased the eighth largest title company in the U.S. and went to over a thousand people overnight just with different local offices in multiple places. So the interesting thing from a marketing point of view is we had a wealth of different types of audiences. We had a B2C audience thinking about the consumer and thinking about selling to a real estate and loan officer.
And then we had this heavy B2B, really enterprise-level selling to some of the largest mortgage lenders in the U.S., so it required differentiated strategies on each of those ends.
As a COO with a multidisciplinary business background, I know you started in marketing. How did you first get into marketing, and what led to your transition into operations?
Becky: Yeah I always say I'm a little bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. I kind of fell into marketing. If anything, I would say I've always been more heavily product. So I've always said I'm a product marketer, heavy on the product. And product marketers from a marketing point-of-view go in and out of trend, especially in the early-stage startup world. A lot of the time, I would say you go back five or eight years ago, everybody wanted demand gen and we have to drive demand gen. And then they realized, “Wow, if we don't have product marketing, we don't understand our customer and what our customer needs are. All the demand gen is just throwing money away.” So I think there's been a swing between the two of them.
For me personally, I started off focusing more on that product build/product manager side. But that also requires understanding what is that full funnel. So I was working at BOLD and thinking about how do we build the product, but it's really a fly trap, right?
How do we bring people in and convert them? And on from there, I just moved and ended up in a marketing team and kind of ended up going up the marketing route as opposed to up the product route.
In my last role for Brace, I was responsible for both product and marketing, so I've kind of come back round full circle.
What was the first time you remember making a video, whether it was in a product role or a marketing role?
Becky: Yeah, I'd say the first time I distinctly remember. And I know it wasn't the first one I made, but the one that always stands out to me the most was actually at Kustomer.
So I came in as the first head of marketing for that team and they were really early stage and, when you first have that seed stage company, they maybe have like three customers and it doesn't matter who they are. You've really got to make the most out of those three customers, so we needed to have a customer testimonial.
And their one customer, who was this massive advocate, was based in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, he was like this coder.
And we said, “Will you do a testimonial video for us?”
He said, “Sure.”
We said, “Is there any way you can do it on your phone? What can you do?”
He goes, “My brother has a camera.”
So his brother comes around, does this video, and sends it over to us. And honestly, the editing that we did on it was pretty light. I think what stands out to me was the fact that in any normal circumstance, you probably would have stepped back and said, “This is not our target audience. We probably shouldn't do this, right? Oh if we are going to do it, we probably need to have a high cost for production, etc.”
And instead, we just got it done. And honestly, because he was such an advocate, it really shone through. And it was something that really helped kickoff for Kustomer, and we utilized it in a lot of campaigns.
Tell me what is Kustomer. What did they do?
Becky: Kustomer is a customer support platform. They focused very much more on technology, so supporting things like Rent the Runway, Slice, etc. was where they moved into after that.
When you're first starting up, you want to look at how do I use every possible piece of content that I can? And how do I create content?
Dan: And B2B company customer testimonials tend to be one of the first assets you want, because you're talking to a somewhat skeptical audience—it's all about authenticity, right?
Becky: A hundred percent and I think that was the thing a lot of the time you can hold yourself back from doing stuff because you think about, “Oh, well the quality is not going to be there. Is it going to represent my brand? And etc…”
And at the end of the day, as you say, somebody who is really excited about your brand, they're going to represent it the best way possible anyway.
What are some memorable videos from your career, and what key lessons have you learned over the years?
Becky: I would actually say probably one which I was surprised was a fail was an explainer video I did for my last company that we actually had on the website.
One, it was an explainer video, so I wanted to very quickly get the idea across of what the product did. And secondly, just drive some of that brand. And we were dealing with loss mitigation, so it's something that's a really emotive subject. You don't want people to lose their home. But it didn't have the bite that I would want to see there. I think, for me, the lesson on that was twofold. One, I was trying to do two different things in one video. I was trying to do brand and do an explainer of the product. And I don't think you can do that. I think you have to do one or the other. And secondly, I think it was too long.
I would always err on, especially in the era of TikTok, that it's better to have something short and punchy that people are going to watch for 20 or 30 seconds than it is to think, “Hey, should I be taking this to three minutes and including too many different things?”
Are there any other videos you've made from which you've learned lessons?
Becky: One I can think of which I know I worked with you guys on was actually during COVID where we did a customer success video. The fact that we wanted to get a testimonial was from the CEO of a national mortgage company.
Obviously, during COVID, we had to have additional precautions. We couldn't have a camera crew out there, so we were reliant on him videoing everything and setting that up and making sure that it was right. And I know you guys were amazing in shipping out that equipment to him, making sure it all worked for him.
And at the end of the day, it was a powerful video, because he was an advocate. It didn't matter that he wasn't in a studio, that we weren't using b roll, like all of these additional pieces. For the time and the climate that it was brings it back to that idea of if you are thinking about doing something like that, just do it.
Do you have any video pet peeves—things you see other companies doing that are ineffective or even annoying?
Becky: Probably my biggest one is actually the wrong voice for the brand. I get annoyed by the generic voice that people will tend to use.
And I think you should think about a voice as much as you think about what a font says for your brand. That is who you're picking. That is the personality you're picking. The other day I went to a website, and they hadn't explained a video. I clicked on it, and I clicked off within seconds because the voice was so annoying and that's a shame, right?
That's a big miss, so that's probably my biggest complaint other than just too long when it is a pet peeve.
Dan: Actually a client of ours said what he's doing now with a lot of his marketing is he's just like, “Forget hiring professionals. I'm just finding the SME, the subject matter expert at my company that can really talk, and that's the person I'm making content with now.”
Becky: It comes back to the level of confidence, right? If you are a SME and you're confident about what you're talking about, then that will come across as well. When you see a lot of these videos that end up being done by the marketing team, it will be more stilted because you can see them reading from that script as opposed to being comfortable as they are just context switching around different pieces.
Many clients say the era of big broadcast ads is over, with content now focusing on subject matter experts and customer voices, especially in B2B. What are your thoughts?
Becky: Yeah, I definitely would say so. I look at my son, he's an avid fisherman. Everything he's learned he has learned from YouTube and that is from experts, right? He doesn't want to hear from people who were just “trying this out.” He wants to see exactly what they're doing and hear exactly all their different tips, and if you don't know, I think it does come across as dishonest now.
In your roles, have you ever done any influencer marketing or thought about doing it?
Becky: We have thought about doing it. I have never done it. And I will say that generally that's just because of the cost prohibitive piece around it. Most of the roles I've been in have been C2C level. And so when you're thinking about the marketing budget for that, it gets a little bit tighter.
Dan: That's really interesting. When you have a very small budget, how do you think about video differently?
I think you bifurcate it into three different groups. There is thinking about what do we really need for a brand? What do we really need for campaigns? And then there's what are the different moments that we can do that are potentially more ad hoc that we would use on social media, etc.?
When I think about budget or about how we would use that when you're first launching a company, I do think there is an important piece to kind of establish the brand that is worth giving that additional budget towards. From that, then you're thinking about what moments do we need? What for engagement in some of the different campaigns? Whether those are like 30 second explainers or something that we can send out. And then, the last piece of that is just do it. You don't need a budget for that. That's just take your iPhone out and see what you can record and see what you can use.
Dan: And I imagine in that third bucket, it's maybe customer stories, SMEs explaining, and product things like that.
Becky: Exactly, I think there's so many tools now. It used to be that when you were doing product demos or recordings for your customer success team that you would have to bring in somebody to do that editing.
Now with the tools, you can do your own zoom, record, and put that up. That's what I would be expecting people to do or expecting anybody in the company to be comfortable to do actually, not even owned by marketing.
You mentioned a video you felt wasn’t successful. How do you measure video success—through KPIs or qualitative metrics?
Becky: I would divide that into the same buckets of brand and demand generation.
Brand, I'm looking for clicks to watch. I'm watching for that full watching end to end as well. Just making sure where people are dropping out in the video. In that video, as an example, what was very interesting is I could see people all clearly got to the same mark, and then they dropped.
And so for me, it was like, “Oh, we didn't actually get to the second part of our story. We messed up with not pulling that in tighter.”
For demand generation, at the end of the day, I'm looking at that CPL -- cost per lead – and just understanding how that overall asset is working within the campaign.
Over the course of your career as a marketer and as a product person, how has the way that video is used changed?
Becky: I would say coming back to the idea that it was something very structured. It was something that was used really sparingly. When it was used, it was a full production and everything had to be perfect.
Now, I think video is used and should be used everywhere, right? I mean we're looking at BDRs using them in email signatures to say, “Hey, I saw you open my email. Please pay attention again.” I also think there is an understanding now, whereas it used to be like, “Nope, marketing owns the brand and you must follow this strict set of guidelines.” You have to be comfortable with letting that go.
At Doma, there was one of their sales managers who loved using TikTok. She loved using YouTube, and you watch it and as a marketer you're slightly cringing, but then at the same time it's like, “No, she's going out there. She's creating videos. She's driving demand.” Be comfortable with that. And I think you have to be comfortable giving it to anybody in your company within reason.
Dan: Yeah, and that makes me think back on what we were saying about identifying the subject matter experts at your company that are best with video. Because even though maybe they might not be doing their TikTok up to brand standards but if they have a good voice for the product, they're at least representing your brand from the perspective of brand voice, in a good way. And people are much more forgiving of quality if it's on TikTok.
Becky: Yeah, but even that said from a startup point of view, what that has enabled it to do is actually unleashed what is actually comfortable being on a site as well. And so what we're seeing is videos that are full production value trying to look more like their kind of skunk works.
If you think about something like the Dollar Shave Club, right? I mean, that wasn't a big budget, but at the same time, it's trying to emulate, “Hey, this is a cheaper brand coming through.”
Dan: Totally, another one of our clients actually was really interesting. She's made Super Bowl ads before and she was like, “Back then, we would produce a Super Bowl ad and spend tons of money on it. It'd be the most precious thing. Now, we pull our UGC content and cut it into a Super Bowl ad.” It's like the inverse, right? It starts as UGC, and it turns into a Super Bowl ad.
Becky: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think there was a report that came out recently just thinking about people's attention spans, and they're decreasing year over year. Even if we're creating a longer video, how do we make moments within that that are going to keep driving attention span?
What do you see as the biggest things coming up the pipe as it relates to video? Technologies or trends that you think are going to change everything?
Becky: I think there's a couple of things. The first one is easy. Just thinking about some of the fake AI that's coming out with people, just understanding how that will be leveraged, and what the legislation will be around some of the deep fake there.
I definitely do think that will change some of the capabilities that we're seeing. Generally, I would say I would see video as being used more and more and more. There is a place for every type of content in campaigns. Some people are going to be reading, some people watching videos, etc.
But I do see that, ultimately, if you're not using video in your campaigns in small snippets, I don't think they're going to be as successful. Because technology has enabled us to download and have that bandwidth now to watch videos really easily, people are going to want access to that. They're going to want to see that as part of your capabilities.
Dan: Right, it shouldn't just be one big old commercial, and then they dive in the website and it's all text. It's like they see the commercial, they dive in the website, and there's a video there. They dive further, and there's another video.
Those are all my questions. Is there anything you feel like we missed or any other thoughts that popped in your head as we talked?
Becky: I don't think so. I think the key thing I would say is don't be scared of video. I know you and I have worked together on many projects, and I think the hard thing is always it's somewhere in your head, what the brand should be. Like we were talking about the brand voice, etc. And I do always think that you understand what the brand is, and being able to work with a partner that can translate that visually is really important.
Dan: Thanks Becky. I appreciate your time and your thoughts, and look forward to collaborating again in the future.
Becky: Sounds good. Thanks, Dan.
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What is Notes From Video Village?
On a film set, a “Video Village” is more than just a corner of the set where clients watch their vision come to life—it’s a space where ideas spark and partnerships flourish. Over the years, it’s also become an unexpected hub for video marketing insights, especially for B2B. Inspired by these conversations, we’ve launched Notes from Video Village, our first-ever podcast.
Join Dan Lichtenberg, Founder and Creative Director at Slow Clap Productions, as he sits down with marketers to share insights on all things video. From personal career journeys and content strategy to tips on producing everything from broadcast commercials to social media reels, we dive into what makes video an unparalleled marketing tool. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, join us to level up your video marketing game.
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