Understanding the idea, goals, and audience

- In this course, we'll be making a video with Lolita Segal, where she promotes her business, Wood Inspire. Lolita is an artist that began selling her air plant pots and other items on Etsy and is interested in breaking into the video space so she can adopt a multi-media approach in selling her products. We'll talk to Lolita in detail in just a bit. But just to give you some quick context, I want to briefly introduce her to you now. Lolita, thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to make this video, we're going to go on an awesome journey in putting everything together, figuring out what you want and then, bringing it to video format. But before we do, I just want to get a sense of who you are and what Wood Inspire is for our viewers to really get to know you. - Okay, so I grew up in nature originally, when I first was younger and then I came to the city and then, I had a nice place, it had a garden and everything and then I had some stuff happen and I had to downsize and I wanted to bring nature into my home again, so I discovered air plants and they're just these wonderful little plants that you can just put anywhere you want, pretty much, as long as you have a little bit of light and a little bit of water and I was thinking, what can I do to make it like... I just don't want to stick them on the shelf so I decided like, "oh, let me create something to put them in." so I started these little pots and then the pots grew into other things like cholla and driftwood pieces and magnets and it's just become my passion now, because I mean that's why I started my business. I was like, "oh, this is just, this is perfect." and now I just, I get to share it with everybody and sell it online and I really like to take the detail of creating them for the people. - So you've really made your own passion something that you're able to share with other people then. - Yes, absolutely. It's just so wonderful to let people actually experience to have these plants in their homes and brighten up their offices and their kitchens and wherever they want to put the plants. - Okay, so that's just a little bit about Lolita. Before we learn more about her vision, let's talk a bit more about some important things that we've got to consider and just as with any well thought out campaign, we'll be asking ourselves some important questions related to the who, what, where and how, which will help us shape this video in the right ways. Let's start with the who. We're going to really need to take a look at Lolita's target audience. Is it an already existing audience or a new audience? If it's an existing audience, she should try and analyze its demographic makeup. Better yet, if she's able to isolate specific people from this demographic makeup, she can ask them specific questions to help her build her brand. Lolita may also be interested in finding ways to cater to new audiences as well. So finding ways to analyze members of her desired audience is also a great approach. Next, we have the what, as in, what exactly should we cover in this video? Well, Lolita sells these cool, funky natural pots for air plants but there are so many ways that we can convey that information. Do we focus more on Lolita, the artist or on the product or on her process or do we try to accentuate her passion or do we try to incorporate all of these and if so, how do we do that? As we start to answer these questions, we'll likely need to conduct some industry research. That is, we'll take a look at the types of videos that are already out there serving her target demographic. One strategy a lot of people take, is to look at videos that are doing exceptionally well and then let those influence our efforts. Now, influence doesn't mean copy. We want Lolita's brand to be true to herself and her brand and we want to make sure that it conveys the best parts of what she has to offer in a genuine and engaging way. There's also the where, which mostly has to do with figuring out where the video will reside. Are we talking about putting the video up on a website, a blog, Facebook, Instagram? Will we need to make a video suitable for multiple sites and platforms? If she's going to share it on social media, will it need captions to appeal to the people viewing it on silent auto-play? There are a lot of questions to answer about the video location and answering these questions will help us in determining many aspects of the video style and format. Finally, there's the how and here we're asking, how will Lolita's video will hold its own in the massive world of multi-media confusion? We should try our best to make sure the video establishes a clear brand in which, Lolita is able to properly differentiate herself from others who are creating the video in the same space. In so many cases, people buy things because they connect not only to the product, but to the person behind the product. So we've got to do everything we can to make sure that Lolita's personality comes through in a way to help support and feature the brand that we establish. So with all of that in mind, let's see what ideas we get from Lalita as we begin to define the type of video that she wants to make, in terms of audience. So I think we have a lot of really good ideas of where to start with this but there's a couple of questions that we really need to answer before we can really fully know where we're going to go with this video and I call it the who, the what, the where and the how. So first of all is the who, it's your audience. I want to know who your audience is right now and I want to know who you want your audience to be eventually so, who is it that you are making this video for? - So, right now, I'm learning my audience still. But currently, I've realized that it's about ages between ages 25 to 35, mostly female and shopaholics. So, that right now is my target. Later, I also notice that an older age group, like between 55 and 65 seems to be pretty interested in my product, not sure exactly what they like yet, because I'm still doing some research but, I definitely, in the future, that is what I'm going to work on to get to their demographic. - So I think that's a lot of really great information on who your audience is in terms of, age demographics. But as far as what you've said earlier, with these air plant holders really being catered to people that live in apartments and people that might not have access to full gardens. Can you kind of go into that as far as, where your audience is living, are you going to kind of reach into those details as well? - So, I actually do get a lot of order from New York city. So, people living in the city, it's perfect for them because they only need an open window and then you need a spray bottle or they just soak plants, whatever they want to do and then I do get a fair amount from like, Los Angeles and then, randomly in the middle of the country, probably because they don't have as much access to the plants in their own nurseries. - And then in terms of the content, that we explore, there are quite a few different directions we can go with this, can be more of a profile on you, it could be the process that you take, and sort of a look at how you actually make your products. It could be just a general highlighting of your different products. So, does one of those speak to you over the other, do you kind of want to do a hybrid of everything, give me a sense of maybe where you're headed as far as the content that we cover, the what. - Well, I do really want to focus on like, people getting to know who I am, also along with learning about air plants. But, I think when people know who the person behind the product is, they have a sense of like, "oh, this is hand made. Oh, I really love it and I know the person now, I know they're going to take good care of me as a customer." and I think that's the main focus and then the second is to get people really overjoyed about these plants and these holders. - So another really important thing to consider is the where and what I mean is, where is this video going to reside, what social media presence are you currently involved in and what are you interested in getting involved, so, give me a sense of where this video might live. - So I do have Instagram, so I will definitely get this on Instagram and Facebook. Eventually, I would love to start my own YouTube channel. That I just think it would be great to show people my process, how I do things, maybe teach them a little bit about air plants and of course, I'm also going to put this video on my Etsy as they allow a little video. It should be perfect for everybody. - Awesome and then, finally, the how and what I mean by that, is how are you different and special and unique from perhaps other people that are making the same type of video, what separates you from your competition as far as maybe you can perceive? - That's a tough one. Well, I mean I definitely think my personality and also, I really stand by my product and I really want people to know that if I don't like it, then I don't send it. It's like, it's really important for me is the quality of the product. - When you first fell in love with air plants and wanting to bring those into your home, you decided to make your own and that has to say something. So, can you talk about how it is that you find your product might compare against someone that would be selling something similar. - Yeah, well, we take the time to make everything ourselves, we cut it, we drill a hole, we sand it, we also hand paint very carefully and then varnish it and I feel like, having that extra little bit really helps to keep the product for lasting a long time and making it look pretty for a very long time. - Well, it's obvious that the care that you've taken is just something that we should definitely highlight in the footage that we shoot for this, so the process of creating this wonderful finished painted, varnished, obviously well cared for product is something we'll definitely have to highlight and I'm really looking forward to doing that. - Awesome. - So I think we've got a lot of great ideas here. But it doesn't stop here, we're really going to have to start focusing on these questions to help define the key aspects of this video. And Lolita will need to really dig in and understand her audience. She'll need to find out where and how they spend their time online and then, she'll need to try her best to meet them with a compelling video. The video's job is largely to get them to her side and it's up to the products themselves and her other creative marketing plans that will result in the actual follow through of a purchased product. But again, the video will be a great way to get that ball rolling. With all of that, let's talk a bit more about this business of selling a product and promoting a business, which again, can be a very tricky thing to do.