Marlon Marescia With Video Marketing Machine

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Marlon Marescia with Video Marketing Machine. Welcome, Marlon.

Marlon Marescia: [00:00:26] Hi Lee, how are you going?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Video Marketing Machine. How are you serving folks?

Marlon Marescia: [00:00:34] Yeah, so Video Marketing Machine is all about a strategy around video, where we use video as the kind of the focal point, and we get a video from a client, and then we use that video and convert it into five marketing campaigns. So we transcribe the video, we turn it into a blog post, post it to the blog, turn it into an email. We email it to the client’s database, we turn it into a week’s worth of social media content. We upload it to YouTube, and then we create a Facebook retargeting ad and show that video for a whole week to all of the retargeting audiences, like the client’s email list and the website visitors and so forth.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] So what is the video? What’s happening on the video?

Marlon Marescia: [00:01:15] We always use a teaching video. So we believe that the best way to build authority for our clients, if they’re a coach or a consultant or a health care professional or a lawyer or an attorney, is to teach. And so if you teach, you can build authority. So typically they’re anywhere from 2 to 5 minute videos. We have a script that we help our clients, um, uh, use to write that script, write the content for the video very easily, and then they just record it, uh, using an iPhone or a webcam. And then we take that video and that becomes the foundation of all that content. And so it’s high quality content because it comes from the client. It’s in their voice and it’s, you know, their personality as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:57] So it’s a it’s a shot of them, you know, like a headshot of them just speaking about a topic.

Marlon Marescia: [00:02:03] Yeah, it’s a headshot. So they just, uh, record their face and then they just talk to the camera and they just teach. And, uh, we find that that’s the most that’s the easiest video to create. And it also is we’re able to repurpose it into all those campaigns and then create high quality content and not just content that is, you know, low quality and and doesn’t really help and doesn’t build authority.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:27] And is there a call to action in that or it’s that just them educating their community.

Marlon Marescia: [00:02:33] Now, one of the things that I believe is that if you’re going to be part of the 1% of the world, right, who actually gives your information for free, and you’re servicing the world and helping the world and making it a better place. I believe that you deserve, you know, 20s 30s at the end of every video to have a very clear call to action so someone can buy your product or, uh, book an appointment to work with you. And I’ve been doing this myself, and I get about 2 or 3 appointments booked in every week from people who find me on YouTube, and they’ll book an appointment and they turn up. And you know what the great thing is? They turn up and they’re pre-sold because they’ve already watched 10 or 15 videos of me. So when they turn up, I’m like a little bit of a celebrity to them. And, um, they’re like, Marlon, so great to meet you. Love the videos. And the sales call is a different it’s different. It has a different temperature. Uh, I don’t have to sell myself. And so if I didn’t put a call to action at the end of every video, then a lot of those people wouldn’t book because they wouldn’t know what the next step is. So I’m very, very, um, strong in telling people that if you’re going to give and teach and train and give your content away for free, you deserve to put a call to action at the end of every video. And that’s what I’ve been doing for many years now, and it’s worked really well for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] Now. Is the call to action you actually speaking and saying, hey, if you want to call with me, go to, you know, WW call, uh, Marlon Comm or is it a just appearing on the screen?

Marlon Marescia: [00:04:01] Yeah. The call to action is me. I say it every time. It’s. It’s every time I shoot a video at the end, I make it up and I get into a flow of of how I say things. But, um, it’s me every time. And I say it and I always tell people to click the button. They go to a calendar or a calendar, and they book an appointment in my calendar. So I don’t tell them to fill in the detail. I don’t tell them to email me. I just have a very clear, um, action that they can take that’s click the button or click the link. Around this video you’ll see my calendar book a time. This is what you’ll get, the value you’ll get. And that’s how I make it really easy for them to book.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:36] So you have a short URL to the calendar link.

Marlon Marescia: [00:04:40] No, no I. The video is normally placed on a blog post, so the link is in the blog post. Um, it’s on a YouTube video. The link is in the YouTube video. It’s on an email. The link. Is there a Facebook ad? It’s there. So it doesn’t have to be short. It can be as long as you like, but it’s always consistent. It’s the same URL every time. And typically it’s like um, video marketing machine AI slash call. And that’s a pretty simple URL, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] And then, um, how long are the videos?

Marlon Marescia: [00:05:09] Yeah, the videos are anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, so the majority of the videos I’ve produced over the last seven years have been very long. They’ve been probably 5 to 10 minutes. Lately I started to reduce it. I’m working with a lot of people doing this around the world. And and I think the sweet spot is 3 to 5. I think when you’re less than three, you’re not adding value. You’re just summarizing. Uh, and when you go too long, it can become a bit monotonous and boring, uh, and people don’t get the gist of it. So I think the sweet spot for me is 3 to 5 minute, five minute videos. The other reason is because we take the video and we upload it to an app called Opus Pro. That’s the URL, and that video is between 3 and 5 minutes. That app will cut that video up into 3 or 4 short videos, and then you get an extra 3 or 4 videos out of it that you can put to YouTube shorts and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook as well. So if it’s too short, like less than two minutes, it can’t create those videos because there’s nothing you’re saying that’s different from the original video.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:12] And when you’re working on the content for each video, is it something that you shoot like a bunch of videos at one time and kind of a cluster? Or is it every morning you’re getting up and doing your five minute video or three minute video?

Marlon Marescia: [00:06:25] Look, when I first started doing this, I have stages of doing videos. When I first started, I’d do it in groups of 4 or 5 videos, and I was highly scripted and it was very stressful. Then I went through a period where I was doing a video a day and they were totally unscripted. I would create an outline and I would just shoot the video and I’d do one a day. I’d go live and just do one a day, and I just got into the routine. Now what I do is I shoot 4 or 5 at a time. Um, I still have them unscripted. I have an outline that I have for every video, which is in bullet point, and I’ll just review the bullet points. Um, I know that the like the rough structure, and then I’ll just do a one take video to the camera and I’ll shoot like 4 or 5 of those in a row. It’ll take me an hour or half an hour, and then I’ll then process those videos and schedule them out over the next month.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:13] And then when you’re working with your clients, are you giving them the tools? So they’re doing this by themselves or are you kind of helping them facilitate them that each video? Yeah.

Marlon Marescia: [00:07:22] Look.

Marlon Marescia: [00:07:23] Yeah I used to do this for them all the time and I still do. So they I charge them a fee and I take the video, I create those five marketing campaigns and we do that every week. But I’ve also created an app, uh, which I actually use in my business to do that. And I’ve released that to the public and people can sign up for the app. So all they have to do now is record their video, upload it to this app, call the video marketing machine I that’s the URL and the app will take the video. It’ll create all that content or create the email, the blog post, um, it’ll create the Facebook retargeting, add the social media posts, uh, and all the social content, and then you will prove it. You just review it, edit it, approve it. It’ll also create the thumbnail for YouTube and the quotation like the quote card with an inspirational quote. And then it’ll actually post it to your WordPress blog. It’ll upload the video to YouTube and it’ll post to all your social platforms. So it normally takes about four hours for my team to take a video and create all that content with this app. It’s taken it from four hours down to 15 minutes and it does it all for you. So, um, it’s an app that I use and I’ve released it and other people can sign up to it and, um, or they can, they can get us to do it for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:35] So, um, the way that it works, you can just use the app and kind of do it yourself. Or if you want kind of more hand-holding, you can work with your team and they can kind of coach you through each element of this.

Marlon Marescia: [00:08:48] Yeah. So, um, if they want the app, the app is pretty cheap. It’s like $149 a month. And, um, you’re responsible to record your own video, then you upload it, but then you’re going to be accountable to yourself to make it happen. The reason people pay us to do it is they’ll pay us like 1500 a month. But what we do is we meet with them every second week. We help them create their scripts and we keep them accountable. Uh, and we also, you know, give them advice on other parts of their marketing strategy, how it can fit in. But the biggest thing with this, Lee, is accountability to do it. So the difference between me and why I get, you know, 1 to 3 appointments a week booked in my calendar from people who I don’t know but know me, is because I’ve been doing this consistently for a number of years where most people will listen to this podcast, say, great idea, Marlon, and then not do it because they get busy. And the difference isn’t because I’m great at video. I’m actually not the best presenter on video. I don’t think I’m very hard on myself. There’s lots of things I could improve, but what I am very good at is I’m very good at consistently creating a video on a regular basis and pushing it out through those four marketing, five marketing channels.

Marlon Marescia: [00:09:56] And that’s the difference. You know what I love about social media today and the world we live in is we’re all equal, right? There’s no people that have more privileges than others when it comes to online marketing. The difference is the ones who can be consistent and and do take a good idea and consistently execute it. Most of my life I’ve been inconsistent. I’ve been a perfectionist for the last seven years. I’ve really been able to overcome that challenge in my life, and my business has just exploded because of that. And I don’t do I don’t think I’m the best at anything. I just think that some things, I’m very consistent and I think that’s the secret to success, and that’s why some people will do it themselves if they have the discipline and they’ll just, you know, pay the 149 do do it all themselves, and other people will pass the 1500 because they need that accountability, they need that mentoring, and they need to, you know, just be pointed in the right direction.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:51] Now, when you you mentioned that if you’re using the app or even if you’re using your service, you’re getting multiple pieces of content that you’re getting the ability to place in a variety of ways. Is that really an important component of it, rather like to have an omnichannel approach rather than just saying, look, I’m doing YouTube, so I’m that’s the only thing I’m going to focus in on is YouTube. Like, do you need you need to have an omnichannel approach in order to be effective in today’s world to cut through the clutter.

Marlon Marescia: [00:11:20] You do. And you think about this. How many people have a YouTube channel? And it’s crickets. Like nothing, nothing happens for them. And I had a YouTube channel for years and I would record videos and nothing. They say that you should spend 20% of your time creating the video and 80% of your time promoting the video, but who has the time to spend an extra 80% of time you don’t have, right? It was hard enough to do the 20% to create the video. Where are you going to find the extra 80 to actually promote it? And that’s the problem with most people’s marketing strategies around video or anything they produce. They produce something great, they put it on their website, and no one ever hears about it. No one sees it. But the key is to to promote it. And so that’s why I developed this strategy. Because this strategy, the key to it isn’t the video like, um, the sorry, the key to it is the video. But the fact is, if you create the video and just upload it to YouTube, nothing happens. But if you create the video and you email it to your database, now you’re nurturing your database every single week. They’re getting to see you in the inbox. They may not watch it, but they see your name pop up. Now you create that, take that video, put it as a Facebook ad, a retargeting ad, and you show it to people who are on your email list, that same email list you imported into Facebook and show it to those people you, um, anyone that visits your website, you show that video to them, anyone that likes your pages on Instagram and Facebook, you show it to them.

Marlon Marescia: [00:12:41] Can you see how you’re becoming omnipresent? This small group of people, you know, you put it all over your socials and LinkedIn. Anyone connected with you on LinkedIn now gets to see these videos. They get to see that you’re an authority. And then, um, on YouTube as well. That’s how you find new people. Um, your blog post, that’s how you get indexed in Google and your, your website gets ranked. And these five strategies, anyone in themselves, you know, an agency would cost you at least $1,000 for each one of these, sending a weekly email, doing a blog post every week, uploading a YouTube video and creating that video. Um, creating a Facebook ads retargeting campaign, like all of these are a thousand each. So these five campaigns are about $5,000 a month if you get them done individually, whereas if you do them yourself or through the app or you hire us to do it, it’s a fraction of the cost. But it’s really nurturing your database. The people who could be clients, you’re nurturing them, looking after them and helping them see you as the the go to person in your industry. And that’s the key to this strategy. The video is important, but it’s what we do with the video that makes all the difference, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] I talked to so many people, they think that the the content, one piece of content is a I’m done now and that’s just the beginning. Like that’s table stakes to play is to have the content. And especially if you have a way to have consistent content over time, then sure, you’re going to win, but you can’t just rely on the content by itself in the original form to do all the heavy lifting. It has to be repurposed if you want it to be effective.

Marlon Marescia: [00:14:16] Yeah. And you know, the disappointing thing for me, because I’ve been in this industry for a long time, I’ve seen lots of apps out there that take a video and they say, hey, we’ll repurpose this into six more videos. We’ll create a, um, a quotation card out of it. We’ll they always do one thing, or they do the cool things or the fun things or the things that can. People go, ah, ooh, that’s amazing. But I’ve never seen anyone do the important things, um, in a scalable way. So I think an email to the database is much better than just a social media post. A social media post is just random, you know? Most people don’t see it, but an email to your database with that piece of content? Most. I’ve never seen anyone come up with this concept before, you know, um, turning it into a blog post and then actually uploading it to the blog. You know, that’s something people say, oh, we can convert it into a blog post, but no one actually helps you upload it. That’s where people get stuck, you know, taking the YouTube video and embedding it into the blog post because Google owns YouTube. So when you embed your your YouTube video into your blog post, that’s a signal to Google that. Wait a minute. This blog post has significant value to link back to our website, you know, Facebook retargeting ad. Have you ever heard of someone say, hey, repurpose your content into a Facebook retargeting ad? That is one of the most powerful strategies you could ever use.

Marlon Marescia: [00:15:40] Now, the reason why people and apps don’t do this is because it’s difficult. It’s difficult to create a Facebook ad. It’s difficult to get an email and then actually email it to someone’s database. You’ve got to import the database in. It’s not fun, but it’s important. Powerful work that grows businesses. See, I’m a marketing consultant and I have a marketing agency, and I used to be a sales manager. So everything I do is based on can we get a sale? And when I create a video, my attitude is, how can I use this video to make a sale? And I draw the line between the two video and sale, and I figure out, what can I do with this video? To help me get the sale. And. And that’s why I’ve come up with this strategy. Did I invent all of them individually? No. But what I did do was tie them together so I could get business and I could get appointments booked in my calendar. And it worked. But, Lee, it was very difficult to come up with and then executed over many years and get it to work. There were many times I thought, this is just a waste of time, but I persisted. And now you know, there’s a strategy that actually works, and the app just makes it a bit easier for people.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:50] Now, you mentioned several times these retargeting of Facebook ads. Do you mind sharing, sharing some advice for the listeners on okay, they they might have heard this terms, but can you explain it a little bit more what that exactly means? And maybe a primer on how to kind of do that, you know, for them if they wanted to do that themselves.

Marlon Marescia: [00:17:13] Yes. So, um, Facebook retargeting, a lot of people have heard of it. No one, very few people actually do it. And there’s a lot of people that don’t understand it. So what Facebook retargeting is, is Facebook gives you the ability to create an ad. It could be a video ad, it could be an image ad, any type of ad. But you can show it to a very, um, small group of people and you can pay as little as a dollar a day because you’re not showing it to millions of people. You’re showing it to probably hundreds of people or a couple of thousand people. Now, who are these people? These people are people who are in your database. If you’ve got a database of a thousand people, you can import that into Facebook. Facebook matches them based on their email address or their phone number. And then it creates a list in Facebook and says, here’s your retargeting audience. And then you can show an ad to those people every day of the week for as little as a dollar a day, it costs hardly any money because it’s only a thousand people. It’s not a million. The other audience is your website audience. So anyone that, um, visit your website, if you put the Facebook pixel on the website, it’s a piece of code. Every time someone hits that website, Facebook records. Oh, that’s John and it knows it’s John, because you have the Facebook app opened on your phone.

Marlon Marescia: [00:18:23] And, um, when you go to a website, it tracks that. Uh, and then the other thing is, anyone who likes your pages on Instagram and Facebook and interacts with them, that’s another audience. And there’s another, even more powerful audience. This is the audience of if anyone has watched, say, 50% of a previous video that you’ve posted to Facebook or Instagram, Facebook can create an audience of those people. Now they’re very hot prospects because if you’ve got a, say, a four minute video and someone watches 50% of it, that’s two minutes. They watch. That person is not your grandmother. It’s not your friend down the road who doesn’t care about your business. It’s not a teenager if you’re a lawyer, it’s not a teenager that is into TikTok. It’s someone that’s engaged with your content and that those people are hot prospects, that you just don’t have their email yet. You just don’t know who they are. But Facebook knows them, and you can show a video ad to them every day of the week. And what we’re doing with this video ad is video is the quickest way to build trust and authority with someone today. When they see you, when they hear you, when they hear the inflection in your voice, when they see your facial expressions, they make a judgment. Do I like and trust them or do I not? And when you educate them, what you can do is very quickly build a following of people who know, like, and trust you because they’ve seen you, you know, they’ve seen you all over YouTube, they’ve seen you on Facebook.

Marlon Marescia: [00:19:44] And so what we’re doing is creating some audiences. It’s a website audience. It’s an email list. It’s a video audience. It’s a page like audience. And those people that might be 500, 1000, 3000 people combined. We can just keep building authority with you, with those people for as little as a dollar a day. Most of my clients spend $1 a day, $30 a month. It’s more powerful than TV. It’s cheaper and more effective than TV. And yet most businesses don’t do it. And that’s why, you know, when we record a video every week, we put that new video into that Facebook campaign and, uh, it it makes a very big difference for the businesses. I say it’s a way of becoming omnipresent. You know, they say that God is omnipresent. He’s everywhere. Well, you can be omnipresent to a very small group of people if you’re showing up in their inbox every week with one email, if you’re on their Facebook feed and Instagram feed almost every day, if you’re on their social media accounts, um, if you’re on YouTube, when they go to YouTube, you become omnipresent, you become the authority, and you become the go to person that when they need help, they know who to call.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:52] And that’s an important point that you bring up, is managing the expectations of your clients in terms of your audience isn’t millions, your audience is hundreds or thousands. And we’re just going to market like crazy to that targeted smaller group in order to move the needle in your business rather than, you know, to transform you into a Kardashian.

Marlon Marescia: [00:21:16] Yes. And you know, Lee, I love this point. It’s a great point you’ve made because, you know, I will never be world famous. I don’t have the personality for it. Right? I’m I’m a I’m an introvert. But, you know, I don’t need to be to be successful in business. You don’t have to be a Kardashian. You don’t have to be MrBeast or Joe Rogan or dude. Perfect. All you have to be is yourself, because there’s a small group of people in the world that we can get access through to Facebook ads, email, that kind of thing. Who could be clients, their prospects. And if you just become omnipresent to them, you will become the Kardashians. To them, you’ll be the Joe Rogan to those people. And you know, with me, I’m amazed at how introverted I am and how many people love me and that I’ve never met. But it’s not millions. It’s probably not tens of thousands. It’s probably hundreds and maybe a couple. A thousand people that know, and they see me as the authority. And the way they clap, the way they applaud me isn’t by likes, comments and shares. It’s not by, um, calling out to me on the street. It’s by booking an appointment with me. And when they book the appointment, that is the greatest privilege I have. And when I know that they are a fan who doesn’t just adore me, but they want to work with me, and that means more to me as a businessman.

Marlon Marescia: [00:22:40] I don’t care about the adoration or the applause. And so my my goal in life with video is to become a massive deal, a big deal to a very small group of people who could be clients. And that that’s all I care about. And it’s worked for me. Lee, you know, the last few years has been very, very good for me, very good with, uh, for example, I just, um, I’m working with a new person that found me there in New York. I live in the Gold Coast, Australia, so I live in Australia. They live in New York, and they they’ve just signed up as a client. And I had one meeting with that person and I gave him a proposal and they’ve signed up, and that’s $1,500 a month with a big upfront fee. And it’s because it’s not because I convinced them on the call. They already made their mind up to work with me before the call. And, you know, I think that’s the greatest thing we could ever attain in our business career. Um, not to be a Kardashian, but to have people that like, know and trust you who after one meeting or two meetings will say, you’re the person I want to work with. And that’s why I do video and that’s why, you know, the video marketing machine. For me, that’s what I call it, has been one of the most powerful tools in my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:52] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get Ahold of you?

Marlon Marescia: [00:24:00] Yeah. So, um, the app is a video marketing machine. I that’s where they can get the app. But if they want to have a and if they go there, they can book a demo and then they can talk to me, I’ll be on the call and they can talk to me. Um, I have a, a website, a personal website called Marlin marescia.com. And if I go there again, they can book a call. But that’s the best way if people want to learn more.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:26] Well, Marlon, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Marlon Marescia: [00:24:32] Oh, thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:34] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.