“Be yourself. Everybody else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde
So, you’ve undoubtedly heard the above quote a few times before but when it comes to online video marketing for professionals no truer words have been spoken. Once you realise that your business, your brand, and the service that you and your team provide your clients is really very little more than human interaction and real people, you’ll begin to understand the true value of just being yourself.
Now, I’m not saying here that knowledge, skill, professional experience and the like aren’t valued by your marketplace but without you and your people genuinely and authentically implementing these things you really have nothing. The most valuable piece of knowledge in the world will still mean nothing without a method for that information to be passed from one person to the next. And when it comes to what we provide as professionals, that method of communication is in most cases ourselves, and our team.
Professional service firms need to stop marketing their ‘brand’ and start marketing their ‘people’.
Using video as an integral part of a professional service firms marketing strategy is intensely powerful when it hinges on the real people associated with the brand. Your prospects and clients want to know who they are dealing with, they need to feel that they trust you and understand that you not only have the knowledge they require but have faith that the method in which you’ll share that knowledge with them will be what they are looking for.
So, allow yourself to be yourself in your video marketing. Sure, you’ll want to project a clearly professional version of yourself, suited to your market and your brand however don’t let that get in the way of communicating your true self.
At the end of the day, your clients will deal with you and your people directly, so why hide that authentic self behind a glossy brochure or corporate ‘brand’?
Do you allow your true self to shine through in your marketing? Or do you have reservations about this?
Let me know in the comments.