Who is the founder of Video Canvass?
Video Canvass was founded in 2022 by Steven O’Connell, of Minnetrista, Minnesota, with the purpose of providing digital video marketing solutions for local home service businesses. Video Canvass is designed to focus more attention on repeat and referral marketing. With an emphasis on local branding, Video Canvass promotes brand associations connecting your local business to the local community.
History & experience.
Drawing on a long history of experiences and talent in a variety of fields, I created Video Canvass to solve digital marketing problems for local small businesses.
In his own words.
In this audio podcast, I discuss why I started Video Canvass, a digital marketing and video content company to serve local small businesses. You will learn why video content is not only the future of a digital economy, you will also discover how video content is an intangible asset that is a store of value for your brand. The value of your brand depends upon a measurable way to demonstrate the market value of your career, history and reputation. I demonstrate how properly designed video content is a tool that will help you store value as an asset that is comparable to cash in the bank or stock in your company.
Video Canvass
Content that works.
The Mission
Trust, Brand, Persuasion.
In my Mission Statement video, I briefly describe the foundational principles behind my digital marketing strategy. My goal is to help you build trust over time, inspire brand advocacy with your past customers, and provide powerful persuasion tools you can add to your digital marketing mix.
Let us know if you have any further questions.
Introduction.
My name is Steven O’Connell. I founded Video Canvass with the goal of providing digital marketing services. My specialty is to provide small businesses with local video content in their marketing campaigns. The Video Canvass mission is designed to offer video content that will improve the performance of sales funnels. The intended outcome is to help local businesses compete for attention, acquire leads and referrals, enhance the overall value of their brand name and solidify their market position.
Why is video key?
So let me provide you with a little background to give you an insight as to why I started a video content and digital marketing service. I was born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. After high school, I went to art school in Saint Paul with the idea of utilizing my artistic talents. I had the ability to draw and paint so I figured I should make a career of it. After art school, I did get some work in the field but those jobs did not produce the stability I needed. I then worked in the trades and continued to do so until the market downturn after the 2001 dot com bubble burst caused me to get laid off. I then decided to take a leap of faith and start my own construction business. In 2002, I started my own local remodeling company with a focus on home improvement projects. I quickly discovered that marketing a new company from scratch is a challenge. Starting with dropping flyers in local mailboxes, I built my business from scratch over the next several years.
Broken website promises.
Later, as the internet became more prominent, I created a basic website on WordPress and began to explore internet marketing. I quickly discovered that advertising on the internet is costly and ineffective unless you are an expert at Google SEO and Adwords. I learned the hard way that if you are in the field hammering nails and wearing all the hats, you do not have the time to learn internet marketing. I decided to hire a web development company, and I did not see the results that they promised. I had to figure it out on my own.
Leads vs. Referrals
Statistics demonstrate that referrals are your most cost effective marketing channel.
$$$ Online leads!
While searching for answers, I discovered there were companies that sell online leads. I gave it a try and bought leads from a company called Service Magic. I did acquire a few good customers and developed long-term relationships with them. But I also discovered that most of those leads were a waste of precious time. This led me to distrust many online companies who place themselves in the middle between online traffic and local small businesses. So, like many small businesses, I focused on great customer service with the goal of earning more referrals. But then, in 2008 the great financial crisis arrived, and the phone stopped ringing. That event changed the game for everyone, including myself. I discovered that local events were not just shaped by local actors but were also dependent on the actions of bad actors in far away places.
Got me under pressure.
Because I was raising a young family at the time, I eventually decided to move in another direction. As luck would have it, we had a large hail storm move through the community, and I decided to chase storm damage repair to make ends meet. I learned how to canvass neighborhoods and knock on doors for leads. I am very familiar with farming neighborhoods for business the old fashioned way. But that fateful decision to chase another construction niche working as a sub under another storm damage company caused me to neglect my own business. That decision would have long-term consequences.
Lessons from the ashes.
Over the next few years, I did jobs as a home inspector and worked with other construction companies as a sub-contractor. Because of the many challenges in the construction industry coming out of the financial crisis, I decided construction was not a business model I wanted to pursue. To make a long story short, I ended up in automotive sales for several years to make ends meet. Although I learned a great deal about the sales process from the experience, I came to learn auto sales was not my passion. I discovered that auto sales endures many of the same problems as the home services industry. Auto dealerships suffer from the very high cost of online lead acquisition. I learned a great deal watching how dealerships nurture leads from the beginning to the end of the sales cycle. That experience shaped my attitude about how to earn trust in an online space and convert online leads into customers. Hope brings people in, but without trust, the deal is lost. During these years, I never gave up on the trying to find better solutions for building and growing a business and a unique brand. I just needed to find a business model that would make use of the talents I had acquired along the way.
The Cost of Leads
Online lead acquisition is dominated by expensive online SEO specialists.
Inefficient sales funnels.
All of these lessons taught me how inefficient the traditional sales process was and how video could be used to automate many repetitive tasks. In the automotive space, nobody seemed to be able to translate video content into the automotive sales funnel process very effectively. The dealership experimented with teaching their sales staff to send video selfies to prospective customers with mixed results. They bought a service to track results. Not all salespeople were equally talented behind the camera and getting salespeople to participate was an ongoing problem. And selfie videos are extremely short lived. They do not last online and their purpose quickly evaporates. But that experience planted the seed that video content would become instrumental in an ever increasing digital economy.
Too many middlemen.
This brings us to the present day. Since the global health crisis began in 2020, we are once again witnessing challenges that have eerie similarities to the 2008 financial crisis. Like 2008, many small businesses are suffering from a new financial crisis caused by the reactions to the global pandemic among many other factors. Now, in 2022, the expense and quality of online lead generation is manifestly worse, because many large well funded companies along with small scale internet marketing specialists have been able to dominate Google. They specialize in ranking at the top and capture the bulk of online traffic and lead acquisition. They turn around and sell the leads they acquire at a premium price. This makes starting, maintaining and/or growing an online presence for small local businesses a very difficult challenge at this time. This is a problem that persists to this day and will get worse over time. I decided to research the problem and find a solution that works. Video Canvass is the solution that puts into practice what I have learned along the way.
Videos help referrals.
So let me explain, over time, most small businesses learn that referrals are a company’s best source of new leads. But as a general rule, most small businesses struggle to get enough referrals to grow their business. Referrals can keep one individual or even a small team busy, but as is often the case with many small businesses, if you wear all the hats, you generally do not have time to focus on elaborate marketing campaigns. That makes it difficult to scale your business to support more than a handful of people. Automating referral generation with properly designed video content can provide the room to grow. It gives you more time so you can focus on serving your ideal target customer as opposed to spinning your wheels trying to make a bad fit work.
Email + Video = Referrals.
Your email list is one of your greatest assets. You just need content that competes for the attention of your past customers to stay relevant.
Video + Email = Referrals.
Through my research on the subject, I concluded that a small business needs a way to maximize their past customer list, because it gives them direct access to their biggest fans. When a local business acquires an email address or generates a following on social media, they now have direct access to their customers and followers. The internet marketing middle man is no longer needed. Nothing beats the promotional power of brand advocacy. If a business can hold the attention of their past customers for years on end, then they don’t have to pay a middleman like Google to communicate with them. But there’s a big problem that every business faces. And that is the ever increasing competition for their past customers’ attention.
Not interested.
Over time, most businesses discover their past customers either unsubscribe or stop opening their emails. And to make matters worse, they have to remove past customers from their email list, because they are dead weight and hurting their metrics. This happens because their emails do not contain content that is compelling enough to compete for attention and maintain a relevant relationship with their past customers. They tend to focus on content that is relevant to their business, rather than on content that interests their past customers. Most companies with a long sales cycle simply do not know how to stay relevant with their past customers. This problem is at the heart of the Video Canvass marketing strategy.
They want more videos.
So here is the opportunity that can help your business stay relevant. People like to watch videos about subjects that interest them. And if you are in the home services industries, then home ownership and the lifestyles that come with it are universal enough to appeal to interests that are relevant to your past customers. You just need content that speaks to your ideal customer profile. Video content can help you stay relevant so you can reinforce your relationship with them long after the sale. And by far and away, a small business’ best source of new leads is from referrals. If they remember you, and if your content starts conversations, referrals will naturally follow when the time is right. What we are now learning is that video content is preferred over everything else. If given a choice to read a long article or watch a video, most will now choose the video. And to make matters more difficult, most people have become accustomed to short form videos. The reasons for this are simple. Videos are often easier to digest than reading content. If a video is designed properly, it will condense information into bite size pieces. And most of all, videos are emotionally more enjoyable to consume, because they narrate a storyline while music plays in the background. Because videos involve more senses, they are more pleasant to consume and are often more memorable.
Local videos wanted.
People love videos about their home town. Help them discover things to know and places to go and you will capture their attention for years to come.
Poor quality is just noise.
Now that we know video content is important in a digital marketplace, we discover a few more things to consider. The need for quality video content creates another significant problem for small businesses. Video content is a specialized craft and requires significant skills to execute properly. A poorly designed video can have the opposite effect and harm a business’ reputation. Many small business owners are great at their craft or trade, but they are not good at making compelling videos or taking selfies. But hiring a professional video production company to produce video content is too costly and is therefore an unviable investment for small businesses. This is because they believe every video must be unique. This is not entirely true.
Good local content.
So let me explain something you may not have considered. Advertising depends on content. Most people don’t turn on the T.V. or watch YouTube for the commercials. They come for the content. That means advertisers put their ad in front of content that is not unique to them. They just get their advertisement in front of content people want to watch. I discovered that the solution to the ranking problem is hiding in plain sight in your past customer email list. Most people think every video or blog post must be 100% original content so they can rank in a top spot on Google search and YouTube or in their social media accounts. But this ignores your email list! If you make good local content, and send it to your past customers in your email list, then they will look forward to your emails. This is taking the idea of a local variety magazine and putting into your emails. But instead of getting in front of people who don’t know you, you are reinforcing your relationship with people who already know, like and trust you. This approach builds brand advocacy. Statistics repeatedly demonstrate that past customers can be your most cost efficient marketing channel.
Quality local content.
High quality videos featuring local content is a winning combination.
SEO is not everything.
Although ranking on Google for keywords is useful, your business does not need to publish content solely to rank on Google. You don’t need all of your content to be optimized to rank in search engines like Google, because you already have direct access to your past customers. This is a valuable opportunity that is often overlooked. If you have a past customer list, you don’t need to worry about ranking on Google search nearly as much as you may believe. Your past customers will never know the content you are sending them is not 100% unique to them. Your customers will only care that your content is relevant to their interests. You just need the content to provide a customized calling card to highlight your brand name along with a unique call to action. This solution gives you local content that is professionally produced and which has the ability to compete for their attention. Additionally, this content can enhance the local value of your brand. But because this content does not require you to hire a video production company to create unique content from scratch, you can enjoy significant cost savings through economies of scale. While at the same time, you can give your past customers beautifully produced local content that is relevant to their current interests and lifestyle.
Career loss prevention.
This brings us to one final thought, and perhaps the most important lesson learned from a career of ever changing opportunities. Most small businesses are run by one main entrepreneur as the leader of a small team of employees or associates. When the star of the show retires, a lifetime of hard earned value is flushed down the drain. Most small businesses have not separated the founder of the business with the brand name. Often the brand is synonymous with the name and photograph of the founder. This creates a serious problem in that the owners cannot sell the tremendous value of all the goodwill they generated over their career. Their business is inseparable from themselves. No one can buy their brand and past customer list because their persona is their brand. Without them, there is no brand. That means the enormous value that was created over a lifetime is now lost. As it turns out, a properly designed brand name and logo, and a series of universal videos could help to solve this problem. That is because most of the value of a brand is in a brand’s position in the mind of past customers. Therefore, the main communication channel between a business and their customers will be the store of a brand’s value.
Video is a store of value.
So what does that mean? Video is the best channel of communication that is tangible enough to be bought and sold. Video content is the direct path to establishing a brand position in the mind of your past customers. Videos are a tool that can create memories. A brand’s value is in the mind of the beholder. If a company uses video content properly along with an identifiable brand name that can be sold, they will have videos that are an intangible asset that store the value of all the goodwill generated over a lifetime of service. That means, videos are an asset that are a store of value. They can be bought and sold as tangible proof of a lifetime of brand recognition and customer goodwill. If you record the number of views the videos have received, you have tangible proof of the recognizability of your brand, which is hard to measure without some kind of tangible metric. Video content and the views they receive can provide tangible proof of goodwill, which has been historically hard to quantify.
A store of value.
Your brand’s value is in the mind of the beholder. Video assets help quantify the value of that metric.
The future is a digital economy.
That means, in a future digital economy, a business’ universal video content is going to become a store of value just like cash in the bank or stock in the company. The company’s videos are the store of a brand’s reputation and good will. And if they are universal and standard, they can be bought, sold and traded. This makes properly designed videos an intangible asset that will be at the heart of a future digital economy. Video Canvass is designed to be positioned for serving this growing demand. VIdeo Canvass is engineered to help small businesses store the core value and reputation of their brand in an asset that can be bought and sold.
A better way.
Because I grew up in the trades, and I have learned the lessons of small business entrepreneurship first hand, I wanted to focus on helping small local businesses. Video Canvass specializes in digital marketing services for businesses like local home services, remodeling companies and local real estate agents and brokers. My goal is to provide simple, easy to implement solutions that help small businesses maintain and grow their relationships with their past customers. My desire is to help businesses who have a long sales cycle to stay in touch with their customer base using local video content and special interest stories. It is my belief that digital marketing using video content is the future of marketing. My goal is to make the power of video marketing accessible and cost effective to local small businesses.
Wrapping up.
So take a look around this website and let me know what you think. Just send me a message and give me your feedback. If you are interested in my services, just visit the prices and services pages respectively. Let me know what you need, and I will be happy to serve you.
Video Canvass
Content that works.
*To use and enjoy your Video Turbo Kit, please provide your website address in good faith that you are seeking services to help you solve digital and video marketing problems. A qualified business is defined as a currently operating business, with a website, Google business profile, social media profiles and a currently active Google Ads account and running campaign, with an available marketing budget of at least $2,000.ºº, and with intent to improve your digital marketing and video advertising strategy.
DISCLAIMER: Steven O’Connell DBA Video Canvass™ offers the Video Turbo Kit at his sole discretion reserving the right to revoke the offer to any person for any reason at any time, and disclaims any expressed or implied warranty of utility pertaining to the contents of the report. The audit comes “as is” for entertainment and educational purposes only. As the recipient of the digital marketing audit, you agree to hold harmless Steven O’Connell DBA Video Canvass, his assigns and heirs from any damages or injury resulting from the implementation of its findings or suggestions.
DISCLAIMER: Steven O’Connell DBA Video Canvass™ are not affiliated with Alphabet Corp.®, Google® or YouTube® and are not associated as an agent in any form whatsoever. We make no expressed or implied warranties as to the efficacy of our advertising or SEO solutions in regards to Google’s algorithms or advertising platform. We do not get paid or receive a sales or affiliate commission from Google Ads® in association with Google’s advertising services. This site is not a part of YouTube, or Google Inc. Additionally, this website, https://videocanvass.com™ is NOT endorsed by Alphabet Corp.®, YouTube®, or Google® in any way, shape or form. YouTube® is a trademark owned by GOOGLE Inc.