#59 - How to Craft Compelling Student Testimonials and Content to Increase Enrollment Yield
w/ John Azoni & Shiro Hatori
From Higher Ed Demand Gen Podcast
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SHOW NOTES
On this episode, John Azoni was a guest on the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast with Shiro Hatori. We talked about telling compelling student testimonials.
Key Takeaways:
Higher ed provides ample opportunity for meaningful, transformational stories that don't exist in the same way in other contexts
Strong student testimonials have an arc - an "old normal," a turning point, and a "new normal"
Getting specific in student stories, especially around the turning point, allows prospects to relate on an emotional level
Authentically communicating student mental health struggles and support services can be powerful storytelling
Students crave specific content around day-to-day experience, dorm life, food, "day in the life" videos
Consider leveraging student-generated content for relatability, not just official marketing videos
Video length is less important than providing value and "resolving something in the viewer's brain"
Hook the audience by conveying what they'll learn or how they'll relate vs. just introducing the subject
Repurposing video content into shorter clips, stills, ads etc. can fuel years of content vs. one-off approach
Your audience sees your content far less than you think - don't be afraid to repurpose frequently
LINKS:
Check out the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast: https://concept3d.com/higher-ed-demand-gen-podcast/
Check out Concept3D: https://concept3d.com
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:14:13
Intro
Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast. Helping Higher Education Marketing leaders share knowledge about learning strategies and tactics that are relevant today. See what you can learn today by listening to one of our episodes.
00:00:16:03 - 00:00:40:11
Shiro Hatori
Okay. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Higher Ed to Mandarin podcast hosted by Concept 3D. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple or Google wherever you listen to us. My name is Cheri OTERI and I will be your host today, and I'm really looking forward to talking about how to craft compelling student testimonials and content to enroll to increase enrollment yield.
00:00:40:22 - 00:00:55:12
Shiro Hatori
And for the conversation, I have a very special guest here today. I got John Oseni joining us. He is the owner of Unveiled and also the host of the Higher Ed Storytelling University podcast. Welcome to the show.
00:00:55:21 - 00:00:57:07
John Azoni
Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
00:00:57:15 - 00:01:01:01
Shiro Hatori
So, John, I asked all my guests this, right. Tell me what you love about higher Ed.
00:01:01:18 - 00:01:39:22
John Azoni
You know, I think I think within higher ed, there's so much there's it's such a goldmine for stories. And I think like, for for what I do with with telling stories, there's, there's such a variety of, you know, walks of life within a college campus and reasons they go to college and where they go after college. It's just such a it's such a transformational time of life that I just think that there's there's so many opportunities to tell meaningful stories within within higher ed specifically that are unique to higher ed that I think that don't exist in the same way in any other context.
00:01:41:01 - 00:01:42:16
John Azoni
So that would be my favorite thing about it.
00:01:42:22 - 00:02:06:14
Shiro Hatori
Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, I totally agree. Like, I'm reconnected with my alma mater, which is the University of Colorado as a reset just because there's been all this energy and hype around Coach Prime and I've heard of them but I have. Yeah. Like yeah. And those stories are what keeps me back tied to my on the matter and you know, it just shows how powerful storytelling really is.
00:02:07:03 - 00:02:07:12
John Azoni
Mm hmm.
00:02:08:00 - 00:02:16:05
Shiro Hatori
Great. Well, can you tell us actually a little bit more about your podcast? Right. I want our audience to know, you know, what kind of stories and guests you have on your show.
00:02:17:02 - 00:02:48:04
John Azoni
Yeah, it's called Higher Ed Storytelling University and originally started off, as, you know, just a platform for me to talk about storytelling, to talk about like, like narrative storytelling and how to do that well, eventually start having guests on the show. And then it really kind of opened up to what I call lowercase storytelling, which is which is sort of like the broader accepted term of storytelling, of really like marketing content creation.
00:02:48:04 - 00:03:06:13
John Azoni
And how how do you create meaningful content that resonates with with viewers and tells the story of your institution over time? So on the show, yeah, we do talk about, you know, what it means to tell an actual story, but we also have a lot of guests on that. Just talk about, you know, marketing that, talk about content creation.
00:03:07:13 - 00:03:29:01
John Azoni
We've had guests talking about email marketing strategies and how do you how do you connect with people through it, through email. So it's a lot of it's a lot of conversation about, you know, how do you create content either through text or through video that is going to strike the right chord with your audience? Yeah, so that's been a lot of fun.
00:03:29:08 - 00:03:41:22
John Azoni
That's one of my favorite parts about running my business is is actually doing the podcast. So it's it's, it's a lot of fun to, to, to have new people and come up with new topics and things like that.
00:03:41:22 - 00:03:57:12
Shiro Hatori
So yeah, I couldn't agree more. This podcast is definitely my favorite part of my job here concept as well. So it's I'm on board there. What can you tell us a little bit more about the lowercase s and the capitalized? Is there more of a backstory there?
00:03:58:13 - 00:04:35:18
John Azoni
Well, I think when when it comes to storytelling, like when you say, let me tell you a story, someone's going to actually think they're going to expect an actual story like this happened to me. Then this happened, you know, and then I ended up here and and blah, blah, blah, you know, I just think, like, if you're at a party and, you know, you say to someone, Oh, I've got a great story for you, and then you just list a bunch of information, you know, like our institution is great for all these reasons and blah, blah, blah, you know, and you should come here.
00:04:35:19 - 00:05:00:01
John Azoni
They'd be like, What's the story? You know? So. So I think, like Capital S storytelling is like actual stories, you know. But, but I think that we use the word storytelling in a broader sense, like much in the same way that I think, like, you know, Gen Z will say literally for everything the literally just means like an emphasis word.
00:05:00:01 - 00:05:25:09
John Azoni
It doesn't literally mean literally. So, so I so I think I would say there's like capital S storytelling, which is actual narrative stories like you would tell this to someone and then this is an actual story and then there's what I would call lowercase storytelling, which is sort of the act of creating content over time that as a whole sort of communicates the value of your of your organization.
00:05:25:09 - 00:05:30:15
John Azoni
And so we try to embrace both, both on, on the on the podcast.
00:05:31:14 - 00:05:43:23
Shiro Hatori
Got it. Thanks for explaining. Yeah, that helps me like having lowercase storytelling is like having it more ingrained in your overall strategy, like in every piece of content that you create. Like somewhere along those lines. But I say.
00:05:44:12 - 00:06:02:03
John Azoni
Yeah, I think like, you know, because one thing I pay attention to and I think it's the sort of the curse of being a, you know, a marketer content creator is like on, on outlook, on packaging, you know, for like, like I got this oatmeal recently. It's was like, I don't know, my wife bought it some sort of oatmeal.
00:06:02:13 - 00:06:24:22
John Azoni
And I, you know, because like when I'm in a when I'm eating cereal or something, I'm like, I like read the packaging. And it said like our our story had the founders like picture on there. And then it was just like, these are from ancient grains of blah, blah, blah from the mountains or I can't remember what I said, but was really just like talking about the quality of the product.
00:06:24:22 - 00:06:48:08
John Azoni
And I'm kind of like, this is a perfect example of like, that's not a story. Like, that's you're communicating the value of your, of your products, which is a very loose interpretation of what it means to tell us to, to do storytelling. So that's kind of what I would call like lowercase s storytelling, which is sort of like, here's the value of what we're offering, here's our why.
00:06:49:04 - 00:07:08:16
John Azoni
And people and people tend to couch that in the storytelling compartment. But there's a difference between that in like, what's an actual narrative story where there's a character and you know, there's problems and there's some element of transformation and so, yeah, both are good, both are totally fine.
00:07:09:14 - 00:07:28:21
Shiro Hatori
That example helps a lot. So like my example with Coach Prime would be like the big ass story, whereas like, you know, the products and goods you sell the information behind, you know what, it's where it's coming from, the history behind the company. So that lowercase s Gotcha. Okay, that's the first time I've heard someone use the, the differences, so.
00:07:29:12 - 00:07:36:16
John Azoni
Well, that's just because I made it up. I didn't I You won't find that in any textbook. I just. That's just how I think about it.
00:07:37:06 - 00:08:04:02
Shiro Hatori
Maybe it'll become a thing and you'll get to coin it. That's awesome. All right, well, let's let's jump into these topics here we got today. So first one I wanted to cover is around increasing enrollment yield using social proof and with unveiled and with your background in lowercase storytelling or and uppercase storytelling of you figured out a way to really craft a compelling student testimonial and create that content.
00:08:04:07 - 00:08:06:07
Shiro Hatori
Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do?
00:08:07:12 - 00:08:45:21
John Azoni
Yeah. So for for Context, Unveiled, we're a video production company and we work with schools primarily on a subscription basis for for for telling student and alumni success stories or testimonials. And so we kind of work on like a yearlong sort of view of their storytelling content and drip out monthly student alumni testimonials. So we've done a lot of these, and there are certain things that I personally look for in a story when I am working with the school.
00:08:46:05 - 00:09:09:19
John Azoni
And it really is like, you know, the thing that we're looking for is, is really what, what makes a good story. And I would say that's it comes down to several things. One would be that there is an actual story there to begin with. Now, I don't think that every testimonial has to be some dramatic story of transformation.
00:09:09:19 - 00:09:36:16
John Azoni
Sometimes it is just good to get someone on there, you know, on video or or in print. However you do your storytelling saying great things about the school. You know, that's that's essentially what a review, a Google review is doing. That's the function of Google Review is surfing is social proof. Someone else like me had a great experience and maybe I could have a great experience too.
00:09:37:13 - 00:10:10:22
John Azoni
So those are those are good. And then but but I think to take that a step further are finding those stories that really have a narrative arc to them. So I look at storytelling in a very, very basic sort of three part, you know, structure of like is there there's sort of some sort of transformation. So there's an old, old normal, there's the way things were then there's some sort of turning point moments and then there's a new normal.
00:10:10:22 - 00:10:37:21
John Azoni
And I think that that structure fits really well with student and alumni testimonials because that's really what you want your college to be doing, is facilitating that transformation from they were here, not where they wanted to be in life. And then, you know, and then you catapulted them to this other place, which is where they wanted to be in life or maybe in a better place than they even expected they would be.
00:10:37:21 - 00:11:31:09
John Azoni
So really, it's finding stories that have that that sort of that sort of arc of of transformation and that can come in in a lot of different forms. But but really looking for some sort of some sort of from and to so we we worked with a school recently where it's a business school in California and they had one of those students there was studying getting his MBA, but he came to the school because he was he was doing work with human trafficking survivors and he wanted to further his education in business so that he could take this back to this organization and, you know, further develop this work.
00:11:32:05 - 00:11:52:16
John Azoni
And so, you know, then the story became, you know, his experience with with the business school and all the things that, you know, he kind of went through to be able to then get to a place where he's further in his, you know, career passion for helping human trafficking survivors and using business as a as a as a as a force for good in that way.
00:11:52:16 - 00:12:19:13
John Azoni
So I think that's a great example of, you know, there's an actual narrative there. There's that it's not just someone on camera saying, I wanted to go to business school, so I went to business school and it was great. And here's the professors I liked. And, you know, I graduated and now I'm now I have my degree. So there is this sort of element of novelty that there's something deeper than just what it meant to go get an academic experience.
00:12:20:10 - 00:12:50:23
John Azoni
But then then there was also this this, this, this arc of transformation where you know, started here not having the skills he needed to really do all the things that he wanted to do for human trafficking survivors. But but going through this process and then now feeling confident in that and then in the middle, there's there's all these opportunities to kind of insert other benefits, because part of his story was he experienced mental health struggles in school.
00:12:50:23 - 00:13:14:15
John Azoni
And so it was an opportunity for us to talk about like some of the roadblocks that people that students will go through at, you know, at your school as as they're going along. You know, they're they're experiencing mental. How do you have the resources for them? How are you supporting them in that student journey? And so that so I liked his story because it had some layers to it.
00:13:16:03 - 00:13:49:22
John Azoni
So that's kind of how I think about story storytelling is finding finding stories that have like a old normal turning point and a new normal. And then within that turning point, I think that's a really powerful spot in the storytelling structure where you can get specific. And I think good stories really are an opportunity to get specific. So obviously someone's on your website or ever and they're watching this, this video of the student that went to your school and had a good experience.
00:13:50:14 - 00:14:16:09
John Azoni
So they expect they expect that the student isn't going to say bad things about the school. You know, that obviously they're going to say good things about the school. But what specifically can you zero in on? Because when you land into like when you get down into specifics, that's where the most the emotion really lies. That's where people can start to resonate with what this student is saying.
00:14:16:10 - 00:14:43:07
John Azoni
See themselves in that story. They can feel seen, feel, heard, feel understood. So that turning point, part of the story, like when I'm crafting questions for to interview a student or alumni with, you know, we're crafting questions around those three points. What are what are what are questions that are going to get us responses that tell us like where they were, where, where they ended up.
00:14:43:07 - 00:15:10:14
John Azoni
But then also, let's let's really dig into this turning point. Like, was there a moment where you felt like something was changing or you felt like you were in the right place or just you had some moment that was significant in your academic journey? And I think that it's that really that turning point moment that really is just it's just powerful for for as social proof for other students to to hear.
00:15:11:04 - 00:15:41:17
Shiro Hatori
Thanks John. Thanks for sharing that framework. I like how you went into detail about like making sure to be specific and I think your use case of of telling the story around the student resources available was interesting because this relates to another follow up question I have, but I think most institutions, you know, they have the resources listed on the website or they'll give you the information, you know, with the PDF or print out during your orientation week and then like, that's it, right?
00:15:41:17 - 00:15:58:22
Shiro Hatori
But like the hearing you come from a student or like is a testimony or a video is this is a bit different than getting listed on your website or, you know, getting here. We have these resources listed on a pamphlet, so I thought that was unique. I'm yeah.
00:15:58:22 - 00:15:59:13
John Azoni
I think that.
00:16:00:10 - 00:16:01:18
Shiro Hatori
Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.
00:16:02:07 - 00:16:23:14
John Azoni
I was just going to say I think I think that, like, storytelling is not something that we do once or twice and check the box and call it good. I had Jamie Hunt from CMO at Old Dominion University on my podcast in a recent episode talking about telling stories of people with disabilities and mental health struggles are often a big part of that.
00:16:23:14 - 00:16:51:10
John Azoni
And it it's it's it's so prevalent in in schools that and I experienced this when I was in college too. I'm just, you know, having some unexpected feelings that you've never dealt with before. And to hear stories of students that also felt feel that way and got help or felt supported in some way, or even even just that other students felt that way is is is a really important thing to be doing.
00:16:51:10 - 00:17:25:22
John Azoni
So it's not always about just marketing your school in the in the course of supporting students in their academic journey through storytelling, through helping them relate to others like them. I think you are marketing your school because you're creating it. You're creating an experience, you know, where people feel seen and heard and understood. So yeah, it's so, you know, those are I think we often default to like, who can I get on camera that's going to say the right things that are going to get people in the door to the school.
00:17:27:06 - 00:17:40:13
John Azoni
But storytelling is so much more broad than that and so many opportunities to tell stories of what's going on day to day and and how are you supporting students that are already in the school, too, You know?
00:17:40:21 - 00:18:03:13
Shiro Hatori
Gotcha. You're kind of already answering this question, but specific to this period in their romance cycle right now. Right. There's a lot of students have been admitted or are maybe still applying. But we have, you know, a little over half a year till fall, shows up in student shop on class. Are there specific types of student content, student testimonials that you focus in on during this period?
00:18:04:03 - 00:18:19:11
Shiro Hatori
I mean, your example with the student resources is probably one, but are they are do you see specific types of content that your customers come back to you and say, Hey, like that was really good US specific pain point or solution that we showed or something along those lines?
00:18:20:01 - 00:18:47:09
John Azoni
Yeah, I don't really have that that kind of data in terms of like specific times of the year when people are my clients are deploying certain pieces of content. But I can say that some of the top content that that, that students look for are things like student success stories would be would be there, but also like things like what's the food like what's the housing like?
00:18:47:09 - 00:19:17:05
John Azoni
What's the, what's the what's what's a day in the life look like? Some of the content that I find really intriguing to to study on YouTube is user generated content of students just making day in the life videos of what's going on or what. You know, this could be like ten, 20, ten or 20 minute video of the student be like, here's a day in the life at such and such, you know, business school and they're going to class and they're, you know, opening their laptop and blah, blah, blah.
00:19:17:05 - 00:19:35:04
John Azoni
And then they're studying back at their dorm or whatever. And I'm always amazed that, like, this is a long video and people are like, students are watching this all the way through, it seems like, and commenting about like, this was so great. This helped me see like this answered so many questions I had about, you know, about the school.
00:19:35:04 - 00:20:17:17
John Azoni
So giving, you know, one of the things that that we advocate for at unveiled is not just what are the stories you can bring in a video crew to film, you know, but what are what our stories that that can that the students themselves can can tell to their own audiences that are going to help answer the questions or calm some of the fears that people might be having in this in this period of, you know, in this period of time where they're they haven't maybe officially shown up to the school yet, you know, there's there's still an opportunity for them to, you know, go elsewhere.
00:20:17:17 - 00:20:30:12
John Azoni
So I think it's I think it's there's there's a lot of opportunities to to talk about some of the smaller things. What's the experience going to be like? You know is is a big one I think that's great.
00:20:30:12 - 00:21:08:09
Shiro Hatori
Yeah user generated content day in the life of like those are all things I'm hearing from other people who work in your space too. So that's great. It's actually reminds me of a video I like randomly was like years ago about the commute from like a suburb of Seattle across the I think the was it the four or five bridge I forget which bridge was but it's like the north bridge that you can take it into Seattle and someone just recorded like a 30 minute dashcam video with no edits and it had like hundreds of thousands of views and it was like, how does this video, this many views and it's not like the guy
00:21:08:09 - 00:21:24:03
Shiro Hatori
had a bunch of other videos. It was like he had a few dash cam video. And this one really, like, you know, popped off. It went viral. And it just makes me think like people just wanted to experience, like maybe they're moving there or like they were looking to house in the neighborhood. They wanted to remember what it was like.
00:21:24:03 - 00:21:26:02
Shiro Hatori
But yeah, that's interesting.
00:21:26:02 - 00:21:45:10
John Azoni
I think it's such a yeah, and it's surprising, but it's also not surprising when, you know, when you if something if you have a hot question on your mind about, you know, what's something like like what's the commute like, you know, for instance and you have someone that's just like this is literally what the commute for. Like, you know, it's not like a pop.
00:21:45:10 - 00:22:14:20
John Azoni
You like ESPN sort of montage of the commute. It's like, just check it out. And that's why that's such a great example. I'm glad you mentioned that about video length. And I hear I don't think I don't I don't think there's a video that I have produced where it wasn't mentioned in the preproduction about how this needs to be short, you know, because people's attention spans are so, so short.
00:22:14:20 - 00:22:41:14
John Azoni
It's always, always, always part of the equation and very top of mind for marketing teams, it's like it's like the first consideration is we need to make this short. Otherwise no one's going to care. But it's sort of like, Well, let's make sure we create something for the right people that are going to care, you know, and then let them make the decision where they want to drop off, you know?
00:22:41:14 - 00:23:08:12
John Azoni
But but it's sort of like if you're if if all you're doing is making decisions based on you can you can make a really boring 32nd video is what I'm trying to say. You know, you know that that equally as many people don't watch as like a 30 minute video that's that's really that's really resonating with people for the right reasons because you've you've given them something that is that is resolving something in their brain, you know, like something as simple as that.
00:23:09:04 - 00:23:36:01
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I like that. And it kind of reminds me that, like, sometimes I have a hypothesis, okay, this, this podcast clip is going to do really well. And then, you know, it takes and then the episode that I thought was not going to do well is it's going viral. And, and sometimes, you know, as a content creator, I feel like you have to just test a lot of formats, different links, you know, different like video creative topics like we mentioned.
00:23:36:01 - 00:23:50:08
Shiro Hatori
And sometimes you can't just always feel like you have a gauge on everything that's going to perform well or not well, because a lot of it, the market has the test and you have to be a proponent to to test all those different formats and everything we just mentioned.
00:23:51:11 - 00:24:13:21
John Azoni
Yeah. And I think and part of that, that storytelling structure, that old normal turning point, new normal that I mentioned, that I the way that we think about it at unveiled, it's a little more complicated but just in the way that I teach it, it's it's a very simple structure, but like having a good hook is so important.
00:24:13:21 - 00:24:39:00
John Azoni
That's not something that the sensibility that's in that little three part structure. But but it is very important to hook your audience with with something that says this is made this was made for me. This was this is something that I know I'm going to relate to and resonate with. And and a good hook is typically not like my name is so and so and I'm the president of such and such college.
00:24:39:04 - 00:25:02:19
John Azoni
You know, really a good hook should say it should answer the question like, what is this video about? What am I going to learn? What's the value I'm going to get from this, from this story or or in the case of like, you know, maybe it's a, you know, sort of story of an, you know, alumni success story or something, some sort of soundbite that isn't just my name is blank and I graduated from blank.
00:25:02:19 - 00:25:50:02
John Azoni
It's it's maybe a soundbite that that really kind of draws people in to like kind of gives them a sense of what what this this video is about. We did we did a video for one of our clients is a is a business school Walsh College here in Michigan. And one of the student testimonials was alumni testimonial that we did was about a guy that was fired from his job and then ended up sort of upskilling, got got his degree from Walsh, ended up graduating there and then becoming like the president of the the his the competing company that he got away, which is like just an amazing that's an amazing example of like a
00:25:50:02 - 00:26:10:04
John Azoni
forum to kind of kind of story. But the very first line we had was like, I can't remember exactly what he said, but something like, I never thought that I would lose my job, you know? And right there, it's sort of like, Oh, what? Why did you lose this job? What happens? You know, what then how did that end up?
00:26:10:04 - 00:26:18:09
John Azoni
You know, you're sort of opening or opening like a story gap, like a gap that people feel compelled to close in their minds.
00:26:19:05 - 00:26:19:20
Shiro Hatori
Absolutely.
00:26:20:11 - 00:26:23:16
John Azoni
Yeah. So some of that's important to.
00:26:23:16 - 00:26:47:15
Shiro Hatori
That's great. Well, I like this example with that was a case that because I actually read a little bit about this and I know you worked for them as a client and you help build content for them, but they actually did a good job of taking some of your content and reusing it and repurposing a lot of it so that, you know, they could create different formats and different types of video content for me.
00:26:47:15 - 00:27:09:01
Shiro Hatori
And I think I'm very guilty of this as well is is like, what can I do that's new? What can I do that's new? And I'm trying to think about, you know, all the other past episodes I've recorded and organizing them and using bits and little bytes from each episode, even if it's a year old to see how I can repurpose it and provide value to the community today.
00:27:09:01 - 00:27:18:03
Shiro Hatori
And so I know you're doing a little bit of that and suggesting some of that with your podcast and your clients. And can you tell us a little bit more about how you're accomplishing that or seeing that being accomplished?
00:27:18:13 - 00:27:55:19
John Azoni
Yeah, I mean, I think that I really believe in what I saw in because I worked for a previous production company. I've been doing this probably coming up on 15 years now. And I think a big pattern that I see is people, organizations of all kinds, not just higher ed, just any, you know, organization approaching video as like a one off project and then letting it sit on the hard drive, like when you hire a video vendor or you shoot it internally or whatever it is, it's not just the video that's that's valuable.
00:27:55:19 - 00:28:40:22
John Azoni
It's not just the end result video, but all those ingredients that went into that video can be used to create other videos. And I don't think that enough organizations really have that as part of their strategy. But Walsh College, my my friend Jay Krueger, he's the the director of creative marketing over there. And actually, when we unveiled was just starting, I had gotten connected to Jay through mutual contacts and we got on the phone and, you know, when I was kind of trying to figure out like, you know, how to structure like our video offerings, I talked to a bunch of marketing directors at colleges.
00:28:40:22 - 00:29:08:03
John Azoni
Jay was one of them. And he was like, he was like, you know what? You should not just do like because at the time the idea was monthly student or alumni testimonials, and it was just one video and that was that. He's like, But you should you should like give them all this other stuff too. Like, like there's so much, there's so much opportunity within just that one story, you know, to help schools have like all kinds of other stuff that they can deploy in their in their social media.
00:29:08:03 - 00:29:30:23
John Azoni
So like a lot of what our subscription model is today is because of that conversation with with Jay. And he is just just a serial repurposed and I've learned so much from him. So we we did last year, we did a commercial. They had sort of done a rebrand, so we did a commercial that came out of that.
00:29:30:23 - 00:29:58:17
John Azoni
And then these two alumni to one was a student, one was an alumni story. So the alumni story being the one I mentioned of the guy that got fired, another guy was that we we told his name was a shark and his his story was like he got like tens of thousands of dollars stolen from from him. And then he got real mad and then went into data security.
00:29:58:17 - 00:30:27:01
John Azoni
And so now now that's what he does. He he does data security for for a company. But just as a two day shoot, very, you know, very, very, you know, kind of simple approach, not not like a really long like lot of lot of a lot of shooting but a two day shoot And they long story short, you know, they just had enough content, B-roll content and interview content to make so much more content out of out of that for for years to come.
00:30:27:01 - 00:30:47:08
John Azoni
He's on his we did one commercial for him that he paid us for and then now he's on his 10th free commercial. He's taken all this content and just continually rewrote the script and use this in different ways and and put out ten additional like commercials that have been on TV and stuff that that we had nothing to do with.
00:30:47:08 - 00:31:12:07
John Azoni
And I see that. And I'm like, I love that. Like, you know, I have a vested interest in them continuing to hire us, but I actually really love seeing, you know, seeing organizations repurposing stuff like that and really getting the most out of one investment in video because I think that's that's how it should be. And then not only that, but they they've taken the footage that we made and they use it for still images.
00:31:12:07 - 00:31:39:02
John Azoni
So they, they create a lot of their paid ads like banner, you know, still image ads or whatever are from this B-roll that we shot and they'll drop it in camera, puts some text over it, whatever. So it's it's been really fun to watch how their content has really transformed because even before we started working together, it had been years before they since they had done the last commercial.
00:31:39:02 - 00:32:11:07
John Azoni
And so they had they really had sort of started dipping into like a lot of stock imagery and like just a lot of stuff that just didn't feel authentic to them. So so it's just a good example of how like one investment in video can really fuel your content for a year, two years, three years, however much you decide to continue to repurpose that if you have a good strategy in mind for for how to keep using that stuff.
00:32:11:20 - 00:32:39:17
Shiro Hatori
That's fantastic. You know, I wasn't even thinking about the still image is still image repurposed as well. I'm sure everything's filmed and super high definition and all you need the definition to fit is is a phone now so right like yeah that's that's that's interesting Yeah. Using the still images from the video for whatever purposes you want that's great It's a really good thing.
00:32:39:17 - 00:33:00:04
John Azoni
I will say when we filmed the commercial this, this stuff didn't really make it into the commercial, but we, we did a whole scene of just portrait shots like, you know, there's their student and alumni eyes and stuff, just kind of smiling at the camera, kind of giving us the sort of Fortune 500 sort of CEO shows or whatever.
00:33:00:12 - 00:33:13:16
John Azoni
But like a lot of those people ended up using that as their headshots, you know, And, you know, we gave them we gave the individuals their their footage and those became a lot of people's headshots, like, you know, LinkedIn or whatever.
00:33:14:15 - 00:33:15:01
Shiro Hatori
Right.
00:33:15:06 - 00:33:45:13
John Azoni
Certainly video is not a it's it's not a replacement for a photographer because when you take a moving image and you stop the image, there's going to be you have to stop it at just the right frame to get a crisp image because there's motion blur in play with with it with the video. But in a pinch I, I would say, you know, 60% of the still images that I use come from the videos that we make.
00:33:47:01 - 00:34:04:11
Shiro Hatori
That's great. Yeah, that's such a good repurpose that I didn't even think about that. It's awesome. And I another thought I had is this is I'm guilty again of this but like when you run the same ads as someone you know that's paying for them, if you see them, you know, a few times you're like, Oh, this is outdated.
00:34:04:11 - 00:34:32:03
Shiro Hatori
You know, we can't use this anymore. But from a student or student perspective, a prospective student perspective, they're maybe seeing it only a few times in their lifecycle and they probably hopefully won't see it, you know, when they're a sophomore because it was an ad targeted to them as a prospective student or a freshman. And so like, you know, maybe the frequency at which you think you're seeing it as someone who works in the staff or marketing comms team is actually a lot lower for your audience, too.
00:34:32:05 - 00:34:39:09
Shiro Hatori
So there's probably a big opportunity to use content for a, you know, several years just based on what you were say.
00:34:39:09 - 00:35:17:21
John Azoni
Yeah. One of the earlier episodes of of my podcast, we had a guest on there. His name is Justin Simon and Justin is a great follow on LinkedIn. He his whole business is about helping organizations repurpose content and he's got this like content repurposing roadmap that you can download and super good. But that was a great episode because like one of the things that he really drove the point that he drove home was like, if you think your audience has seen something like 100 times and they're sick of it, they're probably just starting to see it like that.
00:35:18:16 - 00:35:37:23
John Azoni
Like your content is so much more of a blip on the radar in other people's minds than you think it is. So don't be afraid to repurpose content and sit and and come at your audience with a with a similar point of view every time that you think they might be sick of hearing, but they might just be hearing it for the first time that's awesome.
00:35:37:23 - 00:35:47:12
Shiro Hatori
Well, I think we'll kind of wrap things up there. That's a great point to make. I'm wondering, John, where can our listeners follow up with you or any of the things you've got going on?
00:35:47:12 - 00:36:18:04
John Azoni
Yeah, I would love for people to check out the podcasts called Higher Ed Storytelling University. Wherever you get your your podcasts, you can follow me on LinkedIn. And my last name is spelled A-Z, O and I, if you're searching for me and then I have a monthly or a I'm sorry, a weekly newsletter that I send out that kind of goes deeper into some of the things we talk about on the podcast, but also, you know, talks about other, you know, content marketing, inspiration, insights.
00:36:18:04 - 00:36:24:07
John Azoni
And you can sign up for that unveiled dot TV slash newsletter. Unveiled is spelled unveiled.
00:36:24:23 - 00:36:40:11
Shiro Hatori
Awesome go sign up for the newsletter. Everyone. Great. Well, thank you, John. Thanks so much for joining the show today. It was awesome. And, you know, love any topic around content marketing. So this was definitely something I, I really liked. So I appreciate you for joining.
00:36:41:04 - 00:36:42:12
John Azoni
Yes. A lot of fun. Thanks for having me.
00:36:43:00 - 00:36:48:01
Shiro Hatori
All right. Thanks, everyone. Please catch us on the next episode of The Harriet Dimension Podcast. Thank you.
