Jessica Kizorek Transcript

March 22, 2008

Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on the show is Jessica Kizorek, am I pronouncing that correctly?

Jessica Kizorek: Yes, you are.

Dr. Kent: I’m pretty good that way, what can I say? Her website is showmethebook.com. She is an industry speaker on the subject of video marketing and the Internet. She was featured on CNN’s series “Young People Who Rock” for documenting the impact of humanitarian efforts around the globe. This is going to be a fascinating discussion. Tell me a little bit about your book to start off.

Jessica: Well the book emerged from; as a video producer, about two years ago I realized that I was going to need to put all the videos that I made for my clients on the Internet. So I started researching, “How do I do this as a businesswoman?” The information was so scattered on the Internet. There wasn’t a solid, comprehensive source for what I was looking for. So my additional research for my business is what became and evolved as the book.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about the nonprofit work you do.

Jessica: The nonprofit work we do? I love taking my skills and expertise in storytelling through video, using video as a very influential and impactful medium. Giving my nonprofit clients a resource to communicate and effectively show what they’re doing in the world.Because there’s just so many organizations that are making a tremendous impact; be it with a community of 20 people or a community of 200,000 people in Western Africa. How do they show people what they’re doing on the ground? That is what I’ve developed an expertise in providing nonprofit organizations.

Dr. Kent: So your book itself is about marketing with video. I’ve seen images of, perhaps what the Internet might look like in ten years. We might not be even looking at text. We might be touching the screen and manipulating it that way. Where’s the Internet going? Where is this going?

Jessica: Right now as we see video, it evolved from television and film. Which is a flat screen, it’s not interactive per se. It’s a flat, motion and audio medium. I think what we’re going to start seeing, even next year, is a lot of interactivity layers upon the video. You may be watching a video that has a Gucci pair of sunglasses in it. You can actually click on the sunglasses, which takes you to a website that sells those sunglasses.So you can immediately purchase things. It’s really going to become a seamless user experience. Specifically, video will just be a foundational element upon which a lot of different motion, graphics, and e-commerce will be built on top of.

Dr. Kent: And what is your role in that?

Jessica: My role in that is producing the video content, it’s working with people from the conceptualization of the idea. “OK, this is what we want to show, this is what we want to communicate.” And then shooting the video, planning it out, storyboarding it, shooting it, editing it and providing it in appropriate formats.Whether that’s Flash files for the Internet or mastering DVDs for physical distribution or giving them files for broadcast television. That’s what I do.

Dr. Kent: Who is the audience specifically for your book “Show Me: Marketing with Video on the Internet”?

Jessica: The audience is fairly broad. Video producers, people that are in a similar position to myself. A lot of advertising and marketing people are very hungry for the information because they know that marketing spend is moving away from television. It’s moving away from print. All the eyeballs are online. People are online watching videos. People are online searching for information.It’s particularly people who are looking to expand their business through marketing on the Internet. Those are the people are looking for and reading my book.

Dr. Kent: And do you find, just out of curiosity, your own website– showmethebook.com; that’s a clever title by the way–do you find that you have to keep that cutting-edge looking in order to impress people that come visit you?

Jessica: Yes and no. I mean I have–right now I have up there hosted is my CNN video. If you go to my corporate website which is twoparrot.com, you’ll see different video interfaces where all the videos are available.So I definitely think that having a portfolio of everything I produce is immediately online, it’s transferable, it’s easily distributed. So yeah, I think that me being a demonstration of what I provide my clients with is absolutely very important.

Dr. Kent: Now do you have any trade secrets that you can reveal to us?

Jessica: Trade secrets?

Dr. Kent: Things we’re not supposed to know about marketing.

Jessica: [laughs] I don’t know that there’s anything you’re not supposed to know. The big thing is right now the market is so saturated by–consumers are constantly–they have spam blockers. They see advertisements or see marketing messages and they immediately turn away.So the whole industry is turning towards–instead of pushing something at consumers, it’s really like providing consumers with something that they’re interested in. So there’s really a shift in messaging and how do you have the consumer walk towards your brand rather than just be talked at or told what to do.

Dr. Kent: If someone visits a website online and they see a video, how do you get people to convert?

Jessica: It’s providing specific steps. A clear course of action. So if you have a video lots of times you want to put–you can’t really talk about video on the Internet without talking about the interface in which viewers interact with the videos. So converting really comes down to do you provide them with a clear course of action as to how to purchase your product or subscribe or–another thing with conversion, too–and we’re getting into a lot of this as people explore mobile platforms–so cell phones.It’s a function of knowing your audience. For instance, grocery stores are starting to do couponing through mobile devices. So basically you wouldn’t necessarily send a mother a coupon at three o’clock in the afternoon. Because that’s when they’re picking up their kids or they’re rushing to do things. You send them a coupon at a specific time of day when you know they’re going to be grocery shopping.When you know that they’re on their way to the store or about to cook dinner. So converting is knowing your audience, knowing what stage in the purchase cycle they are, providing different videos, whether it be brand awareness or a video later on down the line that has specific call to action.

Dr. Kent: Hmm. So what is it like for you to speak about all of this, to write about all of this, to become an author, I guess?

Jessica: Well one of the things that’s been very interesting to me is I’m 27. So I’m just a total baby when it comes to interacting with these people who have been in the advertising industry for the last 20 or 30 years. So for me to be a speaker and an author–the book has given me a tremendous amount of credibility. Somebody that’s 27 wouldn’t necessarily be taken seriously with the people that I’m playing with.The advertising industry is actually looking towards the younger generation. So people like me who grew up inside of a digital environment. People who have their own personal MySpace page and Face Book page and they understand social networking. They throw up YouTube videos on their mobile phone, just like in their private life.Marketers are hungry for people that are my age, that are in their early 30s because that’s where the best and most effective ideas are coming from. So for me being an author in this time period is really exciting. Because there’s very much an openness to the kinds of ideas that I have to offer.

Dr. Kent: This is fascinating. In your book for a very small price, folks can check all of your expert solutions to marketing and video and all of this. We’ll visit you on the web at twoparrot.com and showmethebook.com. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with Jessica Kizorek.

Jessica: Thank you very much for having me.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. My next guest is Jimmy Scott, sometimes known as Little Jimmy Scott. A legend in jazz. And it’s going to be my pleasure to speak with him in a few minutes. Come on back.

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