Rx Catering: A Long-Term Case Study on Video Marketing (week 1)
Meet The Business Owner
Cheron Burns is the owner of Rx Catering.
That’s her 4400 square foot commercial kitchen she’s standing in. You can learn about Cheron’s journey from corporate sales superstar to small business owner in her interview for the Working While Black series.
As is the case for small business owners all around the world, the pandemic has had a major negative impact on Cheron’s business.
In this long-term case study, you’ll get to go along with Cheron on her journey into using video as a tool for adapting her business to thrive in the new economy that the pandemic has created.
This case study is designed to be a teaching tool where you can learn how to use video to adapt your business, as well. My goal is to help as many small business owners as possible rescue yourselves by creating your economic recovery yourself.
You can adapt your business to be profitable in the new business landscape. Small business owners across all industries have found success during the pandemic by taking their businesses online.
In this case study, you’ll learn step by step how you can do it, too.
Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action. —Jim Rohn
Week 1
Start where you are.
Cheron doesn’t even have a YouTube channel yet, but we’ll soon take care of that, as well as everything else that needs to be in place to support her company’s marketing program.
YouTube
A Youtube channel will provide the following benefits for Rx Catering:
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SEO
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A perpetually growing archive of thought leadership content. This is how Cheron will establish herself as a trusted advisor to her target audience, over time.
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A fun, easy resource for Cheron’s friends, family, clients, and fans to promote and share. Service-based businesses live and die based on word-of-mouth marketing. Cheron’s YouTube channel will make it easy for people to talk about her business.
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Provides the back end for video emails, company newsletter, website videos, and LinkedIn posts (more on that below).
This week, Cheron is going to create her YouTube channel and here’s how she’s going to do it:
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She’s going to create the channel and delegate admin permissions to her social media manager so she doesn't have to upload her videos.
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She’s going to engage a graphic artist to create the channel graphics.
Notice that Cheron is not trying to build Rome by herself.
Cheron is on LinkedIn, but she has no LinkedIn company page.
The importance of a LinkedIn company page is that Cheron pursues corporate clients and LinkedIn is the social media platform where the corporate B2B buyers are.
The Rx Catering company page will allow Cheron to put her marketing content on the platform where the corporate decision-makers are. Posting her cooking how under a company page instead of under her individual profile provides the following benefits:
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Posting can be delegated to a social media manager.
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A company page simplifies presenting a focused, curated message because of how LinkedIn company pages organize posts. It's very easy for a prospective client to see exactly what they need to see to make a purchase decision.
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A company page also makes it very easy for the person who has to make a vendor recommendation to their manager or to a board of directors to present their case for hiring Rx Catering.
The Rx Catering YouTube channel will be the back end for its LinkedIn company page because LinkedIn videos are limited to 10 minutes and Cheron’s cooking show episodes are usually longer than that.
This week, Cheron is going to create the Rx Catering LinkedIn company page and here’s how she’s going to do it:
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She’s going to create the page and delegate admin permissions to her social media manager so she doesn't have to handle making posts.
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She’s going to engage a graphic artist to create the banner for the page.
Again, Cheron is not trying to build Rome by herself.
If you can’t afford to hire the people you need, then get creative. Try bartering. Find a college kid who needs a project for school credit. Try forming a small group of business owners who support each other.
Do anything other than try to do everything by yourself because running a small business with no team is a recipe for failure.
The Cooking Show
These are the episodes that Cheron worked with Park Road Studios to create in week 1.
Business Development Day
Working with a team and recording in batch on her weekly business development day is how Cheron will be able to consistently execute her video marketing campaign.
Your business development day is the day you work on your business and not in it, as Michael Gerber teaches in The E-Myth.
Cheron is still in the kitchen cooking on her business development day, but she’s not cooking to service an existing client, she’s cooking to attract the future clients she needs to grow her business.
This is how Cheron is taking control of her situation and creating her own success. Cheron is not waiting for the Food Network to discover her. Instead of waiting and hoping for a chance to stand on someone else’s stage, Cheron has created her own cooking show and she’s presenting it to the world herself.
You can do the same.
Social media allows you to showcase your business to the world for free.
Yes, you have to do the work. But 20 years ago, it didn't matter how hard you were willing to work, there was no way for you to get in front of the whole world anytime you wanted.
Now, you can.
This Case Study Is For You, The Small Business Owner
The small business community has been ravaged by the covid pandemic.
Many small businesses have closed permanently because of the pandemic and many others are hanging on by a thread.
Promises of support from corporate America have been empty. It’s clear that no one is going to save us, but us.
So with this case study, I invite you to follow along and learn as Park Road Studios helps Cheron implement a video marketing campaign to adapt Rx Catering to the new landscape that we all must learn how to be profitable in.
Please don’t just watch and learn, but watch, learn, and apply.
No matter what kind of business you have, you can use video marketing to make your company more visible so you can reach more people, help more people, and grow your revenue in the process.
Check back in a week and see what kind of progress Cheron has made. And make sure you’ve made some progress by then, too.
