Sam Olmsted
to say thanks for joining us, which is kind of the end of our initial intro. And then we’ll just hop right into it. I’ll say thanks for joining us. How are you? Feel free to say something, and we’ll just say let’s get into it. OK. Everyone feel ready? Thanks for joining us, Devon. Wow, I messed up. Two seconds in. OK. One, two, three. Thanks for joining us, Devon. How are you?
Devyn Bellamy
I am doing pretty good, how about you?
Sam Olmsted
We’re doing great. All right, well, let’s dive right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your role at HubSpot, and the connection they have with video marketing?
Devyn Bellamy
Sure. My name is Devyn Bellamy. I have been a HubSpotter for a little over a year now. I work in Partner Enablement. My title is Senior Marketing Manager. I have a history in broadcasting. So before I went full time with marketing, I actually ran a radio station. I’ve had to do a lot of video production in the past with a lot of my jobs. And
It is kind of the cornerstone of what I’m doing here at HubSpot.
Sam Olmsted
Very cool. So what do you do? What’s your main day to day look like?
Devyn Bellamy
Well, my department’s, my team’s job is to help partners grow better. And that’s to help them help customers grow better, use HubSpot better, service, sell HubSpot, and grow their organizations. And so what I do is use video marketing, not only as a promotional tool, but also as an educational tool. Right now our big thing that we are launching in the partner program is accreditation.
And so that is to help partners differentiate themselves and get endorsed by HubSpot to show that they are experts in their field. And one of the ways that we’re generating excitement in the partner ecosystem is by doing some pretty cool videos.
Meara McNitt
The videos that you’re producing, are they being like professionally produced or are they kind of like DIY in-house?
Devyn Bellamy
So I guess you could say both. I do them all, but I’m a professional. So yeah. Yeah, like the users, I’m assuming, the listeners can’t see me right now, but I am on a Canon M50 that has its own little setup that I’m running right now.
Sam Olmsted
Makes sense.
Devyn Bellamy
And I have a green screen in my office. Actually, I have a studio in my office and lights and we do all of our editing in Premiere and the motion graphics and After Effects. And so it’s pretty nifty stuff. It doesn’t necessarily have to have that level of technical capability behind it, but it helps definitely getting people engaged.
Meara McNitt
Yeah. When you are producing these videos, do you, like, are they only going out in a certain area or are you sending them out across like many different platforms?
Devyn Bellamy
They are going on a number of different platforms depending on where we’re trying to reach our partners. We have a few different communities that our partners exist within. And so we make sure that the videos that we’re putting out are the best for that platform. So we’ll upload directly to LinkedIn. We’ve used Wistia for our own native platforms and also for Slack. And I’ve uploaded videos directly to Facebook. The important thing is that we’re…
Sam Olmsted
Thank you.
Devyn Bellamy
getting everything up with captions and clean thumbnails and making sure everything that we’re putting up is accessible across all channels.
Meara McNitt
Of course, yeah, definitely captions make a difference. Not even just in, like you said, like the accessibility as well as the getting people to watch it aspect. So my follow-up question to that is if you’re putting out content on different channels, are you specifically creating unique content for those channels or are you cutting up the same footage?
Devyn Bellamy
Absolutely.
Sam Olmsted
Jordan, do you want to restart? Do you want to pick up where we left off? Okay.
Meara McNitt
That’s such a good point. I’ll be right back.
Sam Olmsted
No, I’m just kidding.
Sam Olmsted
weird because he uses Riverside.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah, I saw that.
Devyn Bellamy
Well that was fun.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy
Yeah, I’m on a loan or HubSpot computer. It’s nowhere near as exciting as the one that I regularly use.
Sam Olmsted
Did it. Do your other one break?
Devyn Bellamy
Yeah, the keyboard just stopped working out of nowhere and so I had to send it in to get repaired and I’m dealing with this thing So Jordan, do you know where I happen to have cut off?
Sam Olmsted
Oh man.
Sam Olmsted
Sorry about that. It’s frustrating to do it.
Devyn Bellamy
Doggy.
Devyn Bellamy
Okay.
Sam Olmsted
Devyn, do you have any animals?
Devyn Bellamy
No, no our dog he passed away unfortunately a few months ago So now it’s just children running around and destroying the house
Meara McNitt
Thank you.
Sam Olmsted
Here’s my dog. Okay, mirror’s back.
Sam Olmsted
Hehehe
Meara McNitt
All right, so Jordan, should we start over?
Sam Olmsted
Do you remember the question?
Meara McNitt
Yeah, so basically I’m wondering, when you’re recording different content for, let me rephrase that. What I’m wondering is, if you’re putting out your content on multiple different platforms, are you capturing it uniquely as to what that platform needs, or are you just going to record one set of content and then in post make it platform appropriate?
Devyn Bellamy
That is an excellent question and I do it in post. What I’m doing is I shoot in 4K and then what I can do is just punch in to me if I want to do like a vertical video for TikTok or something. But right now, every platform that I’ve been uploading to is 16 by nine and so I’m not worried about other aspect ratios. I’m not doing the one-to-one on.
Instagram, but I do have the capability and I keep that top of mind for what I am producing. But a lot of the stuff that I’ve been putting out lately has a lot of motion graphics into it. It’s almost kind of like a sports center layout. And so the 16 by 9 does work the best. But also when creating just think about platforms and whatnot and where they’re going to as far as
the thumbnails are important. That’s one thing people don’t think about is that you can get dinged on a thumbnail on Facebook by having too much text on it. And so just keeping those things top of mind.
Meara McNitt
Is there anything that you think really, sorry Sam.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, dear. Ha ha.
Meara McNitt
Is there anything that you really think really stands out or you found really successful in the thumbnail?
Devyn Bellamy
Excitement, always the more excitement, bright colors, something that’s gonna stop the scroll. Anything that you’re creating, you wanna stop the scroll and make it jump out. And so like just lots of just excitement, enthusiasm, and the, oh, I’m so happy about this thing I’m talking about. You definitely wanna stop and click on this video, right? But yeah, just things that are engaging and not just a still.
Something that is usually like Photoshop that has something more to it.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It kind of goes into my next question. You said you worked doing a lot of educational content, as well as video marketing to entice people to do an action. Are those processes different to create those types of videos? And could you just walk us through what those differences may be?
Devyn Bellamy
Sure, so for educational content, we haven’t released any of it yet, but the educational content is pretty, kind of an informal video, and so it’s just like you’re just sitting and talking to the audience and having a conversation. The marketing style videos are a lot more, I,
Devyn Bellamy
I almost described it as cartoonish and with the number of cuts and the level of excitement in the movement in the video, I have a habit of showing my videos to my children. And if it can keep them engaged, even though the subject manager has nothing to do with them, then I know I have a pretty good marketing piece that will keep the average user engaged.
Devyn Bellamy
And just a quick time out here, I know my video is frozen, but it’s still recording the audio and uploading that.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah, that makes sense to me. Meir, do you want to ask the next question? I’ll drop it here.
Meara McNitt
Sorry, I was trying to figure out how to unmute myself. You know, when it comes to the rise and fall of trends in video, which ones do you think are here to stay? Uh-oh, do we still have you? Oh, okay.
Devyn Bellamy
That was intentional. Yeah, I just yeah, we’re good.
Meara McNitt
Okay, cool. So when it comes to the rise and fall of trends in video, are there any that you think are just trends that people need to stop putting focus into versus things that people should actually try to put into their strategy?
Devyn Bellamy
Um, the big trend right now in has been for like past at least a year is people talking to themselves. Uh, that is starting to oversaturate, uh, as people learn how to do jump cuts and having conversations with themselves, different characters. It’s been around for a few years. Uh, Ryan George has gotten famous on it, uh, by doing pitch meetings. And there are just a lot of people who.
Are doing the talking to themselves video. I think that’s on the way out but as far as what people should be doing is creative editing and Multi-camera conversations and just basically back to basics when it comes to video creations the simple things like not staying on a single shot for over seven seconds and just basically what
Movies and television have trained us to look for those are the kinds of things That we should continue leaning into and little things like frame rates depending on the content that you’re doing That is that’s a big one too. People don’t think about 24 plus versus 30 versus 60 and it’s like if you’re not doing Sports I wouldn’t be filming in 60. I would be shooting in 30
Preferably for me, I always shoot in 24p, just because it just makes the brain think cinema and think higher production value. But that’s just my personal thing is, long as you’re staying consistent and lighting yourself decently, those are things just to think about.
Meara McNitt
note of lighting, do you have any tips or hacks for anyone who might be producing their video content on a lower budget?
Devyn Bellamy
Oh, absolutely. Stop by Home Depot. What you want to do is you want to get one of those clamp lights. And there are these like, they’re metal clamp lights, you can use them as key lights, you can get a desk lamp, like the kind with a articulating head that moves around, point that at you, you could use that. There are a lot of different unique options on how to like yourself.
It’s not so much about the lights you’re using, but about where you’re putting the lights and the temperature.
Sam Olmsted
Yeah, I’ve got a desk lamp at home that flips up. And so I use that when I’m working from home. And it has different brightness and colors on it. So you can kind of change the temperature of it. Sometimes I’m feeling ice blue, and sometimes I’m feeling warm. So you can switch it up pretty easily. So you talked a little bit about this in terms of.
Devyn Bellamy
Color temperature? Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy
Absolutely, yeah.
Sam Olmsted
how companies can create video content that stands out from the competition. But do you think that there are specific things that people can do, let’s say, if they are in different industries that can really help them in terms of video marketing? So for example, would you recommend different styles and different types of videos for someone who may be in the software industry, which
particularly difficult to show value in with a video versus, let’s say, a product industry.
Devyn Bellamy
Well, the things that you have to make, you have to keep in mind when creating any sort of content, be it video, written, whatever, is that everything is sexy to somebody. And even if it is content that you wouldn’t traditionally think that you put out there and people are flocking to it, it’s fine, it’s not for everyone to flock to, it’s for the people who are gonna nerd about that.
that one little thing, and especially if you’re speaking to their pain points, and then making jokes that they get around that particular product that makes them feel like, oh yeah, we’re part of this thing. We’re in this thing together. You get it. Then that is how you create engaging content. And then there’s like little other things like, you know, be a performer. Don’t just talk at the screen. Don’t be a lecturer. Don’t be a professor. Have fun.
Um, it should be, you know, entertaining, uh, as well as informative. I know some content is really, really dry, but even if you’re delivering that content with energy and enthusiasm, it will bring life into the driest of subjects.
Meara McNitt
I cannot tell you how often I come across people trying to create content and you can tell that they are, they’re just reading a screen and they were forced to be here and this really wasn’t what they wanted to do. How, maybe it’s a day where you don’t want to be recording content, how do you still bring that energy or like make up that energy so that you do have the attractive video?
Devyn Bellamy
Whatever gets you hyped up if it’s you know putting on music at a time You know jump around jump a jacks dance a little whatever gets you excited and hype the important thing is that you? Enjoy what you’re doing you have fun with it, but the thing is that even though You might be the subject matter expert you might not necessarily be the best person to make the video
There might be someone else who needs to be on camera who can just be the face of whatever message it is that you’re trying to get across. There are quite a few companies who create educational content where the person on screen is not a subject matter expert. At HubSpot, our HubSpot professors are subject matter experts in what it is that they’re speaking on, but they’re also really good on camera.
Some of these people are like, you can tell they were theater kids because they’re just absolutely nailing it. And so find somebody who can have fun with it and it’ll be an education opportunity for you both.
Meara McNitt
that you brought up that you can tell they were a theater kid, because I was going to ask, did you have a performance background before you got into production?
Devyn Bellamy
Oh, absolutely. Um, I started out, um, it behind the scenes is a tech and I was, uh, I was the audio guy in high school and then, um, my junior and senior year, I ended up on stage and just fell in love with it. And so that is where I learned public speaking was on stage and then, um, taking that, you know, that.
high school musical theater energy, and then eventually getting into radio and broadcasting, but still relying on the things that you learn in high school, like enunciation and speaking to the back of the room. And it’s just all those things really help out when it comes to being on camera. And so if you’re looking for someone else in your organization, ask, hey, were any of you guys in high school theater?
And that can start a very interesting conversation. You’d be surprised who comes off really well on camera.
Sam Olmsted
We’ve got a few high school musical theater folks at our company. I don’t think Meara and I are either, or any of them. Are you Meara? Okay.
Meara McNitt
I was very much a theater kid. The only problem was that I couldn’t dance, so I never got cast well in the musicals except my sophomore year we did Footloose. And I was cast as the character who is a bad dancer. And the theater director was like, this is your time to shine. That’s about the best I ever did.
Sam Olmsted
Hehehe
Devyn Bellamy
Hahaha!
Sam Olmsted
casting.
Devyn Bellamy
Do you have a favorite musical?
Sam Olmsted
Um
Meara McNitt
Oh my gosh. I actually love Jersey Boys. I saw it for the first time in Vegas and then I saw it on tour and I’ve seen the movie a million times. And I think it’s just because I love Frankie Valli. And so I’m a Jukebox musical kind of girl.
Devyn Bellamy
Hmm.
Sam Olmsted
What about you, Jovan?
Devyn Bellamy
I’m all about West Side Story. That West Side Story is an absolute classic. It is like to me the gold standard when it comes to musicals and just, you know, adaptations of Shakespeare. And I could talk about West Side Story all day, the polyrhythmic stuff that they do. It’s just an excellent, excellent show.
Meara McNitt
What did you feel about the new movie version of it?
Devyn Bellamy
Um, that the people who did it were insanely talented, like, like scary talented. I remember I was watching some when they were doing their press junket and I saw the lady who played Maria, um, just started singing on a talk show. And it was like, Whoa, you’re like really, really talented. And I just
I was very impressed with it. I was a fan. There were some scenes that were in the original that they cut out of this new version, understandably. But all in all, I enjoyed it.
Meara McNitt
I was a sucker for the cinematography. It was beautifully done. And I feel like we don’t see that as often these days, just like the spectacular cinematography, especially in a musical. I feel like a lot of people kind of just like push it out there, rely on the music to get it going and not as…
Devyn Bellamy
Yes, yes.
Sam Olmsted
If they cut it up and put it on TikTok, I’ll watch it. It’ll take me a few weeks, but I’ll get through it. I think my attention spans about 60 seconds these days because of TikTok.
Devyn Bellamy
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Meara McNitt
You know what? That’s actually a great point, Sam. How, Devon, how do you make sure that you’re making videos that are short enough to hold someone’s attention but long enough to get the important information out?
Devyn Bellamy
Well, that really ties into your question earlier about platforms. So depending on how I’m trying to get the information out and whether or not I have a captive audience really dictates how I produce. So for instance, if this is for our partner ecosystem and I know our partner is gonna watch it and I know it’s something that they’re gonna be excited about, I can get a little bit
in more in depth and more nerdy and about whatever it is that we’re talking about. If it’s just a straight marketing piece, then I might need to create the videos and think about my overall marketing strategy with these marketing pieces. Do I need to do a 15 second pre-roll or interstitial on YouTube and then create a 30 seconds that’s retargeting the people who watch the full pre-roll interstitial?
Basically, just gear the content for people on their level of engagement, I should say. That’s one thing to think about when it comes to length. And next thing is like, how much do people care about it? How excited are people going to be about what it is that I’m saying? And keeping in mind that the sweet spot on YouTube…
YouTube loves that 10 to 13 minute video. And if you’re going to produce something for a marketing standpoint that’s educational, that’s the kind of length that the algorithm loves. And so how do you stay consistent and produce a narrative that makes the video that long, that it’ll keep people engaged?
Sam Olmsted
That was a great answer. I’ve got a question about TikTok. I’m sure you’re producing a lot of videos that are phone first. We work with a lot of people. I do a lot of sales and new business development who are curious about TikTok, but they may not have a budget to hire an agency to do it. Do you think it’s more important to be posting frequently from that specific company’s account, something that’s a little more authentic, but maybe…
just not really well done? Or do you think it would make more sense for them to have an outside partner who can come in and work with them on helping set everything up? And that’s a genuine question. I’m not trying to ask about getting us new business.
Devyn Bellamy
You don’t, no, I definitely get it where you come from there. The thing is that you don’t wanna put out bad content. You want to look like a million bucks. One of the biggest things when I was coming up in sales was if you want to be a successful salesperson, you have to look like a successful salesperson. You have to look like a million bucks in everything you’re doing. And so if you’re putting out,
poorly produced content, they’re going to think that you are a poor company who can’t afford to do good stuff. And regardless of how good the content is, you’re not going to want to watch that. I mean, how often do you watch B-movies like authentically looking for, oh man, this movie’s going to be good. No, you want something schlocky and hokey that you’re going to laugh at. That’s not what you want your company to be producing. You don’t want to be producing B-movie style things. And like, just don’t.
You’re better off not doing it than putting out something bad. If you’re going to, if you see an opportunity for video production to be an impactful lead generator or demand generator, you need to work with somebody who’s good at it. Don’t try to kick out subpar content yourself because it’s going to work against you.
Meara McNitt
All right, so we have time for one more question, and I want to make this a big hitter. If someone were to walk away from listening to this episode remembering only one thing, I know we’ve talked a lot about a lot today. It could be one of the things we talked about, might be something we haven’t even touched on yet. What one thing do you want someone to remember from this?
Devyn Bellamy
Um, something that I actually haven’t said, your phone is way more powerful than you think, and it doesn’t take much in the way of upgrades to turn your phone into a high value, uh, production, uh, piece it’s your phones, uh, especially if your phone has come out in the last two years, the, um, the codex on it, the lenses on it, the things that your phone is capable of producing.
are amazing. The things that you can do with third-party apps on your phone are amazing and it’s like my biggest video was shot on green screen with my phone because I didn’t have my M50 with me And so I just shot it with my phone and it looked crispy Gorgeous because I lit it correctly. It’s like don’t shoot with a potato you can
but don’t think that you need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and lights in order to get everything perfect. Literally years with Home Depot lights and using scrim that I got on eBay as a diffuser to make the shadows not be harsh. I mean, you can get the job done, it’s just about putting your best foot forward and doing it. And don’t be afraid to practice. Make content that will never see the light of day.
If you are gung-ho on learning how to do this on your own, just do it and keep practicing and show it to your friends and family and eventually you’ll not suck.
Meara McNitt
Yeah, the whole time you’re talking about the frames per second that you’re using or the definition that you’re using, I’m like, yeah, my phone does all of that. So anyone who’s thinking like, I want to shoot in 4K, literally the like four most recent models of iPhone do that.
Devyn Bellamy
Yeah, yeah, I have a below average Android Galaxy. Like I’m two generations behind and it’s not even the high end galaxies and I shoot in 4K. And so, and I’m shooting in 4K 24P, the thing is looking crispy, like full on cinematic videos of my kids running through pumpkin patches, looking like I’m just out of.
the next Kubrick film or something. You can do so many things with the device in your pocket. The limit is your creativity and imagination and how well you like the damn thing.
Meara McNitt
Love it.
Sam Olmsted
Absolutely. Well, I think that’s gonna wrap us up. Devyn, I really, really appreciate it. Sorry, speaking of lighting, my lighting’s gotten funky with the sun here, so just trying to… It’s, I don’t know what to do. We were shooting this in our studio for a while, but the studio doesn’t quite make sense with multiple people in and out, so, you know, whatever. I gotta, yeah.
Devyn Bellamy
Oh, I’ve been noticing. I’ve been watching the sun crawl up your shirt.
Devyn Bellamy
Ha ha ha!
Devyn Bellamy
Well, it can if you use the right mic. Like the whole reason why you can’t hear my kids screaming right now is because I’m using the Rode 2, the Go Wireless on my shirt. And so you can’t hear anything that’s going on in my house right now.
Sam Olmsted
Last thing I should have done is complained about tech to you because you got me covered. OK, perfect. Well, the last question we’ll have is basically, where can we find you? And is there anything you want to tell us about before you head out? So we’ll ask that, and then we’ll wrap it up. So sure, I’ll just say it.
Devyn Bellamy
haha
Devyn Bellamy
Sure.
Sam Olmsted
All right, Devon, thank you so much. Before we wrap up, is there anywhere people can find you online? Is there anything you’d like to promote while you’re here?
Devyn Bellamy
Um, yeah, I am online. Devyn Bellamy, uh, on LinkedIn. I’m easy to find. Uh, you can Google me. Um, you know, I pretty much cornered my name, uh, my son, Devyn Jr. He’s going to have a hard time growing up, uh, getting out of my shadow digitally, but, uh, hopefully he accepts the challenge. And, uh, if you’re ever curious about HubSpot marketing in general, you can always tune in to a podcast that I’m host of, uh, the hub heroes. You can go to the.
HubHeroes.com. It’s me, George B. Thomas and Max Cohen nerding out about the flywheel.
Meara McNitt
Amazing.
Sam Olmsted
Well, thank you so much. Yeah, that’s great.
