How To Add Client Revenue With Live Streaming Services

[00:00:00] Stephanie Liu: Hey everyone.

Welcome to the show. So listen. 85% of consumers want to see more videos from brands. Did you, did you hear that? 85% of consumers want to see more videos from brands and most consumers want more videos from brands just like you. The problem is 67% of viewers say video quality is the most important factor when watching a livestream.

In fact more than 50% of live streaming viewers leave a low quality stream in 90 seconds or less. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine that? That means now more than ever brands can and should leverage the power of live video, but they simply can’t afford to mess up. That’s where you and your agency come in.

Welcome back to Agency Accelerated where we explore ways to grow and scale your agency with some of the most trusted brands in the industry. We’re live Wednesdays this quarter at 2:00 PM Eastern time. 11:00 AM Pacific time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. So make sure. That’s right. Make sure you head on over to agorapulse.com/calendar and subscribe.

So you don’t miss any of this seasons episodes. Cause let me tell you it’s been amazing, jam packed, power packed with all the things. So hey everyone. I’m Stephanie Liu and I’m here with my good friend, Katie Fawkes. In today’s episode, we’re talking about an extremely lucrative and specialized service so you can add to your agency that will absolutely help you bring in more clients as well as drive more revenue from the clients you may already have.

So stay until the very end, because you’ll get a chance to get your hands on yet another way to add more revenue to your marketing agency. So I want to give a quick shout out to our live audience. Thank you so much for being here. So the whole entire crew absolutely love seeing you. We’re going to learn so much today.

So grab your notebooks, all the things, because we’re going to go ahead and get started. So listen, let me ask you a question. If you had more revenue coming into your agency from a more diverse set of clients, how would that impact your business? Think about that. More revenue coming into your agency from a diverse set of clients.

And not only that though, but delivering a services, absolutely so much fun. How would that impact your business? All right, let’s go ahead and bring on today’s guest.

We’re like besties. I absolutely love her. So Katie Fawkes is the Director of Marketing at eCamm Network, where she gets to work alongside some of the most amazing live streamers and content creators out there. She helps them reach their goals and grow their business using video marketing and live streaming.

She’s been working in the world of marketing for her entire career. And the coolest thing about her is that she keeps backyard chickens and yesterday they got swings.

[00:03:31] Katie Fawkes: They did, they did, it was my birthday, but they got us swing. So it will be an exciting.

[00:03:37] Stephanie Liu: So do chickens smile? Do they express emotions?

[00:03:42] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, I mean, so who likely they’re going to be terrified of it and not go anywhere near it and it’ll be an epic fail, but it will make for fun videos, fun Tiktoks and Instagram Reels.

It basically just hangs and they can perch on it and if they move a little bit, it’ll start to swing. So we’ll see.

[00:04:01] Stephanie Liu: I am waiting for this tech talk video and all the different things. I’m waiting for your TikTok channel of chickens to blow up.

[00:04:08] Katie Fawkes: We’ll see. We’ll see. I feel like my will just stand around kind of staring at it, being like, what is

[00:04:16] Stephanie Liu: that?

That’s adorable. I can’t wait to see that. So Katie, welcome to Agency Accelerated. I am beyond excited to have you here. So the first question that I have for you today is can you start off with sharing more about who Ecamm is and what they offer?

[00:04:34] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, absolutely. So if you haven’t heard of us yet, it is so great to meet you.

Please reach out to me during the show, after the show, anytime at all. You can find me really easily. All things Ecamm E C A M M on all the different channels or email me directly at katie@ecamm.com. Because you are going to want to learn more about this app. We make a powerful live streaming and video production software called Ecamm Live.

It helps you live stream, like what we’re doing right now, but it also helps you create better video. And it’s something that many of us, whether you are an agency, a business owner, an individual, we all struggle with, we all want to be better at. Ecamm Live makes it really easy and really fully customizable so that you can start really simply and scale up to whatever level your heart desires.

We are here to help you throughout the entire journey.

[00:05:32] Stephanie Liu: And Ecamm has been absolutely amazing. I remember the first time I discovered it. Gosh, when, when did I first meet Ken and Glenn? It was probably 2016. I was still wrapping my brain around OBS, which you know, I like to call the Ikea of live streaming.

You’re just like, whoop, here you go. Now, add in all your different things. And the first time I saw that video from our good friend, Leslie Samuel, and it just has reaction videos. And then it’s the magic of it. And ever since then, Ecamm, the community, the support and all the different levels of innovation that you’ve had over the past couple of years has just been exciting.

And now, now we have this lucrative offering that we’re able to offer clients for live streaming. So, so much fun, so much fun. Yeah.

[00:06:25] Katie Fawkes: It’s really critical. I think when the app first started, I think it’s been about four years ago now, the concept is really like, how can we help people go live easily?

Live streaming was becoming really popular more and more people, you know, businesses were starting to jump into that space. And so the app at that point was just really simple. It was literally just helped you to go live on Facebook, YouTube, I think Twitter at the time or Periscope as it was called at that point.

Really kind of geared towards just simplicity, helping you to get out there. And then this just amazing community of customers and live streamers and video producers just started spraying it around us and the ideas just started flowing and now Ecamm Live really is an entire production studio.

So, you know, you want to connect a better camera. You got it. We’re here to help. Multiple cameras? No problem. Microphones? Yep. You want to plan everything in advance. You want to bring on guests. You want to send everything out through Zoom. It can help you from start to finish. Really, the mass majority of the features that we have are just from amazing creators sharing their videos like Leslie did back when you saw it and just being like, this is amazing.

Can it do this?

[00:07:39] Stephanie Liu: Oh my gosh. Yeah. The fact that you can drag and drop assets? I was like, wait a second. You’re just saying that I can take this lower third graphic that I created in Keynote or Canva or Easil and just boop. And it’s there and everyone can see it. Oh my gosh. I’ll probably have to like go into the vault and see like my very first video.

[00:08:00] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I feel like the biggest challenge and probably what many of you watching are facing is certainly what, what I faced before I joined the Ecamm team is that video production, especially for businesses by and large is, has been costly. It’s costly to produce it.

You need to have a video team on site. You need to worry about the script and equipment and gear, and it’s a huge investment both of your time and what you need to learn. And so I think livestreaming made that a lot easier, but there’s still a lot of kind of fear and lingering concerns from kind of that original process.

And a lot of people who are wondering, how they can get into that. And so I would challenge you with what Stephanie said at the top of the show is that it’s an amazing opportunity for agencies. If you can make this feel easy, approachable, if you can turn it into a program, something that a business can rinse and repeat in it, and it’s generating a ton of amazing content and engaging their customers.

You’re a winning, not just in helping them to create amazing live streams, but helping them build an entire content marketing machine that’s centered around video. And that’s where the future is. So cool opportunities right now. It’s really easy for you to jump in and get started.

[00:09:25] Stephanie Liu: Totally agree. I think everyone that is now embracing a video for a strategy live streaming is one of the best ways to go about that. And not only that though, but I find myself because it has also the guest interview feature and functionality, I don’t even use Zoom, because I would rather just put them into here and then be able to share all the different things with them. Cause then once they get used to the studio, then it’s like, you’re planting the seed of all the different things that are possible. And it gets really exciting.

[00:09:57] Katie Fawkes: Yeah. And it’s funny that you say that because, and we were talking about this before we jumped on live, but I had been still been using Zoom, mainly because Ecamm was at the time missing a couple of tiny features that Zoom was helping me out with.

And we just released those into our beta group. So they are coming soon. You know, the next little bit here.

[00:10:26] Stephanie Liu: I know I was like I need to make sure that the beta group is at the top of my newsfeed, because again, it’s like Christmas when I hop on with you and I’m like, what? I kinda missed that. Wait, let’s go.

Let’s go ahead.

[00:10:43] Katie Fawkes: So those features, just so that everyone knows some of the things that were kind of slowing me down and keeping me on Zoom for, client calls and trainings and all the things that we do on a regular basis was that Ecamm has, what’s called a back channel audio.

When you are rolling a video clip or you’re live, or you’re just chatting on Ecamm without being live or recording a video, you can open up kind of an audio discussion behind the scenes with something else that’s going on. But we didn’t have text chat. So it made it a little tricky. If you were like, I want a BRB, I’m just gonna run to the washroom or, something else that you needed just to be able to say, or like, hey, hey Stephanie, there’s a weird cat behind you watching.

So now that is a feature,within Ecamm. It’s right now in the beta testing group, but it’ll be rolling out to the entire app wide, platform wide, shortly. And then the other one that’s really exciting, particularly for agencies is now our entire guest studio. So whether you run a show or you’re using it for calls, it’s completely brandable.

So you can add logo, you can change the links, you can do a whole bunch of really amazing things. So that, that experience on your customers and your clients, and is just fully white labeled. You’re able to do absolutely anything you need to do. So I think that’ll make it really great particularly for selling into some of your clients or, you know, in your case today, running a show like this.

When I entered the backend of this guest suite, we’ll just be like, oh, Agorapulse Agency Accelerated, which just,

[00:12:27] Stephanie Liu: Is the white labeling piece, is that still in beta or is that rolled out officially?

[00:12:31] Katie Fawkes: Both of those are still in beta. So we’re testing them right now. Beta is open to anyone so you can come help us test and play around with it. Suggest things that you might want changed or tweaked.

This is the kind of fun time where we’re taking a lot of feedback in here and how it’s working for everyone. But usually our test periods are not crazy long. So if it’s already into beta testing, it means it should be coming out soon for

everyone.

[00:12:53] Stephanie Liu: Exciting. Exciting. Cool. So, Katie, here’s the next question for you is how easy is it to bring on or add remote live production services to an agency?

[00:13:05] Katie Fawkes: It’s easier than you think. I think many of us, as I said earlier, kind of have this preconceived notion in our heads about how complicated or cumbersome or expensive a live streaming and video production is. It really comes down to having a really smooth process and having specific team members who can get up and running quickly. Prep process your organization and internal team members, because the complicated part of it isn’t actually the live streaming or the video creation. That’s significantly easier than it ever used to be. The complicated part is getting people feeling comfortable, creating a process and a system and a strategy that’s going to work. So you want to be able to build out that service in a way that your team knows how to sell it in and flow through it and make our clients feel really comfortable and supported and in a way that clients are going to understand, because it is a newer service and newer technology. And you want to make sure that you’re really selling in the value of it, which I think goes beyond just live streaming and into all of the ability of repurposing and, you know, and building out entire content, video content marketing structure, that’s going to feed your marketing.

Right. So, and I know you’ve done this a ton, Stephanie, in the past, and even now. Really kind of thinking through the big picture. So if your agency is already doing social ads or anything in the social marketing space, which I would hope and assume that you all are. Live video plays into that so beautifully. You can turn video clips into ads.

You can really kind of create this full circle experience for customers, which I think is really fantastic.

[00:14:57] Stephanie Liu: Love it. I love it. It’s definitely been a wonderful journey as far as live streaming, because to your point. What I’ve done now, I’ve shifted as an agency. And this is for those of you that are looking to try something different.

These days I’ll have like a VIP day with clients where we’ll map out their whole entire content strategy and all the different topics that they could talk about, services and theories, and all the different things. And then we’ll do a done-in-a-day filming. Right. So done in a day of filming and it, we use Ecamm. We film all the different things.

And then at that point it’s like, here are all your raw files. It already has like the overlays and whatnot. But if now you want to go ahead and repurpose it, then you can either send it out to a video editor or just have our team repurpose that for you. Because you’re a social media agency, you’re also knowledgeable as far as like how to schedule that content out.

And now you have content that continuously goes out in perpetuity. So it’s equally exciting.

[00:15:59] Katie Fawkes: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really smart. I mean, I think tools like Ecamm makes it again easy for lack of a better word where, every live stream you do, we’re saving a recording of that directly onto your computer.

We’re saving all of your scenes and all the different elements that go into that video. You can have your team creating for your clients. And then it’s just a matter of either sending out that entire production to your client and having them run it or you’re driving it for them.

And then when you’re done a live video, you’re done. You have that video recording. You can edit that or repurpose that in a number of different ways. And again, yeah, that could be a service that you offer or a partner that you work alongside that’s going to handle all the video editing.

But it is amazingly comforting as a client to say like, okay, you know, we did this thing once, or we have a consistent schedule set up and you know, that’s our entire social. Done. All of our posts and our ads are just like updated from that from that one investment, from that one experience, which is really reassuring and helps to build up that level of confidence as well in your clients.

[00:17:09] Stephanie Liu: I love all of those benefits. And even the fact that when you’re recording, let’s say remote live video recording, just recording, not even going live, you can record in different formats, like different shapes and sizes and also different quality levels. And so these are some of the benefits that you wouldn’t have in other conferencing platforms, right?

Where the quality is degraded and you don’t have control over the audio and all the different things. That’s what’s awesome about Ecamm. So, Katie, what are your thoughts or what have you seen as far as agencies pitching their services for like live streaming in general?

[00:17:52] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, it’s becoming a lot more common.

I think we’ve seen a really big shift in our customers and our members moving from, you know, last year they were jumping on board and starting up their own shows and their own podcasts and really just building and generating a ton of videos. Now we’re seeing a ton of our members who are just incredibly proficient in it.

They now have huge studios. They have a really great understanding of all of the different gear and the elements that go into running a regular live show. And so now the next logical kind of step on that journey is for them to say, now we want to be able to offer this as a service. We want to set myself up as a remote live producer, being able to help empower other businesses to be as successful as the success that they’ve seen from just getting up and starting themselves.

So I think it’s just sort of becoming kind of the next step on a natural progression is that when you get that level of comfort and you see the benefits of how your business can grow in the community that you can build through live video. And again, the, the being able to kind of build out your entire calendar that way, and really thinking through all the different use cases for video content, it makes it really easy to kind of see yourself moving into that next step of how can I take this out and be able to offer this as a service?

And again, I know we’re talking right now specifically about agencies, but I think that’s becoming a more popular role in the world of video production. People are really thinking through like how they can become remote live producers. So it’s a great time to be able to train a couple of staff members on your team to be remote live producers, to be able to have that comfort level, understand all of the nuances of scheduling and gear and setting up a studio and helping guests and the clients feel comfortable on camera is just going to be a really amazing way to build out your services.

[00:19:55] Stephanie Liu: I agree. I remember there were some times like when agencies had first started and they would have their regular disciplines as far as like PR, creative and then you had paid media and social media was one of those things that would be.

It was kind of shared between PR right. PR would also do PR and also social media. And then social media eventually evolved where it became its own discipline. And so now what we’re seeing in the industry is that there’s social media folks that are now also dipping their toes into live streaming. And my prediction, which let me tell you, majority of my predictions are coming true.

Let me just say that. And so my prediction is, is that now these agencies are going to start bringing live streaming in-house. There’s going to be a dedicated role. Your creative director is going to be creative director for all of your advertisements and all the different things, your branding designs and all that other stuff.

But you’re going to have an executive producer. You’re going to have an executive producer. You’re going to end up having like a technical producer in all the different things. And it’s not going to be as cumbersome as before, where clients used to have to hire a video marketing agency only, because I’m also still seeing a disconnect with video marketing agencies only where they have all the fancy gear and all the different things, and they know how to edit and production, but they’re still relatively new to live streaming.

And so they’re using these bigger brand names for live streaming and they’re charging their clients an arm and a leg. In fact, Katie, I like, I almost lost my mind that a client of mine had reached out and says, yes, we’re doing an event. It’s going to be pre-recorded video and it’s costing us five figures to play prerecorded video live on this platform. Like, are you kidding me? First of all, these live streaming platforms, let you upload pre-recorded video and play them as live for free. So what, like what is happening here? And so I think agencies in general have to be very mindful of what’s happening in this arena and all the different things that are happening.

So having said that, yeah.

[00:22:09] Katie Fawkes: I think it’s going to be interesting. Cause I think like you said, sort of social was always kind of like sitting, like you said, kind of nestled under the world of PR and now it’s not, and it really will, in many cases be the conduit between video and just all other services because as you think about it, that is how people are going to consume your video for the most part. Hopefully it’s also sitting on your website or you have an event platform or something else that, that you’re using as a client, but by and large people are going to discover your video, whether it’s live or recorded on YouTube, on Facebook and a Facebook group, on Twitch, on Amazon Live and on all these other different platforms.

And it really does have that social connection, that social element. I think we’re all getting to be really careful when we think about pricing it and explaining it and how it fits into a package because it is not the same as regular video production. It is significantly cheaper and easier.

It really is very intertwined with social media and with kind of that social experience. And so I do, I think it’s going to be really important to keep an eye on and really likely for a bit, it’s probably gonna sit under social media.

[00:23:37] Stephanie Liu: I definitely agree. Goodness. Oh my God. I love this topic.

Obviously. I love live streaming. I love Katie. So hey everyone, if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking about adding additional streams of revenue to your agency as a remote live producer and why it’s important. But first, a quick reminder and bonus for all of you. This show’s brought to you by Agorapulse, voted the number one social media management tool by customers on the planet’s top review sites.

And if you’re looking for yet another way to increase and diversify your agency’s revenue streams, Agorapulse has a free webinar to help you do exactly that. So head on over to Bitly forward slash ad agency revenue to sign up, learn and start driving more revenue from social media services. So this is really exciting for me, Katie, because it’s not just only live streaming on the other platforms, but also you could have these event productions on conferences and on summits and even like annual shareholder meetings and all the different things. It makes it so exciting to see all of that come into play.

[00:24:56] Katie Fawkes: Cool. Yeah. I think if you’re strategic, you can really think about all of the different ways that businesses are communicating internally and externally and 99% of that these days, especially is through video.

So, really thinking through how you can take some of that pressure off of them and make that experience much more engaging and professional and fun. I think people are tired of sitting on Zoom calls where it’s just droning on and on for hours at a time. I think there are fun elements that you can bring in to that.

And there are a ton of tools and ways to make experience wherever it’s being broadcast to, or whether or not it’s a video, a pre-recorded video or a live video, you can help your clients make that experience really memorable and really engaging. And that’s the point of it. Like if people aren’t paying attention, aren’t listening, it’s not worth it.

It’s not worth doing so if you can find ways to make it easier for them to add that level of professionalism and that level of engagement. That’s really, really huge. And I think it just comes down to really thinking through what you’re best at what your team is best at and how you can build out those services even if it’s a little bit slowly. Start with just a few basic services and test it out and see how it goes with some of your clients that really could benefit from it most and then grow it as you get better. And it’s more come up, but don’t leave it sitting there.

[00:26:33] Stephanie Liu: You’re sitting on a content gold mine.

Yeah. So for those of you tuning in, I mean, we’re talking about remote live production, what it really means and where it’s evolving to. Right. It’s more than just pushing the buttons to go live. I can’t tell you, Katie has ever like, yeah. We’re just, you know, we’re just going to connect them.

We’re going to go live. I’m like, but there’s so much more that you can do.

All right. And so how can using a tool? I don’t even want to call it a tool. How does using a production studio, like Ecamm help and what kinds of production elements can an agency plan for in advance?

[00:27:20] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, a lot. Almost everything can be planned out in advance. So Ecamm actually uses a feature we call scenes and that helps you to think through the flow or what we call the run of show of your content.

So, it’s a really great starting point and it’s a perfect space for agencies to be able to make that process really easy for clients. You’re like the first scene is going to be an intro video where we’re going to talk about like what the content is and plug a little bit about the business.

And then the second scene is going to just be a camera shot. Like what we’re seeing right now with maybe a branded frame or some kind of branded element around it. The third scene, we’re going to be rolling a video clip, talking about an amazing new product or service the businesses offering.

You can build all of those out in advance with all of the elements, your video clips that you’re rolling, all of the logo and cool graphics, your titles, what we call lower thirds, any animations, GIFs, literally anything you want. Build those into the scenes so that when it comes time to actually going live, it literally is as easy as pushing a button.

You’re literally just going next. Excellent.

[00:28:43] Stephanie Liu: Because once you have all the scene set up, like this is my stream deck, right. And I just pushed the different buttons. And yes, to your point, as far as like what an agency can do when you’re developing the run of show is yes, you can have the storyboard, but now you’re also helping your clients understand that if they want their show sponsored, how can they put in bumper videos?

How can they package up what their content series is going to be their virtual summit or all the different things on how to really get sponsors excited about it? Because it’s more than just, here’s a graphic, right. But if they could send you like a 15 second clip of how amazing their product is, then you put it into the run of show.

And now your client’s looking at you like, hey agency, you know your stuff, you know. That’s what makes it so exciting?

[00:29:32] Katie Fawkes: Well, what’s awesome about it is like shhh don’t tell them, but literally drag and drop that video. It’s not hard, but it gives that level of confidence to someone on the other end.

Like if someone has to hand you an entire produced show and all you need to do is open up the app, hit the go live button and then literally hit the next button. You could have a stream deck like Stephanie is using, or you could just hit the keyboard down button and it will go from one scene to the next.

And you’re able to make sure that all of the content that you want in that episode, in that piece of content, in that video is being featured. Also, it makes it really easy for things like presentations. I have always been that person where if I have to speak on a stage in a video, I’m like an over planner, I’m freaking out.

I’m like, why did I sign up for this? I’m not a good speaker. I’m like having breakdowns. Having it in Ecamm has made it just a joy because I don’t have to be worried about my notes or a teleprompter, anything. I have all of those little elements, those, you know, fun GIFs and little video clips and fun things that come flying on to screen.

And they’re all visual reminders of what I need to say next. It’s like, this little graphic comes on screen and is like a person freaking out. And I’m like, now I need to talk about how I’m scared of video. I see the graphic has come on screen. It really does. All of that level of confidence and it’s just a matter of, it’s just an outline.

It’s just an outline of the show that you’ve built visually in advance and sent over to a client or sent over to your team member, who’s just going to be driving the show. It can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be. You can have someone there behind the scenes really running the show, like the amazing Mike Alton is doing for you today.

But you could also just pass off a lot of scenes to a client who is more capable, but just needs that level of confidence, flowing through the show for them. And then, you know, then they’re able to replicate it and look fantastic. And at the end of that, they’re going to want to do it more regularly.

You know, they’ll get all of the credit and joy and revenue that comes from really nailing it and for looking amazing.

[00:31:59] Stephanie Liu: Yeah, absolutely. When we talk about live streaming in general, there’s always that feeling from clients where like, oh, well, anything can go wrong with a live stream.

Right. And so PS, by the way, live streaming is improv. Let’s be honest, live streaming is improv. And that’s actually what makes it so exciting, right? Because it’s not always about perfection. It’s about connection. God it’s about connection, but let’s still talk about what kinds of troubleshooting steps or backup plans that an agency can have in place to help their clients.

[00:32:39] Katie Fawkes: Yeah. You and I have talked about this all a lot, and I think I’ve learned a lot of tips from even doing these kinds of interviews. It is amazing to me, how much more professional and supportive you as an agency are going to look when you have a backup plan. Better yet have two or three, have them written up in advance, have them available for everyone.

Have it include all of the point, people that are there to answer questions if and when something goes wrong, but really there’s only going to be a few things to keep an eye out for that are really awful, and most of them are going to come down to video quality and camera issues, audio quality, and microphone issues and internet quality and everything self down.

Right. So thinking through, what is the backup plan? If a camera goes down and fails, do you have a backup camera? Have you trained a team member who is onsite, how to use and set up a backup camera? Do you know, does the host or the person who is onscreen, know what to do, what will happen if the camera turns itself off, battery dies, you know, all the different things that could happen.

Same thing for microphone and audio sounds. Same thing for internet connection. Do you have a backup connection? Are you wired in, or are you using wifi there? There are a ton of different tools available, but making sure everyone knows the plan and you’ve done a sound check, video check, all of those kinds of tests and check-ins with everyone involved in the team in advance.

And that could even be 15 minutes before you go live. Totally fine. As long as everyone knows what happens, if something goes wrong. The cool thing about it is that people for the most part will put up with a lot. Like you said, that they really expect to be authentic. They’re not, they know that you are live.

They know that things happen here and there. So don’t be afraid to calmly laugh it off a little bit, and walk through what the steps are to get it back up and running again. Your video goes down. No worries. People are going to remember that. Making sure that you don’t just like panic and turn everything off and think that it’s a complete failure is as important to have on a plan and in your troubleshooting process. Knowing how to reconnect a different camera. How you respond is really important, no matter what the environment is. No matter how important that video is to you or to your client, knowing how you can get through any of those blips or any of those issues without panicking or looking really upset about it. Like panic of what happened and how do I fix this? Try to avoid that.

[00:35:29] Stephanie Liu: It’s so funny. I was a speaker for an event and something was happening on the backend for the remote producer that they have and being a remote producer myself, like you could just know instantaneously like the physiology, but like the dead giveaway was like, he was not breathing. I was like, what’s happening?

How can I help you? Because what you’re doing is actually the topic that I’m covering, you know? And like, I have so much love for other producers. In fact, Jeff See, who’s in the comments right now. He’s saying that backup plans are key. Great point. And saved his bacon many times. Yeah. Have backups on backups.

I’ve even had like an extra scene where I’m just like, hey, someone forgot to feed the hamsters. So give us like a couple of minutes or something. Even when you’re having an event, just have a bumper video just to have a bumper video or a behind the scenes video or something as you figure it out and work it out.

Yeah.

[00:36:33] Katie Fawkes: Of all of those things, obviously, internet is the most important. If the internet is going crazy, that’s going to be bad. Next is actually audio. So I feel like most people will immediately think that your camera is the most important in your video coming in, but people without a camera can still hear you and can still engage with the content.

So be more important for your microphone and your audio to be great. Then your video, if you’re prioritizing them in your troubleshooting checklist, but having one and having a standard that you can give to all clients at the beginning of the process that says, Hey, this is live video. Things can go wrong, but we have a plan.

In fact, we have multiple plans and we’re going to walk you through how all of it is going to work. And we’re here to have your back. If anything goes down and here is exactly the steps that we’re going to take, just helps build that level of professionalism and makes you a partner. That client is always going to want to work with and always going to want to recommend.

[00:37:30] Stephanie Liu: I agree.

I love it. And I was just showing off my wireless Rode microphone. Cause this has been essential for when clients tell me like, oh, I’m going to a conference. I’m like, Hey, did you know that you could do on the spot interviews? And this thing will connect to a mic wand, I guess you could say.

And then you could have like a little cat on top of it, but it makes the audio quality so much fun. I love this. I love it. So, hey everyone, what we’re going to cover next is it’s going to tie in everything that we just discussed together and make it super simple for you as an agency to get started. But first I definitely want to go ahead and give a quick shout out to the crew.

We’ve got Deb Mitchell, Troy McDonald, who is sharing this live to his audience. Absolutely appreciate you. And yes, Cynthia, there will be a recording available. So if you’re not able to hang out now, then go ahead and come through and you can always watch the replay. Oh, we have something that says I love the Rode Go II Wireless Mic. Yeah. One of my good friends, Kelly Noble Mirabella was showing it on a recent video and she has like the white one. I think she had, she held up four on camera and I was cracking up because Katie’s right. You need to have backups on backups. And let me tell you when last year, when it was very, very difficult, remember Katie, when it was very difficult to get a webcam and all the different things. Clients emailed me.

Yeah, clients were like, can I rent your Logitech? And I was like, yes, it’s right here. It’s the Brio 4K. And then now it’s a part of my onboarding process for clients where when you work with our agency, you get an onboarding kit that comes complete with your own camera and all the different things, because we know that quality is important.

A couple of ideas for you Agency Accelerated folks out there. So, Katie, here’s another question for you. For agencies in when we’re getting started and when they’re getting started, right? What are some resources? What are the needs or the costs that’s going to be involved in adding remote live video production or remote video recording into their agency services?

[00:39:35] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, absolutely. So you’re going to need to think through who are the team members that you are going to need to train? So are you going to bring on some remote live producers or additional team members that will be specialized in this? Or do you need to train your existing team members and what are the costs associated with that?

There are certainly costs associated with the gear that you want to have. Whether you’re building a kind of a live streaming or video studio space within your building that you can have as kind of a home base or you’re putting together kits, like Stephanie said, either your team members are bringing on the go or you’re sending to clients.

Gear can be quite expensive and it’s probably the most expensive of all of the things that you will need to have a really professional setup. Obviously, computers and things to run it on. And then, you know, a software like Ecamm Live, that’s going to help you power all of it. Ecamm’s probably one of the cheapest things.

[00:40:32] Stephanie Liu: Completely agree, completely agree. I was on a consulting call. This is between you, me the wifi and Agency Accelerated, but I was talking to this event organizer and they were entertaining the idea of using a different platform, which I won’t name. But my thing is that if you ever go to a website and they don’t tell you what the price is, you have to sign up for a demo.

I’m thinking that it’s probably going to be higher than what Ecamm is, which I think the Pro Plan is like39 bucks a month?

[00:41:12] Katie Fawkes: Yeah. So yeah, and we have a standard plan, the pro plan and we have monthly and annual pricing. At most, I think it comes to 400 ish a year, at the highest level.

So it’s not a crazy expense, especially compared to some of the other different things that you’re likely subscribing to and paying for to run your business. But I will say, the power of Ecamm does rest in all of the customization and everything that you’re able to do with it in order to be as professional and as on-brand as possible.

And so you don’t want to do something like sign up for Ecamm, get just one camera and a light and a microphone and be like, we’re good. We have live streaming services. You are going to want to invest in the gear and the equipment that is going to make the software, help you to shine and help your clients to shine.

So, and that’s going to vary for each client and it’s going to vary for the size of your agency and what you’re trying to accomplish. So really having the right software and the right gear and equipment is going to matter. And making sure that members on your team are really well-trained in it.

The biggest question we get 24/7 is what kind of camera should I buy? What kind of lights should I buy? How do I set up? So, and it is very specific to each use case. So having team members that really understand that is going to put you at ahead of a lot of your competition. Because that level of comfort that you can bring to a client that you know your stuff and you’re going to make them feel great is huge.

So that’s going to be time consuming and likely kind of the most expensive thing you need to consider to get the right equipment for you and for your clients.

[00:42:59] Stephanie Liu: Very true. And again, shout out to Jesse. Who’s saying that the customization part of Ecamm is what really separates you from everything else, especially the competition.

And so like, even when you were talking about gear, so I have so many stories about this. But again, I had another client where this was when we still had in-person events and they were already going to have a video production crew to film the event. Yes. Well, because when you’re having an event, you would have the PowerPoint presentations and so you would have all the videos and all that.

Right. And so the client had asked, well, how much would it cost to actually live stream this? And again, it was like a five figure quote that they received. And so I’m sitting there, as the consultant managing the social media, I was like friends, I have this. It’s like, I have a cam link.

All I need from the video production team is an HDMI cable, right? Yes. And the audio, it will feed into my like 2014 Macbook Air, plug it into each, give me some bumper videos because when everyone’s eating at the gala, you want to and they literally. It was kinda like, who is this? Who is this Macbook Air person sitting in our production services area?

And I was like, but look, but let me tell you, I know that you’ve captured everyone’s attention here. 800 people into the ballroom, but I’ve got over 5,000 viewers. So, when you have the right gear, that’s what separates you. And so, yes, combining Ecamm with everything else is absolutely helpful.

And so Cecilia, Cecilia is asking us, Katie, what makes a company an agency? And I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:44:57] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, that’s a really great question. I feel like it’s probably shifting a lot in the environment that we’re in right now. I think traditionally an agency is made up of a series of experts, typically in marketing related services that are helping clients from multiple industries shine and get their business out there in front of customers and potential customers. But these days that could be as small as one person and as large as you can imagine. And I think, all different kinds of services being offered now, that traditionally were never, you know, never a thing.

I think a lot of it was advertising, and PR. We’re kind of the two cornerstones initially, but come a long way in different kinds of services.

[00:45:48] Stephanie Liu: You could chunk down so easily. So, so Cecilia, the show is Agency Accelerated, right? Because it’s sponsored by Agorapulse, which is social media, but a social media agency in and of itself.

Right. If you were only a social media agency, you would be focusing things like content marketing, advertising, such as like paid media. And content creation, repurposing, all those different things in growing channels and growing communities, but even a social media agency in and of itself used to be part of a creative agency and the creative agency could have PR and all the different things and digital marketing, and then social media was under that umbrella. And so when we think of Agency Accelerated, yes, it’s for social media folks and all the different things. And what we’re talking about is adding live streaming as an additional service onto it.

And then yeah. Then now we have live streaming agencies, right? Because there are different departments now that are in charge of the technical producer, the overlays project management, possibly, maybe even sponsorship, that’s included. And then you have the content marketing team, which all could be under one house.

Yeah. And if there’s anything that we learned from Showrunners Secrets, the project that you and I worked on is that there are resources in relationships and in the Ecamm community, there are so many talented producers and creatives that you can have be a part of what it is that you’re building.

[00:47:21] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, I think there’s so many different, great minds and ways to, whether it’s permanently or temporarily build out your business, you’re able to, okay, well, we’re working on this amazing project.

I’m going to choose from these six different people who are experts in all of these different categories to bring onto our team, to help make this project shine. And, you know, and that in itself is like kind of agency, I suppose it would be. Yeah.

[00:47:49] Stephanie Liu: I mean, honestly, coming from like a social media agency background too, there are times where we would win the pitch. Right. And if there was a discipline that we didn’t have, well, then we would just bring another team on board and they would be under our umbrella. And so, it’s normal to do that. There just has to be someone that is the lead that’s in charge that has a process new flow for it.

And there needs to be someone that needs to be the main communicator with the client, because as you, and I know there’s some people that get lost in the details and try to make things super duper complicated when it’s like, you know what all we need is just

[00:48:27] Katie Fawkes: Please help us with these five things. Yeah.

[00:48:32] Stephanie Liu: Comment from Cecilia. And she’s saying, it sounds clear. So agencies can be in various disciplines. I’m rebuilding my publishing company, but have become inspired to call it a publishing agency. Yeah. Cecilia, absolutely. Go and do that. And out of the publishing agency, You’ve done publishing too, right?

That was in your background.

[00:48:51] Katie Fawkes: Yeah. I worked as a marketing manager in cookbooks.

[00:48:57] Stephanie Liu: My first live streaming project was a cookbook for a client. And so Cecilia, if you think about this as a publishing agency, now, this is an opportunity for you to add into your agency, the services of live streaming for your clients, because I know when we launched our book, the editor wanted to know how are you going to promote the book?

And so if you could saylike you’re bringing your client on to be a guest on other shows just like this, right now they’re doing a virtual publicity tour and all the different things. I remember reaching out to you. I was like, Hey, we’re having our book launch. What are your, and you had told me about like the bookmarks and all the different things.

[00:49:33] Katie Fawkes: Yeah, I think, I mean, when I was doing it, this was like pre live streaming days. The kind of key thing in a virtual book tour was the idea of doing a blog tour. So it was like you, your author was like the guest voice contributing to all these different blog articles on all blogs that were in my case, in the world of cooking and food blogs and all things food.

But now that that is all been replaced with video and live streaming. People want to be able to see one of our Ecamm Live members who actually was one of my authors back when I worked in publishing and is now like one of my favorite people in the world of live streaming, Kathy Hester is like an amazing home chef.

I own all of her books. I would have owned them regardless of whether or not I worked on them, but she’s been doing video for a while. And she was like, right as I was leaving that job, she was already leading the way for the notion of doing like a virtual video book to our being able to bring people up on stage and ask questions and really create the same kind of interactivity and excitement that used to happen in person in bookstores across the country or across the world, and now happens right in their homes. She’s inviting people right into her kitchen to cook with her, and that’s such a fun, interesting, exciting experience. And yeah, we can certainly facilitate that off.

A lot of authors don’t know how to do that. And a lot of publishing companies.

[00:51:03] Stephanie Liu: Turn it into a live shopping experience for these authors. And then not only that though, but there’s so many content creators or producers that we have in the community where they’re doing Amazon Live. Do they sell books on Amazon Live?

They sure do. So this is an opportunity for authors to be on those Amazon Live shows. Or if you want to produce your own channel, then that’s going to really going to be exciting. Cecilia is coming in on the comments again. Let me go and pull this up. You’re getting the idea. I’m telling you when you hang out with us, oh, my gosh, really? Like we are a force to be reckoned with. So you’re saying, so I was instinctively on the right path because that was part of my upsell vision for my publishing clients. Yeah. Cecilia. There’s so much that you can do. Give them the coaching, tell them all the different things. If they’re being interviewed on other shows, how to show up and look amazing on camera. Katie, if there’s anything else that you wanted to say about Ecamm.

What would it be? What would you want them to know? Especially Cecelia?

[00:52:15] Katie Fawkes: All I really ever want to say to everyone watching when it comes to Ecamm is that we really are a company that cares. We really want to help you be good at business. So if you’re sitting here in the chat and watching us, whether it’s live or on replay, and you’re like, ah, I know, it could be valuable, but I just don’t know how to go about this.

Or I just don’t know anything about cameras or, I’m just a little bit overwhelmed. We are here. We are live everyday. I think at this time, between anyone on our team. Doc does a live stream, I think, multiple times a day, these days. Right, right. And we have tons of resources.

We have an amazing Facebook group. We have over 17,000 people in that group. They are the most supportive, helpful video geeks, enthusiasts across every possible industry. So you are not alone. It is easier than you think. It is more profitable than you think. And just the opportunity to jump into this space before it gets as crowded and as crazy as it’s going to get is huge. So please take, please take the chance, even if you never used Ecamm. Come and hang out with a whole community to get inspired and learn from other people. It really will make a difference just seeing what others are able to create and ideas that they are bringing to life is just astounding.

[00:53:39] Stephanie Liu: Love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So that’s all that we have today folks. And remember, subscribe to the calendar at agorapulse.com/calendar the rest of the season. Katie, go ahead and bring her back on. Katie. You were absolutely amazing. Thank you so, so, so, so much. Friends, honestly, if you have any questions about Ecamm or production services, like literally all the things.

Feel free to reach out to Katie. Connect with her. What’s the best place? Would it be like LinkedIn or just in the group or what works best for you?

[00:54:15] Katie Fawkes: I’m all over the place. The easiest way to directly reach me is just to email katie@ecamm.com, but you can find me in the community, all over every social platform.

So either my name, which is F A W K E S is my last name. So I’m fairly easy to find or any of the channels that you Ecamm has. I’m happy to answer questions.

[00:54:37] Stephanie Liu: Love it love it. Love it, love it. All right. So, as I said before, that’s all that we have today. Folks, you are more than welcome to add agency accelerated to your calendar, because like I’m telling you week after week, we are bringing on some of the brightest minds to really help you level up your agency.

And so you can see with our amazing calendar, all the different things that we have coming up. In fact, next week on September 8th, it’s going to be with Microsoft Advertisting and on September 22nd with Square 11. And in the coming weeks, we’ll start to share more about what next season is going to look like. So if you’ve been following along like week after, week after week, if you’re like Stephanie, I would love to learn how to accelerate my agency by learning about X, Y, and Z. Who can you connect us with? And all the different things by all means, drop them in the chat. Let us know what ideas you’re thinking about. I’m also even thinking Cecilia, like let’s touch upon like the publishing industry and all the different things and how you can partner with agencies for that. Also here’s another note is to take advantage, take advantage of our free webinar on how to add agency revenue by adding social media services at bitly.com/adagencyrevenue. I’m telling you so much good stuff for you to learn, to walk away with, to build your agency and really scale.

So everyone thank you so much. See you next week and take care.