The first step to creating an awesome content system is organizing it; you want to create a system that makes it easy to constantly create new quality content, and before starting you need to have your technical inputs ready:

First, we need to understand there are two video formats you can use depending on the type of video you'll create, the types are; explaning a property or property tour video or explaning of concepts inisde the office:

This is the typical video where the camera is going around the property, showcasing its most appealing scenarios. There are two ways of doing it: the first one is a property tour with someone explaining each space inside the property, basically like a guided tour. The second one, which would appeal to most architects, is a camera tour with beautiful scenes where there is a narrator in the background, and at some instances, you showcase the narrator who is talking about the property.

This is what it looks like:

This is a video where you are directly speaking to the camera and its focused on the character in the video on his desk or office explaining the concepts of the video.

This is what it looks like:

Keep in mind there is no “better” type of video to use, each has its own use cases, and when you combine them both you get the best content because you keep your videos dinamic and appealing to your audience.

Now that we understand the two video formats you are going to be using let’s go over the gear that you will be using to record the videos:

We do not recommend this option if the camera of your phone is not good, video quality will play a big role in the success of the videos.

You will also need to add a microphone to the equation if you want your videos to be very high quality, trust me, this is going to be a big differentiator in the quality of your videos, some options would be:

Perfect, with one of these software plus the camera and microphone you are ready to produce high-quality videos, the next step would be:

Now that you have everything you need, you are going to start thinking about the content you want to create and validating it, the key question I ask myself here is: what problem does my ideal client have? And I work backward from it.

For example, if I am an architectural firm with my niche being restaurant design, one key question would be: New design trends for restaurants {{my town}}, this is a question that speaks to your ideal customer and you would be there to solve it, so you work from the end backward.

The steps to identify some subjects you can create your content around would be the following:

Once you do this, actually go into the searches, and see what other people are creating, this would allow you to get ideas and see what is working based on the views and engagement on the videos.

You can get a copy of this resource we’ve created for you by clicking on this link:

And the last step of your setup would be to check your website to see where people are landing after watching your videos and what information they collect from your site.

There are key components to have on your website that would allow you to connect better with possible referrals and people who are looking for your services and those are:

Let me explain to you how you should have each one:

This is one of the most important pieces of content on your website, this should be located on your home screen preferably on the top parts of the site.

The goal of this video is to connect with the people who are watching the video and engage with them in a way that they like you, trust you, and feel comfortable buying from your company.

In this video, you can talk about your brand’s history, case studies of projects you’ve done in the past, and why you are the most qualified to do these jobs, or you can also explain concepts and the philosophy of your company.

The structure of the video should be the following:

Once you finish this VSL you will add it to your website.

In the sections below you would add as many testimonials and as many case studies as you can, you can pick your favorite ones and add them there.

The goal with this is to show people what you’ve done in the past, your experience, and your expertise, this would increase their trust in your company, and they would believe that you are the right option for them.

Over time you will add more and more case study videos from the ones you create for your content strategy, 4 months from now you will have plenty of compelling videos your audience can see and relate to.

When people land on your website, they have all sorts of questions that they’d like to have immediate answers to.

One powerful strategy is to create

This content would serve the purpose of educating your audience, which would cause them to be more engaged with your company and would see you as the solution to their needs, they would trust you more and you would become the go-to guy for them.

In the end, the website should look something like this:

Change of section

Continue with any other information you’d like to add and also have a good strong footer.

After this first section, you are ready to start creating your content, you have the gear and software you are going to use, you have a list of subjects you are going to be creating content of and you also modified your website to engage with as many people as possible.

When doing the research on the topics you would be producing your content about you have to keep in mind that you have to hook the attention of people, get them to consume your content, and make it so valuable that you actually reward them for looking into your content.

For this, you have to know what angles the videos are going to have and also what to do to captivate and retain people’s attention.

There are 2 main types of videos you can create; case studies and explainer videos, the volume should be distributed as follows:

The reason that the videos are distributed this way is that your explainer videos help solve problems of your ideal clients or reply to questions they have, they are more top-of-funnel videos, which means videos directed to people who don’t know anything about you.

Another reason is that with explainer videos you can cover a wider variety of topics and get more eyeballs to your videos.

People don’t need to see many of your case study videos to be convinced you are the right option for them, if you do many case study videos together, you may fall short of case studies to show, and we want to have a constant stream of both types of videos to keep the content fresh.

Case study videos must be in the screen recording format, that way you can show images and explain your past projects better.

Note: I’ll explain to you the structure of both types of videos on point 4.

Now that you know the two types of videos you should produce and the proportions, let's look at how you can come up with topics/hooks for your videos.

Hooks are the reason why people feel compelled to check out your content, it is the reason they click on your videos and start paying attention to you.

The more a person resonates with what you are going to talk about in the video the more likeliness they have of watching it, and if you hit a common pain point your ideal clients have, you would be able to see how they would start engaging with your content until they contact you.

The hooks would be reflected in the topics of your videos, the best way I’ve found to categorize them is far past, recent past, present, trending, and manufactured.

These are going to be your sources of inspiration to produce the case study videos and the explainer videos, let me explain each one:

There are two parts to how to engage as many people as you possibly can and convert them into your audience: the strategy and the tactics.

The strategy would be the macro action plan, which is to post great content, lead with value, and step into your ideal client's shoes to solve the questions they have.

The tactics are going to be all the individual actions we are going to be doing that would help your content perform better.

Let me explain both:

We’ve already covered the methodology we’ll be using to create valuable content that your ideal client wants to know more about.

This is going to be the whole purpose of what you are creating, provide value to people, give, give, give, give until they ask. You are going to become the go-to company and the authority in your niche.

Now, from this valuable content you are going to create you would be able to distribute a lot of value to your ideal clients, this would lead to more referrals, more cold clients, and more businesses, let me give you some ideas on how you can use and distribute this valuable content, thought we are going to be touching more on that on further steps:

And the list goes on and on…

You get the strategy here, we are going to lead with value and help as many people as we can, this would earn you people’s trust and convert people into engaged prospects.

Let’s speak about tactics now:

The tactics are going to be all those individual steps you would be making that would help us complete the strategy. These are things like what headlines to use, what copy to write, and how to edit your video thumbnails.

Let me explain the headlines and the thumbnails here:

A headline is a short phrase or sentence used to capture people's attention, the most common examples are the names of YouTube videos or the first sentence of an Instagram post, they are designed to give you a little preview of what the content is going to be about, and the goal is to spark enough curiosity to get a person looking.

There are certain principles you can use to create your headlines, try to use at least 2 on the headlines you create, they go as follows:

Your thumbnails and video titles are the second most important part of your video, here is a list for you to create a good thumbnail in 7 steps:

Now it’s time to see how to actually sketch and create scripts for the content you're going to create, I’ll explain to you three of the most important things you should keep in mind whenever you are creating the scripts of your videos and posts.

Remember we have 2 types of videos we are going to be creating, case study videos and explainer videos, also, both types of videos would have different structures and regardless of the angles and hooks you are going to use for the videos, the best way I’ve found to structure them is the following:

The way you should structure your case study videos is the following:

Explainer videos can have the following structure:

This is by no means a rigid structure; you can vary it and modify it based on what you think would work best and what you think is the most logical way to explain the topic you want to go over.

The goal is to give as much value as possible.

This is a key element, the start is one of the most important parts of your videos, it would determine if people keep watching, or if they quickly hit the next button.

Recent data shows that 65% of people will watch a video for up to 10 seconds based on the first three seconds they saw, and 45% of the audience will watch it to the end based on the same opening.

Based on this, the first seconds of the video are key to retaining the attention and getting people to watch until the end.

So, how do we retain people?

One of the best ways I’ve found to retain attention is curiosity, this is one of the main drivers that make people stick around until the end and pay attention, so they do not miss any valuable information.

There are three ways to keep this curiosity going on your videos: lists, steps, and stories.

Lists are things, facts, tips, opinions, ideas, etc. presented one after the other.

Examples would be 5 new trending kitchen designs, 7 ways to know you have the right architect, and the 3 best areas to buy a home in Brooklyn in 2023.

They keep people curious about the explanation of each point on the list, and if you give them a lot of value, people are going to like every point you present.

Steps are actions that when completed would lead people to accomplish their goal, if the steps are clear and valuable that person would want to know more to achieve their overall goal.

Steps are actions that occur in order and accomplish a goal when completed. If the early steps were clear and valuable, the person will want to know how to do them all to accomplish the overall goal.

Some examples would be 11 steps to designing your dream home, 5 steps to choosing the best custom home builder for you, and 5 steps to design the patio of your dreams.

Stories describe events, real or imaginary. And stories worth telling often have some lesson or takeaway for the listener. You can tell stories about things that have happened, might happen, or will never happen. All three drive curiosity because people want to know what happens next.

You can tell stories of your past experiences, in the form of case studies or some experiences lived in the past, this would keep people curious and would also create a bigger connection with your audience.

I believe consistency is one of the keys to success with any strategy, and I think we have to make things simple and followable to commit to the strategy and make it easy for us to execute it.

This step is going to focus exactly on that; if you can make it simple for you to always be creating new content and you can organize things in a way that is not a headache to create new content every time, and you don’t have to overthink it, you are going to be able to stick with the strategy.

So, we are going to make it easy and create a smooth process that would allow you to compound over time, and think about it, after 4 months you would have already built so much trust and content that it’s going to be easier for people to buy from you.

The way to make this, is to plan your content ahead of time and have a content schedule, that way you only have to dedicate 2-3 hours per month to researching the topics you would talk about and 1-2 hours per week recording and distributing the content across your platforms.

Plus, when something is already in our calendar it is much easier to stick with it and get it done.

So, the first step of the content schedule is to plan ahead of time, I usually like to plan 1 month ahead and have production ready for 2 weeks, so I always have that buffer time if I’m extra busy one week.

And then you create a content schedule…

A content schedule is basically a place where you schedule all the content you are going to post over a month when you are going to post it, and on which platform.

This looks something like this.

You can see here your main focus is the 4 long-format videos every month, we also have posted for your Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn feeds, and you have all the stories to post as well.

The goal is to organize everything and know when you are going to post each image or video and on which platform.

That way you have everything set up ahead of time and you can follow your schedule accordingly to always be creating new content for your audience.

If you follow this and you set aside time in your calendar to follow this, I can guarantee you that it’s going to be a lot easier to stick to the strategy and you will have everything organized which would lead to more productivity and less stress to produce all this content.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s going to be important to set aside 2 – 3 hours per week to record and produce your content, during these times you would be investigating the topics, making the presentations, and recording the videos.

And I wanted to also share with you some things and tools for you to have whenever you are producing your content.

As mentioned earlier, you do not have to follow a rigid script, you want to be talking and expressing yourself as you normally would in a conversation with a client or a new prospect, the key is to act naturally and to reflect your personality on the videos.

Now, having mentioned that, it’s important for you to have a mental structure of how you want to direct your conversation, the best way to do this is to have bullet points you are going to be talking about on the video, they would help to guide you and keep you on top of the subject you are talking about while also making it faster to record.

What you do need to plan out very well is the opener of the video, those first 10 seconds are going to be crucial to catch people’s attention, so give that part a thought and plan it very well.

There are some things to keep in mind at the moment of recording that would help you record faster and also have a more compelling video:

One thing to keep in mind is that you do not have to get everything perfect the first time, if you make a mistake when you are talking on the video just keep going or repeat yourself, it is going to be easy to edit and cut the parts of the video you didn’t like.

There is no need to start all over again if you made a mistake…

Make sure to have good lighting for your videos, that would make them look better and brighter, helping to captivate people's attention.

If you have a source of light, try that it comes to your face and that you are not backlighting it, let me show you an example:

You can check this video that explains it in more depth by clicking on this link:

Always try to use one of the microphone options I listed above, this is going to help you have a great quality of audio, and this is going to directly impact the perceived quality of your videos.

One thing to keep in mind is to make sure you set up the gain of your microphone properly (this is how much noise your mic is taking in), you can make some tests before you start the actual video just to see if it is on the right gain.

This varies from one microphone to another but the way to find out how to configure it is very intuitive. (just make sure that when you are talking, the bar that illustrates the gain does not turn from green to red)

If you are not using a mic, try to be in a quiet space where you don’t have a lot of background noise as this noise would lower the perceived quality of your video.

The background is an important part of your videos, it is how you show “your brand” to people and people do make assumptions based on your background.

You do not need to have anything fancy but organizing a cool space has some benefits as people are going to perceive you and your brand differently when you have a cool background.

Try to add things like plants, books, pictures, and wallpapers, these would help you have a better-looking background that would look more professional on your videos.

You can check out some other ideas in this article: https://www.decorilla.com/online-decorating/home-office-background-ideas/

When thinking about writing your video and having a place to record keep in mind:

At this point, you already have your videos and you’ve already planned where you are going to post them, distributing your message across different platforms would increase the power of your message as different people would be able to hear it in different places and different moments.

The key concept here is to have one core message and show it in different ways across different platforms, but the core idea is still the same…

So, you have the center of your content loop, which is your main idea, with this you create different posts on platforms that support long content: YouTube, Facebook, blog posts…

And then you cut some of the pieces of the long-form content and distribute it on the platforms that allow short-form content, let me give you a visual explanation:

This way you always have plenty of content to distribute and it becomes a lot easier to be present on different platforms, you just have to adjust to the nature of the distribution channel and that’s it.

When I started looking at it from this perspective it became easier to produce more and more content.

There are two approaches to deciding what platforms to focus on, there is the width-then-depth approach and there is the depth-then-width approach.

I personally prefer the width-then-depth approach because you are focusing on using these mechanisms to engage with your possible referrals, and also reach as many people as possible while maximizing your efforts, let me explain.

In this approach, you are going to create one long format of content and then from that piece of content take little snippets you can distribute across different platforms.

For example, you make a long YouTube video and from that, you create 3 reels for Instagram, 4 stories, and 4 Instagram feed posts. Then you go ahead and post that content across as many channels as you can without making incredible efforts to tailor your message for each platform.

This would help you reach a broader audience faster and have more efficiency while maintaining your message.

In this approach, you are going to try to dominate one platform and then when you have enough leverage you try to move to another one.

For example, you only post YouTube videos and until you become one of the most recognized YouTubers for architectural design you don’t post anything else on another platform, but once you dominate you continue with LinkedIn, and you keep that cycle going.

I personally don’t like this strategy because it constrains you in the number of people you can reach, and you also have the risk of only being reliant on one platform to spread your message.

As explained above, all your posts would be coming from your long content format, and if you’d like to quantify what would be a good amount to post it would look like the following:

One of the key goals of creating this content strategy is to get more referrals, this is a vital point of your plan to always be fresh on the minds of past and new clients when they think about recommending who to work with.

You are already leading with value and what you created is content that others are going to find helpful and are going to want to share with their friends.

Now, if you want to use all this content you are creating to get more referrals and have a system to constantly acquire new clients you can check up the 8-step warm audience referral system we created for you…

But let me give you a brief explanation of what I do with all this content:

You know you have valuable content and people are going to find it interesting, you have plenty of ways of sharing these guides and tutorials with people, so let me give you some here:

Make sure all of your past clients are following on your social media and are also following your YouTube channel, kindly ask people to do so, these are people who already have goodwill towards you, and this would help you a lot.

Then follow all the steps above and post the content across your networks, keep building that relationship and people will start referring you.

You have to be ready for whenever people refer you, one of the most common things people are going to do is to share your contact number and your Instagram profile, you should have uploaded everything on these two, plus:

People like to work with winners and share winners; whenever you are not ready for a new client that would look your company up, and believe me, even if you are being referred, they are going to look at everything about you, then you would lose a lot of opportunities and people would buy from the ready person.

I think this is very important to outline and is one of the pieces many people leave behind and do not pay enough attention to; you have to guide people on what to do next, and you should have an easy process that people can follow for them to connect with you and be able to have a consultation or get a proposal from you.

This means all of your videos and all of your content should lead people into a funnel that looks like this:

In order to achieve this, you should follow these steps:

Having your videos ranked higher and have more views is a consequence of following all the steps explained above.

For all platforms, it is very important:

Now, some tactics that would help you rank higher are the following: