B2B marketers understand the value of establishing thought leadership in the marketplace. Sales cycles are long, and prospective customers often conduct hours of awareness research to understand the people and products that can help solve their business problems. That’s why it’s critical that your company’s thought leaders have visibility in the marketplace.

A talking-head video is a great way to introduce your experts to your prospective customers. The format allows your thought leaders to share their insight and expertise in a candid and authentic style.

Why? Talking-head videos offer a more human and personable experience than most types of digital content. And let’s face it, as competitively positioned your product may be, it’s often the talented people behind your products and services that tip the scale in your favor.

Taking the talking head to the next level

In a previous Tendo View post, I touched on a few evergreen video production tips that will make your talking-head videos more engaging. Here are some ideas on how you can evolve the talking-head video and make the most out of your production budget.

1. Create one narrative with multiple voices

When planning a talking-head video, you may discover that several experts in your organization can speak to the topic you plan to explore. Or perhaps your goal is to present a team of experts who share a singular area of expertise.

In either case, consider shooting separate interviews with each expert and then editing their commentary into one narrative. Weaving together multiple perspectives is an elegant and efficient way to convey the depth and breadth of expertise in your organization. And it gives you more variety of compelling material to work with as you edit the video.

Here’s a multi-perspective talking-head video we produced for Blackboard:

2. Edit primary and “cut-down” versions of your video

Another big benefit to producing a multi-perspective talking-head video is that you can better monetize your production costs. Whether you shoot one interview or three, you’ll likely need a camera crew for the entire day, so why not take advantage and shoot as many interviews as you can?

This allows you to edit one primary talking-head video that features all your experts as well as shorter “cut-down” edits featuring each expert individually. You can then use these “cut down” edits on other web pages that feature related content. By adding video to these pages, you provide a more diverse mix of content types. And because video helps boost SEO results, you can potentially improve that page’s search ranking. This may require a bit more editing time in post-production, but the additional content is well worth the incremental time and effort.

Here’s an example of a cut down edit we did for Blackboard:

3. Include your interviewer

I’m sure you’re familiar with this more traditional interview-style talking-head video—think 60 Minutes. It requires a little more production resources (i.e. lighting and at least two cameras) and involves a second on-camera subject, but it offers some advantages:

• Cutting back and forth from interviewer to interviewee makes the video more visually interesting to watch
• Including the interviewer creates the opportunity to feature another thought leader who can add to the conversation
• The more conversational format tends to put your interviewee at ease, which is key to getting a strong performance 

Vox’s sit-down interviews with President Obama from a couple years ago are a great example of this style talking-head video:

One talking-head video, multiple talking heads—it’s all good

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a talking-head video featuring a single expert sharing insight on an important issue or challenge. And you should always follow the production best practices outlined in my first talking-head video post. But if you’re looking to experiment with or evolve the talking-head video format, the above ideas are a good place to start.