Video is the new email

Every freelancer and entrepreneur needs to have a set of skills. And that set of skills will lead them to success in certain areas. One freelancer might be adept at sales calls, and another might be skilled at branding. And they can both use their skills to win clients one way or another.

But the skill everyone has is email.

Keeping and using an email address is an essential skill in modern business. You can barely apply for a job without an email. You can imagine the look of shock and even pity on someone’s face if you told them you didn’t have an email address–as if you were a wounded condor bird, about to go extinct.

I’m here to argue that video is becoming the new email. Not in a way that it will be used for daily communication, but in a way that if you don’t learn to use it, you’ll go extinct.

Since COVID-19 rearranged the world at large, we’ve seen an exodus of companies away from the heavy brand spending they did in 2019, into a new land of ROI-positive organic content. I saw my agency clients’ revenue shift dramatically from brand campaigns to direct-response campaigns. I learned to wield a CTA in May 2020 faster than a brand could say “Do you guys make Facebook ads?”

Now of course there are video specialists–professional editors and cinematographers who create brand-establishing pieces. Just as there are email specialists who leverage Hubspot for their sales. This isn’t going away. But the sheer amount of short-form video content needed to grow a brand in 2023 isn’t sustainable to pay a specialist to do for you. You need to be able to do it yourself.

It doesn’t need to be perfect. It doesn’t need to be pretty. But in five years, if you still aren’t confident filming and editing your own videos, you’ll simply be left behind.