About I.D.E.A. Cleveland
Who We Work Best With
Our best clients are established service businesses that:
-
Have roughly 5–20 employees
-
Sell a service that requires trust before someone buys
-
Do not have a full-time marketing leader
-
Have already tried different marketing tactics or vendors
-
Know their marketing could be working harder
-
Want a practical plan rather than another pile of deliverables
You do not need to become an influencer.
You do not need to post every day.
You do need to understand who you are trying to reach, what they need to hear, and what should happen after they find you.
About Chris Inman and I.D.E.A. Cleveland
Marketing should help sales.
That’s the point.
I’m Chris Inman, founder of I.D.E.A. Cleveland.
I help established service businesses figure out why their marketing isn’t creating enough conversations—and build a practical plan to fix it.
Sometimes the problem is the message.
Sometimes it is the website.
Sometimes the company is creating content, but none of it answers the questions buyers are actually asking.
Usually, it is not one broken tactic. It is that the different pieces of marketing and sales are not working together.
That is where I come in.
Why I.D.E.A. Cleveland Exists
I spent more than two decades working in video and television.
When I started working more closely with small businesses, I noticed a common problem: companies were spending money on websites, videos, social media, advertising, and marketing vendors without a clear idea of how those pieces were supposed to create better sales opportunities.
The video might look good.
The website might be new.
The company might be posting regularly.
But the owner still could not explain how any of it was helping the business.
That changed how I approached my work.
I stopped looking at video as the final product and started looking at the full path a buyer takes—from discovering a business to trusting it enough to start a conversation.
Today, video is still an important part of what we do. It just is not where the conversation automatically starts.
Video Marketing Starts Before You Hit Record
Making videos is easy. Making the right videos for the right people is where strategy comes in.
Most businesses start with:
“We need to make some videos.”
I think that's starting in the wrong place.
Before we talk about cameras, editing, YouTube, LinkedIn or how many videos you should make, we need to answer a much more important question:
WHO are you trying to reach?
.
WHO → WHAT → WHY → CREATE → DISTRIBUTE → CONVERSATION
The goal isn't just to make more videos. The goal is to use video to help the right people find your business, get answers to their questions, understand how you think and eventually feel comfortable having a conversation with you.
WHO Are We Trying to Reach?
This has to come first.
Not everyone.
Who is the person you actually want watching your videos?
What type of company do they work for?
What problems are they dealing with?
What are they trying to accomplish?
What would make them a good customer for your business?
Because if we don't know WHO we're talking to, everything that follows is a guess.
Your videos don't need to appeal to everyone.
They need to matter to the right people.
WHAT Are They Searching For?
Once we know WHO, we can stop guessing what videos you should make.
Let's find out what those people actually want to know.
What are they searching on Google?
What are they typing into YouTube?
What are they asking AI?
What problems are they trying to solve?
What are they comparing?
What questions do they ask before buying?
What are they worried about?
This is where research—including AI—can be incredibly useful.
We can uncover the questions your potential customers are already asking and turn those questions into a content plan.
Instead of sitting down every week wondering:
“What should I make a video about?”
We start with:
“What does my potential customer want to know?”
That's a much easier question to answer.
WHY Should They Listen to You?
Finding the question is only half the job.
Now I want your answer.
Not something copied from a competitor.
Not a perfectly polished AI-generated script that sounds exactly like the other 100 articles someone just found on Google.
Your experience.
Your opinion.
Your examples.
What have you seen work?
What doesn't work?
What do people misunderstand about your industry?
What would you tell a customer sitting across the table from you asking this exact question?
You don't have to agree with everyone else.
Actually, you probably shouldn't.
AI can help us find the questions. Your experience makes the answer worth watching.
That's how people start getting to know how you think before they ever meet you.
CREATE — You Don't Need a Hollywood Production
Now we can hit record.
And this is where I think a lot of small businesses make video way harder than it needs to be.
You don't need a huge production crew.
You don't need a teleprompter with a perfectly written script.
You don't need every video to look like a television commercial.
Sometimes a cellphone is exactly what we need.
I want your video to look good and sound good.
But more importantly, I want it to sound like you.
If you're knowledgeable, funny, sarcastic, passionate, opinionated or just really good at explaining complicated things simply—that should come through.
People aren't just evaluating your company.
They're evaluating whether they trust the people behind it.
Real beats perfect.
DISTRIBUTE — YouTube Isn't a Marketing Strategy
Neither is LinkedIn.
Neither is TikTok.
They're platforms.
The strategy is deciding where this content needs to live, why we're putting it there and what we want someone to do after seeing it.
One good video can have a much bigger life than one social media post.
The full answer might live on YouTube where people can search for it months or even years from now.
That video can be embedded on your website.
A strong point can become a LinkedIn post.
A few moments can become YouTube Shorts, Reels or TikToks.
The topic can become part of your email newsletter.
And the video itself can become something your sales team sends directly to a prospect who asks that exact question.
That's repurposing.
But we're not trying to turn one video into 37 pieces of content just so we can brag about how much content we made.
Every piece needs a reason to exist.
Where are we putting it?
Who are we trying to reach there?
And where do we want them to go next?
CONVERSATION — What Happens After They Watch?
This is the part that matters most to me.
Views are nice.
Subscribers are nice.
Likes and comments are nice.
But you're running a business.
How is this helping create better sales conversations?
Maybe someone watches three of your YouTube videos before visiting your website.
Maybe a prospect has been reading your LinkedIn posts for six months before reaching out.
Maybe someone searches a question, finds your video and realizes you understand exactly what they're dealing with.
Maybe a salesperson sends a prospect a video instead of typing the same 500-word explanation for the tenth time.
By the time that person finally talks to you, they're not starting from zero.
They've heard you.
They understand how you think.
They've gotten answers.
And hopefully, they've started to trust you.
That's what I want video marketing to accomplish.
Video Production vs. Video Marketing
There's nothing wrong with video production.
I spent years in that world.
But they're two different things.
Video production asks:
What are we shooting?
When are we shooting it?
What equipment do we need?
How should we edit it?
When is the final video due?
Video marketing asks:
Who are we trying to reach?
What are they searching for?
What's our point of view?
How should we create the answer?
Where should we distribute it?
How does it lead to a conversation?
Sometimes we need professional production.
Sometimes we need a cellphone.
The strategy determines the production.
Not the other way around.
Stop Asking, “What Should I Make a Video About?”
That's the question I hear from business owners all the time.
And it's exactly what this blueprint is designed to eliminate.
Start with WHO.
Find out WHAT they're asking.
Give them YOUR answer.
CREATE the content.
DISTRIBUTE it with a purpose.
And build a path toward a CONVERSATION.
That's video marketing.
What I.D.E.A. Cleveland Does
I.D.E.A. Cleveland helps businesses create a clearer connection between:
-
What the company wants to sell
-
What prospective customers need to understand
-
What the sales team hears during real conversations
-
What appears on the website
-
What the business publishes through video and other content
-
What happens after someone shows interest
That work may include marketing strategy, website messaging, video planning, YouTube strategy, podcasting, content repurposing, editing, or helping different marketing vendors work from the same plan.
The goal is not to keep creating more marketing activity.
The goal is to make the activity lead somewhere.
Why the Name I.D.E.A. Cleveland?
I.D.E.A. comes from Inman Digital Envision Agency.
But the name also represents how I approach the work.
I ask questions, look for gaps, challenge assumptions, and help businesses find a better way to connect their expertise to the people who need it.
We are based in Northeast Ohio and proud to be part of the Cleveland business community.
Proud Members of
We are proud to call The Land our home. We are a part of the community and will help it be the best. If you have a charitable organization that could use some assistance feel free to contact us.