Hi everyone. My name is Lea. I'm the co-founder and CEO of expeerly and I am thrilled that you're watching this video because it means that you are either considering a partnership with us as a reviewer or you already are a reviewer trying to learn more about us. So welcome. The expeerly Academy is a series of videos that will help guide you in creating your perfect expeerly review.

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And this is the first lesson. So let's jump right in. This first lesson is really about the why, why are we even working on these expeerlyal reviews? The answer is simple. We want to help customers make the right buying decision to reduce waste and increase joy. So what does that mean? We live in a very fast paced world.

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We live in a world. of consumption. You look at products sometimes really, really briefly and have to make a buying decision quite quickly in a lot of instances. Well, the problem is sometimes you don't really have all the information you need to decide which toaster to buy, which trip to book, which new book to read.

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And the typical product detail page on a retailer doesn't give you that much information. Sure, there might be a lengthy, long product description that you can read, but really who has time for that? Well, we try in a very short and informative way to give customers guidance on whether a product is right for them and whether it's going to fit into their world.

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And again, why are we doing this? Our main motivation is this. I actually just went to a partner of ours last week, and they told me that all the products that they're receiving back, if someone returns them after buying them, are actually just being trashed. They don't even check whether there actually is a defect in the product or not, because that would cost money.

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Money and time. So, they immediately put them to waste. And the thing is, yes, nowadays you have the option to return a product, whether it has a defect or not. Yes, the journey, the buying journey is made as easy as possible for you, but, there is a cost to taking the wrong decision. And one of the big costs, if you return an item.

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It's just a massive amount of trash that we are trying to prevent. And again, just to give you a couple of numbers here, in household electronics, the amount of products returned back right away is at around 5%. In fashion, it's over 30%. The massive amount of trash. So we talked about the cost of making the wrong decision.

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Again, one of them is trash, but the other one is also a lack of joy. We want you to be excited about the product that you buy. Remember when you were a kid and you saved money for this one thing that you really wanted and then you got it and it was just amazing. We rarely have those moments nowadays because consumption has become so easy and it has become what it is today.

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But what we want to do is we want for the end customer, for them to find the joy back, to have the information that they need, to look forward to actually receiving a product and to when they have it, To actually appreciate it, to value it, and to know that that's the thing that they really needed. So, that's our “why”.

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It's the reason why we're working on these expeerly Reviews, it’ why we want to guide end customers and in the end, reduce trash and make sure that they enjoy what they buy.

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Welcome back to the second part of the expeerly Academy. What is an expeerly Review? Well, in very short, an expeerly Review is a short, authentic, and entertaining expeerly video testimonial. So, a product or a service is usually used by an actual person in their kind of normal habitat. So let's have a look at an example of this program.

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It only takes three clicks and you're ready to go. You switch it on, turn the switch, and then you choose the program. So it's very simple. Then you just have to click start or refine it. For example, you intensify it, you choose extra flush with fresh water, or you delay it. The program is also very cool, where you can refresh a lot of clothes.

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And the specific stain program, where you remove coffee, grass, blood or red spots. Wrinkle free program,

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so you already get to know this product much better than before. If you want more examples of. I recommend you to go and visit this page. Eexpeerlyn. com has a vast array of expeerly reviews that can give you a bit more inspiration on how a typical expeerly review can look like. Now back to what an expeerly review is and what it isn't.

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We'll start with what it isn't, because it's really important for you to know that an expeerly review is not an advertising, it is a positive expeerly video where you talk about your expeerly and you highlight what you like about a product. But it is not an ad. We are nowadays, with our social media consumption, very used to seeing user generated content ads.

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We see real people holding up products like this saying, Oh my God, this is the best product I've ever seen. Why are they recommending it saying this is mind blowing and it has changed everything for them. That is not the idea of an expeerly review. expeerly reviews are authentic, positive, informative, but they're not ads.

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So again, what are they? First of all, they're informative. As you've now just seen in the Marisa video, we have learned about features that we might have not otherwise known about. We have learned about how to get the machine started. What does it look like? So we've started to understand the product in a way that otherwise would take a very long time just reading a product description for it.

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So expeerly Reviews should show non obvious features. They should show highlights, size, how does this product look in a natural environment? How big is it? What are the features that are delivered in a box? We want to learn about this product in a very short way. But secondly, it's also about storytelling.

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In the end, no one really cares about Let's say air conditioning, but do you really care about this? That you can work for a longer time in an office, in a comfortable environment and in a comfortable temperature. So we want you to really go in depth with your personal storytelling on a product. How does a product or service change your life?

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What does it do to you personally in your personal home? So we don't only talk about product and product features, but really about the story behind it. Why does this matter to you? I'll give you another example. You might review a new sound system and then tell us, tell us what kind of music you're listening to.

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Tell us why you're listening to that kind of music. Tell us how the sound system helps you dance around in the kitchen while you're cooking, or how it helps you dance with your kids when you listen to the newest kids songs. So talk to us about what the product does to you and for you, instead of just, That there is a product.

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Certainly, expeerly reviews can and should be entertaining. They're very short, right? And because they're so short, we also want to still be entertained during that time. They are very fast paced. There is a lot of change during one expeerly video as you've seen with Marisa, but you'll see also in other examples.

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The scenes move very quickly in a typical expeerly review. We want people to stay engaged and entertained long enough so that they can learn about it. What you see here on the picture is actually one of our reviewers that is reviewing a jacket, a rain gear jacket. And he actually went to a gas station to get a huge hose and then he got hosed down to check and to test whether the rain jacket was actually waterproof and it was.

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So those kinds of things are entertaining and informative at the same time. And then lastly, we want your Xplorer review to be authentic and positive. Talk to us about your life, not about the generic life that might enjoy a certain product. your life, your kids, your home, your garden. We don't want this fancy social media version of you.

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We want the real you and we want the end customers in the end to connect with your story.

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So what happens with my videos? Expelliar Reviews are published on the product detail pages of our retail partners. Currently that's Shop Apotheke, Galaxus, Oxnard Sport, Talia, Brock and Hey Jobs. Meaning that if you review, let's say an air conditioning on the product detail pages of these retailers, you will find the video that you take of that air conditioning.

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Here's an example of how that looks for Galaxus, where as you can see in the carousel, the last three videos are expeerly reviews. We also publish them on a dedicated website and on YouTube. So there is an expeerly. com slash product name URL where your reviews also live as well as on YouTube. Lastly, we also publish them on social media, and we also make them available to the brands that sent you the product in the first place, and they can use the expeerly Reviews for their purposes as well.

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So what do you do before you start working on your expeerly Review? Well, first of all, please do study the campaign detail page. in detail, learn about the USPs, special instruction, age, screening questions. Yes, you were booked on this campaign for a reason, but make sure that you also look at all the information that we have provided you on this specific campaign.

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As you can see here, you can click here and see the USPs. So these are the things that the company considers special about this product. You don't need to name exactly those USPs. You should. Name the USPS that you find important. But you get a certain level of inspiration from this. You also will find a link to the retail website that you can click on and see how they present the product on retail.

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You also find additional general requirements and inputs. Further down in this campaign page, and you also obviously find the high level script, which is typically the same for all of them. More importantly, also, you will find further below a help on how to pronounce the brand name really importantly, because sometimes brand names get mispronounced and that takes a lot of time to fix.

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So you find a little audio sample that tells you how to pronounce. And then further down the loan page, you also find a PDF sometimes with instructions if we have additional instructions. So please do study the campaign page in detail before even getting started. Secondly, do your research, learn about the product you're reviewing, go to the brand website, check out their retailer pages, websites, do a quick YouTube search on the product, read other reviews to understand what other people are asking.

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Make sure that you really understand this product inside out. And also, obviously, use the product. Make sure that you've used it before. Make sure that you have cooked with it before. Make sure that you have, this is a case of a wearable, that you wear it for a while to understand what kind of data it provides to you.

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So ensure that you really know this product. But also here a heads up, especially when it comes to cooking products, make sure that while you're exploring the product, you already start taking B roll. So you already film while you're exploring the product. Why sometimes these products get really dirty after you've used them a couple of times.

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Do you want to make sure that you have shots where the product looks clean and the environment looks clean from the very beginning? So,

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how to get started with your expeerly review after you've tested the product and understood it in detail. Let's start with the basics. What is an expeerly review? An expeerly review is a video that is around 30 seconds. Minimum 25, maximum 40 seconds. It is a vertically shot video. Vertical. Make sure that you do that natively.

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Don't film horizontally and then try to cut it. It will never look good. Make sure you film vertically from the very beginning. It is also a voiceover video. The difference between a voiceover video and a direct to camera video is that you don't speak directly to the camera ever. Like I am doing this right now.

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What you do though, if you want to interact with the audience, is you wave, or you can look at the audience, but you will afterwards put a voiceover on the entire video. So there is no need, and you really shouldn't, ever talk directly into a camera. It also makes it easier for you because it means you don't have to perform in front of the camera as much, but you can then afterwards put a voiceover over the entire thing.

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An expeerly review has very fast changing B Roll. You might not be familiar with the term B Roll. B Roll basically means all the different takes that you're taking And that you're shooting off you using the product of the product and off yourself. So B roll is all the different shots that you're taking.

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Now, expeerly reviews are shot very quickly at a very fast pace. Meaning the B roll, so the shot, let's say an angle of something or how you shoot the product changes every one to two seconds. So if you want to put together a 30 second video, make sure you have at least 15, if not more different shots that you can then put together.

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But then lastly, after you've put those together and put the voiceover over it, We actually have very limited editing. We don't want you to add subtitles, no fancy overlays, no special effects, no modern TikTok trend. Just put the video together. So the key elements of any expeerly review are these three.

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First of all, you have the B roll. So the visuals, secondly, you have a script that we really encourage you to write out before you get to the voiceover. And then certainly the voiceover where you voice out the script. This is a really, really critical slide. So I'll spend a bit of time on this. All expeerly reviews follow the exact same structure.

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We always start with a hook. You might have not heard the word hook yet. We have a special training lesson just on the hook that follows this one. So we'll learn much more about the hook in a separate lesson. But let me just say this at this point, the hook or the goal of the hook is to make sure that the viewer will want to watch your video.

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You might know this from your own behavior. When you scroll through social media. You give every video around a second, two seconds to decide, is this interesting enough for me to watch? So the hook is a captivating start into your video that will keep the viewer engaged and make sure that the viewer is interested to watch more.

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The hook follows a quick, is followed by a quick intro. You then introduce yourself as an expeerly Li tester or reviewer. Or you say I'm testing or reviewing this product for expeerly, but it's critical that you introduce yourselves as a reviewer of expeerly because that is the brand that you're. Then you move into the problem.

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What is your problem currently right now that the product is going to solve? Are there too many dishes in your sink? Is your house always dirty? Do you not know how to transport your child from A to B? All of these are problems that can be solved with the product or service that you review. You then get to the product and then you talk about highlights and features.

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What makes this product special? And here make please sure that you don't talk about an entire category of products. I'll give you an example. You might review a robotic vacuum cleaner that's swept through your house, and you can talk about how convenient it is to suddenly not have to vacuum clean anymore.

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That is great, but it also just describes the entire category of vacuum cleaners, of robotic vacuum cleaners, not this specific one. So make sure you don't just talk about the category, right? Talk about the specific product, this robotic cleaner that you have in your hands. What makes that product special?

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What are non obvious features that you might not have known if you haven't tested the product? How are they important to your life? Let's say the product is exceptionally silent. Well, that might be really great because you might have a partner that works in home office and before that you could never vacuum while he or she was working, or you have kids that you don't want to wake up while they're napping, but you still want to vacuum during that time.

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So these are features of the product. The product is silent, but they are put into a wider context of why they matter. And finally, you end with a result. Now that you can vacuum while your kids are napping, how is your life better? Does that mean you don't have to do it at night anymore? Does that mean you can do it in the afternoon and actually focus on your kids and play with your kids?

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What's the result of having that problem? So that is the structure of any kind of expeerly review. And again, I urge you to write the script first. So you get the product, you expeerly with it, then you write the script along this structure, and that will allow you to understand what kind of scenes you then afterwards need to shoot.

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Here's an example: The right room temperature is not a coincidence, but a strategy. I am Karin, an entrepreneur in Switzerland and a tester for expeerly. There is always something going on in our all purpose room. Home office, playing, playing the drums, practicing the piano and power training. Fortunately, the Nuvola climate control device provides 40 mW for ideal temperatures and to keep the humid air out.

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Great for my concentration. It is easy to install, programmable with the app function.

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As you can see, this followed very strongly the structure that we just discussed. There was a hook, which was around temperature and how to keep temperature under control. There was a quick intro of Karin, saying that she's an entrepreneur from Wädi, Zürich. She had a problem. She has a room where a lot of activities are happening and it gets very hot in summer.

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There were highlights, there was an app function so you could keep the room cool. It was small and easy to install in the first place. And then you can see a result, which is lying on the ground, relaxing. So that's the structure that we are looking for, for all of these reviews. Not going to watch this again.

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And again, you find tons of examples of this on expeerly. com, where you can see how the structure works for different videos.

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Welcome back. This is the lesson on the hook, the magical hook that you will spend a ton of time on when you're thinking about doing these peeling reviews. So what is the hook? Again, the hook is the scroll stopper. You're scrolling through social media and you're stopping at certain videos because these seem interesting.

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Why do they seem interesting? Because they do a couple of things right that make you interested in watching more. So the hook really is the first five seconds of a video, oftentimes even three seconds of a video, where a person, a viewer, decides whether they want to continue watching the entire video.

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Or they just want to drop off. You see this here really well. This might seem like a complicated chart, but let me explain. So what do you see here on the X axis is how long a video is watched. And on the Y axis, you see how many percent of viewers are still there at the end of it. So here you see a typical video that doesn't have a very strong hook.

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It starts, people give it the first couple of seconds, benefit of doubt, and then people stop. Start scrolling away at around 13 seconds. There's less than 20 percent left that are still watching this video. While it's here, this video, this video didn't lose the people at the very beginning. Yes, you have a small, tiny little drop off, but at 10 seconds, you still have over 100 percent of people engaged.

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And then here at 21 and 31, you still have 70 percent who watched the whole video. Why? Because you didn't lose them at the beginning. So losing them at the beginning costs you. And that's why we want to help you create the perfect hook. A perfect hook examples are promising to solve my problem. An example here is, do you sleep better at low temperatures?

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I really want to sleep at lower temperatures. So please let me know what I can do? So this promises to solve a problem that I have. Another hook that Nico Hino used here is, is this already ready? What is ready? So it's a typical hook that engages you because it puzzles you. What is he talking about?

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What am I going to see? So you're staying on. Another example here is, you know, what's weird this time pregnant? No, I don't know. I want to know. So I'll watch this longer to see. Third example here is that it promises to give me valuable information. This video starts with, I bought way too many unnecessary things when I became a mom.

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Did you? Sounds like there's something I might learn from you. So it promises to give me more information about something I care about. And lastly, we also saw hooks do really well that touch me emotionally. This is a really easy one, but it's a really powerful one. This is my son James. So all of these potential hooks can work.

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The internet, by the way, is a treasure trove of what hooks work and what don't work, which hooks don't work. So also do your research here and expeerly. But generally remember that you want people to stay engaged with you longer than five seconds. Now, here are all the different hooks that don't work and we know they don't.

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First of all, anything that shows you and the product at the very beginning, especially in a kind of eddy way where you have the product kind of in your face doesn't work. Why? Because it looks like an advertising. Generally, everything that looks like an advertising will not work. Secondly, things that talk about the product right away.

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Let's say your hook is vacuuming it out of the cable chaos. Sounds like an ad. I know this is going to be an ad later on. You also don't want it to be the obvious ad intro without actually talking about the product. Something like that. I love cooking, but we know it's likely going to be an ad afterwards.

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There's also the option of doing a kind of getting us to an obvious ad with something like, do you need a reliable everyday companion? I also know that you're probably going to sell me a product right after this. And what also doesn't work is if you introduce yourself at the very beginning. Hi, I'm Mary. It is not interesting enough.

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So avoid anything that looks like an ad, avoid showing the product at the very beginning. Avoid showing yourself in an addy way at the beginning. Dive in, ask me a question, don't talk about the product yet and make me interested.

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How to plan the script. Remember this slide? The slide where we said you're starting with a hook, then you quickly introduce yourself as an expeerly reviewer, talk about the problem, about the highlights of the product, and then about the results. This is your script structure. Make sure that when you phrase your script, you speak like you would speak to a friend of yours.

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You are not, and I repeat myself to the millionth time, you're not an advertising. Remember the mission. We want to help people like them here on the picture to make better purchase decisions. So, don't be too technical. Don't say things like, The new AirTag Supersonic V8 button really helped me. You would never speak to a friend like that, so don't be too technical.

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Make sure you put in a lot of information that they otherwise wouldn't have, and talk about the non obvious features. And be yourself. Talk about yourself. Show us your situation. Tell us your story. And yes, you can have fun with this.

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How to record the voiceover. Your general voiceover guidance is this. When you put the voiceover over a video, make sure the quality is good. So what does that mean? If in any way possible, use a microphone. If you don't have a microphone at hand, make sure you lock yourself in a small room that doesn't have a lot of, and reduce all kinds of background noises.

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Washing machines, traffic outside, birds outside, make sure that the room is very quiet where you actually take your voiceover. Reduce the ems or other fillers in the voiceover. Speak fluently, speak very quickly and energetically. There's a difference in me talking like that and keeping kind of the same style of voice.

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And I can also speak much more energetically, much faster, and be much more excited. So make sure that you play with that. You have 30 seconds in the end, so make sure these 30 seconds really, really bring out your energy. And then lastly, make sure that the voiceover and the B roll match. So don't talk about something completely different than what you're showing on the screen.

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And also make sure you pronounce the brand correctly. On all of our campaign pages, you find something called brand and product pronunciation. You will find, on the one hand, just an explanation on how to pronounce this, and then also you can download a quick audio sample. We do not do this if the pronunciation is very obvious, like, let's say, Sony, but we do it as soon as the product becomes a bit more complicated.

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How do you film the B roll? You want to film so that you can entertain. The most important thing there is a very quick succession of different scenes. So really try to aim for a new shot per second or latest every two seconds. But that means you want to have different angles on a product. You want to show different things.

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You want to show different scenes and you want to move them very, very quickly. Also ensure dynamic shots. If you film a product, never just film a product that is static. Move the camera around, move it closer to the product, move it further out, but never just have a static shot in your video. Use different angles.

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If there's not that many scenes you can show, let's say here, you can see a hairdryer and how Yuri did this. Yuri is blow drying his hair. Blow drying your hair could be just one scene. Move angles. Show yourself from the back as Yuri did here. Show yourself from the front doing that. Show yourself from the wash, from the wash basin upwards.

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Show different angles on the activity that you're taking. Ensure you have stable filming. Ideally you use a stable firm's surface or actually a firm stand where you can put your camera on and with camera, obviously I mean your, your, your phone and make sure that you and the product are fully visible.

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Sometimes we have to cut videos one to one. format instead of a vertical one. That means we need you really in the middle of the screen. So whenever you do that, make sure you are in the middle. Here is an example of Yuri and actually his head would be cut off if we had to cut this to one to one. So make sure that you're placed firmly in the middle.

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How do you look at your environment? Well, make sure you wear the appropriate attire and makeup. This might seem obvious to you, but I've seen everything so far. No nudity, no logos, no strong patterns, no political statements on any kind of hats or t-shirts, make sure the focus is on your life and on the product, not on anything that you wear.

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Don't show all the brands too obviously. Here we have a lovely example where we see this woman having Nike earrings and also Nike shoes and Nike socks. Great, she's probably advertising for Nike. It would be very strange if one of these items was suddenly added to us. So make sure that you don't carry too strong other brands with you that might compete with the product that you review.

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And lastly, make sure you have clean and aesthetic backgrounds. Yes, we want to see your real life. And we want to see a certain amount of mess in your real life, but only if the focus is the actual mess. So if you don't talk about the mess, don't show the mess. Make sure your backgrounds are clean. Now let's get to the right technical setup for this.

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At the very beginning, clean the lens of your camera. This is critical. It actually makes a big difference. Use the front camera, always the front camera, not the selfie camera. Always shoot natively. That means if the video needs to be in vertical format, make sure you shoot it in vertical format from the very beginning.

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Don't shoot horizontally and then try to cut it. It's not going to work. And film in the highest quality possible. Here's a screenshot on how this looks for an iPhone, where you go and record video on the camera settings and then choose the 4k. Make sure you film at the highest quality. And then a really critical thing is getting the lighting right.

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Lighting is a huge part of your video, so we want to make sure you get this right from the very beginning. If the product or service allows you to be outside, film outside with natural light. We love outdoor shots. If you have to be inside, use natural light inside. So film during the day, not in the evening, and try to reduce lamp lights as much as possible.

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If you need to use a lamp, don't ever put the lamp in your shot. Make sure that the lamp is on. It's on the side where you take the video, not behind you. And ideally, use a ring light at home when you use it, because it gives you the softest light. Never film in front of a window. You can see this here with Kai, where she shoots, then you see her, then you see the window behind her.

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It puts her in the shade. So whenever you have a window or a source of light that you can't see, Move away. Make sure that the camera is positioned in a way that the lighting is behind it instead of in front of it. If you have a direct light source, as you can see here in this kitchen, Gonzalo has actually put a curtain over it, which is much better.

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So avoid direct light sources in your video. And then also reduce the blurring or the mirroring that happens from the light. You can see this here with Etienne in the back that we can see from his window a mirror of the house outside. Try to avoid these situations as well. Use curtains.

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All right, you're almost done with your video. Now, how do we bring V Roll and VoiceOver together? We recommend the free apps that are out there to put You can put your B roll together, cut it together, and then put a voiceover on top of it. Oftentimes with these apps, you can directly record your voiceover.

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Our recommendation here is CapCut, InShot, or Adobe Premiere Rush. All of them are free, but make sure that you remove the watermark. How do you do the final editing? Again, don't add any subtitles, overlays, or music. We will add those. Ensure that your video is fast and entertaining. Make the cuts really quick, every one or two seconds.

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Speak fast. If you have a natural, not very fast voice, then increase the speed on the app to make sure that it runs faster. It's important that your video is fast paced and interesting. Match the b roll to the voiceover. So make sure that what you say matches what you see. And ensure one more time that you comply with the requirements.

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Double check the length that we're looking for, the language we're looking for, and the format that we're looking for on the campaign page.

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And then finally, how do you submit your video and get paid? You submit your video in the time that you have on the campaign page for submission. Typically that's four days after receiving the product. Make sure that you really stick to it. If we have feedback for you, we expect that we get the feedback reworked within 24 hours.

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We might have one or two feedback rounds on your video. Over communicate. If there's anything that will prevent you from meeting these deadlines, such as you get really sick or the product doesn't arrive on time, please message me immediately. We'd much rather hear too often from you than not enough. And then lastly, when you submit, you will also submit all the shots and all the B rolls.

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Why? If there's a small change we need to make, we'd rather do it ourselves than ask and bother you every time for it. So be ready to submit all the material that you've filmed. How do you get paid? Make sure that your account is linked to Stripe. And once we approve your video, and you will get an email from us about that, you will, we will also immediately trigger the payment.

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Typically that will happen around seven days after submission. Now, at that point, we then send the video to our client. So the client might have another round of feedback. So we still need, after the video is approved and after we've paid you, we might still come back with feedback for you that we need you to rework on within the 24.

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Thank you for watching this whole Academy until this point. If you have any additional questions, always just reach out to us again. We'd much rather hear from you than not hear from you. So please reach out, ask us any questions you might have. During the process, during applying for the product, after the process, always reach out.

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I love to hear from you. Thank you so much.

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