As a business owner, I am sure you have felt the pain of getting new customers and clients. I understand your pain so much so that Eastonsweb Multimedia has teamed up with video marketing expert Steve Yankee’s Video Business Advisor and a host of the country’s leading video production and multimedia marketing authorities, to create the ultimate guide to exponential business growth! The guide will provide entrepreneurs with proven tips for using video and multimedia to drive sales through the roof.
What’s better is that this new guide is going to be built right before your eyes at this blog. Our team of experts is submitting proven techniques as comments to this blog posting and you are privileged to watch the creative process at no cost as it happens.
This elite team has created and implemented some of the most innovative video-based marketing tools and strategies available today –strategies and tools that have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars for companies just like yours. Just sit back, relax, and read our Dream Team’s tips as they are submitted. I guarantee an idea that could change your business for the better will be in there!
Experts Submit Your Tips To the Comments Section Below.
(Contributors include in your comment your company’s name, location and website address)
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The Eastonsweb Multimedia Blog 
March 19, 2007 at 3:36 pm |
Tip#1
iPOD Video Commercial
By John Easton
Eastonsweb Multimedia
Charlotte, NC
http://www.eastonsweb.com
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Description
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Add your company’s marketing video to a video iPOD or similar device (I prefer the Creative Labs Zen Vision M). Doing this is a great way to turn yourself or whoever has your iPOD video into a walking commercial for your company (including you, your sales team, your customers, etc.).
If you give a prospective customer a business card it is unlikely that they will visit your website later. If you show the prospective customer your iPOD video, assuming it is professionally produced you are assured of immediately establishing your product or service’s value and your company’s credibility.
March 19, 2007 at 5:06 pm |
Using Video on the Internet
Getting eyes (viewers) to your web site is one thing. Once they arrive keeping them is another item altogether.
Video Streaming offers an excellent opportunity to keep eyes on your site. How, by creating a series of short thirty to sixty second web commercials that can be created to sell, market, train or promote your company, product or organization. By doing a series you place a different streaming video clip on different pages within your site. Once the eyes are on that page they watch your video and while watching will look at other items you have to offer.
Tips: 1) Keep the videos short and to the point. 2) Have a professional look. This video represents your business. Hire a professional to give you that look. 3) Make the video stream available for multiple video streams. i.e. dialup, DSL, Broadband, Cable. 4) Link that video to other sites of interest (chambers, associations etc). At DW Video & Multimedia we use JAVA technology to encode our videos and to create the multiple video streams. Check it out at http://www.buy-local.us.
DW Video & Multimedia, LLC
http://www.dwvideo.com
March 19, 2007 at 5:20 pm |
Tell the world What You Do
Work with a video company to produce a 1 – 5 minute video about your business. Unlike past years, you don’t have to buy expensive network or cable tv commercial time to air your video. Once produced, the video company you hire can distribute the video on DVDs that you give away, on your website, on You Tube or Google Video. It becomes your Video Business Card.
March 19, 2007 at 5:32 pm |
Save on In-House Training
Does your company spend money on in-house training seminars or workshops? Hire a local video production company to professionally record the video and audio of this training. The DVDs you receive can then be cataloged into a library and viewed by new employees.
March 19, 2007 at 5:37 pm |
Create Video Testimonials
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Testimonials are a powerful way of letting your potential customers receive the whole story about your company. But video testimonials provide the “whole story” about the people recommending you. They are easy to commission, don’t cost very much and are short enough to put on your website.
Try a video testimonial. It’s a great way to get the phone ringing!
March 19, 2007 at 11:07 pm |
Educate With Lunch & Learns
A few years ago, I was the VP of Marketing for several hospitals in the southeast. Our staff would take doctors or their staff out to lunch…or take lunch to them. While they ate, one of our doctors or staff specialists would share medical information that would help the physicians group. They in-turn would make referrals to our staff doctors, because they learned something that was helpful to them…and our lunch & learns positioned our doctors as specialists in the minds of the referring doctors and nurses.
Today, I use the practice of “Lunch & Learns” for both corporate clients, and highend event planners and photographers who send us clients for our storytelling services. http://www.StorytellersUSA.com
March 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm |
My marketing tip is to use a medium not often associated with the product or service you’re promoting. Like all things, the manner in which the material is presented often leaves a more lasting impression than the specifics of the presentation itself. Either way, if it’s presented in a way they’re not expecting, it’s likely to be remembered. And that, after all, is the goal.
I guess I’m one of the few people on this board who doesn’t do video production for a living. I do some video production, but video is not my core business. My core business is voiceover work, and most of the voiceover work I do is “voice imaging” for radio stations. I know of no other voiceover talent in the world who has produced a voiceover demo as a VIDEO. And while I have numerous AUDIO demos posted on my website, the first voice demo people encounter when they visit my website is a VIDEO voice demo. I’ve received tremendous feedback on it, and I believe it has helped me stand out from the crowded field of other voiceover talents out there competing for the same work.
Since most people reading this board are video professionals, I think it might behoove them to occasionally look at methods of promotion — different mediums — besides just video. If you can do video, then doing audio production should come easily. So should print layout, since you’re already graphics-savvy and have an eye for visual composition. By being able to offer multiple media solutions, you cast a wider net for potential clients, and you might just find that the customer’s message would be more memorable and cut through the clutter if it were presented in another, somewhat unexpected arena. Similarly, when marketing your own video business, don’t rule out other mediums besides video. Remember, the goal is to be memorable, not predictable.
March 20, 2007 at 8:19 am |
Whether you’re a one-man (or woman) band operating out of your spare bedroom or you’re the big dog in town, with your own building and a staff, establishing and maintaining your “corporate look” is of critical importance in your marketplace –whether you’re doing business on a local, national or global scale.
Why? Because whether you’re a company of one, or a company of 100, you want people to remember you; you want to look like you know what you’re doing; you want to look stable and professional.
The best marketing tools are professionally produced, AND compelling. They quickly let your prospect know you understand his or her problems, and let them know that what you’re offering is what they need. And they’re designed to make a REAL and significant impression on the reader. That’s clearly a job for professionals; not your 16-year-old nephew.
Which is why you should trust your important video tasks to the pros. Handing someone an amateur video of your professional operation is akin to handing them a business card that’s been run off on a cheap inkjet printer. Neither one of these important sales tools is going to reassure your prospect that they’re dealing with a serious, professional resource.
March 20, 2007 at 7:18 pm |
Use TV screens in your lobbies and waiting areas to cross-sell lesser known products and services to your current customer base. This is a fantastic way to introduce your more expensive services or to feature special promotions.
If you run a bank, play motion graphic advertisements that people can see as they are waiting in line for a teller. Promote your home equity line rates, CD Rates, Insurance Products, Investment Products, etc.
If you run a hair salon, use the TVs in your waiting area to promote your higher end services or perhaps new services that have been recently added. One of our clients is a high-end boutique that uses their TV screens to promote their Swedish Massage and permanent makeup services.
Real Estate Brokers can run video tours of feature properties in their lobbies as new home buyers wait to speak with an agent or you can show testimonials from sellers that you have successfully sold homes for.
This marketing tactic works for just about any business. When people are sitting in your lobby or waiting area, you have a captive audience. If you aren’t using your TV screens to educate them on your products and services, you are missing a huge opportunity.
The key to keeping your waiting customers or prospects engaged is to produce creative, professional videos and graphics that will both inform and entertain. You’ll definitely want to engage a professional video production company to handle this for you.
March 21, 2007 at 8:21 am |
Company: Digital Video Films
Location: Miramar, Florida
Website Address: http://www.digitalvideofilms.com
Tip: Create a product demonstration video
Description: If you can “show” a product in action, you have a better chance of selling that product. Short of an in-person demonstration, producing a product demonstration video is the best tool available. Video can show the features and benefits in real-world scenarios and it can be distributed to thousands of potential customers much easier than an in-store demonstration. You can even include testimonials from satisfied customers.
March 21, 2007 at 8:46 am |
Company: H2H Video
Location: Huntsville, Al
Website: http://www.h2hvideo.com
Tip:
Have a motion graphic designed by a professional, incorporating your logo and corporate look, that can be utilized in all video products you use to visually brand your promotions and training materials. Have the same graphic artist design a print version of this look that can become an element in all print materials you use. This across the board use of graphics will strengthen your brand. Having a professional artist design it gives you a quality product that you are proud to use and proud to have represent you business.
March 21, 2007 at 8:56 am |
Company: Yesterday’s Memories
Location: Sterling Heights, Michigan
Website Address: http://www.yesmem.com
Tip: Add a video link to your email advertising
Description: A well made short video can increase the percentage of people who take the desired action of an email marketing campaign. If the video is interesting it can quickly go ‘viral’ on the web giving your company lots of exposure and positioning you as the expert in your filed.
March 21, 2007 at 10:35 am |
Company: Telestory Pictures
Location: New York, NY
Website: http://www.telestorypictures.com
Tip: Make sure your company video tells a story
Description: People do business with people and businesses they trust. Gain the trust and respect of prospective customers by telling your business’s story on video. There is passion, integrity and other admirable qualities behind the creation of most businesses and your prospective customers can relate to this emotion. No matter how intelligent a person may be, they make their final decisions based on emotion (it has to feel right). Your compelling story on video will make it much easier for them to trust in your service’s value and your ability to meet their needs.
March 21, 2007 at 12:16 pm |
Power Point presentations are everywhere in the training field. Get them on a video format. Capturing seminars or webinars with programs that can see the computer screen activity can be very beneficial to thousands of employees across that world. When uploaded to an FTP site that has password restrictions, accessing all this information is done over the internet. A company can save an incredible amount of money in a very short time.
March 21, 2007 at 3:06 pm |
A client, who is an Executive Chef, owns an upscale restaurant in South Florida and wants to publish a cook book. I have offered to produce a video of each recipe during the “off season,” six at a time and package them one or three at a time to give/sell on DVD’s to his customers. Also run the video package on in-house TV’s. When he is ready to publish the cook book he can package a DVD with the cook book to further personalize his publication.
March 21, 2007 at 6:52 pm |
Get them hooked! Rather than getting “tuned out” when telling prospective clients about your products and services, get them “tuned in” by using a video piece with a “hook”. Use humor, an interesting quote or something different than expected to open your video and segue into important points. This allows for your audience to become interested and relaxed. People are much more receptive and retain more information once they are in a relaxed state. With a engaged and receptive audience and the support of the visual medium, your company has a much better chance of being the channel that is always tuned in!
March 26, 2007 at 12:00 am |
This may seem very basic and simple but it’s something that I had to remind myself to do for the first few months I was in business. And that is — always, ALWAYS carry your business cards with you. To the grocery store, the gym, even when you are dropping your cat (or dog) off at the vet. You never know when you are going to bump into that next client !
http://www.primecutvideo.com
March 26, 2007 at 3:41 am |
Company: Rich Video Ltd.
Location: Stockport, United Kingdom
Website Address: http://www.richvideo.co.uk
Tip: Add your company’s marketing video to all of your video projects
Description: If your company distributes videos for resale; as an educational tool or for other purposes be sure to include your company’s marketing video at the beginning or end of each video you issue. This is a great way to drive additional sales, cross sell other products and build awareness of your company’s capabilities.
***Note*****
This tip is not advocating putting the production company’s marketing video on the client’s video. This tip speaks to putting the client’s marketing video at the front or end of select client videos (where this makes sense – special interest videos, seminar videos, educational videos, etc.).
Dave
March 26, 2007 at 5:08 am |
Company: Reefstream Ltd.
Location: Stockton-on-Tees, United Kingdom
Website Address: http://www.reefstream.com
Tip: Distribute your marketing video through email
Description: Distributing your marketing video via email to prospective customers is a great way to get your message in front of your target audience and compliment distribution on your website. If done right, prospective customers can immediately experience your product or service’s benefits within the body of the email and without having to take the additional step of clicking through to your website.
March 26, 2007 at 9:59 am |
Need to be in several places at once? Talk to your video production resource about setting up a web-based streaming video presentation. Using today’s “webinar” software and professional video equipment, it’s relatively easy to get right in front of your sales staff, your best customers, your distributors via their computer monitors. You’ll save a bundle on airfare and lost time traveling from one location to the next.
March 26, 2007 at 12:17 pm |
If your business is on the internet, you are no longer just marketing your products / services to the folks across the street, across town, or even across the country. You are marketing your business worldwide, and what better way to allow these potential customers to get excited about what you are offering, than by letting them see and hear it in action. Short, downstreamed videos can accomplish that, and provide additional information. Match this with longer, more detailed videos that can be distributed on DVD via mail, by your sales team, or at trade shows, and you are that much closer to winning over a new customer. And the good news is that you don’t need to know a thing about video or computers. That’s why there are professional companies out there that specialize in this sort of thing. You provide the information about your business, and you receive a high quality, professional looking video to support and assist your sales and marketing people, and help distinguish you from the competition.
March 26, 2007 at 12:18 pm |
Company: MannMade Digital Video
Location: San Jose, California
Website: http://mmdv.com
Tip: Don’t set your web video to play automatically
Description: Instinctively we want our promotional video materials to be seen and herd by all, but forcing website visitors to watch a web video as the hosting web page loads (auto play) can create negative experiences that outweigh the benefits of increased viewership. Imagine while at work a prospective client surfs you web page and a loud video instantly plays. Your prospective customer scrambles to turn the volume down while dodging nasty glares from neighboring associates. Even worse, the boss might think his employee is goofing off on the job.
This is the last experience you want to create for a prospective customer, as he or she will probably never give you a call. Allow your customer to click a button to activate the video. This gives the user control over their experience.
March 26, 2007 at 12:43 pm |
Start Video Blogging
By Shawn Christenson
HighlyInspired Solutions
Edmonton, AB – Canada
http://www.highlyinspired.com
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Everyone has learned about the effectiveness of blogging. The power of the written word, and it’s ability to attract visitors because of it’s richness in keywords is common knowledge now.
The next step is the Video Blog. Put your knowledge and unique way of expressing it on the screen for everyone to learn from. Make sure each blog is short (1-3 minutes) and primarily an educational tool. You can always close with a call to action, but make sure the subject itself is educational. Before you know it, you’ll have a library of tips that will attract attention and customers in no time.
You can use a cheap $30 web cam, or you can buy a $5000 HDV Camera. Either way, you can do it and you can do it effectively. Your #1 priority with the video blog is to Educate. The more information you share, the more respect you will gain from it. People buy from those they know. If they know YOU because of your excellent video blogs, they’ll think of you first when it comes time to use services you offer.
Don’t think you have what it takes? Camera shy? Find someone in your organization who can do it effectively. Whoever you get, has to be knowledgeable and really know what they are talking about. NO reading off a piece of paper into a camera!
March 26, 2007 at 2:43 pm |
If your production requires the use of transferred motion picture film, be sure to PRE-HEAT the optical path of projection prior to transfer – all the way from the gate to the final lens elements. If you don’t, you may experience focus drift – your transfer will be out-of-focus. It is recommended that pre-heating should occur for 3 minutes prior to actual usage.
March 26, 2007 at 2:51 pm |
Company: Still Motion Video
Location: North Cape May, New Jersey
TIP: Create an interactive CD-ROM marketing kit
The CD-ROM marketing kit would start when the disc is inserted into a PC or Macintosh computer and might contain a professionally produced photo montage (facility shots, product shots, happy customers, etc), a power point sales presentation and website links. The photo montage and powerpoint could be enhanced with voice over of key sales points.
The compilation can be rendered to CD or DVD inexpensively and reproduced or copied for distribution through sales team presentations, direct mail campaigns, and as special advertising offers. Changes can be updated fairly easily and kept timely thru the internet.
March 26, 2007 at 5:52 pm |
Company: J-NIC Video Productions
Location: Flint Michigan
Website: http://www.myspace.com/jnicvideo
Tip: Give copies of your marketing video to influencers in your network
Description: Give several copies of your business’s marketing video on CD or DVD to influential business owners and or managers in your professional network. These people might include your accountant, your lawyer, your marketing consultant, etc. If your partners generate a lead, offer them financial or other compensation…who knows, it could boost business for you!
March 26, 2007 at 10:37 pm |
[…] Creating the Greatest Guide to Explosive Business Growth […]
March 27, 2007 at 4:41 pm |
Tip: Be on the lookout for new add-ons that will increase your profit
As business owners, we should all be looking for new add-ons and other things that we can offer our clients; add-ons that will bring us more money within our existing business!
I have found a product that we all can add to our business regardless of our experience, what kind of cameras we use, or how much we sell our videos for. You can be seen as cutting-edge if you are one of the first ones to offer this to your clients.
What I am talking about? Helping our clients preserve their family legacy through storybooks (our clients upload their photos, create their text and they get a professionally-bound elegant storybook).
For more information on this amazing opportunity, contact Kris Malandruccolo at Kris@ElegantStorybooksByKris.com or call 630-876-9604. View http://www.ElegantStorybooksByKris.com for more information.
March 27, 2007 at 7:46 pm |
Company: Home Video Editing Services
Location: Missouri City, Texas
Website: http://www.hves4u.com
Tip: Include a Business Card CD marketing video with your business card.
I continue to get “Gee Wiz” responses when potential clients look at my CD Business card which is enclosed in the plastic container WITH my paper business card. The CD Business Card is a two minute promotional sales video playable on the client’s computer. The sales video was obtained from VBA.
March 29, 2007 at 10:11 am |
The most cost effective way we have found to do advertising is through direct mail. Rather than spending on print ads where you will can spend a ton of money fast and not see much return, creating an effective direct mail campaign, locally or nationally, gives the best return on money spent.
Keep it as simple as using well designed postcards that advertise your services. The strength of direct mail is that you put your ad right in someone’s hands. Your postcard’s sole function should be to get prospects to your web site where you can continue your sales message in more detail (with more visuals using some of the comments given here). The “landing page”, where your postcard prospects arrive, should be designed to further enhance you sales message. In other words don’t just send prospects to your home page, send them to a page written expressly for your campaign (it should even look the same as the graphic style of your postcard).
Postcard mailing continues to be the cheapest way to drum up new business. Try it locally. Purchase a small mailing list of prospects in your area. Do a 1000 postcard campaign. Or do two 1000 postcard campaigns each with different headline and graphics and then track results and see which campaign pulled better (had a better response). Testing this way will let you come up with a postcard you can bank on to get results.
Quality of mailing list and quality of the mailing message is what determines the success of your campaign.
April 2, 2007 at 11:03 am |
About Yellow Pages ads. and phone answering
I’ve found a steady stream of regular business from my simple yellow pages ad. What I’ve discovered is that many of the customers I get via that ad are simply calling all the businesses listed and comparrison shopping. So I don’t have a huge colorful ad. Just a simple line or two. The marketers will try to upsell you there, but resist them.
This also points out the need for excellent phone etiquette. Many small video businesses don’t even answer their phone! I have received hundreds of $50 jobs, and a good handful of larger jobs this way. Just remember to be patient, kind, instructive, and helpful and the phone. People like to do business with someone who treats them with kindness and sincerety.
April 7, 2007 at 10:50 pm |
Company: Pinnacle Image Media Group
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
Website: http://www.pinnacleimage.com
Tip: Use streaming video to announce company/organization news
Most like to do business with people they like. One of the best ways to make a favorable impression on your prospects who visit your website is to use video for promotion and news about your company. A 15-30 second streaming clip can deliver company news to your prospects, present customers, employees and even your community. By using video, you put a “face” with your news release avoiding the misunderstandings that sometimes accompany written announcements. The best part. . . production costs for video has dropped dramatically making it affordable for even very small companies and organization to use experienced professionals to produce these types of media.
April 11, 2007 at 4:58 pm |
This may seem to be a no-brainer, but gets missed many times. When appropriate, make sure you have your business name and contact info at the beginning or end (or both) of video’s you produce. Obviously, this does not hold if you are doing work for another vendor, but the point here is to make sure your info is there for the client to see so they will remember you and be able to contact you easily if needed. Remember that for video’s such as Weddings, graduations, dance recitals, and other events that a wide audience will see because either they purchased your dvd or watched a friends, your name will be in front of them. If they liked your video production, they will call you.
April 12, 2007 at 3:37 pm |
Automate Your Time-Consuming Training Tasks! Hundreds of man-hours are wasted on orientation or simple job tasks every year. Why not inform and educate your customers and employees how your products or equipment works by showing them with a video-based presentation instead of a live demonstrator? Another advantage of a video presentation; you ensure that all the points you wish to make are ALWAYS covered. Nothing is subject to the whim of the presented!
April 14, 2007 at 9:25 am |
The best marketing tool I’ve found is ‘word of mouth’. Once you’ve used any or all of the techniques mentioned here, one bad experience with a client/customer will destroy all your hard work. Treat the customer the way you’d want to be treated and produce a product you’ll be proud of. The rest will take care of itself.
April 23, 2007 at 2:24 pm |
Enlist a local video company to create an annual “State of the Company” address.
If you are a relatively small company this can be given directly to each employee to be taken home to be shared with the employees family on either DVD or CD depending on the duration of the video message.
If you are a larger corporation the video can be disseminated to your various workplace locations and shown to groups of employees at a time or one on one with local supervisors for more intimate impact and feedback.
Use this video to personalize your leadership, generate self-interest in corporations goals or get an important message across in a unique and effective format.
April 24, 2007 at 1:33 pm |
Videoblogs help others increase visibility/profitability while at the same time increasing your video production company’s credibility.
I started a videoblog for a particular niche, the modern dance/performance folks, all in an
effort to help them get bigger audiences. As a result, I had 3 performers getting bigger crowds than they anticipated. So not only do they get greater visibility, we often get the job videotaping or creating their reels later on. Meanwhile they’re getting immediate results. Video blogging is a valuable tool.
April 24, 2007 at 4:04 pm |
Author: Steve Goolian, owner
Company: Senior Moments Video Lifestories
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Website Address: http://www.seniormomentsvideo.com
Tip: Produce A Business History Video to Celebrate Your Company’s Achievements
A business history video may be used as part of your general information video or by itself to commemorate a milestone anniversary. Videos may also honor the contributions of a company founder or long-time employee upon retirement.
Service and community organizations and churches might consider a “heritage video” for preserving the memories of treasured members who may be the only ones who can recall details of building projects, charitable efforts, beloved ministers and group members. It’s a great introduction to the organization for new or prospective members.
To begin the process, talk to senior employees or group members. Gather old newsletters or other publications, archive video or film footage, news clippings, etc. and make a list of important topics to cover. Decide on a desired length, who needs to be interviewed, how many locations to be videotaped, and any other special requirements.
Then contact a professional video production company. This is definitely not the time to save costs by using a hobbyist on your staff or someone who doesn’t specialize in business videos. You only have one chance to make a good first impression. Give your business history video project to an expert for best results!
August 14, 2007 at 4:26 pm |
download ipod movies
download ipod movies
October 27, 2008 at 3:40 pm |
Sounds intersting.. I can be secretive about my colorful helicopter Do you want a joke? 🙂 What do you call a bunch of dancing pebbles? The Rockettes.