Lower Cost or Free
Human to Human Contact
Much Longer Interest Level

When both large and small businesses are struggling, one thing is for sure, we are all looking for better or more efficient ways to bring in more revenue. Certainly, now is not the time to cut back on advertising. But, it certainly is the time to be smarter with our advertising dollars.

I have been involved in virtually every type of advertising venue from newspapers and direct mail flyers, to radio and TV furniture spots. And my opinion is that video on the web is absolutely THE BEST way to utilize an advertising budget in today’s economy. As a matter of fact, I’ll even say that there has never been a better time for video on the web, like product demonstration videos, customer satisfaction testimonials, and product or service videos than now.

LOWER COST or FREE Cost per unit can’t be beat by any other graphic advertising medium. The numbers of folks to see a video ad on a busy web site can be counted in the millions if you are actively managing your web site (If you aren’t shooting for millions, then only a few tens of thousands saw the video: a win/win situation). Imagine getting the same number of views on your video that a Super Bowl placed ad did! And you didn’t have to pay the millions to be seen. The cost per view is so low, that it can’t even be expressed in any demonization that The US coins. It’s lower than a penny!

HUMAN to HUMAN CONTACT I used to think that direct marketing through the mail was the best way to get responses, and most will agree. But, since the advent of web based videos, all of the old stand-bys are stepping aside for the new king of advertising. I’m not saying stop printing your color brochures, or sending out direct mail flyers, or buying local spots on the radio. I’m saying, get a video on your web site, and like FAST dudes and dudettes! Your brochures, flyers, radio ads, TV ads and all other forms of advertising should be able to point to your web site where the viewer is met with an eye to eye contact human being telling them how great your product was when they bought it, or tried it out. Nothing is more powerful than hearing stories being told from a fellow buyer’s point of view, eye to eye, and mouth to ear. It’s like a warm hand shake and arm over the shoulder, welcoming your potential customer into a greater fold of other buyers who have already stepped into the water and found everything just fine there.

“Yep, no sharks in here. The water’s fine. Jump on in, friend.”

MUCH LONGER INTEREST LEVEL = MORE POWERFUL IMPACT It’s a proven fact that the more time an individual invests in your advertising message, the more likely they are to either search out even more info about your company and product, or buy outright right then. And the good news is that video done right maintains viewers longer than any other media. Color brochures get put down or tossed before being completely read way more often than a good video fails to get finished from start to finish. The same is true for flyers, email campaigns, phone calls and pretty much anything else we can think of.

In going through one’s possible advertising mediums, I was reminded of the few times I’ve seen airplane flying banners dragged behind small craft over large cities and heavily populated county fairs and summer beaches. How many reading this right now saw flying banners behind airplanes AND WEREN’T ABLE TO READ THE BANNERS? Show of hands? Yeah, that’s what I thought. The only thing I can remember reading from one is something about a Ford. And that’s only because the famous Ford logo was part of the banner.

Each advertising medium carries its own set of rules and specific conundrums through which it must leap in order to get viewers. And video is the absolute shortest distance between your message and your potential clients.

For the last several decades, humans in the western world, and now the entire industrialized world, have been more and more drawn to visual mediums like TV and video. And, with the advent of so many viewers on high speed Internet, it’s no wonder that companies as large as E-Trade have spent big bucks (something most businesses don’t need to do) getting into the online video game. The hits on those baby commercials are huge. You gotta’ know that when big name Hollywood directors and writers are taking time out from TV scripts and Hollywood movies to produce web videos, that something is there.

So, you want an edge over your competition? You want to increase service sales, increase retail sales or increase product sales? You want to get some massive traction from those web testimonials? Then, you need to add a web video or better yet, a web video series to your company web site. Check out this page of testimonials.

Here’s how many businesses of all sizes are implementing video in their lead generation cycles:

-An Online Video Product Demonstration will not only increase inbound leads to your web site, it is also the single most powerful and convenient sales tool for your inhouse and outside sales forces. And, the video can be easily published to DVD and play in trade shows or be carried around by outside sales persons and played on a portable DVD player: right in the car or in the office.

-Your web testimonials can be turned into Customer Testimonial Videos and also play online and from a DVD. Make sure you contact a company that specializes in Testimonial Video Production.

-Some of the best Sales Videos are no longer just at trade shows. They can be found on the web. Handing your sales force an online sales video is like handing them a raise and a guaranteed increase in your bottom line as well.

Here are some more reference articles on succeeding with video:
The Perfect Product Demonstration Video
How to Increase Sales With Video — Hands-On Tips
Quick Quiz: How to Tell if Your Business is a Video Candidate

Anything that gets sales moving is worth checking out these days, and a 30% lift is cause for a full-blown investigation.

I asked John for the back-story. “Today, marketers have the huge advantage of being able to use online videos with broadband access,” Hoge told me. “Thanks to online video, our new FoldCat went from nothing to being our best selling boat in just 1 year.”

John credits IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com, a Chicago-based video company, with the success. I visited their blog and got some handy advice that helps take video from “I wish we could do that,” to “Hey, check out our new online video!”

How to post videos online
Their post, http://blog.increasesaleswithvideo.com/index.php/2009/12/growing-your-small-business-using-video-2/  points out that TV was once the only video venue, and cost made TV the exclusive domain of mega-corporations. Then, the post gives the good news: today’s online environment makes video possible — and a significant selling tool — for even the smallest business.

Stu Marks, Media Designer/Video Producer for IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com, lays out a simple marketing plan for broadcasting video. “Simply go to www.facebook.com and sign up for a free account,” writes Stu. Then, step by step, Stu tells you exactly how to upload your videos to your Facebook page.

If you’re 15 or younger, you probably already know how to do all this. But if you’re like the rest of us, the post gives you enough info so that you can tell your kids, “Look, I posted my video myself!”

How to leverage 1 video 8 ways
OK, you’ve got your video on Facebook. Now what? IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com has another post, http://blog.increasesaleswithvideo.com/index.php/2010/02/how-to-sell-8-ways-with-1-video/  that shows you how to leverage 1 video 8 different ways, turning your 1-time investment into a 24/7 salesman.

For example…..mount your videos on your home page. Mount them deeper in your site, too. Offer free videos in your advertising. Use them to increase retail sales: loop them in your showroom. Or use them in business-to-business selling environments — trade shows, sales presentations, or conferences.

And, lest you forget your own troops, the post advises you use your video internally to train new employees, and at company meetings to focus everyone on your core selling story.

Like any other new sales tool, putting video to work to increase your sales may seem beyond your reach. But with good advice and hands-on tips from experts like Stu and others at IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com, you’ll be running with the big dogs in no time.

Steve Edwards
Copywriter/Direct Marketer
www.EdwardsDirect.net

Some more references on Succeeding with Video:
Quick Quiz: How to Tell if Your Business is a Video Candidate
How to Get Customer Testimonials
Hiring a Video Producer: Why a Pro?

There are so many ways to advertise: so many marketing tools from which to choose. But, the medium with the most value for the buck is video: both online and offline video. Online video is exactly like what it sounds: videos playing on the web. Offline videos are those not playing on the web, like DVDs playing in the office or at a trade show, or simply being mailed out on DVD discs.

Custom videos can be applied in many ways:
- Client Testimonies
- Increase Product Sales or Online Video Product Demonstration
- Increase Service Sales
- Training Environments

All though video is so versatile; it is more noticeable for some than others. There are actually two categories of businesses that work well with using video: one is the Golden Zone, those are businesses that best enjoy the use of video such that the cost per unit actually becomes zero or near zero at some point. Fortunately, this is true for most businesses; for them, video well more than pays for itself very soon.

The other category is Silver. Silver businesses have a hard time tracking the impact of a video marketing tool because the video tool can’t be implemented alone. It is accompanied by several other factors that make it nearly impossible to track; such as a web site and the video being rolled out in the same month. But, they still enjoy the benefits of creating a powerful marketing tool once, and then using it perpetually: the ultimate overhead cost reducer.

The following is a check list of elements that will help to expose businesses that are in the Gold or Silver Zones. It is our experience that companies in these two zones pay for the video in a matter of months or even weeks. One of our clients actually increased product sales by over 30% in just one quarter. This was not only an increase in inbound leads; rather actual sales were increased by over 30% by doing nothing more than implementing our custom video productions. Finding anything in marketing that delivers that kind of increase is phenomenal.

TAKE THE FOLLOWING VIDEO QUIZ.
Your business will benefit from video marketing if:

1)                Your company markets a service or product to the masses or to businesses.
___YES   ___NO

2)                The product you market can be of interest to millions of individuals on the planet or thousands of businesses
___YES   ___NO

3)                The service you market can be of interest to millions of individuals on the planet or thousands of businesses
___YES   ___NO

4)                There are existing satisfied customers you have served: at least one, but more is better
___YES   ___NO

5)                You have on staff successful media designers with a proven track record of writing scripts that bring in leads, or you can hire a reliable media design firm who has a proven track record of writing scripts that bring in leads
___YES   ___NO

6)                You have the ability to add a video to your company’s web site, or can hire someone to do this for you
___YES   ___NO

7)                You have the ability to contact your satisfied customers via mail, email, or telephone or can hire someone to do this for you.
___YES   ___NO

8)                Your company has an existing web site
___YES   ___NO

RESULTS
Two to four YES’s, and you are in the Silver category.
Five to eight YES’s and you are probably in the Gold category; the same category as Sea Eagle Inflatable Boats, the company that showed a 30% increase in sales from using our custom video productions.

Good News
IncreaseSalesWithVideo is a media design firm that specializes in contacting satisfied customers and handling all of the details that culminate with customer testimonies and customer video testimonies. This is something that virtually no other video production company is setup to do, and we are loaded with ready samples of real customer testimonies to prove our work is professional, powerful and deliverable upon your request.

It must be stressed here that our experienced writers do not create scripts from which the satisfied customers read. Rather, the scripts serve as support documents that fulfill the visual aspects of the words that the customer testimonials deliver. So, all testimonials are absolutely legitimate and authentic, spoken at will in front of a camera. Our job is to capture the real passion that your customers have for your business. And no one does it better than IncreaseSalesWIthVideo.

Also, there is no need to worry about your good customers having to deal with a third party company such as ours. As a matter of fact, every single testimonial video recording session we conduct, is looked upon by everyone who takes part in it as a fun and rewarding experience. Most people have never been in front of a commercial grade video camera and enjoy being treated like the stars that they truly are.

Three important elements that set us apart from other companies are;
A) We are more than a video production company, we are a media design firm with professional writers experienced in testimonial writing and designers possessing years of successful experience in this business.

B) We have a list of satisfied customers who have recorded customer testimonials on our behalf.

C) Our crews can literally travel anywhere to get the footage, and have. From the Florida Keys to the Rocky Mountains, from swamps and mountaintops to florescent lit offices, we have captured customer testimonials that get out the powerful success stories of our clients.

What you have been looking for
Maybe the recent economic downturn has set you looking for a way out. Or, maybe you just started a business and need to hit the ground running. It could be that you are the one in charge of marketing, and your people are counting on you to make a difference.

You owe it to yourself, and your business to look into marketing with customer testimonial videos, and discovering how to increase retail sales and increase business sales with video.

Please check out our video portfolio at www.IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com/VideoPortfolio.asp

Some more references on Succeeding with Video:
How to Get Customer Testimonials
Hiring a Video Producer: Why a Pro?
Video or Written Word: Content is King

You are the manager of your family’s two star hotel right on Brikell Bay Drive in Miami because your younger cousin didn’t have what it took to make decisions and the property started to suffer. It’s a nice hotel located on a premium footprint but lacks the expensive amenities to gain more stars because you are landlocked and can’t build a restaurant and add the two parking spaces you are short from that coveted four star positioning.

It’s a busy weekend, the weather is great and you are packed. Life is good. Until, the top suite overlooking the beach has a plumbing failure overnight and the $3,000 a night whale staying the week has no tolerance for maintenance excuses: she wants it fixed “…like yesterday, dude!” Who do you call? Is this a job for Uncle Roberto again, or are you going to start leafing through the Yellows for cheap plumbers? No way, “dude”, you’re getting the plumber in here right now who you know can and will fix this immediately. You’re getting one of the best. Because your very livelihood depends on this moment in time. This is an opportunity to show the family that you are the get-things-done-guy in the right place at the right time.

Plumber gets there in thirty minutes, replaces a cracked shower drain and is out by noon. The bill is $400. Seems high but you don’t spend that every day, and it’s fixed, Ms Whale is happy not to have to move to the other suite and that leaky little maintenance problem won’t be coming back for another 25 years.

Deciding who shoots your customer testimonial video for your web site is no less important than any other important decision moment for you the business owner. You choose a professional to manage your taxes, a professional to handle your real estate and legal matters, why would you hire anything less than a specialist in the area of your web testimonials?

In advertising, everyone deals with getting noticed above the white noise of competition and the mundane, so don’t settle on the lowest common denominator when your business’ very existence based on what you do to increase sales is at stake. You MUST increase business sales, increase service sales or increase product sales. These are all retail sales. No one is left out of this survival requirement.

All businesses must increase retail sales and the tools you use are required to have outreach leverage in order to bring in new business. These outreach leverage tools can’t just speak to new blood, they must excel at it. Therefore, your outreach leverage tool should be crafted and applied by someone who has a proven track record in this genre’. You must hire an established professional.

There are many reasons why business owners fail this simple test over and over again. Instead of making the right decision, they get stopped by three common mistakes:

-         bargain hunting
-         glamour profiling
-         personal attachment issues

BARGAIN HUNTING
When one is focused on bargain hunting they usually miss the telltales of success and failure. Now a days, with the advent of so many so-called video producers entering the arena due to the perceived simplicity of digital video, we don’t even begin to cut rates to match Uncle George down the street’s wedding shooters. Uncle George is usually higher than us. Go figure.

GLAMOUR PROFILING is when one is looking for some sort of Hollywood glitz element in the production company’s profile just because they expect it there because, “hey, it’s TV, right?” Wrong. Entertainment is not business. Producers are not all the same. If you want to produce a game show, call a Hollywood producer. But, if you want to produce customer satisfaction testimonials, you need to hire a producer who has been there and done that. Great producers are not ones who can produce anything in terms of a broad spectrum of genre’. A great producer is one who does well in at least one genre’ and sticks to that as their bread and butter deliberately so that they can end up leading the industry in that area of expertise.

If you are going in for heart surgery, which surgeon would you pick: the one who has done hundreds of different surgeries, or one that has done hundreds of heart surgeries?

A testimonial producer is one who has a proven track record at testimonial writing, and there isn’t much in the way of peripheral experience that can substitute for real experience.

Writing a testimonial is a specialized craft. One has to know exactly how to create a script for someone “in their own words.” Testimonials are real statements, so the talent is not really reading a script. But, there needs to be a script anyway in order to handle all of the other assets that go into a testimonial video production. How to handle this dilemma takes years of experience in order to arrive at the end of the process with great customer testimonials.

PERSONAL ATTACHMENT ISSUES
When a business owner has personal attachment issues, there is usually other baggage being dragged around as well, because this is just plain and simple a character issue. Running a business doesn’t have much room for any other kind of decisions than business decisions. Family and friendship won’t stand up very long against the all mighty bottom line.

So, when hiring a plumber, get a good one. And when hiring a video producer for your customer testimonials, get one who has a proven track record in crafting products that increase retail sales.

For examples of customer testimonial samples that can be used on web pages, or as stand alone DVDs, check out our portfolio page.
IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com/videoportfolio

Here are some other good references:
Video or Written Word: Content is King
The Magic Zone: Finding a Vendor to Produce Your Business Videos
HOW TO SELL 8 WAYS WITH 1 VIDEO