7 Ways to Promote Your Web Videos - Web Video Doctor
Online Video Marketing: Ten Ways You Can Use YouTube To Promote Your Online Content - Robin Good
Half of US to Watch Online Video by 2008 - Marketing Charts
Users Prefer Professionally-Produced Video - Clickz
SCAMPER your way to better blogging - Converstations
Technorati Tags: video, promotion, marketing, blogging
Sphere: Related ContentA Few months back I posted some thoughts about Adam Steen’s post on encouraging business owners to get working on an elevator pitch. (Also check out his main blog site if you’re not a regular reader.)
My suggestion was to record yourself pitching your idea on video. A virtual elevator pitch.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines. It seems a new video sharing community has popped up in the last month funded by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, and former Chairman of MySpace, Richard Rosenblat, among others.
The new video community, Vator.tv, (as in elevator pitch) is designed to give business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, and others a place to pitch ideas using video, and to learn about other businesses, pitches and ideas… all the while networking with other like-minded, forward-thinking people.
Sounds to me like a great idea!! The business community has been waiting for a “YouTube for business” and I feel like this idea has incredible potential!! If nothing else, this new community gives business owners another tool to reach a more business-specific audience than some of the other well-known video communities.
Again, that’s Vator.tv. Check it out!
[If anyone doesn’t know, we’re working on putting together several packages to help entrepreneurs use video to promote their businesses. We’ll be offering consulting, video production, editing, hosting, and assistance with posting to various video communities. Stay tuned or give us a shout for more details!]
Technorati Tags: video promotion, video pitch, web video, vator, elevator pitch, youtube for business, youtube, adam steen
Sphere: Related ContentComing up on Monday, July 16, Google is launching a promo for the upcoming third Bourne movie, Bourne Ultimatum. Dubbed The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, this new promo idea from Universal Pictures and Google will simultaneously help raise awareness of the movie as well as drive viewers to Google’s products: search, maps, images, translation, gadgets, and YouTube.
What a creative way to jointly promote the products of two very different companies!!
What ways could your business partner with another to creatively promote both your businesses?
Technorati Tags: google, bourne, jason bourne, bourne ultimatum, universal pictures, google search, google maps, google images, google translation, google gadgets, youtube
Sphere: Related ContentDo you run advertising in offline publications?
Do you spend money on direct mail marketing?
Do you hand out business cards to potential clients?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, this post is for you.
Let me start by telling you a quick story. I recently received a post card in the mail from a local real estate agency. The two pictured agents were trying to get me interested in some town homes for sale here in Ankeny.
In order for someone to contact them they only printed a phone number and a physical address for their office on the card. No web site address… no easy way for me to get more information. Sadly, I think they really mis-spent their money on this mailing, because I cannot imagine anyone in the demographic they were trying to sell to wanting to do anything other than look for more information online. That’s what I would have wanted to do.
And I would not have wanted to land directly on their corporate web site either. No, I would want to go directly to learn more information about these specific properties they were marketing to me.
Imagine if they had constructed either a mini-site, or even a sub-section on their existing site just to provide really great information about these properties. I could have learned about special financing, the qualities that make the neighborhood special, watched video of ducks peacefully floating by on the pond, looked at photos of the properties themselves and maybe even been taken on a virtual tour of the properties by one of the sales people who could have taken the time to build my trust long before I bothered to pick up my phone and call. Now that would have been effective!!
So, you spend time and money trying to get your products and services noticed… how can you use that offline message to bring people online? What details and useful information could you provide online to exponentially increase the power of your message? How can you craft your message in such a way as to encourage people to learn more… on their time… on their terms… online?
Next time you are planning a marketing project, give me a shout. We can work together to develop a plan (offline and online) that empowers your audience to understand all of the things they need to know to make an informed decision.
Technorati Tags: Offline marketing, online marketing, direct mail, mini sites, internet marketing, design
Sphere: Related Content
Last week I encouraged you to look around you and try to notice the design of things in your daily life. I asked you to look at their effectiveness, perceived effort involved, uniqueness, and to try to come up with areas for improvement. I wanted you to look at other things, other people’s marketing materials, other people’s web sites. I wanted you to try to notice how these things made you feel when you interacted or learned from them.
What did you discover? Anything interesting?
The next step I want to encourage you to take is to look at your own brand touch-points: your marketing materials, web sites, packaging, advertising, vehicle graphics, invoices, sales letters, emails… even your office itself. Whatever things your customers or prospects receive from you or see about you.
Now go through the same list as last week, this time with your own materials. (I had you do this with other things and other people’s materials first as a warm-up of sorts, to get your brain looking at design, and without any bias.)
We’ll get together again next week to see what you discovered about your own materials. I really hope you gain some insight into how your customers are perceiving you in the process. If you do, please share it! (HINT: Try to look at these things with fresh eyes. Set aside your biases, your inherent understanding of them, and try to be your audience.)
Technorati Tags: design, effectiveness, unique, different, improved, marketing
Sphere: Related ContentBoy did this week get away from me fast!! It’s been a busy week here at Zeppelin HQ, and I’m afraid I just got buried with other projects. Enough dilly-dallying, let’s get back to it!!
A lot of small business owners suffer from a lack of understanding about the concept of “stickiness” when it comes to their internet marketing efforts.
Most business people don’t think of their web sites as a “destination”, instead they think of their web site as merely an online brochure, dutifully on watch 24/7, waiting to offer a few tidbits of information for the next passer-by… hoping that if enough traffic zips by, at least a few will be interested. And many fall into the trap of “Search Engine Optimization is King.” (If so then I assume that CONTENT is but a lowly peasant… more on that another day.)
Back to my point. Unfortunately, these business owners really miss the boat when it comes time to really connect with customers. Web sites need to stay relevant, current, and true to the brand, but most of all they need to give visitors a reason to visit, a reason to stay, and a reason to return. They need to make it sticky.
If your web site is just another “quick-scan and leave” brochure site, you really need to be looking for ways to make your site sticky. So? How can you do it? What information and content can you offer your potential customers that will keep bringing them back again and again? NOTHING? Think harder. Still can’t think of anything? Think it’s too expensive? If so, we need to talk.
Technorati Tags: internet marketing, brochure site, sticky web
Sphere: Related Content
Design is everywhere. It influences every part of our lives. You might not notice it all the time, but it’s there. From the kitchen sink to the signs on the road to your business cards and other marketing materials. Design usually gets overlooked. Things that are designed well, often don’t get our attention… we expect things to be designed well. It’s either when they’re not designed well, or they’re designed differently… that we take notice.
Look in front of you. That computer monitor went through many pain-staking design processes before being approved for production. So did the case of your computer, its keyboard and mouse. The chair you’re sitting on, same thing. The watch on your wrist. The cup that holds your coffee. The telephone. Start looking around you. Do you see it? Every single thing you see has been designed.
I don’t mean engineered. That’s different.
I’m talking about the way you interact with it. The way it makes you feel as you use it, look at it, learn from it…
As an exercise for the next few days, I encourage you to start looking at the design of the things around you. In addition to how you feel about these things, also look at them through the lens of their design teams, their marketing teams. As you do, ask yourself a few questions about it:
As you’re probably expecting, next week I’m going to ask you about your marketing materials… but I don’t want you to think about those yet. Just wait. Open your eyes to other things first. Feel free to look at other people’s marketing tools if you must, but keep your eyes off your own for just a few days… Next week we’ll get back to you.
Technorati Tags: design, effectiveness, unique, different, improved, marketing
Sphere: Related ContentA lot of small business owners I talk to think of their web site as something analogous to an item on a laundry list. They think that once they have it, their job is done. I suppose in their mind it’s something like this: 
The truth is, your web site does not belong on a checklist!! Your web site is your communication tool with your customer. It should be constantly evolving as technology evolves… as your customer evolves… as your business evolves. It should grow with relevant information. It should be updated often and give your customers a reason to keep coming back.
A web site is not a brochure. Brochures are static. Once you print them, they’re permanent. A web site gives businesses a tremendous opportunity to reach out and connect with prospects and customers in meaningful ways.
What sort of value can you add to your web site? Are there any ways you can improve your web site’s usefulness by adding additional information or building a community of people who have an interest in your products or services?
Need help? Here are a few random ideas to get the thought process going.
Put on that thinking cap! I would be happy to brainstorm a few ideas for your business if you need a hand. Let me know. Heck, post your site here and maybe we can get a few more people involved in the process too! 
