Now you have created your new marketing video, what do you do with it? Here is a list of my ideas on how to maximize your business video:
- Convert the video to the following digital formats and in a variety of sizes:
- FLV – Flash video format for web posting
- WMV – Windows media format for PowerPoint Presentations
- MP4 – for iPhone and Mac applications
- H.264 – High Definition format for Presentations
- MOV – for your Mac applications
Your video production vendor should provide you with these formats. Hopefully you are not being delivered a single video file. If your video vendor will not provide the above formats, request the final .mov or .avi file and purchase video conversion software (We use Sorenson Squeeze) to convert your video to the above formats.
- Upload your video to your website. Put a link to the video on your home page.
- Create a special landing page with your online video for Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns
- Upload your video to YouTube. Create a YouTube account and a YouTube channel for your company. Use YouTube as part of your SEO and social media strategy. You can see the Xcelus Studio channel at: http://www.youtube.com/xcelusstudios
- Use your video to start a social media strategy. – Start by creating a Facebook account and a Facebook page for your company. You can see the Xcelus Studio Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Provo-UT/Xcelus-Studios/25219468856?ref=ts
- Tweet your Twitter followers about your new video.
- Use your video in your sales processes such as email campaigns and sales presentation.
- Don’t forget to use your video in your PowerPoint presentations. The WMV format work great in PowerPoint.
- Create a press release announcing you have created a new marketing strategy using online videos. Link to the video.
- Announce your video in your corporate blog.
There are many more ways to maximize your video. These are just a few ideas to get your new marketing video out to your clients and prospects.
Finding the right spokesperson talent can be an adventure, but the effort will have a tremendous impact on your video’s success. Good spokesperson talent is crucial to any video project. The spokesperson video host will be the image of your video’s brand and can attract or detract from your message.
Where is the best place to find a spokesperson talent for your video project?
The best place to start is with a local talent agency. These agencies will work with you to identify available talent in within your budget range. Plan on paying a 15%-20% for this service, but it is money well spent. I would recommend that you interview several agencies to review their spokesperson talent pool and their fees, before you commit to the agency for a casting call. Good/experienced talent tend to work with good agencies.
What does a typical spokesperson video host costs?
There are three costs related to spokesperson talent:
- Talent Fee – Usually there are half day and full day rates. Depending on your market and the level of talent a typical range would be $600 – $2,000. A spokesperson with name recognition will cost even more.
- Agency Fee – Agency fees add 15% – 20% to the talent fee.
- Post production costs – The talent could also add or reduce post production costs based on their skills and preparation. I learned that paying a few extra hundred dollars for a seasoned spokesperson would eventually save me several hours of post production editing time.
What are some tips to selecting spokesperson talent?
- Teleprompter skills – If they can’t read a teleprompter effectively do not hire.
- Don’t judge talent by their head shots – Looks are important, but they don’t always equal the ability to convey your message or the ability to read a teleprompter.
- Review their demo reel – Make sure you see a demo reel of there previous spokesperson projects.
- Use Local TV Anchors – We have been most successful using local TV news anchors as spokespersons for our projects. They are the best at reading teleprompters convincingly. However, many TV news anchors cannot do work for companies in their news market. We have been lucky that most of our video projects are for national companies based outside of the local news markets.
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Several years ago, I took my daughter to the opening of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Fifteen minutes into the film the audio started to crack and skip (No fault to the film maker) due to some malfunction in the theater. The movie itself was beautifully displayed on the screen, but the sound was so horrible that we finally left the movie and asked for a refund. It made me realize that sound is not just one of the many components to a video, but probably the most important component to get right to keep your audience’s attention.
I asked several colleagues about the critical components of a self produced video production and rank them in priority of what is critical to making a successful video. Audio was consistently ranked number one with lighting number two. It’s clear that audio can make or break your production. The reality is that most self produced videos ignore audio completely – just look at 95% of YouTube videos.
Webcam microphones just do not cut it for sound quality. If self produced video makers would spend $35 at Radio Shack for a simple PC microphone, the production value would increase dramatically. The key being – getting the microphone as close to the sound source as possible.
Even some corporate self produced videos forget about sound. I was at a large tech company waiting in the lobby and noticed a Sr. Vice President being filmed by a small consumer hand held camera without lights, tripod and a microphone. I can imagine the audio sounded awful and only amplified the fact of a shaky camera and poor lighting. How long would you watch a video with poor sound?
Another example of poor use of audio is when companies use Captivate or Camtasia for screen recording “how to” videos. Captivate and Camtasia do a great job, but cannot make the audio any better than the microphone that is used.
On your next self produced video production, invest in a good microphone. $400 can purchase a decent wireless microphone that can handle most self produced videos. If you don’t have a $400, there are several good USB microphones that are good enough for a video blog or screen recording for under $200.
In a future post I will talk about setting up an echo free room on a budget to make your audio even better.
