Archives by Topic: Marketing

Posted 10-28-09 by Erika

I hear the term Web 2.0 being thrown around and I’m not sure exactly what it means. The part I do “get” is that people expect interactivity and freshness, not some old static website that hasn’t been changed in years or even months. I also associate the term with the emerging social media business culture in which companies use informality, authenticity and direct communication to connect with their customers and build brand loyalty. There is still a place for the formal polished look, but it is definitely not the only way most companies want to be communicating.

A lot has been said about social media as the cutting edge in businesses marketing communications. But I want to take a moment to shine a spotlight on video as a powerful small business marketing tool. YouTube has made it so easy to upload a video and embed it in your website, and people are used to watching little videos online now, or even whole TV shows, that there’s a lot of potential for reaching people there. Online video is a familiar and engaging medium, and importantly, it is more communal than getting an email or looking at a website.

Have you ever been watching a short clip and had someone walk over to see what it is and then stand there behind you watching with you? It can happen in your living room when you’re watching a little videos on facebook of a friend’s kid. Or it can happen at the office when someone starts watching a business-related short. I’m sure we all have had someone forward us a link to a funny video. Videos are both communal and potentially can spread “viraly”.

If a photo is worth a thousand words, then a video must be off the charts in terms of how much it can communicate to a viewer. That’s why companies have paid the big bucks for TV commercial airtime. But paying big bucks for advertising was never in our budget as a small business. And now we can reach people affordably with video by making compelling content available to them on the internet. Compelling is the key to that. And incorporating the authenticity, and connection that social media is famous for, while maintaining some of the polish that keeps our brand looking great. I think that makes for a very powerful marketing tool.

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How We Got Started with Video Marketing - part 2 of 3

Posted 10-29-09 by Erika

In planning our new websites, we knew we wanted to incorporate video if at all possible. We had watched some business friends use one of the little Flip video cameras to make very informal little shorts.

They got a lot of views because people are curious about those they know. But we were looking for something more polished than that. We have spent years developing a trustworthy and cool looking brand and knew we didn’t want to dilute that with some flippantly created video. (pun intended!)

We didn’t have a budget for video so we thought we’d try getting an intern. I imagined a college kid who knew his or her way around video editing and who was creative, to make us some fun, fast motion mini documentaries to make our production process visible in an entertaining way. It would be an experiment. And if it didn’t fit our brand well enough, we just wouldn’t use it.

But instead of a college kid, I was lucky enough to find Gavin Sherlock, a professional videographer from the UK who was willing to work as an intern while awaiting his green card.

We bought a video camera and some editing software for him, gave him some basic idea of what we were looking for and he started filming.

Our illusions of quick and easy soon gave way to the experience of how much time goes into making something that would really tell the story we were trying to tell. Gavin knew the angles and the lighting that made the footage look good. That’s the foundation. He taught me that there is a syntax and a punctuation to telling a story through video. Ignore that at your own peril. Clearly there’s a whole lot more to it than I would’ve gotten from halting attempts with a Flip camera or a college-kid intern.

The first video he did for us was used as part of our photography exhibit and as a way to launch Imagine Photographics.

That video is an introduction to our Lead Photographer, Steve Smith. When you watch it, you get to see Steve’s personality, how he operates, what kind of work he does in the studio and out in the field, and you get to learn something about commercial photography. Sort of a hybrid between a brochure and a documentary. Our hope is that it has value to viewers, is interesting, and also that it is an effective marketing tool in our tool kit. Click here to watch it and tell me what you think.

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Hooked on Video Marketing - part 3 of 3

Posted 10-29-09 by Erika

By the time our videography intern Gavin’s green card came through and he was eligible for paid employment, we were hooked on video. We had seen the power of storytelling through video. We wanted each of our divisions to have a video showing all the cool stuff we can do that people often don’t realize. So we found the money in our budget and hired Gavin for a short term set of video projects.

We separated it into bigger projects and what I call “outtakes”. The bigger projects are 4-5 minute videos like the “Meet Steve Smith” Imagine Photographics introductory video and the virtual tour of Dynamic Business Photography: THE SHOW

that are already finished. The outtakes are interesting little tidbits that we hated to waste from the footage he had collected. You can see the whole set for Imagine Photographics here. Now he’s working on a main video plus outtakes for Imagine Graphics and another set for Imagine Fleet Graphics. You should see the end results on our websites within the next month or two.

I am still incredulous to see that it can take 4-8 hours of footage to make these 5 minute videos. That’s a lot of tedious editing! But if we’re doing our job well, the results will have the impact more lasting and more effective than perhaps any other marketing endeavor we undertake.