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The “Camera-Shy” Guide to Video Marketing

Guest post by: Jessica Swanson

Article Overview: Discover how your small business can tap into the power of video marketing even if you hate being on camera.

The “Camera-Shy” Guide to Video Marketing

As you already know, video marketing is a red-hot marketing platform for small business owners on a shoestring marketing budget. As prospects' attention spans shorten, a succinct, interesting video will keep them engaged and absorbed in your marketing message.

But, what if you dislike being in front of the video camera? Does that mean that you can't tap into the power of video marketing? Not at all!

Even if you detest the idea of being a "movie-star," there are still ways to ensure that video marketing works for you and your small business.

One of the simplest ways to reap the rewards of video marketing is to record a screencast. Once completed, your screencast can be used in dozens of places to promote your small business: landing pages, websites, blogs, ezines, video sharing sites, etc.

Here are 7 steps for creating a 3-5 minute screencast that will grab hold of your prospect's attention:

1. Establish a marketing purpose. Before you sit down and put together your screencast, it's essential that you understand what you are trying to accomplish. Are you interested in driving traffic to your landing page or blog? Do you want to entice the viewer to become part of your list? Or, are you trying to make a sale? You want to have one defining purpose when creating your screencast.

2. Decide on a clear call to action. At the end of your screencast, it's essential that you ask your viewers to take action. Depending on your marketing purpose, you should invite them to visit your blog, persuade them to become part of your list or direct them to a sales page to make a purchase.

3. Focus on solutions. The most powerful presentations focus on a particularly challenging problem your prospects' face and then offering specific solutions. For instance, the dog trainer might draw attention to the difficulty of barking dogs and highlight various solutions to that problem. At the end of the presentation, her prospects would be directed to take specific action (download a special report, visit a website for more information or purchase a program).

4. Create a PowerPoint presentation. Locate PowerPoint slides and create 12-15 slides based on the problem and solutions that you are offering your viewers. The first slide should be a title slide including all your business information and the last slide should be your clear call to action.

5. Download free screen capture software. Obviously, you'll need software to record your PowerPoint presentation. The good news is that you can download free screen-capture software from Camstudio (camstudio.org )In addition, Camstudio has simple tutorials that will teach you how to use their software.

6. Record your presentation. Once you understand how to use Camstudio, you need to record your presentation. You can talk into a microphone (either the internal microphone on your computer or a purchased microphone) while you progress through your PowerPoint slides. Once you've completed your recording, you should save your presentation as an MP4 file on your hard-drive.

7. Submit your video. To get as much visibility as possible, submit your video to as many different places as possible. You can place it on your own website, blog, landing page and sales pages. In addition submit it to video sharing sites such as Youtube, Viddler and Google Video.

With the possibility of creating a screencast video, the "camera-shy" small business owner has no more excuses. A screencast can be put together in less than an hour and create massive visibility, generate new leads and ultimately create more business.

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Article Tags: shoestring marketing, small business marketing, video marketing



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Dramatized the product - Tough one... It's going to have t be a mix of different media. 1. Testimonials of current owners of the product and how it's helped them. This can be done thru Video and print 2. Somehow I believe there will have to be Video of it being "dramatized" 3. People of influence will have to support or sponsor the product. just some that came to mind..
Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? - Add VALUE to your target market. How? Well depends. If your business can start by Educating the target market about how your product or Service can add value to their lives. This can be done via Video (hot right now), basic text, audio etc. I've had a lot of success with Video and am using it primarily as a lead generation tool. If done right your Content can add Value and add to your bottom line at the same time while building Trust.
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - Traffic is the lifeblood of your internet business and it is one of the most popular questions asked all the time how do I get more traffic. The following are some good strategies that are proven to work to help ou gain traffic to your website A) Forum Marketing b) Article Marketing - (Where you distribute your content is the key to success with Article marketing) c) Video Marketing d) Blogging e) Social Media ( sharing content amoungst a targeted network of friends or creating Fan Pages and updating) f) Ezine advertising ( send solo mailings to email lists of people within your niche) Go to google and type in your niche name followed by ezine or newsletter g) Pay per Click H) Joint ventures and ad swaps ( generally will need a list of email subscribers of your own) I) Classified adverts online J) Banner and Image ads - go to google and type in google image ads - full tutorial their I would reccomend you pick one strategy and learn it until you can generate some great traffic and then you should look to move on and implement other strategies.
Re: need pricing help please - here's my opinion that was derived from the person I heard it from (Russell Brunson) I view internet Marketing products as a Ladder. At the bottom of the Ladder is ebooks and at the top is One on One Coaching. so the ladder would look like this starting from the Top ($$$) to Bottom($) One-to-One Coaching ($$$$$$) Workshops ($$$$$) Teleseminars ($$$$) Video($$$) Audio ($$) ebooks ($) I agree with this methodology mainly because of the convenience factor and value from the customers point of view.
Re: What is your Business? - We are running a Online Marketing Firm and we have some good clients to which we are offering a complete Digital Marketing strategy like Search, Mobile Marketing, Branding and Design. I think in Online Marketing company online presence can be a wining factor for the success of the company.


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