The Video Wizard

I have been in Melbourne for the last few days and am sitting at the airport now, waiting to get on my plane back to Perth.

What can you learn from this store about email marketing?

I went to Borders yesterday and bought a book and as I checked out the girl at the counter asked me if I wanted to get offers from them on email for discounts for books etc.

I said yes and then asked her what would happen from here – would I get an email to confirm my subscription or am I simply added to their list? I then asked her what kind of response she gets from people when she asks that question. I also asked how many email addresses does she collect per day and we had a brief chat about it.

I know you’re wondering what she said, so I won’t keep you waiting any longer.

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I read a post the other day about how YouTube takes up 13% of data usage on mobile devices which was quite interesting and it inspired me to write this quick post.

Mobile marketing is growing rapidly day by day as more and more people rely on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and the proliferation of Apple products is making a big impact on the future of online video. Steve Jobs has made it clear that Apple is not supporting Flash on any Apple device.

So what does this mean for your online videos?

Unless you are streaming your videos through YouTube or another video streaming service that supports video in html5, your video content is invisible to anyone accessing your content through an Apple product.

You might be thinking, big deal – not that many of my potential customers are looking at my website through an iPad, iPod or iPhone.

Fair enough, but the iphone takes up 28% of the smartphone market. Not to mention the huge market of iPad users growing day by day – with the amount of money Apple is spending on TV advertising at the moment it is obvious they want to own the tablet market by leveraging off the power of their brand. Did you know Jetstar are going to make iPads available for inflight entertainment? More and more restaurants are starting to jump on the iPad bandwagon – see the video below.

Now this is not supposed to be a post all about Apple, but you’ve got to admit that if you’re not planning for your videos to be available in html5, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be researching how to update your website to accommodate for this.

Mobile bandwidth usage is exploding at the moment with the main growth areas being video and social networking.

If you’re serious about leveraging the huge opportunity with mobile marketing today, make sure your videos are available in html5 and think about the social media presence of your business.

Hear a world class marketer speak about the future of the web and the way Google is ranking search results in the future.

Thanks to @pambrossman for sharing this one, great content!

Any good marketer should be testing and measuring their results and promotions on a constant basis.

Yesterday, I decided to try something with my email subscribers which revealed a very powerful email marketing strategy that is guaranteed to drive more traffic to your website and higher click throughs with your emails.

It has been proven time and time again that video adds huge value to email marketing – this case study demonstrates exactly how this works. I’m going to share some statistics with you from my emails which I’m sure you’ll find very interesting. In fact, one of the insights revealed in this post could change the way you market your business online dramatically.

I sent an email newsletter out yesterday that went out to thousands of people. The newsletter had several links to articles on this blog and several fun videos that I thought would be of value to my readers. These videos had nothing to do with my product or service, they were purely there for entertainment value.

The subject line for the email was [...]

Sounds like a dream doesn’t it?

Imagine if this was possible. Imagine if there was a way you could expand your sales team without actually having to take on more overheads each month. Guess what? With an effective sales video for your website, that’s exactly what you get.

There is a lot of hype around online video at the moment, and yes it is exciting, but I am here to warn you that not every video is created equal.

There are plenty of hot shot sales people that promise you the world for increasing your business too. If you’ve ever been through the recruitment process when expanding a sales team, you’ll be aware there are a lot of people out there that you could hire and spend thousands of dollars on – only to realise after a month they are not performing and your money has been wasted.

Better than a sales person!

When you invest in a video for your business, it is very possible to get a high performance asset for your business that will increase your sales and help build your business. The best thing is, once you’ve invested in one, you OWN it. A well crafted sales video will deliver a word perfect sales presentation every time a prospect asks for a presentation (when they press play). A video won’t get sick or slack off in the afternoon or waste your time in sales training like the ongoing process of managing a sales team.

A great sales video will work 24/7 for your business, add huge value to all other marketing and sales activities you’re involved in and is guaranteed to work for as long as you decide to use it. The video won’t quit – if anything you’d have to fire it to stop it from working, and that’s why it’s important to choose carefully when you decide to get started with video marketing.

There is a big difference between getting a video for your website that people can watch by pressing play and having a [...]

I spoke to someone today who told me they had their advertising and marketing budget planned out for the next 12 months.

I haven’t heard someone say this in quite some time – with marketing today you need to keep up to date and be flexible for movement because things are moving so fast. I’m always reviewing what’s working and constantly improving marketing for myself and also for clients. It is a real concern that there are people out there that think they have it all under control with plans that stretch so far into the future.

Let’s consider what has happened in the last financial year for a moment. With all the latest developments and growth with video and social media taking over the web, it would be virtually impossible to have created an effective marketing plan 12 months ago that was still relevant today.

The exponential growth of online marketing technology is a challenge for every business owner and certainly one worth you investing constant time and energy towards understanding.

If you are not aware or up to date with the latest trends, and if you are relying on traditional media for your marketing, I can only urge you to take a step back and look at the big picture. [...]

Just a short little rant I thought I’d share with you for Friday afternoon.

Sometimes when I’m talking to people about video marketing and what we do at Myvids I often hear the feedback, I know someone with a camera who can edit and do all of that. It’s interesting to see how people can sum up your entire service as something so simple and easy. The sad thing is, most of these people are talking about their nephew, their son, their cousin or a friend of a friend.

In some way I can see where they are coming from and understand their perspective, but I feel it is important to explain what “all of that” is and why you should always work with professionals to get a high quality product if you expect a high quality result.

Now there are many different ways you can use video marketing for your business online, and for some situations using the home camcorder or even one of the new flip cameras or other pocket sized HD cameras. Sometimes it is better to do it yourself or ask a friend with a camera to help you out.

It all depends on your outcome. [...]