Tag Archives: email blast



Why Businesses Should Produce A Video Series: Wrap-up

Posted on September 22nd, 2011 | Leave a Comment

A lot of companies now recognize the power of video. Many are making the leap to produce some sort of video about their business. That’s great. I encourage them to continue. An About Us video is something every company should have these days.

The thing is… that’s only scratching the surface of what video can do. Producing a video series can put a business on a path to video success. It can capture someone’s attention, encourage them to share what they’ve discovered, and get them coming back for more.

The content is up to you. I recommend producing a series of videos on specific challenges facing your customers. Identify the problems, then show them how to address those issues. The videos may not be all about your company, but they are demonstrating your expertise. Turn yourself into the industry expert.

Not willing to make that leap of faith? Focus a series on your business. Create a series of videos featuring outstanding employees. Highlight your customers and how you’re meeting their needs. These are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

Regardless of what you choose for your series, keeping them focused on the audience’s needs… not yours… is critical. This isn’t about pumping you up, it’s about serving the customers. Even if you focus the series on your business, the theme behind the videos should be, “This is how we help you… our client.”

Create quality videos that do that and you’ll benefit from something. Watching quality video is habit-forming. Once you’ve demonstrated to an audience they’re going to get quality video content, they’ll continue to click when you inform them there’s a new video.

A video series is custom-tailored for our social media world. Produce one and let users help build your brand.

–Tony Gnau

Why Businesses Should Produce A Video Series: Part 3

Posted on September 21st, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In part one, we explained the importance of keeping the videos in your series short. Part two was about viewing habits. Today we’re hitting on maybe the most powerful aspect… sharing.

The idea behind a series is to capture an audience. Short videos, covering topics important to your viewers will help you develop that following. Now we want them to share them with others. The best part is if you’ve done your job well in the other areas, this will likely happen all on its own.

Post it on YouTube. Share that link on Twitter, Facebook, in e-mails campaigns to clients and prospective clients, with your friends, family, your dry cleaner… EVERYONE! If they like what they see, they’ll pass it along too.

The more people that see it, the more people will turn to you for your expertise.

Tomorrow… we’ll wrap things up with some final thoughts.

–Tony Gnau

Why Businesses Should Produce A Video Series: Part 2

Posted on September 20th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

If your business is embracing social media. If your business is into e-mail campaigns. If your business is interested in getting noticed, a video series will do wonders. The best part is the more videos you produce, the  more people will watch.

The most important thing is quality. The videos need to look and sound good. Second, you need good content. Something that addresses the needs or issues faced by your audience. Finally, the videos need to be produced on a regular basis. It could be quarterly, monthly, weekly… it’s up to you and your budget.

Once your audience notices you’re producing quality videos, a magical thing happens. They watch. Not only that, if you promote the series, they’ll look forward to the next video.

There’s so much garbage out there that quality stuff stands out. Producing a solid series will get you noticed, and it will have viewers looking forward to your next production.

Tomorrow… the sharing factor.

–Tony Gnau

Careful Where You Send Your Content

Posted on August 18th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Know your target audience. Don’t buy email lists. Do your best to practice permission-based marketing.

Why? So you don’t send your mass marketing email to your competitors.

Yes, I just got a mass email at my work email address (tgnau@t60productions.com) from a video production company telling me about how high-quality video can help my business. It’s even a Chicago-based company.

I love my fellow video producers. We’re competitors, but we also network with one another. I’m happy to recommend others if I feel like they’re a better fit for a project, but this really irked me.

No, I’m not going to tell you the company. This isn’t a personal attack. It’s just a great reminder how blind marketing can backfire.

–Tony Gnau

Getting Creative With Content Budgets

Posted on August 17th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Everyone’s budget is tight. We run into it all the time. Business leaders want a professional video production, but they say they can’t afford it.

Video production costs are actually very reasonable these days. What would have run you 20-grand ten years ago costs half of that now. The average video we produce these days comes in between $4,000-$8,000. That’s a high-quality, professional video production.

Even so, I realize times are tough. Budgets are smaller and if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. That leads me to a couple of suggestions.

First, companies need to plan ahead. Research your video project in advance, keeping one eye on the next fiscal calendar. Get a proposal from your video provider before budgets are made so that you can work the production into it in advance.

“Hi Joe Video Producer, we’re working on next year/quarter’s fiscal budget and we want to have a video produced. Any way you could give me an estimate?”

Trust me, they’ll be happy to help.

Second, look for sponsors. Every business is different, but think about vendors your company works with and see if they have any interest in contributing.

“Hi Jane Vendor, we’re producing an online video for YouTube, other social media, and an email blast. We’d love to get a few of our vendors some exposure as well.  If you’re interested in participating, we can do product placements for $100 or even interview someone from your company for $500 and include a few sound bites.”

Those are just random numbers I threw in there, but you get the point. Would that be tacky? I don’t know, you tell me. I’m just brainstorming here. Keep in mind, I’m suggesting contacting the vendors you purchase from, not customers you sell to.

I’m certainly open to other ideas. In fact, I’d love to hear how businesses are getting creative about paying for any content they’re creating… so let me know!

–Tony Gnau

Politicians Provide Promotional Lessons

Posted on August 4th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Here we go. It’s August 2011, but the presidential campaigning for November 2012 is already here.

Wait! Don’t go away. This post doesn’t have anything to do with politics. Instead, it has everything to do with promoting you and your business.

Subscribe to any of the candidates’ YouTube channels, and you’re going to start getting their videos on a regular basis. They put a lot of time and effort into creating videos they think will appeal to you, and there’s a good reason they produce so many.

The more video you watch, the more you feel like you know them. The more you feel like you know them, the more likely you’ll be to vote for them.

Same thing applies to businesses. That’s why I encourage clients to produce a series of short videos released over a given period of time instead of one long video. We’re trying to capture that same feeling with audiences that politicians covet.

Want to see how it’s done? Check out this Mitt Romney video. It’s not an attack ad or a long internet video. It’s a short look at Romney, and I’m sure one of many to come… from the GOP… as well as the President.

–Tony Gnau

Produce More Video Content, Save More Money

Posted on August 3rd, 2011 | Leave a Comment

It sounds strange, but the more video content you produce, the more money you can save in the long run.

That’s because you start to build a raw video library. In many cases, the more raw video you accumulate, the less you need to shoot. The less you need to shoot, the lower your production cost.

For example, Lincoln Park Zoo is one of our regular clients, and we’ve shot a lot of video there. When zoo leaders decided they wanted to have a year-in-review video produced for their annual meeting, they asked us if we could use existing video and some photos they’d provide to create something?

No problem. Not having to go to the zoo to shoot all sorts of new video saved them big bucks, and they still got a great video. I was at the meeting and it received a huge round of applause.

Not to mention they then had a video they could share in an email campaign and via their social media.

The more video you produce, the less expensive it can get.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Lincoln Park Zoo Year-In-Review

Marketing Videos Going Beyond YouTube

Posted on July 19th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Posting video on YouTube isn’t enough. Facebook, Twitter… all social media need to be in play. Businesses have to share their videos using these tools if they really want some benefit in the end.

There’s even new research to prove it. ReelSEO reports that videos shared through social media outperform those that don’t. One of the key reasons is allowing others to share your videos gives them more credibility.

People trust their friends. If someone you know posts a video, you’re more likely to watch it than if a business sends you the link.

Getting your videos out into the social web could turn a fun marketing project into a profitable investment.

–Tony Gnau

Content That Invests In Your Customers

Posted on April 19th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

There are all sorts of videos that can help a company make a sale. Whether you provide a product or a service, a good video highlighting what you do can go a long way to earning new business.

But don’t discount your current customers.

A good video can also be an investment in them. If you don’t think your competitors are trying to lure their business away, you’re kidding yourself. That means its just as important to share your videos with your “faithful” clients as it is with your prospects.

It’s an investment worth making.

–Tony Gnau

Why Less Content Is More

Posted on April 12th, 2011 | Leave a Comment

It doesn’t take long. A good video can get people’s attention and peak their interest in less than a couple of minutes. That’s important because most web surfers have very short attention spans.

However, that’s not why I think shorter PR and marketing videos are better. Shorter is better because it allows you to do more.

Instead of producing a single, let’s say, 10-minute video, businesses should turn out five, 2-minute videos. Breaking things up into segments does a couple of things…

  1. it’s a manageable time for people to watch
  2. it creates an event to look forward to

I want to focus on that second point. Producing a series of videos allows a company to release them as a web series. Using our previous example, we’ll say one video a week for five weeks.

Show them over your social media networks, in an email campaign, and now you’re producing content your followers will anticipate and appreciate every week.

Less really can be more.

–Tony Gnau