Letters From Dan

Video marketing is fun and easy. I say it’s fun because rarely does anyone pay $10.50 at the theater to sit and read a magazine for two hours. Nope, people like video.

Did you know that you don’t even need a video camera to start video marketing? I mean you don’t even have to rent one or hire someone or anything like that. You don’t even have to have pictures.

Now, I guarantee you’ll get yourself a video camera after you start doing this, perhaps you’ll even get video editing software. And the only reason that will happen is because video is fun. Once your customers comment that they liked the video you e-mailed them, or saw a video about you on Facebook – there will be no turning back. Video just creates fun positivity.

So how about the easy part? Well, I’ve got some tips for you to make this SUPER easy. If you’re able to be found in Google for your keywords, head over to YouTube’s Search Stories site and make a video of your company. All you need for that is to know which keywords bring up information about you. That’s it. And it’s FREE!

Then, find some marketing photos of your company online, in your camera or elsewhere and load them up to Animoto. Animoto is a service that will turn photos into a video complete with music, a bunch of fun graphics and fancy stuff. Oh yeah, that’s Free, too.

(along that same lines is a service Trip Advisor put together called TripWow. It’s designed for travel videos, but I’ve adapted it to many things. And it’s FREE).

YouTube, of course, is the ultimate video tool. It’s the #2 visited search engine every day. If you don’t have video editing software, that doesn’t mean you’re without options. When you load one of your videos up to YouTube, you get instant access to free tools to edit, add titles, add music, frames, captions and even “Links” to other videos. There’s no cost for that either – and it’s pretty fun at that.

Here’s a great example of a video that links to other videos. What kind of ideas does that put into your mind? You can watch the video from the beginning, but if you just want to see the “magic”, start watching it about 3/4 of the way through.

Now, when you really want to get creative, and I mean creative! – watch these two videos. These are browser based videos and are really going to blow your mind about what is possible. These are “fun”, but not so “easy”.