Thursday, December 6, 2012

Do you want to be a movie star?


By Mark Helfen

Do you want to be a movie star? Or more precisely, to star in your own video. If not you, how about your company’s products?

According to the two speakers at next Monday’s SVForum MarketingSIG, video should be a part of your marketing mix, an effective way of getting noticed, telling your story in a compelling way, and even getting new customers at a reasonable cost.

The presentation titled Video Marketing: Getting More Value Without Breaking The Bank will be at our usual location, EMC on December 10. (Note - starting with the January meeting we will be at a new location, the Silicon Valley Cloud Center in Sunnyvale. More details later.)

Our two speakers work as a team in producing video marketing. Judy Blair is a videographer and owner of KeepsakePix. Her expertise is in producing quality videos, formatting them for web display (mostly YouTube), and getting them indexed on Google and other search engines.

Dana Marks is the verbal part of the team, the “perfect radio voice” to supply the narration for your video marketing. With his marketing background in technology, he can help you formulate the message, in addition to speaking it.

The idea is to put together video lasting 30 to 60 seconds that people will actually watch. According to Blair, you have about 10 seconds to catch people’s attention.  Like all marketing, you need to start with a strategy, have a clear message, and in this case write a script that tells a story that customers or prospects understand.

You can produce your own videos. Our speakers will show some samples of videos with good production values, and some that you will have trouble sitting through for a full minute. The presentation will include some tips on creating a professional result yourself.

You can also use experts who have the equipment, software, and knowledge to create a higher quality result. Some expertise in SEO is also useful, especially if you post your video on YouTube, since it’s owned and indexed by Google.

It’s not only the video production value, the vocals count also. Marks believes in “audio branding,” the idea that all of your verbal communication with customers, from videos to your companies telephone voice response system all use the same voice to show a clear identity and brand.

The result can get your company or product noticed, communicate your marketing message, or provide valuable information for customers or prospects.  Presenting your message as a combination of voice and image – a video – is much more memorable than printed words or an ad, according to Marks.

So come by Monday, learn some of the basics of video production, and start your life as a video star.


Please sign up on our meetup page:


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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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