Joint Venture Lightning

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, web video is POWERFUL.

If you aren’t using it then you are missing out on one of the most powerful forms of media available. Imagine having your own global broadcast network. That is the power of web video. And best of all it’s free.

I have been working on an interesting project with a prolific writer named Geoffrey Zimmerman. He pours out his emotions with the written word in the form of novels, poetry, short stories, and screen plays. The challenge is how do you promote a text medium with video?

Can It Be So by Geoffrey Zimmerman from JointVentureLightning on Vimeo.

Here are several tactics that we are currently using on his site www.GeoffreyZimmerman.com:

• Interviews with the author revealing the background that inspired his work.
• Video chats where the author invites readers to comment and join in collaboration or contests.
• Behind the scenes videos on his creative process
• Converting some of his old films into video for web distribution

There are other tactics in the plans for later on when we kick promotion into high gear with press releases and begin offering interviews with the media.

A key component of the video strategy is to get each video well titled and tagged then distributed to the major video hosting providers to help drive targeted traffic to the site where readers are given the opportunity to subscribe to his romantic adventure novel “Love Never Dies.”

Getting subscribers is the primary purpose of the website. The secondary purpose is the showcase his work and third is to establish his online presence and brand. This will help him build credibility with publishers and the media so that one day he can get a major publishing contract.

Matt Lee is the owner of The Record Depot located in Roanoke, Virginia.

He’s been the owner for over a year and specializes in Bluegrass, folk, Americana, Old-time, Blues, Jazz and Indy music distribution to retailers across the country. He serves an interesting niche market in the music industry and should have better results with his web sites… his retail site is www.TracksOfMusic.com.

He hired me to come in and help him update his web sites. Since I wasn’t sure what I would be up against when gaining access to his content management system, I took my business partner and tech consultant Keith with me to help trouble shoot any road blocks.

What we found was that Matt has limited admin access to his sites. This means that he can add new product to the inventory database but he can’t change other content… like getting rid of the former owner’s name and updating contact info. Until he gets higher level access, he won’t even be able to add album cover images to the shopping section of the site.

Matt’s idea is to create a web presence where retailers can get news and updates on new releases in the various genres he covers. He wants to be able to quickly and easily post weekly updates like his personal reviews and comments in an informal but professional setting. He also wants a way for retailers to more easily communicate with him about the music he has in stock, orders, back-orders, etc.

I offered to create a solution that would allow Matt to achieve these goals. First, we decided on keywords that his target audience would use to search. Bluegrass was the biggie according to Overture’s keyword tool. So then it came down to finding an available domain with this keyword. We could have used TheRecordDepotBlog.com to tie in with his wholesale site but since he wants to boost traffic I recommended that we go with: www.BluegrassMusicDepot.com.

His blog is set-up with some content already loaded. I’ll be customizing the look and feel to more closely match his other sites over the next few days. I also need to build a front page so that I can tie the blog and the forum together under the primary domain.

One of the most powerful ways to drive targeted traffic to your web site is through the use of video.

As I mentioned in my welcome video, I would be discussing web video in future posts. Well that time is now. One of the first things I do with every single one of my clients is to discuss how we can convert their content into a visual format for video.

The obvious answers are:

• testimonials
• product reviews
• demonstrations
• welcome messages
• call to action ie: subscribe to my mini course or newsletter

The less obvious answers can include the main content that we plan to sell. Most people tend to think in terms of text content like e-books, white papers, and special reports. Customers almost always prefer video content for the following reasons:

• testimonials and product reviews are much more believable
• demonstrations are more easily understood
• welcome messages are more personal
• calls to action become more powerful
• perceived value of content and its quality goes up
• video is more fun to watch
• customer gets a sense of time and urgency

Once I have the basic videos shot and edited, I upload to the web with an awesome FREE video tracking and uploader service call TubeMogul. This service lets you upload your videos once then distributes them to 12 different video hosting services on the web. An added benefit is the powerful tracking feature built in. You can see what kind of results your videos are getting after they are online.

To use TubeMogul, register for a free account and click the upload tab at the top of the page. Here you will find a page with the 12 different video hosting services. You will need to go to each and register for their free accounts before you can load your login and passwords to TubeMogul. I have listed each site’s registration page below for your convenience:

• YouTube
• Yahoo
• MySpace
• MetaCafe
• Google
• Revver
• DailyMotion
• Blip
• Brightcove
• Veoh
• Crackle
• StupidVideos

It takes a few minutes to get signed up on each site but once you have done that and confirmed your accounts on each then you can load your login and password for each into TubeMogul. Then you only have to upload videos once, hit launch and TubeMogul sends it to each video hosting site for you. This saves you TONS of time.

There is a more powerful version of this type of service… if you can afford the fees. It’s called TrafficGeyser. It uses the same concept of upload once and distribute to many. The difference is that TrafficGeyser can send your videos to over 50 different web sites where TubeMogul only goes to 12.

When should you use TrafficGeyser? When you know your landing pages are converting well and the sales you generate will more than cover the costs of the monthly fees. I start my clients off with TubeMogul to test video response and conversion rates then when we start making money, we boost it up to TrafficGeyser.

I’ll cover more on this subject in future posts. I hope that helps get you started.