Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

Corporate Video Production : The Basics Explained

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

A proven method of accurately communicating ideas in corporate presentations is through well-executed video productions. High quality videos can easily be edited for use in television and website marketing if they are done properly. If video is of poor quality or if the content is not presented well an otherwise great concept could be placed in jeopardy. The following tips will help guide you through some important things to remember when producing corporate videos.

Equipment – There are three basic levels of camera equipment to choose from when considering the production of your own videos. For any of the three, digital cameras will help keep costs down and make reproduction easier. At the lower end is the least expensive home video option. These cameras will produce fair to good quality video. At the next level, consider DVD quality cameras and for the highest quality digital video, use an HDV video camera.

Lighting – Always make sure your subjects are well lit. Poor lighting will look unprofessional and be regarded as poor quality. Good lighting means more than one good light; it takes several lights to illuminate a subject properly. The goal is to cast light evenly to reduce or eliminate shadows. This means that lighting will need to come from several different directions at once. Photography gels can be used to diffuse the light and eliminate harsh shadows.

Audio – Dedicated microphones should be used for each person participating in the video and if there are more than 2 people, a sound mixer should be used to capture and isolate each instance of audio by a sound operator. Professional grade, directional microphones will offer the best results, but radio microphones can be used also in cases where the subject may be moving around a lot. These wireless microphones may give lower quality audio however and they may also be affected by radio interference. Roaming microphone operators may be employed where there is a large group of people that may offer audio contributions such as in town hall meetings or question and answer sessions.

Capturing Video – Some planning will allow you to capture good quality content that can be edited later to make the video flow in a concise, professional manner. Aside from capturing the relevant actions and speech of your subjects, it is also important to obtain video segments that may be used to cut in later. This would include things like nodding heads of an interviewer, side shots, close ups and wide angle shots that can be used to cover edits and make the flow look natural. Obtain as much content of this type as is possible because it will make editing much easier.

Once all of the content is obtained, it will be time to edit it together with a digital system that will allow you to cut and paste footage where it is needed. The final product will then be burned on to a DVD for use in your presentation, or for distribution.

Video presentations can be risky because if they are not done right, your presentation will come off as unprofessional, but if done properly, a mediocre idea could be viewed as spectacular.

Read On : Video Production Company

Types Of Direct Marketing Methods

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Marketing strategies are employed by any business or company who want to remain relevant. Whether it is a completely new company that is looking for recognition or a tried and true business that wants to keep its name fresh, marketing is essential for survival. Direct marketing is one way to advertise a brand name, and it refers to directly contacting prospective customers. Several common direct marketing strategies will be rather familiar to a great number of people.

One of the best aspects of direct marketing is that its effects can be quantitatively measured. Sending ads in the mail is still the most practiced form of direct marketing. Coupons are also effective direct marketing tools because they not only make prospects aware of a business, but they have to stop by or visit a website to accept the offer. The number of coupons that come back to the establishment can then be counted up and a percentage of patrons to coupons can be calculated. Fliers and door hangers show up on the doors of seemingly every neighborhood possible. They are not expensive and they don’t cost much to produce. Plus, they will most certainly be seen because someone is bound to walk through their front door at least once a day.

It didn’t take long for companies to realize the efficacy of direct marketing with email. Unfortunately, this technique can suffer somewhat due to the abundance of spam that hits inboxes. Legitimate, fair offers and ads can become lost is a sea of phishing scams and junk mail. There are several similarities in the two types of email, and many email clients’ filters cannot differentiate between them. Email marketing is still productive because the prospect probably provided his or her email address to the company or subscribed to a newsletter and will therefore be familiar with the name. With recognition comes consideration, and the recipient will likely read the mail.

Another common direct marketing strategy that anyone with a telephone is familiar with is telemarketing. This is about as direct as it gets, because the employees making the calls speak one-on-one with the prospect. Though the exact rate of success with telemarketing campaigns varies, they are apparently successful because the practice is still used. Remember, the idea is to obtain some sort of publicity, and even if a person does not buy the product being sold, they have still heard the name of the business and may think of it when they are ready to buy.

Direct marketing is effective because the prospect will encounter the brand name right in front of his face. Mail is the most popular method of direct marketing, followed by email and telemarketing. It is the best way to at least get people thinking about a particular business.

Read On : Direct Marketing

Start A Business – Ideas

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Brian Tubbs just published a comprehensive article on how to start a web based business from your home. In it he touches on what the pitfalls are, “easy to become disoriented…” but then he goes into what all you need to do to get it going.
This is great reading and it should be one of those articles to go through and add to the pros and cons list that you are probably already compiling. It’s great advice for any wanna-be web business owner.
Read it here
Here are a few more interesting tidbits about the differences or not between an internet business and a bricks-and-mortar business:
Internet Marketing is very dependent on marketing more than anything else. Having a good product or service is secondary. You need to have the traffic or the eyes seeing your content for it to do you any good.

Starting a Business Online
Starting a business online is not much different from starting a business in real life. The process to attract walk-ins is also related to the Internet Marketing process, you must have a good marketing to be able to accomplish this. It could be as simple as a sandwich board outside your store, but it must have a compelling marketing message.

So, how do you go about starting an internet business?

There are many things that correspond to the brick-and-mortar process of starting a business.

List of For Instances on Starting a Business
For instance, you need to make sure you have a good feasibility study done. In other words, is this something that the market has an interest in and are there enough interested eyeballs, bodies, with money that will make this worth creating.

For instance, you need to decide what it will cost to have the business going, irrespective of whether or not you make sales. In other words, how much money will I need to keep the business alive if I don’t have anyone buy anything. This involves the rent, phone, utilities, salaries, taxes, and so on. Online, it would be your hosting fee, your Internet access, and so on.

For instance, you need to determine your costs if you are creating products, selling services, or retailing products. Each one has a different set of requirements. When creating products, both online and offline, you will need more upfront costs to take care of than if you are retailing a product. So, the amount of money you have available will determine which route you can go. We are not talking about having others invest in your venture here because that will also make a difference on the decision.

For instance, will you run the business on your own or will you hire out for some of the areas you aren’t equiped to handle. Will you hire personnel or will you outsource it.
For instance, what type of business entity will you have. This has to do with the type of liability you want to protect yourself for. Corporations and non-corporations are pretty much it. Then you also need to decide what amount of leadership are you willing to share if any. Some corporations will allow one single owner, partnerships will always involve someone else, and “doing-business-as” (dba) will always be the least safe of all business entities.

These are just a few of the items that come to mind.
Let me know if you have other questions that still bug you and we’ll try and get you the answers.
To your success

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