Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

A lot of marketers think that, in order to create a video that will bring in tons of cash, you have to script this elaborate production. Wrong! All you need is a camcorder of some kind to have the bucks come pouring in. Think I’m kidding? Well, after reading this article, you’ll realize how easy it really is.

Do you know what tomorrow is? It’s the day we’re going to have another solar eclipse, as of this writing anyway. So what’s the big deal? Well, I happened to run over to YouTube to look up solar eclipse and wouldn’t you know it, there were almost 3,000 videos having to do with a solar eclipse…many of them actual footage of one. And guess what? Some of these videos had monetization at the end of them. That’s right. Some guy with just a camcorder and a way to upload that video to the Internet is making money hand over fist.

The key to the whole process is finding a subject where all you have to do is go outside and take some movies where there is a market for that information. Off the top of my head, how about a movie of a guy hitting golf balls for a golf instructional video? Or how about going to the local bowling alley to take some shots of a guy tossing bowling balls for a bowling instructional video? Or baseball, or football, or any sport where the best instruction is video? All you need is your camera and somebody to demonstrate the correct technique for whatever you’re doing.

Let’s say you’re making a video to show the proper golf swing. As I said, you don’t need to script some elaborate production. A intro as simple as, “Here is the proper golf swing for a T shot using a 3 wood” will do the trick. Then just let the guy do his thing. The beauty of these type of videos is that they’re action videos and therefore, a lot of words aren’t needed. Just tell the viewer what they’re going to see and you’re done.

Video marketing for many topics can be as simple as just walking outside and letting your camera do the work.

And it doesn’t get any easier than that.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

My apologies from the get go but because of certain TOS of a certain site, this article is going to have to be very cryptic in some areas. I will still try to make my point as clear as possible without naming any names or anything in specific. I’m going to be referring to a specific video in this article and show you (sort of) how the creator was very smart in their creation of it. Okay, here we go.

The video was one promoting a service that the site was offering. The video was composed of two parts. The first part was the owner of the site talking about their service in general. The second part was a voice over artist going over the actual terms of the service. Okay, let me touch on this first.

You’re probably wondering why the site owner didn’t do the whole video. Well, there are two reasons. The first one is simple. Would you want to listen to one person talk for five minutes straight on any topic? No, of course not. After a while, you’d be bored. By having a voice over artist, along with slides, go over the actual terms of the service, it breaks the video up. The risk of boredom is reduced.

However, there is a second reason for doing this, one that I am guessing at. The site owner, great guy as he is, probably realized that a professional voice over artist would get the terms of the site over better than he could. This is very important when creating a video. See, most video creators think that they have to do everything themselves. This is not true. If there is something that you feel another person can do better, whether it’s graphics, voice over or whatever, you should have that person do it.

Another thing that I want to point out about the video was that the terms of the service were clearly pointed out as well as what the service did NOT include. This kind of honesty is very refreshing today and will certainly add to the credibility of the video.

I’m sorry I can’t be more specific about the video itself but the site’s TOS forbids me to name names. But by following the bit of advice I gave above, you should be on your way to making better videos.

To YOUR Success

Steven Wagenheim
Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

I never thought that I could learn anything about video marketing from Ezine Articles, but son of a gun, after watching their video about Premium Membership, it really got the wheels turning in my head. If you’re not an Ezine Articles member, you’ve missed a great video presentation. In this article, I’m going to explain why it is and how YOU can use these techniques for your own videos.

The video essentially discusses what Premium Membership is and what the benefits are. Okay, so what was it about this video that I found particular interesting?

For starters, the video used a combination of personal interview and slides. This makes the video presentation itself less boring. The reason is because the two techniques break up the monotony of the video. Imagine seeing nothing but slides or nothing but a person talking for five minutes. You’d be pretty bored after a while. I know I would.

What I really liked was that the speaker, the owner of Ezine Articles, was smart enough to hire a professional voice over artist to explain the nuts and bolts of the membership while the owner added some commentary to it. I won’t venture to guess why this was done but in many cases, site owners will do this when they realize that they don’t quite have the speaking voice to pull off the specifics. So they will hire a voice over expert.

This is important to understand. See, a lot of people are under the impression that if they make a video that they have to do it all themselves. This is just not true. The key is to focus on what you’re good at and let others do what you’re not so good at. That way, you end up with a professional presentation.

Another thing that caught my attention was how well the benefits of Premium Membership were explained. There was absolutely nothing that was unclear. Also, I liked how it was also explained what membership did NOT include. The honesty of the presentation added more credibility to it.

If you’re an Ezine Articles members, watch the video. You will learn a lot from it as far as how to make your own videos.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

God bless Internet marketers. They love to sugar coat things. If you read how easy it is to do just about anything online, you’d think that everybody was a millionaire at this business. Truth is, there are very few things that are REALLY easy. Video marketing is one of them. In this article, I’m going to give you the REAL truth about video marketing. You may not want to hear it, but you need to know it.

Let me start off by saying this. Videos can absolutely explode your profits like nothing else. However, it’s not going to happen JUST by you slapping up a video on YouTube with any old garbage on it for just any old niche. A little bit of planning is required.

For starters, not all niches are going to be receptive to video. Some subjects just don’t translate well to video and are better served by the written word. Would you want to watch a video of some guy talking about the atrocities of war? I know I wouldn’t. I don’t care what book he’s selling. That video would put me to sleep. Give me a well written article instead. On the other hand, a video of somebody showing me how to play great guitar leads would really grab my attention and maybe even get me to buy his course. Know your niche and know your audience.

Secondly, you can’t just slap together any old thing. Have you seen some of the most popular videos on YouTube? They’re either very well made or they’re very clever and unique. The attention span of most people today, especially with all the distractions in the world, is limited. If you don’t grab their attention right away, forget it. So taking that guitar lead video as an example, many of the great ones will start off with a sound clip of the person playing this really cool lead so you can hear what it sounds like. This makes you want to watch the video so you can learn to play it as well. You MUST grab people right away.

Finally, it is rare that a video takes off overnight. Things take time unless you have something that is so unusual that people just start talking about it to everybody they know. But for most videos, you need to use proper keyword selection to get them to the top of the search engines. So yes, you need to know a little bit about marketing.

Make no mistake about it. Videos can work really well. But if you think you can do a half baked job in any old niche and make a fortune, you are seriously kidding yourself.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

If you’re a serious Camtasia user, you know that there are many options for publishing or producing your videos. With so many options, which ones do you choose? Does it really matter? This article is going to cover a few basic uses and hopefully give you some simple tips for publishing your videos.

There are two things that you need to be aware of when producing any video. The first is quality and the second is ease of viewing or portability. Unfortunately, as I am sure you’ve discovered, you usually sacrifice one for the other. For example, if you want your video to be of really high quality, that usually means that the video size is going to be quite large. That ultimately means that many potential viewers of your video can’t view it properly or it takes them forever to do so. Make the video smaller and in many cases, the quality suffers greatly. Yeah, it’s a real pain in the backside.

Sure, there are some video experts out there who can optimize your video for you and still have it looking good. Problem is, these services will also charge you an arm and a leg. For the average video marketer who is making quite a few videos, this is simply not an option. Therefore, they have to make do with what they have. That’s where this article comes in.

After beating my head against the Camtasia wall for months now, I have come up with the optimum way to pump out videos where the quality is decent enough and the size isn’t so that you’re restricting the average Internet user. The key is to produce the video in FLV format. This will give you the smallest size while at the same time producing decent enough quality. A frame rate of 5, max bit rate of 300, and 50% quality will be more than good enough for Powerpoint type presentations. For live action videos, increase the quality to 70% and you should be just fine.

No, these videos will not look like they were produced in a TV studio, but they will do the job and you won’t have prospects screaming at you because they can’t view your production.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

It doesn’t happen often, but once in a while, a product or service can actually target more than one demographic or market. For example, the elderly and young kids. When this happens, the message that you’re trying to get across to each segment has to be tailored to that segment. Let’s face it, you’re not going to speak to an 80 year old the way you would to a 16 year old. In this case, one video isn’t going to do the trick. You need multiple versions. This article is going to go over how to go about the process.

Okay, the first thing you have to do is go through the actual points that you’re trying to get across that will be identical to each market. These are the points that you need to make sure you cover in both versions of your video. In most cases, these points will be standard and not really the deal breakers for converting the prospect into a customer. The reason is simple. Most basic points are features rather than benefits. Why does this matter? Because people don’t REALLY buy based on features. They buy with their gut or heart. And that’s where benefits come in.

Benefits will be different for each target market. For example, an older person has different life priorities than a younger person. A younger person probably wants to have more fun and doesn’t take life quite as seriously. A younger person has different priorities. And older person is probably more concerned with having quality of life without pain. They’re done working and just want to relax. In both cases, you have to look at your product and determine what pitch to make to each audience to best convert them from a prospect to a buyer. Thus, two videos are going to be needed.

This is the reason why you will see one set of commercials for one product in the United States and another set of commercials for the same product in Japan. The cultures are totally different and react to different things. You can actually see well known US brands and their commercials in other countries by going to sites like YouTube. This is probably the best education you’ll get as far as video marketing for different cultures.

Bottom line is this. In some cases, you WILL need different versions of your video depending on how many different markets you’re reaching.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

Video marketing is great. But a video with music is even greater. Problem is, syncing music to a video sequence, whether it be slides or a live video, is not always an easy task. In this article, I’m going to give you a few tips to make sure that your music and video are synced perfectly.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have good software. Syncing is not something that should be left to cheap stuff. Also, you better have a computer with a lot of processing power because music and video takes a lot of juice to get just right. Without the proper software and computer processing power, you’re fighting a losing battle before you even begin. Those are the cold hard facts.

After your software and PC are squared away, the next step is to make sure that you have the video portion done to perfection. Prepare the video as if you weren’t using music. Make it ready for release. Most good software will allow you to add music later on, such as Camtasia. When the video is completed, the next thing you need to do is map out the timeline of each segment where music is going to be added. If you’re adding just one musical track, this isn’t too hard, but if you’re adding several tracks, this takes some skill.

Let’s say you have a five minute video and the first 15 seconds are the opening screen credits and you want to add 15 seconds of music to the credits. First thing you have to do is find the 15 seconds of music that you want to add, from whatever source you’re using, and isolate it and import it into the video at the starting point of the opening credits. You want to make sure the music cuts off exactly at 15 seconds. With good software, you should be able to do this to a hundredth of a second with no problem.

Now, let’s say the next piece of music is going to be for the end credits which are starting at 4:30. That means that you’re going to have 4:15 of silence between the end of the first piece of music and the start of your end credits. Most good software will allow you to insert a musical clip at any point on the audio timeline, which is separate from the main timeline. To make this really simple, just play back the video and stop it at the point where the end credits begin. Then, at that point, insert your second audio piece. Even if you’re not perfect, it shouldn’t be off by more than a tenth of a second. Again, most good software will allow you to place items that precisely. And, if you’re PC is up to the task, there should be no lags in the playback.

As you can see, a lot of making this process work smoothly is in the software and hardware of your PC. So don’t scrimp there, or your video making process is going to turn into one very big headache.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html