The video will be used in future sales presentations as well as in online marketing efforts via their website and Facebook page.

To learn more about Metro Services, Inc. visit their website at http://www.metroservicesinc.com.

Want to produce a similar web video for your business? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA – A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

The video was shown to a group of V.I.P. retailers at a meeting and is currently being shared with other groups who are interested in learning more about what Mohawk is doing to promote their brands across the globe.

To learn more about Mohawk’s flooring products, visit their website at http://www.mohawkflooring.com.

Want to produce a similar web video for your business? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA – A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

Here’s a quick step-by-step process for doing so:

1.) Post the web video(s) on your website using a video hosting service like iPlayer.

2.) On the page where the video will be posted, write a brief description incorporating your key words and phrases that explains what is featured in the video.

Also, be sure to include your contact information and a call to action so people can get in touch with you. The purpose of adding key words to your description is so that search engines like Google will index your page based on those words and phrases. This should eventually improve your website’s ranking over time as you add more video pages to your website.

Search for “video production Chattanooga Tennessee” on google and you’ll see that this strategy has helped my company, 6 STRONG MEDIA, get to the number one spot of the organic search results.

3.) Prepare and send an email newsletter using a service like Constant Contact that includes a quick teaser that draws interest in the video clip and encourages people to click the link to watch the video and to learn more about your particular product or service.

I’ve had more success with actually including a freeze frame of the video (see below) inside the email body that is linked to the video page on my website versus just using a text link. All you have to do is highlight the picture and use the “url link” tool in the email newsletter software to make it link to the video page on your website when clicked.

One piece of advice…If you want to increase the number of people who actually click on the link to watch the video, make sure that is the ONLY clickable item in the email. If you give people more than one choice, they’ll often choose to do nothing. A single link in an email will be more effective in driving traffic to your videos than having it featured among several other links.

4.) A few days after you send the email newsletter to your list, log in to your Constant Contact account (or whatever email service you use) and check the stats to see how many people opened the email and clicked through to watch the video.

In a recent email newsletter I sent out to my list of 962 customers and prospects, 18.9% (179) of them opened the email and 29.1% (52) of those people clicked through to watch the videos. 15 emails bounced back which probably means the addresses are no longer valid or their firewalls are rejecting my messages and only 1 person decided to leave my list by opting out.

By combining videos with an email newsletter, this single marketing effort resulted in 5 new project leads for my video production agency, 6 STRONG MEDIA.

What could a similar effort do to attract more customers and increase profits for your business?

Contact us today if you’d like to discuss how we can help you develop a successful video email marketing strategy >>>

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham. We help businesses use videos, social media and email marketing to multiply profits.

If you’d like to learn more about Memorial Hospital, visit their website or call (423) 495-2525.

Want to produce similar PSAs or TV commercials for your business? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

If you are saavy enough to use web videos to promote your business or non-profit organization, I’m going to assume you have at least a little bit of experience with social media. When talking about social media, I’m mainly referring to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

There are tons of other social media sites that people use but these are the big boys in my opinion and the only ones worth spending time with as it relates to promoting your web videos.

If you don’t have any experience using social media to promote your business, I suggest you get on the bandwagon NOW! You can start by visiting the links above and setting up free accounts.

It’s really a simple system once your web videos are produced and ready to show your customers and prospects. Here are the steps.

1. Post the web video(s) on your website or blog.

If you don’t have a video hosting service or player for your website, I highly recommend the iPlayer. If you need help figuring out how to post video on your site, contact us and we’ll get you up and running. If you plan on uploading to a blog, everyone who has subscribed to your RSS feed will be notified immediately that new content has been added.

2. Upload the web video(s) to your YouTube page.

This can take a while so make sure you do this on a computer that can process the upload for an hour or more without being interrupted by other tasks. Once the video is uploaded, every person who has subscribed to your channel will be notified that a new video is available to watch.

3. Upload the web video(s) to your Facebook page.

For some reason, Facebook uploads videos much faster than YouTube. You can expect this process to take 10 to 20 minutes for a 3 minute video. After the upload is complete, every “fan” or “friend” will be notified on their “wall” that a new video has been uploaded by you. You should also promote the videos on the walls of any groups you are a member of that relates to your target customer.

Now that you have your videos uploaded and ready to go, here’s what you should do to promote them.

4. Send an email newsletter out that promotes the web video(s) on your website or blog.

The email should give a brief description of the video that includes a direct url link to your blog or web page where they can view it. It’s also a good idea to include a picture taken from the video to draw interest and encourage clicks.

5. Send a “Tweet” via Twitter that promotes the page on your website or blog.

You only get 120 characters so make this message short, sweet and persuasive. In fact, make is short enough so if others want to retweet it there is enough room for them to add a short comment. A message like “VIDEO: How to invest in a down economy – http://bit.ly/ui76gf” should suffice. Obviously, you’d want the message to relate to your product or service. I’ve also found that “how to” titles work better than others when it comes to drawing click throughs.

6. Update your LinkedIn profile with basically the same information as what you used for Twitter.

LinkedIn now lets you link to your twitter account so you can set this up to happen automatically. If you put it on Twitter, it will show up on LinkedIn and vice versa. Definitely a time saver but not necessarily the best approach in every situation. If you are a member of LinkedIn groups, it’s also a good idea to post a link to your video pages in the “news” or “discussion” sections of each group. This will give your videos even more exposure.

Once you follow these steps, your web video(s) will be fully optimized and you should notice increased traffic to your website or blog immediately. Plus, now that these videos are posted online, they will live there forever which will work to attract new customers 24/7 without you having to push the material to them via traditional methods like DVDs, television, trade shows, etc.

The time and cost savings make this strategy well worth the effort.

Need help producing and/or marketing your web videos? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

If you’d like to learn more about Epic Optique, give them a call at 423.238.3290 or drop by their show room at 5906 Main Street, Suite 116 in Ooltewah.

Want to produce a similar web video for your business? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

Amanda’s husband had created an effect that included placing several photos on a table before cutting to a photo montage of her grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. So we took that concept and ran with it!

The purpose of the video project was to kick off the employee’s United Way Campaign at Unum. The video featured several interviews with employees that had either benefited directly from a program funded by the United Way or had played a role in supporting the efforts of the United Way.

Each interview was supplemented with photos provided by the interviewees and motion graphic treatments created by us.

We developed opening, transitional and closing motion graphic sequences using the home video concept as our inspiration. The photos were shot against a light green poster board so we could place them on a virtual chalkboard in the finished video as well as wipe them off the table to reveal a digital “still” frame of each interviewee.

The desired effect worked extremely well and Unum was pleased with the results.

“Our United Way campaign has become a focal point for community relations, Unum executives, and our employee population. 2006 was our first year making an internal video focusing on employee involvement with the non-profit. In the past, the process was difficult with interviews being rescheduled many times as well as editing issues and not receiving the final product on time. This year, Kris Simmons did all of the taping in half a day and provided the video within one week.

The final product exceeded our expectations and Kris’s team was responsive and receptive during the whole process. It was a pleasure working with them.”

Suzanne Rodgers, Senior Consultant – Community Relations

Want to produce a similar fundraising video for your business or organization? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

Use TV screens, kiosks or iPads to cross-sell lesser known products and services to your current customer base. This is a fantastic way to introduce your more expensive services or to feature special promotions.

This marketing tactic works for just about any business. When people are sitting in your lobby or waiting area, you have a captive audience. If you aren’t using your TV screens to educate them on your products and services, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

It really doesn’t matter what type of business you run, if you have customers waiting in a room for any extended period of time, you should consider using videos to increase sales.

The key to keeping your waiting customers or prospects engaged is to produce creative, professional videos and graphics that will both inform and entertain. All types of businesses can benefit substantially by adding this simple tool to their marketing mix.

Here are a few examples:

Banks: Use videos to promote mortgage rates, home equity rates, CD Rates, insurance products, investment products, etc. while customers are waiting in line to see a teller.

Hair Salons: Use the TVs in your waiting area to promote higher end products and services. Your customers are already there to get their hair fixed, why not give them a compelling reason to spend more money?

Real Estate Brokers: Run video tours of featured properties in the lobby as new home buyers wait to speak with an agent or show testimonials from sellers that your firm has successfully sold homes for.

Tire Shops: If tires and tire services make up most of your revenue, try using video to promote other lesser-known products and services to customers while they wait on their vehicle. Do you sell unique accessories, offer oil changes, wiper blades, etc.? A video loop featuring these items can increase sales!

Dentists: More and more dentists are getting into cosmetic dentistry because the profits are huge! Why not use a television in your lobby to run loop videos that educate patients on whitening procedures, porcelain veneers, etc. and encourage them to ask questions once they get in the chair?

There are endless possibilities. Any business can use video in their lobby or waiting area to drive sales.

Want to produce a video for your lobby or waiting area? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A video production agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham

CHALLENGE

Brandon Meredith, Advertising Coordinator with Astec Industries, Inc. had an interesting dilemma when preparing for a major industry trade show. He was racking his brain trying to figure out how to devise a presentation strategy that would enable 3 distinct companies inside their Asphalt Group to showcase numerous products all while sharing the same audiovisual presentation equipment.

Brandon knew the presentation had to make a great impression so that prospects would be drawn to their booth yet simple enough so that any of their sales representatives could operate it flawlessly with just a little bit of training.

Isn’t that what every great trade show presentation should do?

Has this ever happened to you? Do you have a trade show presentation that lacks creativity or is too complicated to operate? Are you like Brandon and need your presentation to make a great first impression by bringing your products and services to life inside your trade show booth?

We built an interactive DVD for Brandon that took full advantage of videos and high-resolution photography to tell the story of each of the three companies. In developing the presentation, we made sure to keep the functionality simple enough so that anyone was able to navigate it with a basic DVD remote control.

What do you think? Would a dynamic DVD presentation like the one described here help you make a better impression at trade shows? Would it attract more prospects to your booth and help them better understand your products and services? Could your sales team generate more leads if they didn’t have to worry about operating complicated equipment or navigating a difficult presentation?

Astec Industries now has a very dynamic, interactive and easy-to-operate solution for showcasing the products of all three companies that make up their Asphalt Group. The interactive DVD was designed with future updates in mind so it will be easy and cost-effective for Brandon to revise the presentation whenever he needs to add new products.

Want to produce a video or DVD presentation to help with your trade show marketing efforts? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

1. Make sure you have plenty of time to produce a successful company video.

I get calls all the time from professionals who want to produce a video in a matter of days…in some cases in less than 24 hours! From the perspective of a corporate video producer, it’s nearly impossible to create a quality presentation with such short notice. It can be done, but you will almost always pay a lot more money for a finished product that will have trouble meeting or exceeding your expectations.

Every video you produce needs to go through the proper planning stages to make sure your goals for the project will be achieved. An ideal turnaround for the average video project is 6 to 8 weeks although my company, 6 STRONG MEDIA, typically turns complicated video projects around in as little as one to two weeks.

How long it takes typically depends on how many videos the production company has in their queue before yours and the level of difficulty associated with your project.

By all means, if you need a video ASAP and don’t have a lot of time before you have to show it to your audience, call the video producer anyway. But, the rule of thumb is to give the them and yourself plenty of time to plan and produce a successful video presentation.

2. Decide whether you want your company video to be produced and mastered in High-Definition (HD) or Standard-Definition (SD).

There is a lot of confusion among business professionals regarding which format is the best for showing their corporate videos. Obviously, HD video is a hot topic right now and I get a lot of clients who want us to produce their videos in HD. A problem with this…and in some cases, a MAJOR problem…is that even though we produce and deliver the finished video in HD, the client rarely ever has the ability to show the video in High-Definition.

They may have an HD screen in their conference room but they won’t have a BluRay player that can play the HD disc. Or, they may have a BluRay player or a computer than can playback the HD video but the projector they are using in the meeting isn’t a digital HD projector.

So, before you move forward with producing a corporate video for your business, decide how you will deliver it and to whom before choosing HD over SD (Standard-Definition). For instance, if your plan with the finished video is to send it via DVD to thousands of customers or prospects, the best delivery option will be SD. The reason for this is because the majority of people out there DO NOT have the ability to play HD video at this time in their office or home.

The other thing to consider is how long will you be using this video as part of your communications strategy. If the video will only be in the marketplace for up to two years and you are one of the people I described above who doesn’t have the ability to show the video in HD anyway, I’d seriously consider producing it in SD. If you plan on showing the video beyond 2 years from now then I recommend you produce the video in HD and down convert it to Standard-Definition in order to meet your short-term delivery needs.

A compromise, and one that many of our clients are choosing at this time, is to shoot all the footage in HD but edit the video in SD. That way, if you want to come back in a couple years and update/re-edit the video project, you’ll have all the original footage in HD and can remaster the edited video in HD.

One more thing to consider regarding HD video production. It takes quite a bit longer to edit an HD video than an SD video. So, if you want to develop an HD presentation for your business, don’t be shocked if the estimate is about 30% higher than what the fee would be for an SD presentation. HD videos contain files that are almost 3 times the size of SD files. This causes our editing computers and software to work a lot slower than when processing SD content. In a world where time is money, the longer it takes for computers to process HD footage, the more if will cost you as the video client.

HD videos are beautiful but you’ll need to consider whether it’s worth the additional cost and potential headaches associated with not being able to deliver the HD content to your target audience.

3. Make sure you schedule the time and resources necessary to help the video producer make your project a huge success!

As a corporate video producer, my job is to quickly learn as much as I can about your company or particular initiative so that I can produce a successful video that speaks to your target audience. It’s sort of like cramming today for a test you have to take tomorrow that you just found out about yesterday. Okay, so its not that bad but its close.

Your job as the video client should be to help the producer collect as much information as possible about the company or initiative ASAP so we can get up to speed. The other things you should be doing as the video client is rounding up any images, graphics, logos, video footage, etc. that we can use or should use in the project. There is often a huge disconnect here.

Clients assume that once the video production company is on board that we will take care of everything. This is only true IF you have armed us with the necessary resources and contacts inside your company or organization. Who can provide a high-res version of your logo and branded graphics? Who will help us coordinate interview shoots with company executives? Who will sit down with us to make sure we understand EXACTLY what you want to accomplish with the video? Who will be responsible for reviewing all versions of the script and the finished video to make sure those goals are being met?

Sometimes its best if we have a single point of contact for all questions and issues related to your video. On other occasions, it’s better to give us the names, phone numbers and email addresses to the exact people responsible for certain things inside your company. For instance, we have a large client that we produce videos for regularly and in order for me to meet their tight deadlines, I have the contact information for several people within their internal creative and marketing departments.

This gives me the freedom to work with EXACTLY who can get me what I need instead of going through a single project manager (middle man). Some companies prefer to always go through a single point of contact but I’ve found that its easier to get things done faster if I have access to multiple people inside the client’s organization. If the project manager is a rock star, and many of the people I work with are, a single point of contact is great because as the video producer, I only have to make one call or send one email to get multiple things done.

Finally, try to return phone calls or emails from your video producer immediately during the course of your project to answer any questions or to address any issues. Waiting several hours or even a full day to hear back from you can either delay the video project or force the producer to continue working in a direction that may not be what you were hoping for. The video producer has to deploy resources in order to meet a deadline within a particular budget. Any delay in response from you can create problems that may pop up later in the project as missed deadlines, miscommunication regarding expectations or an increase in budget. Dealing with any of these issues isn’t fun for you or us so do your best to communicate often with your video producer to make sure your project results in a successful video.

If a video producer is worth their salt, they’ll return the favor. Frequent communication regarding project goals and milestones will ALWAYS result in a better experience for everyone.

Looking for a video production agency to help with your next video project? Contact us today for more information or to request a quote.

6 STRONG MEDIA -  A digital video production and editing agency serving Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.