E-Biz Booster Blog

How many times have you watched an Internet marketing video online that promised “great, special info”, but did not deliver? That's really a big turn off.

“A bad video steals you up to 20 times more time than a bad PDF document”

Unfortunately you cannot always tell in advance, if a video will deliver on its promises or not.

• I have seen poorly produced, short and long videos that contained more than expected and
  
  
• I have seen studio production quality kind of videos that didn't tell you anything, except that it must have been expensive to produce.

Too many videos just waste so much time with introductions and typical “Let me tell you my / his / her / their story …” phrases. Too many videos show just faces or other static information. Could be an MP3 audio, and just a piece of written text instead.

I am absolutely tired of this and simply prefer written material, since I can quickly scan through it. Most people also can read faster than those video guys and gals do speak. It's just a waste of time and not to forget a waste of bandwidth.

Of course, there is room for video. The visual aspects can add tremendous value, but not everything needs to be in video. Shooting a video from lame content does not make the content better, it just gets thrown into a different package.

Some folks claim that it takes less time to make a great video than it takes to provide good quality written material. Well, that's true. But only for the producers, who actually have the ability to write good quality content at first place.

All others are just showing their stupid faces into the camera and that is definitely not worthwhile watching. And furthermore they are showing that it is not even worth their own time to create quality content for others. “To hell with them.”

Now, let's talk about some absolutely positive aspects of online videos.

Good reasons for use of video

• Showing onscreen actions that would be hard to describe otherwise. Videos are great for tutorials, but should be accompanied with a written add-on, like a cheat sheet.
  
  
• Showing animated graphics that tell more than words. I have shown an excellent piece of descriptive statistics here on this Blog.
  
  Another excellent example are the recent StomperNet Going Natural 2.0 Videos (↑) about SEO, conversion, … facts that help you increase your sales. For my personal taste the intros are too long. However the content is very valuable.
  
  
• Adding artistic, humorous, graphic, … value
  
  
• or just adding a moving pictures to otherwise great content

Since not everybody is following quality gidelines, how can you protect yourself from wasting time with bad, empty, or hype only videos?

Tips for saving your time

• Watch only videos that have been referred to you by a trusted person.
• Build a list of trusted, good quality sources.
• Watch a video only one time and take notes (if it is worthwhile).
• If the video doesn't capture your full attention during the first 30 seconds. Click away.
• Prefer material that will give you transcripts of the video content as well. Especially, if you have to pay for a course or something similar.
• …

What additional tips do you have to share?
Leave a comment, let me know.

Yours
John W. Furst

No matter if you offer a standardized or custom made product, are you sure that your customers knows what they will get? Very often your customers and your business will rely on implied assumptions that can be quite the opposite of what the other party believes.

As a professional business person, you will have to find your way to avoid embarrassing situation and make sure that your customer and you not only speak the same “language“, but also mean the same.

You might have heard about the chain of communication:

mean ≠ say
say ≠ hear
hear ≠ understand
understand ≠ accept
accept ≠ do

There are 5 possibilities that the communication between 2 people produces unexpected, unwanted results. It goes well beyond what has been said. It can start out with a customer, who cannot articulate properly what he means, and end with a company delivering something the customer does not want. Some companies are arrogantly thinking, “We know it better than the customer, anyway. He'll love it.”

Avoid those risks altogether by making sure the expectations on both sides match objectively.

A fictional story

A chain of communication between a small business owner (BO) and a Web design firm (WD) could go like this:

BO thinks he wants a Web site, because he has read about a competitor, who has launched a Web site successfully and his sales sky-rocket. But he is also afraid of spending too much money on the Web design firm. However, he is convinced that once he has his Web site, his sales will go through the roof as well.

BO says: “Well, I want a small Web site to promote my store. Nothing fancy.”

WD hears exactly the same. There is no distortion in audio here.

WD understands: “BO wants a small Web site. He doesn't want to spend a lot of money on it.”

WD accepts: “I don't offer him additional packages. If I tell him, that it costs money or that it takes time till a Web site becomes profitable, he probably doesn't order the design from me. Well, I need his business now.”

WD delivers a small, nice Web site. That's it.

BO did not think about promotion for the Web site. He thought it is sufficient to have a Web site in order to get more sales. WD on the other side was afraid of offering more.

If you think the Web designer was a little bit unfair, I agree. He simply could have asked BO how he is going to promote the site. There would have been room for additional business. BO does not even know the basics of Internet marketing.

In other Blog posts I wrote about the importance of an educational marketing strategy. In this fictional case it could have worked nicely.

The conclusion of this short story is that both parties, customer/prospect and the business representative should ask a lot of questions and give honest answers. In the case of a standard product load (but don't overload) the sales page with detailed information and answer objections a prospect might have. Of course keep it benefit driven as much as possible. Actually I stop here, because this not not a course in copy writing.

Yours
John W. Furst