Creating Value With Streaming Video Content

Written by John Howarth


Having a corporate or promotional video for your company is often viewed as something of an expensive luxury – useful, but rarely considered to be an essential marketing tool. Whilst many businesses can understandrepparttar benefits of having a corporate video, all too often they are put off byrepparttar 120632 perceived cost and subsequently find it hard to justify commercially. Furthermore,repparttar 120633 process of making a video can at times, appear complex and intimidating, with an array of technical terms and processes.

Streaming video provides a number of useful opportunities for maximisingrepparttar 120634 potential of an existing corporate video. And compared to other distribution media such as DVD or CD-ROMs it also offers a cost-effective solution for broadcasting a new corporate presentation to a wider audience.

Although streaming video is certainly not a new concept and has been around for some time, it’s now easier than ever to add streaming video content to your website. The technology required to enable video streaming is widely available, it’s relatively inexpensive and withrepparttar 120635 dramatic growth in high speed, broadband internet connections, a growing number of internet users can now view high quality, streaming video on their computers.

In this article, leading corporate video & business television producer, John Howarth, explains some ofrepparttar 120636 ways in which streaming video content can be made to work effectively for your business and produce tangible results.

Provide Compelling Content Try to provide content that creates a real interest forrepparttar 120637 viewer. Instead of simply informing them of your key corporate values –repparttar 120638 typical narrative being ‘how successful we are,repparttar 120639 great products & services we offer, our featured clients’ - why not turnrepparttar 120640 message into something that is actually useful and engaging to watch.

Take for example a company that manufactures kitchen products. Whilst you could produce a video to establish company values by highlighting such areas as quality of craftsmanship and original design ofrepparttar 120641 product, this information is almost certainly available more easily onrepparttar 120642 web pages. It could be far more interesting forrepparttar 120643 viewer to provide them with a series of recipes, which featurerepparttar 120644 products being used in context.

Another technique is to provide content that is not centrally focused to your company’s core products & services. For example, your company sponsors a sports event or art exhibition. How about showing some clips fromrepparttar 120645 event, with company branding around it? By using more recognisable and popular content, you are creating a wider ‘reach’ forrepparttar 120646 video, withrepparttar 120647 added possibility of gaining increased website traffic.

The Four Seasons of Publicity

Written by Bill Stoller


If you’re like most publicity seekers, you probably think one project at a time. You’ve got a new product coming out in April, so you send out a release in March. You’ve hired a new executive, you’ll put out a release when she’s on board, etc.

For hard-core publicity insiders, though, there’s a rhythm to generating coverage, based uponrepparttar natural ebb and flow ofrepparttar 120631 seasons. Such an approach can help you score publicity throughoutrepparttar 120632 year, and will help keep your eye onrepparttar 120633 ball from January through December.

Essentially, a yearlong approach consists of two strategies:

* Timing your existing stories (new product introductions, oddball promotions, business page features, etc.) to fitrepparttar 120634 needs ofrepparttar 120635 media during particular times ofrepparttar 120636 year.

* Crafting new stories to take advantage of events, holidays and seasonal activities.

Before we run throughrepparttar 120637 four seasons of publicity, a few words about lead time. In this age of immediacy (only a few seconds separate a Matt Drudge or a CNN from writing a story and putting it before millions), it’s easy to forget that, for many print publications and TV shows, it can be weeks -- and sometimes months -- before a completed story seesrepparttar 120638 light of day.

The phrase lead time simply refers torepparttar 120639 amount of time needed for a journalist to complete a story for a particular issue of a magazine or episode of a TV news program. For example, a freelancer for an entertainment magazine may need to turn in a story on Christmas movies by September 15. That’s a lead time of three months, time needed forrepparttar 120640 editor to review and changerepparttar 120641 piece,repparttar 120642 issue to be typeset and printed and distributors to placerepparttar 120643 issues on newsstands before December. Lead time can range from a day (for hard news pieces in newspapers) to a few days (newspaper features) to a few weeks (weekly magazines) to many months.

The longest leads arerepparttar 120644 domain of "women’s books" like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens. These publications often have a lead time of up to six months, which means they need information for their Christmas issues as early as May!

Here’s a tip to help you discoverrepparttar 120645 lead time of a particular publication you’re targeting: callrepparttar 120646 advertising department ofrepparttar 120647 publication and request a media kit. Since advertisers need to know when their ads must be submitted, each issue’s lead time is clearly stated inrepparttar 120648 media kit.

Factorrepparttar 120649 lead time into your planning as you look overrepparttar 120650 following sections. If you have a great story idea for Rolling Stone’s summer issues, you need to be onrepparttar 120651 ball well before Memorial Day.

The Four Seasons of Publicity:

First Quarter: January - March

Whatrepparttar 120652 Media’s Covering: Early inrepparttar 120653 year,repparttar 120654 media is looking ahead. It’s a great time to pitch trend stories, marketplace predictions, previews of things to expect inrepparttar 120655 year ahead, etc. If a new President is being inaugurated, you’ll see lots of "Willrepparttar 120656 new administration be good forrepparttar 120657 (textile/film/cattle ranching/Internet/...or any other) industry?" types of pieces. This is a good time to have something provocative, or even controversial, to say about your industry.

The media also likes this time of year to run "get your personal house in order" sorts of pieces. Tax planning, home organizing, weight loss, etc. Anything that’s geared toward helping people keep their New Year’s resolutions can work here.

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