Web Based Marketing for Videographers
The Web is now really an option for video marketing and promotion in this Golden Age of independent video production.
We live in the Golden Age of independent video production. Twenty-five years of relentless hardware development has given us computers so fast and so powerful that they scream through project tasks more like digital lighting than digital technology. According to Moore's Law (Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel), the number of transistors on a CPU doubles every eighteen months. That observation has been remarkably accurate for the past thirty years. Software too, has progressed. With powerful, stable and creative apps, we can make special effects that astound our viewers with visual shock and awe, all done with a click of a mouse. Clearly, this is the best of times for independent producers.
Does marketing of indie productions and services follow Moore's Law? I haven't noticed brochures doubling in capacity. Has the digital revolution left independent video marketing and promotion behind? Not on your life. The Internet offers unprecedented opportunities for promoters to connect with customers for their productions and services.
How can being on the Web help with video marketing and promotion? Meet Josh, Marie, Don, Arthur and Gwen, independent videographers like yourself, who are effectively generating revenue by marketing their video goods and services on the Web. Of course, they are imagined folks, but they represent the marketing possibilities that are opening up today in the here and now. Josh makes indie fiction features, Marie shows her work at arts councils and galleries, Don sells video stock footage, Arthur produces corporate video, and Gwen offers video conferencing services. They all use the Net to market their goods and services.
First, you'll need a Web site. Don't know how to do a Web page, much less an entire site? HTML is a foreign language? No problem: surf over to Web Monkey or another portal site, to get the latest on authoring tools, some of them free, to build your place on the Web. Web Monkey provides tutorials, examples of code, and advice on almost every aspect of authoring and deploying a Web site. A basic page is not hard to construct, especially if your content is compelling.
Building a Web site and getting it deployed is only the beginning. If getting a page up was it, all you would have is the online equivalent of a brochure. There is more to marketing of videos than a Web site. Online marketing requires effective techniques as well as effective technology. Like any other sales material, a Web site needs a strategy in order to be effective. Let's see how our group of producers uses its Web sites to market their goods and services. The most effective marketing strategies make use of connecting and reaching out, two strengths of the Web.
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