Recently, Bright Circle has attended a number of different trade shows in our marketing efforts. It’s also been an effective means of research.

The Orange County Convention Center is the 2nd largest convention center in the United States. Every year companies from all over the world come to attend trade shows and conduct business. A great number of these companies have a video at their booth or exhibit to promote their services.

Here’s a few quick pointers for companies to remember.

This is your product, the labor of your life. Your company needs to be represented well. Don’t try to produce the video yourself. You’ll be better served not doing one at all instead of attempting to learn the craft of producing video in the weeks leading up to your event. Never has there been a point in time where we as a people have been trained to know what constitutes a good video and a bad video. With over 200 cable networks broadcasting worldwide, and the whole world streaming online, viewers are more sophisticated than ever before. We know what’s good, we know what’s really bad. This is your name….it has to be good. It’s worth the investment to have it professionally done.

Determining the proper length of your video is crucial. Shorter is better. At trade shows people are on the go, there’s constant movement. For example, ten to twelve minutes is an extremely long time for a group of people to camp out at an exhibit…even to watch a video. Five to seven minutes is a much better length. You’ll be able to play the video more often to more people….and that’s a good strategy.

You need the wow factor.

What will make people stop at your booth to watch your presentation? Well if you can manage the cost, a nice plasma display could pay handsome dividends. High Definition is here and people are still fascinated by the imagery. Displays are costing less and less. HD or HDV production guarantees a much longer shelf life, ensuring you a higher ROI.

Trade show videos also are tools that can be converted quickly and for the most part inexpensively into a video for your web site. It’s a valuable asset to have in marketing your firm.

In Part 1 of Beating the Economy Blues we asked the question: What do companies do when times are hard? Cut back…be more conservative; or try a more aggressive route?

Marketing Loop offers “Five Recession Proof Strategies to Grow Your Business During Hard Times.” It’s a good read with some practical advice on how to manage the storm of a challenging economy.

Part 1 of Beating the Economy Blues offered two solutions to how companies could use video to spur more growth. Let’s take a look at two other strategies.

1) Video Newsletters. Ok, so everyone has gotten onboard the monthly newsletter bandwagon. It’s a great vehicle to build your opt-in list. But now it’s time for something else….all aboard! Video newsletters take your clientele inside your company and show what your latest offerings are. Feature an employee of your company and highlight the customer service that they deliver. Showcase technological advancements that your company has made. Use it in an entertaining style. Be personable…connect! Stay away from anything longer than three minutes. It’s faster to download and quicker to watch. Get to the heart of what makes your company wonderful!

2) Live Webcasting! Webcasting a seminar and providing a site for prospects that can’t attend makes good business sense. It puts you out there in the front trenches ahead of your competition. It’s another avenue for you to market your services and provide proof that your organization is ahead of the game.

Beating the economy blues is simply a matter of offering more service and value. In today’s world, media and online communications play a big part of that strategy.

So, what do companies do when times are hard? Cut back…be more conservative; or try a more aggressive route?

What works for you?

CNN Money recently published an interesting report detailing how five small businesses “defied the downturn.” The upshot of the story was the need to change what might not be working into a model that does work. Often times that meant investing or expanding to offer a more attractive product.

So how can companies that might be falling a little short this year use video to entice their clientele, or prospective clientele? Here are 2 quick examples. We’ll take a look at two others in Part 2.

1) Restaurant owners…people don’t have the same disposable income to eat out as much. But, using video clips played on your website that showed a dish being created in a savory manner with all the beautiful close-ups of the textures and pop & sizzles that happen in the creation of the dish will make those mouths water in no time. Interviewing a chef with pizzazz and charisma and including that into the mix wouldn’t hurt either!

2) Not-For-Profits…are donations down? Implementing a video email campaign can have a strong positive impact on your bottom line. Sending out an on-camera endorsement from a known community business leader to other local businesses or employing a strategy whereby someone that has depended on the services of your Not-For-Profit provides an on-camera testimonial of how important those services actually are, can prove to be quite fruitful.

Part 2 of this entry will examine two other options that businesses and organizations might consider to combat a struggling economy.

A client has contacted you. They want to produce a motivational video that will run at their national sales convention two months from now. Your response? “Super, sounds good. Let’s set up a meeting next week and talk.”

They then toss in a small detail.

“We’d really like to use a clip from that movie . . . the one with Will Smith where he’s down and out but never gives up trying to become a stockbroker. What’s it called? . . . The Pursuit of Happyness!”

Great film, questionable idea.

In cases like this, a production company needs to serve its client or potential client well – and wisely. One approach would be to use the clip, but to require the client to indemnify the production company against any potential liability. In the event of a lawsuit by the movie company for unauthorized use of the clip, the client would be obligated to reimburse the production company for the company’s attorney’s fees and any financial damages awarded to the movie studio. Assuming that the client could pay these amounts, what factors should the production company consider in deciding whether to use the clip?

“Using a portion of a movie, song, photograph or other creative work without prior authorization can expose you and your client to a lawsuit for copyright infringement,” cautions Vincent H. Peppe, an attorney who specializes in entertainment and media law. “Under U.S. copyright law, statutory damages for infringement can range from $750 to $150,000.”

There are exceptions to this rule, Peppe notes. The legal doctrine of “fair use” permits limited uses of another’s copyrighted work for certain purposes. “The fair use provision” of the copyright statute identifies several types of uses that are generally allowed, including news reporting, teaching, criticism and research.” Courts have held that fair use can apply in many other situations, as well. “However,” Peppe observes, “there are no hard and fast rules that determine whether a particular activity is copyright infringement or fair use.” “The statute requires courts to consider the nature of the copyrighted work (e.g., a best-selling novel, a personal letter, a public speech), the amount of copyrighted material that is used, whether the material is used for a commercial purpose and other relevant factors.” Before using an excerpt from a copyrighted work without prior authorization, however, Peppe advises production companies to consult with a qualified attorney to evaluate their options, including obtaining a temporary license to use an excerpt from a work in their particular project.

In this type of scenario a production company needs to exercise caution for their benefit as well as the benefit of their client. Training and motivating employees is crucial. Equally critical is preserving a clients’ business profile and reputation. Seeking the advice of a qualified attorney to examine these issues, rather than making what could be costly assumptions, is the wisest choice.

Relationships are the lifeblood of any successful business. It doesn’t matter if that operation is consumer-based or draws upon business to business dealings. Repeat business is important to long-term success.

Understanding this simple fact provides a source of motivation for companies to continually produce consistent quality work. It also builds Trust. When trust is developed between two businesses that rely on one another for product and service, a symbiotic relationship is formed that grows over the course of time. Dependability, integrity, and open lines of communication go a long way in developing these alliances.

What else goes into developing trust? To truly serve clients well a vendor needs to draw upon their consultative powers. In our case that may mean telling a client that they might not need a new video. It might mean suggesting to repurpose existing footage from a past project in order to economically produce the video. It also might entail creatively finding solutions to produce an instructional video that is in dire need but short on funding because the end of the quarter is near.

Building trust goes a long way in building your client base as well as your reputation.

What makes a video project successful? Well, think of a puzzle…all of those pieces are equally important. If one piece is missing, your puzzle hasn’t been completed. The same thing applies to a video project. If one piece isn’t performing, or attended to, the project as a whole can be affected.

Let’s look at ten pieces of the puzzle.

The Client
The Producer
The Budget
Creative Direction
The Script
Pre-Production
The Spokesperson
The Crew
Production
Post-Production

Each of these ten pieces interconnect with one another. Each of these pieces are ultimately responsible in their own right for the overall success of the project.

Now some projects may not have a spokesperson, but most corporate films will feature some employees or company leaders that will “drive” the message of the video. These individuals are just as important as a paid actor playing the part of a company spokesperson.

We can’t forget about pre-production either. All the planning, staging, and coordinating that goes into a project starts here. If a budget doesn’t accommodate the work that needs to happen in pre-production…two pieces of your puzzle are falling short.

Having the client and the producer on the same page, effectively working together and communicating needs adds a level of cohesiveness that is vital. These two pieces set the tone for a successful project. A video presentation done right should come together perfectly from beginning to end.

Hmmm…there’s a myriad of possibilities. Let’s look at four.

Web Videos. To have a presence on the web and one that communicates your Brand you need a video. Market your company, tell your story and grow your business through the use of image pieces, sales incentives, product information, and CEO messages. Quite simply, video branches out and serves as a conduit to all the masses that are online. Your audience is waiting.

Video Emails. Care to step out from the crowd? Video emails provide your company another platform to deliver your message to the businesses that matter the most to your company. Video emails can integrate with the rest of your web site creating a powerful engine for B2B communication, as well as Business to Consumer. From your desktop to theirs it’s a burgeoning avenue of communication to be reckoned with.

Instructional Videos. Take employee education to another level using instructional videos. Videos can increase awareness, foster learning and change, as well as benefit risk management from a safety perspective, and employ methods to change attitudes in a positive manner.

Advertainment. Companies using social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube to post video can yield great results if their video is positioned and marketed correctly to those outlets. Traditional marketing videos that focus on selling first are generally ignored and are largely unpopular. Marketing your company through advertainment…(entertaining first, then marketing) is a successful route to choose.

Media today travels fast. Clients & media production companies have more advantages in today’s day and age to work together over large distances than ever before. They’re in Wisconsin, and you’re in Florida?

No problem.

Convenience is just a click away. We export our video out as a Windows Media File or a QuickTime; email it and away it goes. If the piece that’s being sent out is roughly 2 minutes in duration getting it less than 5 megs shoudn’t be a problem at all. At that size it’s easy enough to download….and fast! 320×240 is pretty standard and those dimensions provide a good gauge on how a project is shaping up. It’s even large enough to offer an adequate representation for approvals.

So…say the project’s been approved and it needs to be sent because training starts tomorrow. Naturally the project needs to be exported out to higher quality settings, and a higher resolution…that makes the file larger. No need to FedEx, FTP it. Sending the file to your server whereby the client using a password can easily download it offers convenience, security and reliability to the nth degree. And the best part…no loss of quality. What goes in, goes out.

These advantages make B2B partnerships more fruitful, stable, and cost-effective. It’s a wonderful time we live in isn’t it?

Ever consider doing a marketing video using YouTube? If you think about your audience first, a marketing video on YouTube can be very effective. But if not, it won’t have the type of effect you’re probably hoping for in a social networking campaign.

Viewers to YouTube tune out anything commercial. It’s their “refuge” from the mass hysteria that is advertising. They’re there to be entertained. Well…how about an educational approach then? Yep…you’re getting closer.

A successful marketing video delivered to a social networking site needs to be clever….with a capital C. It should blend just a hint of advertising with a whole lot of entertainment. It’s officially called Advertainment.

Here’s a good example of it.

Blendtec

1 video, 2.6 million views later…That’s Advertainment!

The strength of video cannot be denied.

It can be used as a tool for fundraising. Getting funds to construct new churches, bringing endowments to foundations, increasing awareness to the needs of not-for-profits…these are all areas where video succeeds through the power of emotion.

Yes, the power of emotion.

Video brings the mere spectator closer into the life of a person in need. How? Because the lens of the camera tells all. It doesn’t blink. It captures the hunger of a child’s eyes, it penetrates the soul of a man pierced with an addiction, it encapsulates the spirit of a pastor who wants to build a bigger church. Dramatic imagery, poignant moments captured in testimonials, and music that stirs the heart, are all forces that move people to action. Positive action. Action to bring upon change; change that betters communities.

All through the use of one simple medium…video.