Video Marketing Expert Steve Washer is a guest blogger here from time to time, and now he has some news worth crowing about. He submitted a video for contest consideration and won.
Here are some key takeaways from Steve’s video that you can take to the bank when you apply them to your video marketing advantage:
- Video marketing isn’t about communication, but rather it’s about infection.
- The lion’s share of business goes to companies that know their customers’ pain better than the customers do.
- Directly address your customers’ deepest fears and hopes.
I love it when friends, colleagues, and clients of mine are seen, heard, and celebrated for the magic they bring to the marketplace. Now, the key is for Steve to leverage his good news to make even more magic happen.
Here are a few tips to help Steve leverage his good news, and you can apply these suggestions to your own advantage if you have something to crow about.
- Share your news with influential bloggers who can reach an even wider audience of people who will be interested in your tips and the prospect of benefiting from your expertise.
- Share the good news via social media and invite people to Re-Tweet. Video is engaging and persuasive, and it can go “viral” to everyone's advantage.
- Make the news relevant to your people. Yes, it's exciting that you've won an award. What is cooler is that you've shared information they can use to make the most of video to grow their businesses. This is a hot topic, and everyone needs to know more about that.
- Share the video in your next ezine or blog post.
- Get in touch with your local business journal to find out if a column about making the most of video to build business would be of service to the readers. Follow up, get to YES, and make your submission so your stellar guidance can travel far and wide to more of the right people. If you want to learn how to pitch an article the media can't resist, I've got a sassy audio file posted here to give you the high points.
- Don't stop with the local business journal. Consider reaching out to specific trade journals — perhaps Investment News or Speaker Magazine — to make the same suggestion. Tailor the trade focused submission to meet the needs of the readership, and extend a golden lasso around a much wider audience of perfect people who will want to engage with your expertise via your group programs and other services.
- Now that you've won this award, you can update your bio to say you are an award-winning entrepreneur. Mention the award you won so it doesn't read like puff. Proof is so much better than puff, and “specifics are terrific” as my buddy Liz Goodgold likes to say.
- A press release that explains how to be among the rare few who use video well to make their impact and offers the specifics about how to do that could be very useful and earn some readers. In the “boilerplate” paragraph at the end of the release, mention this recent award as a way to reinforce your credibility. Be sure to offer a call to action in this final paragraph that guides readers to opt-in to your ezine or call for more expert guidance.
- Consider placing an advertisement on Help a Reporter. This media query service reaches 200,000 people — many of whom are quite serious about getting known to get paid. The folks at HARO tell me their emails boast a 60% open rate. Learning how to use video to achieve that is likely on the minds of many of these fine folks. You can purchase a one-time ad to reach the entire list for around $1500, or you can purchase a segmented list — say, for example, just the business audience — for around $300. This ads are the first thing you see when you get the query feed, and they are written in a pithy style that is a close match to yours, Steve. This might be worth a really good effort because video isn't going away, and you are leading the pack for doing it well and right. After all, you just won an award for this, and the proof is in the delivery. You are the master at this.
Since overwhelm can be a challenge for business owners who are feeling the joy of their accomplishments, let me stop with just these nine ideas for inspired action.
Remember, one good thing leads to another. One day you are seen, heard, and celebrated for delivering high impact advice on a video that helps you win an award. The next, you could be seen, heard, and celebrated everywhere your ideal clients pay attention so they will want to beat a path to your door to compensate you for helping them to have what you are having. Aren't you intoxicated by that prospect? I hope so! Rock on, my friend. Rock on.
Oh, by the way, are you interested in learning more from Steve Washer and benefiting from his talents to your business building advantage? Visit his site at www.brainyvideo.com. Tell him I sent you. I know that will make him grin.
Happy video marketing, one and all.
