C is for Capital Brewery

Music captured from an event on the premises, a reputable decision maker doing the speaking, a good job speaking both word- and body language-wise. Relevant b-roll. There's a fair amount to like in this video.

I will be the first to confess that this video is long in the tooth. While it's not that old, Kirby Nelson, the narrator, has moved on from Capital to another local brewer. This explicitly reveals a hazard to making a video with a high profile speaker. If that person leaves, well....you are kind of out of luck. The alternative to taking this risk, which is true for just about every video with a human in it, is to not do a video. So the question is are you fear driven? or willing to take a reasonable risk? That is a decision best taken elsewhere and not always easy depending on budget.

As a beer drinker I must confess that I still enjoy Capital Brewery products. I also enjoy the locally brewed beers from Mr. Nelson's new venture as well. Here in Wisconsin, as you might suspect, there is room for more than one brewer.

B is for Buck Rub Archery

Between yesterday being "A" for archery and today being "B" for Buck Rub I though posting this client video was fitting. For me, this is near ideal, a specialty product and a subject matter expert who is comfortable speaking in normal language that also happens to be the owner. This business video is nothing fancy. It is essentially the owner telling his story and just a bit more. The viewer can see the shop, hear a credible voice, and feel good about this business.

A is for Aware

"Marketing videos for business" is about as concise as I can get when it comes to the old elevator pitch phrase describing what Quietwater Media does. That phrase paints with a wide brush, leaving the devil, as the saying goes, to be found in the details.

"Aware" is the first word in this 26 letter April blogging challenge, and it is one that uncovers some of those devilish details.

For a business, it has been my experience that the decision maker who is AWARE of where they want this particular piece of marketing content to fit, is the decision maker that enjoys some positive vibes. Video can be complex. Thankfully most of the complexity is behind the camera and in the editing room. The complexity starts in front of the camera when the business does not know their target and/or where they think the viewer watching their video fits in the buying/sales cycle, aka "the funnel". This is an image that may have fallen out of vogue, but nonetheless is an image I still like for positioning a viewer in the context of their buying decision process.

That was a mouthful.

While it may be frustrating, being aware of that target person is a good thing. It's a good thing because it should "force" you to craft and deliver a simple message to that targeted buyer. That awareness starts with some idea of demographics, even if it is qualitative and fuzzy, even if it is who YOU WANT to view the video. Having some attributes attached to that customers is a good thing. For example, a woman between 36 and 44, online during a week night evening. Maybe she is researching something during the ads on TV so she can add a widget to her list for the weekend. Maybe not. Maybe she is looking for a birthday present for her husband.

The point is don't just make a video to make a video. For that matter, any content you make should at least be vaguely pointed at a target customer that you are AWARE of.

It's been my experience that being AWARE of your target keeps your message short and focused. Instead of going long and being all things to all people, your message is concise and aimed at the concern(s) of that targeted viewer. You are done before people start to glaze over and leave (e.g less than two minutes, closer to one is better).

Speaking of which I'm going long myself.

bye!

View of the Capitol, View of a Video

Cinema Hair Studio is on the Square as it's called. That would be the block made up of the WI State Capitol building. I like the Madison downtown, one end of which is the State Capitol and its many surroundings and the other end is the UW campus. I also like seeing a Quietwater video on a client home page. And that is what you see if you check out the Cinema Hair Studio website. Home page above the crease. Video. There is no one thing that rules the roost when it comes marketing and advertising a business. It seems to me that in this day and age we are seeing many people going to many places and using many different devices and media to receive or search for information on where they want to spend their hard earned dollars. I like the idea of a quiver, e.g. the Hunger Games Robin Hood kind of quiver, full of arrows. Each arrow is a piece of an overall marketing strategy. The quiver represents that strategy. Video is in their as one of those arrows. That video arrow, can also be used multiple times. It can go on a company Facebook page, it can go on a company Youtube channel, on the company blog, and it can go on the company home page. Each online location is used by different people and discovered in different ways. Yes there is some crossover, but each is also unique. All those online venues can host video and all of them can induce and persuade that viewer to become your next customer! P.S. I see Cinema Hair Studio is even called out in Google Maps! Yet one more facet of online marketing and discovery.

another video for Universal AET - business communication for industry

It's trade show season. Quietwater put together the video below for trade show purposes. It's a bit different from what we usually do. For starters it has no sound. But in a trade show environment, any audio, especially the spoken word is lost in the cavernous environs of the arena or hall where the trade show is happening. Context matters and in this case, not using the audio track makes sense since it would be very difficult to hear. This video is also a repurposing of existing content derived from projects over the past couple years, several of them overseas. This happens a fair amount in a project setting. Someone else is on site during the project, usually with a still camera. At some point, sometimes years later, this content is brought forward. Videos are not always moving pictures. A video can be a succession of still images, which is what you see below. It works for a trade show and it is Universal's content, in a real life setting showing their products. I think it works quite well, given that the alternative is nothing.

a video for the Stoughton School District

Here's a recent effort for the Stoughton School District.

ebook publishing - one more piece of the online media puzzle

So last week was a big week for Quietwater. The event that splashed into last week was the first publishing exercise for an ebook. As some know, back in the day Quietwater Media started up in sync with Quietwater Films. For me personally, producing the five projects for QW Films was especially nice because of my life long interest and enjoyment of paddlesports. Working with Darren Bush and other big names in the paddling world like Jimbo Meador, remain high points both personally and professionally.

Along with the enjoyment of paddling and the experience as a professional guide (again back in the day but a bit further) is one more piece. Paddlemaking. The wood and hand tools type of DIY making things. A few years back I decided that paddlemaking was something I wanted to do more of. One of the pieces of that was writing a book about paddle making. Last week was the culmination of that effort. Making a Bent Shaft Laminated Canoe Paddle is the first of three books, and like all the other firsts, remains a ground breaking eye opening effort and entry into the fast moving and evolving indie publishing world.

The content is driven by a personal interest, but the publishing effort is something I am keenly interested in on the business side. The world is rapidly becoming far more accepting of mobile devices. Pictures, video, and text are all now consumed via tablets and smart phones. Just look at some of the heaviest decisions that Microsoft's newest CEO has to make for a glimpse into how mobile devices are changing our content world. Books are affected by this as much as anything else. As a content company, one of the newer opportunities this brings up is taking the white paper or another marketing piece and making a version of the piece to fit on a tablet or on a smart phone as a book.

This publishing exercise for this first ebook involves pushing the ebook out to several platforms. It is up and going on the Kindle platform. It is up and going on Kobo. It is in process for the Apple ibook store via draft2digital and it is going into several overseas outlets via Xinxii. So, given the right content, an ebook can be deployed on a global scale. It is also going to be sold direct off of a website. This publishing exercise for a specialty content book clearly has some nice corollaries for business-centric content.

that'll do for now!