W is for wavetrainSUP

In my other life I make paddles and paddle kits. So here is the video I made, with the help of my oldest daughter.

V is for Veterinarian Service

Lots of people care about their pets. They spend money on them and consequently want to research where they should take their pet when it needs healthcare. Thus we have a business need for vets to use video as a promotional tool to persuade potential new clients to come in with their pet for care.

U is for Unusual

Culture can be weird. Norwegians are almost all weird. As is their main food, lefse. I jest. However, I do live in Stoughton, which for better or worse, seems to be known for its Norwegian background. I donated a video to show how lefse is made, a food I consider to be fairly unusual.

T is for Time Lapse

One of the more unique uses of video. This video is actually a series of still photos from a kitchen remodeling project. I used a still camera that took a shot every minute (I think). At the end of the project, I had beaucoup still images that I dumped onto a video timeline and rendered out as a video. It's a "stop action" look and feel but I think it is a great way to show changes over a long period of time.

S is for Spa

Spas and salons are another vertical that benefits from video. Again, look, feel, and personalities all show up well in a video. Like this:

Q is for Quality

My first word in video production is "understandability". Second word is actually a phrase, "relate to your target viewers". Quality in the video world, I think, tends to be more skewed towards some geek thinking that you need the latest and greatest 4k video camera or some other techie piece of gear. I think quality video needs to be steady and well lit, it does not need the latest and greatest tech to be good.

One reality of video is that all your high quality raw video, goes from this huge piece of video, all the way down to the size of a playing card, for viewing in a browser. The audio survives the downsizing better than the video. So I worry more about the audio, spending more time getting that recorded as cleanly as I can. This is usually complicated though by the tendency of the client to be nervous which is heard in their voice, and by the typical lack of preparation, such that the client requires several attempts before they have fluidly pieced together what they want to say. It is the audio that carries the "understandability". It is the words that the client chooses for the audio that "relates to their target viewers"

I think a good business video boils down to keeping things simple and easy to understand and speaking with the words that your hoped for customers are going to relate to.

N is for Neu's Building Center

This guy was comfortable in his own skin. He had nothing planned in advance, at least that's what it looked like to me. We walked the store, he pointed out the objects most interesting to him and then we sat down for some audio. He rattled stuff off, got most of it right the first time and then we were done. No nerves. He know his store inside and out and what he wanted to feature and hoped to entice. A subject matter expert and well aware of the words he used and their impact. Nicely done overall I think. Once again simple and quickly understood by those viewing.

L is for Landscaping Company

Another one of my favorites, but for different reasons. This time around, two things jump out at me. The first is the music. I think the music bed for this business video is one of the best fitting pieces for the style of the people and business. To my ears, the music is peppy and happy and fits the overall theme of the video really well.

The second piece that emerges is the understated humor. Their mascot simply walking through the scenes, for em was a hoot. No one had done that before or since. Understated. Just a funny looking character walking by or waving, never talking, until the end when the character delivers the closing.

Simple, full of information, good music and humor. All the things needed for a memorable piece of content to positively brand your company.

J is for JG Development

At the end of the day I like all of the videos I have done over the years for various clients. While the process may have been frustrating and the nature of clients being what and who they are may be frustrating, in the end we are on the same page, we both want something they feel good about and which can promote and market the clients product or service to potential new customers for them.

Anyway, Jeff G, the owner of JG Development, walked in to the Vilas Zoo setting. I put a mic on him and he knocked it (the video not the mic) out of the park. He may have been the rare "one take Jake", someone who felt good in front of a camera and knew what he wanted to say. It is hard to do. I've seen hundreds of people step up and try. I've done it myself. It is hard, but that is part of what makes video a good thing. When done right, the body language, the look, and the feel are all conveyed to your viewer. Call it multimedia I guess, but video turns out to be a great way to deliver a message on several different levels, best done by just being yourself, like Jeff does in this video.

H is for Home Construction Companies

Some of my enduring themes appear again in this video from a Home Construction company in Kenosha. Credibility (multiple generations and mention of start year), Example (three different showrooms), and Good speaking voice.

A business video does not have to be this major bank breaking affair. After all your customers are not likely to be major bank breaking customers right? Speak in their language, show them things they are looking for, and keep it simple. No one goes into a purchase looking for complexity, regardless of what it is. Simple words, quick to understand imagery and good body language. I think that's the gist of what it takes to get someone's attention and get them thinking further about doing business with your company.

G is for Lake Geneva Dentistry

Simple. Direct. Friendly. Gets the job done for those searching online for a dentist in the Lake Geneva area. Love the ending. (spoiler alert) How many dentists offer cookies? I thought they were great guys. Lake Geneva is kind of a neat little town too. Might be worth a drive. The lake is gorgeous.

A Fund for Women

The letter "F" is a double dose today.
I think this video is interesting on several fronts. First, the orange graphic and use of the logo, offers a graphic "impact" a good bit more than a typical business video. Second, proper planning prevents poor performance. Although I like to think this turned out OK, when an intangible service is the subject, often times where to place the video is an issue, since there is nothing to look at, nothing to show. It is the strength, interest, and enthusiasm of the narrators that carries the video. The issue of b-roll is closely related. When there is nothing to show in terms of a product, the location and the people talking are relied upon to carry the whole video. A video centered upon something tangible is a bit easier because, while the narrator remains critical, there is other material (b-roll) to cut away to and look at.

Client-side thinking and planning in advance remain issues in the business video world. Salespeople, for the most part, lack the experience or understanding to sell it and - short of doing it yourself, most clients do not really understand the scenario that they need to spend time planning for and organizing. For example, when these three women arrived at a third party site, none of them knew what they wanted to talk about, we had no supporting materials, and they were nervous. None of them had done this before. On the upside, they were all involved in "A Fund for Women" and quickly figured out a theme. On the downside, no one had done video before, so body language, voice, tone, and using persuasion in lieu of declaration were harder to pin down and resolve. As they USUALLY are in every business video project.

Good people working and caring about a worthy topic. I like to think that this video, however they used it, did their cause some good.

The video below, is Foot and Ankle Associates, as you are no doubt hearing. While their work is intangible for the most part, the location is far stronger and very relevant, relative to the video above. This is not a good or bad, a doctor's office with three narrators, live models, and relevant props simply makes a stronger background. I think both positively promote the business and cause. As both illustrate in different ways, location, planning, and a "show and share" aspect can strongly enhance business video.

E is for Emergency Clinic for Animals

Pretty straightforward. Short enough for attention spans. Credibility established. Background established. Location. Ambulance as difference maker. All presented by a familiar face, one that most people are going to see on entering the front door.

D is for Doctors' Denture Systems

This one goes into my memory as one of the more unique subjects that I've had in front of my camera. Denture manufacturing. Not something most people ever really pay much attention to, until the day comes when teeth make their presence known and necessity awakens awareness. Then you find the "Dr. Ks" of the world. I learned that while this slice of industry is under the radar, it is big business. There are numerous people in need of dentures.

In retrospect, this should not have surprised me. Anytime an industry perceives enough customers to warrant spending money on letter network air time for ads, that in itself says the niche is big business. Dr. Kneepkens realized that as more and more people are able to using a search engine to research his product category before ever making their existence known to him, it was in his best interests to get durable content online that his potential clients could find.

Makes sense to me.

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.

a Berntsen video about Surveying Targets

Berntsen called a while back and said they had one of their vendors coming in from Germany and they wanted to do a couple videos of the German products while the rep was here. So I spent two very pleasant day at Berntsen International. Great local success story. Great family-owned business. More people need to know about them. This is the second of the videos. most of my projects are unscripted, because most clients opt not to prepare in advance. Tim Klaben, the marketing manager at Berntsen does prepare a script. Bill Rushing, the host in front of the camera, is also quite talented at memorizing scripts and speaking in front of a crowd (or a camera for that matter). Put Bill and a script together and great things happen. The videos I do for Berntsen International go straight to their Youtube channel, where they are used to support their online eCommerce efforts across the planet.

Surveying Equipment video from Berntsen

This is the first of two videos from Berntsen that they wanted to create featuring the products they sell from their German vendor Rothbucher. He came over for a lengthy tour of the US and stopped in Madison to be part of the shoot. Beautiful fall day, good speaker, advance planning, and a client that has been a pleasure to get to know and work for over the past several years. Both Berntsen and Rothbucher had video and images to contribute that featured their products in use on actual construction sites.