 | Using Video To Promote Merchants & Your Site! |
I’ve spent the last few days spent messing around with video and seeing what can be done with it and whether it could be used to good effect in web promotions. Every week we send out a newsletter, which is ok, but it’s so much easier if a user can visualise what’s going on or what’s on offer at a website - especially when if we launch a new feature or there’s something different out there in the competition world.
So slightly inspired by Fraser’s podcasts and in part looking for an angle to promote IWOOT in an innovative way the first Loquax Competitions Video newsletter was born. The result of which is below:
Now, it’s a “first attempt” (which means it’s about v1.8) but any further tweaks and twizzles weren’t going to change things too dramatically at this stage, so it has now been unleashed upon our user base (with news of our 10th birthday competition that’s revealed in the video to encourage people to watch) so the feedback (if any) will be interesting.
Admittedly the voicing could be better, it’s actually a lot lot harder than you’d imagine, and i should really have saved the outtakes, the general flow could also be improved, and there’s some minor issues with the soundtrack in that during transitions it wouldn’t play, but on the whole I’m reasonably pleased with the final video. General filming improvements will come with in time just by getting to grips with the software, which wasn’t too bad to start with but there were a few niggles towards the end, and/or finding something better to do the job.
With web 2.0 and social networking all the rage it’s important for affiliates to try and be innovative and constantly trying to find new ways to attract interest in their website. So, hopefully this experiment will work (really we can only judge it on user interest and feedback) and we can then go on and use video on a more regular basis to interact with our users in a new way.
Additional Info
The video was put together using Camtasia Studio. They offer a 30 day free trial.
Popularity: 2% [?]
on November 7, 2007 at 2:00 pm Kieron wrote:
What’s with the posh voice mate? Is that your “telephone voice”?
Only messing, its a good idea and will be interesting to see how many of your users view it compared to a normal email.
BTW can you make your anti spam comment question easier? Sum of 8 9?! I had to get my calculator out!!!!
on November 7, 2007 at 3:39 pm John Cronin wrote:
Hi,
Great idea and hope it works for you.
If you don’t mind me asking, what software did you use to produce the video? I’ve been messing a little bit with movie mode on my camera and windows movie maker but I wonder if there’s a better alternative? Can’t say I particularly like to hear my own dulcet tones being played back to me over and over - never mind watching myself!
Cheers
John
on November 7, 2007 at 3:49 pm jason wrote:
The software I used was Camtasia Studio 5 - available on a free 30 day trial. The full package is $299.
There’s also Camstudio (which is free and open source) but the site wasn’t working when I tried (it’s ok today) - the reviews on the site suggest it’s as good as Camtasia (well it would).
HTH
on November 7, 2007 at 3:51 pm David Fiske wrote:
What’s the software you used to record and edit? I’ve been playing with some software but I can’t find a decent bit of software to make it all tie together nicely.
Good video though I’m not sure whether this way you would lose affiliate revenue on the basis that people can go directly t advertisers. Perhaps something along the line of “visit loquax.com and enter code 123 for this competition” might be nifty.
on November 7, 2007 at 4:17 pm jason wrote:
Software info is above David.
As we’re promoting the video on Loquax’s own blog (here), all the links to the relevant pages have been given below the video - that way hopefully not losing commission.
On the other hand, hopefully those who watch it and have never visited Loquax remember the name and come and take a look.
Jason
on November 7, 2007 at 7:00 pm Nadeem Azam wrote:
Very very slick Jason. Must have taken quite a bit of time to do, but the end result looks super professional.
on November 10, 2007 at 12:07 am VentStation.com wrote:
A great first go, you might need a pop screen for your microphone though.
Rgds
http://www.VentStation.com
on November 10, 2007 at 12:16 pm Max99 wrote:
Not working for me, not sure why, will try it again later. (just isnt loading, white space is all i see)
on January 9, 2008 at 10:08 am Martin Bailey wrote:
Thanks for the advice and for your experience Jason. We at Snaptease are going to produce a “short” film showing the picture games so it was useful to see your great effort.
Regards,
Martin