Creating Your Own Marketing Videos On The Cheap was
first published on MDIMS

Creating Your Own Marketing Videos On The Cheap

Having your own marketing videos for your business in today's online marketing world is a must. However you may not have the funds or budget right now to higher a professional to get the job done. Maybe you have a brand new company, or maybe business has been slow. These are not reasons for you to not be using video marketing to promote your business. The truth is, with today's technology, you can produce your own videos fairly inexpensively to promote your business and help bring in some much needed revenue.

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The first thing to think about is are you going to be on camera or not. If you don't mind being on camera - more power to you! Studies do show that when an actual person is in the video viewers tend to connect more on an emotional level. If you don't want to be on camera, that's not a problem either. You will just have to invest a little money in still images or purchase short video clips to get your message across. You can also make your own Power Point type pictures as well.

If you choose to be on camera, a cheap alternative to buying expensive video equipment is just use your phone, granted you have a newer smart phone. Iphones work great for this. Just remember to turn your phone sideways as not to have a small picture. Another thing that is a must if you are using a smart phone is a separate microphone to capture the audio. Microphones can be purchased for under $20 bucks. If you are creating a voice over video using stills and clips you should invest in a good microphone to record with. We say that this is a MUST because no one likes video with poor audio.

Also, If you can afford it you also want to have a stand for your phone or camera and not have someone hold the phone as not to make the video "shaky".

Next, video editing software. Newer PC's come with Windows Movie Maker, and Mac's come with IMovie. Granted you can't do a lot with these programs, but you will be able to get a basic movie produced to convey your message.

No matter which method you choose, you will probably have to shell out a little cash to get the job done.

Matt Peri wrote a post on Social Media Examiner that gives more good tips on creating your own marketing videos on the cheap:

How to Create Social Media Videos on a Budget

#1: Decide What to Feature in Your Video

Here are four ways you can create great video content without breaking the bank.

Repurpose User-Generated Content

A great example of repurposing user-generated content for a video comes from Coca-Cola, which leveraged their “Share-a-Coke” campaign into big corporate success.

To incorporate this strategy in your own marketing, encourage your audience to tell their own stories on social channels like YouTube and Facebook using your campaign hashtag (which was #ShareACoke in the Coca-Cola campaign). You can then aggregate memorable content and repurpose it into broadcast-worthy video spots.

While Coke launched its campaign around the Share-A-Coke idea, the soft drink giant tracked and grew their global efforts through the aforementioned hashtags. As a marketer, you can leverage readily available user-generated content and create a winning campaign even without a Coca-Cola-sized budget.

Collect Royalty-Free Content

The first step is to determine whether there is enough free content about your subject available online (the definition of “free” is content with no royalties). Resources like Flickr and YouTube are great places to start this research. If you want to do a viral video about lamps, for example, do a keyword search on Flickr for “lamps” and see how many compelling images you can find about the topic.

Create Your Own Content

If you feel that you don’t have enough content available, you may need to simply grab an iPhone and snap your own pictures or record short video snippets.

SEO expert Mark Schaefer spoke recently on how he worked with a small family-owned winery in France and struck gold with a simple video called “How to Open a Bottle of Wine Without a Corkscrew.”

The video, without any paid media behind it, generated over 10 million views and catapulted the winery to stardom. One fascinating postscript here is that this video was amazingly successful when 221 other videos posted didn’t achieve quite the same notoriety. Persistence is key here. Read Matt's Full Article Here...

Pretty good post from Matt and he also demonstrates using a video editor that we have never really used - YouTube's own Creator studio.

ONE WORD OF CAUTION: Do not just grab anyone's images on the web as not to incur copyright infringement letters from scum bag troll attorneys.

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Over at KissMetrics, they also made a helpful post for getting your own videos done for under $100 bucks!

How to Create Your Own Promo Video for Under $100

If you’re like a lot of startups or small businesses, the typical price for creating a professional explainer video (anywhere from a few thousand dollars to ten thousand and above) just isn’t in the budget. But don’t let that get you down. I’m here to give you a few insider tips on how you can create your own explainer video in a few weeks on a budget of $100 or less.

Step One: Write a Script

A well-written script is the basis for a great video, so make sure to take your time and get this part right.

Like all sales-related copywriting, you want your script to:

• Catch the viewer’s attention
• Explain what your business does in an easy-to-understand way
• Keep people engaged

This means keeping things simple (i.e. short and concise sentences), speaking in a personal tone and always ending things with a call to action. It also means keeping the duration short. Most studies show that viewers tend to drop off after 30-60 seconds, so try to keep things to a minute or less (no more than 150 words).

I find that a simple problem-solution format is often the most effective way to format a script. Your outline might go something like this:

1. Present a common problem or pain point that your typical customer is experiencing
2. Explain how your company will fix their problem or soothe their pain
3. Close things with your company name, tagline and an invitation for people to take the next step (e.g. sign-up, call-in)

Try writing your script in Google docs, and then sharing it with a select group of people that have your business’ best interests at heart. By asking them for input and ideas, you’ll have the advantage of a focus group—something many large companies pay thousands for.

Step Two: Record the Voiceover

Once you have a winning script in hand, it’s time to record a voiceover. The key to a professional sounding voiceover is:

• A decent microphone
• A quiet, echo-free space

If you have it in the budget, it might be worth investing in a quality USB microphone, like the Yeti from Blue Microphones for $100-150. You can usually record and mix the voiceover within your video editing software (see step four for software options). However, there are also a lot of free recording tools out there, including GarageBand from Apple, or Mixcraft (14-day trial) for Windows. But keep in mind, if you decide to use an audio-only tool, you will eventually need to import the audio file in to your video editing software.

If you don’t have a great speaking voice, try recruiting a friend or family member who you think might be able to pull it off. For those who would rather just use a pro, check out Voices.com. There you can select from thousands of voice artists who should be able to provide a professional quality voiceover for a few hundred dollars. Continue Reading "How to Create Your Own Promo Video for Under $100"

We especially like what they put in their post about creating a script, which is something we didn't add in our important points in the beginning of the post. It's important to have a script, even if you are on camera. There are very few people that can just do a video on the fly without going on and on, or have repeated mistakes.

If you are going to be on camera an easy way to read your script is to make bullet points and put them on a clip board underneath your camera and not to the side, and stand back far enough from the camera that no one can tell that you are reading. The closer you are to the camera the easier it will be able to tell you are reading.

So there you have it. You CAN create your own videos if you are on a really tight budget. The most important thing that we want you to take away from this post is in the words from Nike - "Just Do It!". Take action! If you don't, you will be loosing customers and sales to your competition that is.