By Will Franco

DIFFERENTIATING BENEFITS

Web video and video email marketing can differentiate you from the competition in many ways.

1. Stand Out from the Crowd – While everyone’s ramping up their budget to send plain text emails, you can send video emails to gain the competitive advantage.

2. Be Remembered – It has been proven that the combination of audio and visual stimulus increases retention.

3. Stay on the Cutting-Edge – Web video and video email are a staple of communication, they’re not going to go away. Usage of this new medium will only increase.

4. Be a Leader in Your Field – Usage of web video is on the rise, but it hasn’t yet hit the mainstream markets.

5. Put a Face to the Name – For the most part, people like to do business with people they know. Video emails let your prospects get to know you before you even meet them.

6. Capitalize on Your Greatest Assets… You and Your Team – Unlike copy, you and your team can produce marketing videos with little more than a $60 webcam. Sales copy can be expensive and time consuming to author. The difference between making a sale and losing a customer can often be as simple as adding the human touch – that’s you and your team!

7. Improve Your Credibility – When people can see and hear you talking about the benefits of your products and services, they are much more likely to trust you. When you have trust, you have sales.

IMPROVED COMMUNICATION BENEFITS

We all could stand to benefit from improved communication, and now with video email marketing techniques, and web video in general; we can make significant improvements in the way we deliver our message.

8. Say it Right the First Time – Unlike a live presentation, videos are recorded. This means you can record it once, and use it over and over again. So if your tired, under the weather, or even sleeping, you can send your prerecorded message and you know that it will be presented right.

9. Eliminate Confusion – We’ve all received that passive-aggressive plain text email from a colleague or friend. When we actually speak to them later, we find out that we were mistaken. This is due to the absence of nonverbal cues; for example, body and facial expressions.

10. Provide Better Customer Service – Videos can be produced quickly and easily, but the perceived value is so much higher than a phone call or plain text email. The end result, happier customers.

11. Connect with Clients and Prospects From Anywhere – Just like regular emails, you can send video emails to your next door neighbor or all away around the world with the click a button.

12. Reduce Calls to Customer Support – When you do a better job of addressing your customers’ questions and concerns, you reduce the number of times they contact you for help. Web video allows you to communicate more effectively. Therefore, when you respond to customer questions with video emails, you can provide better answers, and your customers won’t need to contact you as often.

13. Improve Consistency in Your Marketing – Consistent and clear marketing messages lead to customers and prospects who understand who you are and what you offer. When they’re ready to buy, they’ll likely think of you. With video email marketing, you’ll have a library of every video you ever sent. Review them to ensure consistency and have your team review them as well. Now you’re all on the same page.

14. Use Video to Educate – Arguably one of the best ways to sell is to take an informative tone with prospects. Teach them about things that interest them and help them in their businesses. Mix in content about how you fit into this without being pushy. If done right, your prospect won’t even realize your selling them.

15. Reach Out to Younger Customers in Their Domain – The world we live in is constantly evolving and changing. Business and marketing is no different. The rise of the internet, and more recently web video, is undeniable. More people are watching videos online every day. Make sure that some of those videos are yours.

16. Introduce Cross Sells – Part of what makes video email powerful is the series of exit links located on the side of the video. When you record a video, you have the power to include links on the side of the screen that lead to whatever information you would like. This creates a great potential for soft-selling and calls-to-action. “Click the link on the right to take advantage of this offer today!”

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT BENEFITS

Refining processes is one of the fastest ways to increase efficiency; leading to a significant savings in both cost and time. When you use web video, you not only refine the process, you enhance it. Plain text can only say so much. Video takes your processes via your message to the next level.

17. Prime Your Prospects Before You Meet Them – With video email marketing, you can incorporate videos into your routine that accelerate the sales process. When you speak with a prospect over the phone for the first time, ask for an email address and send him a video email instead of a plain text email. Now he’s getting to know you, one of the first steps in making a sale, and you don’t have to do a thing beyond pressing send.

18. Saying it is Easier Than Typing it – Great at speaking but not at typing? Even if you are adept at it, you could probably think of a more profitable, or enjoyable use of your time. With video email marketing, you’ll reduce your time spent on the keyboard and improve comprehension simultaneously.

19. Automate Training of New Hires – Web video allows you to create training videos to automate yourself out of teaching the basics (and more). When you bring in a new team member, have them access relevant training videos at home or wherever. By the time they’re ready to start, they’ll have a solid foundation for growth, and you’ll have a lot more time.

20. Reduce Repetitive Conversations – Do you ever feel like you’re having the same conversations over and over again? Web video provides a simple solution. Record your responses and just email them to the people asking the questions. As time goes on, you’ll have more and more answers in your library, freeing you from an increasing number of repetitive conversations.

21. Deliver Informative Content Quickly – Need to convey a complex idea or concept, but don’t have long to do it. Make a habit of condensing ideas into short, informative videos. You’ll save time and hold your viewer’s attention better. You’ll have more time to focus on other things and you’ll have a higher prospect conversion success rate.

EMOTIONAL BENEFITS

Emotions are a core part of humanity. People often make purchase decisions based on an emotional response. Video email marketing can capture the imagination of your prospects and clients in a way plain text cannot. With web video you’ll have more time to enjoy the things that really matter because your videos will be working for you.

22. Spend More Time with Your Loved Ones – Video email marketing is as effective as it is inexpensive. With the time you save you can spend more time with those you care about and with the money you save on marketing, you’ll be able to afford some time off.

23. Nurture Client Relationships – Relationships take time and effort. Strong relationships aren’t built over night. With web video and video email, you can create videos to remind customers that you are thinking of them and that you care. Send videos to wish your clients a happy birthday, or to inform them of some new and interesting tidbit that you just learned. Building and maintaining relationships takes time, but with web video you can do more in less time.

24. Establish Rapport Automatically – Using a CRM system is a great way to increase your efficiency. When you integrate web video with your CRM, the product is automated video email marketing. Now, if a prospect visits your web page and signs up for your email list, the system takes over and you don’t have to do a thing… except cash the check of course!

25. Make Them Feel Special – Making someone feel special is one of the fasted ways to convert them from a prospect to a client. Send a video, even a prerecorded one, and they’re likely to feel they are getting special attention. And what did sending that video cost you? Nothing except the 2 seconds it took you to cut and paste the link and click send.

26. Build Trust Online – Try making a sale without building trust first. You’ll likely have a hard time converting prospects to paying customers. Instead, try creating an intro video and a bio video. Send them to your prospects and let them get a feel for who you are and what you are all about. Your prospects will appreciate your patience (if you call a few days patience) and will likely reward you with their business.

27. Add the Personal Touch – The personal touch is that little extra that you do to show your customers and prospects that you care. It can be as simple as recording a video one time, and then sending that out to each new prospect you receive, or all of your loyal customers. How does that expression go? Give and you shall receive. What you get back is more business.

28. Put The Human Element Back in Your Marketing – Some people balk at the prospect of an increasingly wired world. Like it or not, it is our future. Video email marketing will allow you to reach out to these people like no other online method does. True, you could utilize traditional mediums, but who wants to spend the money when web video comes with a low, fixed monthly fee?

29. Connect with Friends, Family, and Loved Ones When You Travel – Just because you have to leave home doesn’t mean you have to miss out on interacting with those you care about. Send a video email to remind them you care.

30. Enhance and Strengthen Affiliate and JV Relationships – Relationships are based on the interactions between two people. This is the same whether you’re talking about client relationships or those with partners. Use web video to stay involved in the lives of your partners and you’ll likely have a stronger relationship. Take the time to ask how things are going with a quick video email, and the response you receive may prove very useful.

31. Show that You Care – Nothing says that you care like taking time out of your day to connect. Time is our most valuable resource and something you can’t take back. With web video, you can create non selling videos for the sole purpose of showing people you care. The best part is, you can do it once and then reuse it with all you clients and prospects. Now taking the time to say you care doesn’t take much time at all.

TIME & COST SAVINGS BENEFITS

Save time and make more money with web video. Put a dent in your To-Do list, or take time for yourself. What you do with the extra time and money is up to you.

32. Save Money – As far as benefits go, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Video email marketing is inexpensive. When you compare the cost with the value, the expense is inconsequential. You pay the same low monthly rate whether you send one video email or 10,000. Let’s see you say that about a newspaper ad.

33. Create Canned Responses for FAQs – Creating canned web video responses to frequently asked questions will facilitate customer service and improve customer satisfaction. Record video emails to help customers and save the best responses to be reused. The best thing is that as you get better, your customer service gets better too.

34. Make Money While You Sleep – Video email marketing and web videos allow you to record a video once and reuse it indefinitely. Once a video has been created, it can be viewed any time, day or night. So whatever time your prospect decides to check her inbox, you’re there waiting to make a sale.

35. Go Green-Want to help the environment and save money doing so? Save gas and money with web video. Using video email will allow you to filter prospects, ensuring that you only travel to meet with the most likely to purchase. You can easily save enough in gas to pay for your membership.

36. Save Time – Creating videos is like creating an army of clones with the sole purpose of helping you make more money. Your clones answer questions for you. They help train new employees. They sell prospects on the value of your product or service at 3 AM on the other side of the country. What are you doing while your clones are doing all these things for you? I don’t know; that part is up to you.

37. Maximize Your Efficiency – Every video email you send that is reusable takes another task off your plate. The more reusable videos you record, the more time you’ll save. Video email marketing will allow you to focus on the most valuable activities you perform.

MARKETING IMPROVEMENT BENEFITS

Good marketing can be the difference between success and failure. Incorporating video email, and web video, into your marketing efforts will increase the impact of your copy exponentially. That being said, marketing is often expensive, and it can be hard to see the ROI on marketing dollars spent. Video email marketing allows you to fix your hard costs, regardless of the number of videos you send out.

38. Add the Wow Factor to Your Marketing – An easy way to Wow your customers and prospects is to send them a video. Web video allows you to create dazzling presentations and stimulate viewers in ways that are impossible with traditional email. Video email marketing gets reactions.

39. Add Professionalism to Your Daily Communications – Video emails allow you to appear more professional without added inconvenience or cost. Recipients will receive a video in their inbox that is surrounded by your name, phone number, and the name of your company. With the addition of a custom template, you’ll be able to include your logo.

40. Generate Buzz – Web video is a hot topic in the media. When someone receives a video email, he or she often shows it to others. Each time they do, more people are being exposed to your message. The resulting buzz leads to interest in you and what your company does.

41. Capture the Power of TV Without the Expense – Video is powerful and when used correctly gets results. Consequently, you have to pay a lot of money to market yourself on this medium, but without any guarantees of who will be watching. With video email marketing, your videos are On-Demand. That means they’re waiting in the recipients mailbox. Web video has the same benefits as video on TV, but doesn’t have the cost or the limitations of time.

42. Take Your CRM to the Next Level – Do you use customer relationship management software? If so, you can continue to use it in the same way as before, except with the addition of videos. Simply include a link in the text of the email to send whatever video you want. You can use video to augment the written word or replace it. It’s up to you.

43. Track Success Rates and Marketing Dollars – With web video technology, such as that provided by jiveSYSTEMS, you can see exactly how well your video message performed and measure success. You have the power to see how many people opened the message and how many actually watched the video. With the addition of a CRM system, you can then see how many people decided to buy after watching your videos. Now you know exactly where your marketing dollars are going and where you can improve.

44. Soft Sell Effortlessly- Exit Links, links located on the side of your video, put your message in front of prospects innocuously. While they watch your video, they are exposed to these links, which they may click on to learn more. People have become accustomed to doing their own research online, and this plays into that tendency. If you prefer, tell your viewers to click the link.

45. Maintain Top-of-Mind Awareness – Top-of-Mind Awareness is a great way to ensure that when potential customers have a relevant need, they think of you first. Web videos have no incremental cost, so you can make as many as you like; keeping your value and your message on the minds of your prospects. Send regular video emails to your list and inform them of your value.

RESULTING (WHOLE) BENEFITS

Video email marketing has many individual benefits, as does web video. In this section, I will summarize some of the overall benefits of web video and video email marketing.

46. Sell More With Less Effort – When you capitalize on video email marketing and web video, you’ll reduce your workload and improve your success rates, so when you do take the time to reach out to a prospect, you will have less wasted effort.

47. Generate More Referral Business – Customers refer people that they’ve had a good experience with. When you provide excellent customer service, you are more likely to have happy customers, and receive referrals. Since web video allows you to do more with less, it only makes sense that using it leads to more referral business.

48. Increase Profitability – Video email marketing allows you to reduce wasted effort dealing with prospects who never convert to paying customers. Such prospects drain your resources: time, money, and morale. Why not let your web videos handle these prospects while you focus on the ones helping you pay the bills?

49. Keep Clients for Life – If you keep your customers happy, they likely never leave you. It wouldn’t make sense for them to. You take great care of them. You send them regular videos that show you care, and have a lot of informative videos on your customer service website. When they need more help than the videos provide, they can speak with a human on the phone, or via online video conferencing because your CSRs actually have time to talk to people. They’re not bogged down with repetitive questions and tasks. As a result they’re happier in their work and it shows. One of the first steps toward keeping customers for life is communicating with them. Video email is a great way to explain and to show that you care.

50. Create a Scalable Business Model – Through the use of video email marketing and a CRM, you can create a business model that ready for any level of growth, no matter how rapid. The last thing any businessperson wants to do is be caught unprepared for growth. The consequences of such a mistake would be catastrophic. So don’t miss any opportunities. Use web video to handle your customer service, nurturing, and marketing efforts and you will be ready to handle any number of customers with minimal need for additional staffing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Will_Franco

In a previous post on how to improve your YouTube Social Media Impact we talked about how YouTube has many of the same powerful features of other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. People can follow your business by subscribing to your channel, interact with you by commenting on your videos and your channel, become friends, share your videos with friends, etc.

Here are 3 more tips to keep in mind when you’re using YouTube in your social media strategies

Monitor And Reply To All Comments

When posting, be sure to set your video options to allow comments. Then make a practice of replying back to all comments left by your viewers in a timely manner. YouTube makes it easy for you to do this by letting you can set your account up to send you emails when people post a comment. That way you’ll see very quickly what was said and you can respond accordingly.

Not only will you get general comments or questions, you may also get objectionable or unfavorable responses when you allow this feature so it is even more important to make sure your set to get emails as viewers weigh in on your video. That way, you not only can respond, you can quickly delete the ones you wish.

My practice is to get rid of comments that use bad language or are spammy in nature, such as someone trying to promote their channel or some unrelated product. I don’t always delete the critical comments though. Rather I look at this as a way to start a dialogue with the viewer and open lines of communication and hopefully educate them more about the topic of the video. Because I encourage comments, I want my viewers to know they’ll be heard even if it may not be something I want to hear. Of course, if talking to the person doesn’t work and only flames the fire, I would probably take it out of the public’s view and respond privately via email.

Encourage Those Who Comment Visit Your Site

You’ll find that many comments will be for information. What a perfect way to answer their question and then encourage them to visit your site for additional help to their questions. You are also able to email them privately so you will want to make sure to include your marketing message, which should include your website link, in your signature line of that email.

Subscribe To Other People’s Channels And Comment On Their Videos

Just as commenting on other individual’s blogs increases your exposure to their readers, you can do the same in YouTube. You can also “friend” them as well. One of the benefits of signing up for someone’s channel, is getting notifications of when they add a new video.

Again, the more you are open and encouraging others to connect with you, the greater chance you will have to develop a relationship with them. This is one more powerful and free avenue for your customers to get to know you and possibly do business with you in the future.

YouTube is not only a free video sharing site or the second top search engine, it also is a social media site like Facebook and Twitter. People can sign up to follow you, comment on your videos, comment on your channel, become your subscribers and friends, share your videos with friends, etc. So when you’re using YouTube in your business, you want to make sure you tap into this use as well.

Here are 3 tips to improve your YouTube social media impact.

Make sure your profile on your channel is complete.

This should be the first step you take BEFORE you post any videos. Write your profile consistent with your other profiles on your other social media sites, such as Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. Here is what you definitely need to have in your profile:

• A professional photo that looks the same as your other social media sites. You want people to get to know you and what you look like in a professional capacity.

• A well thought out brief description of your business with your marketing message and benefits you offer as well as your free giveaway.

• Your website address.

• Personal details and interests. You may be hesitant to share your personal details and interests but you should share what you feel comfortable sharing. People like to do business with people who they feel are real and who they relate to.

Invite viewers to subscribe to your channel

Within your profile description and information box of each video, invite your viewers to subscribe to your channel. We are so used to being given direction and most respond to that. Give them a great reason to do so. Once they are subscribed, they’ll get notifications every time you post a new video. This is where offering many how to videos becomes powerful and a great way for you to become an expert in your niche.Invite viewers to share your videos on their blogs and with others

Invite viewers to share your videos with others

Again, within your information box of your video, invite your viewers to share your videos with others. Most people know they can do this if you haven’t set the option to keep them from doing it but giving them permission takes away all hesitancy they may feel. It also gives them a gentle reminder.

Of course, make sure you have your contact information on each video (more about that in future posts) so that once your video is shared, the new viewers can find your business and YouTube channel if they are interested in learning more.

Consider giving them a great reason to do so by offering them something of value as a gift for sharing. Have them send you an email if they’ve shared your video to get their gift. That gets them actively emailing you and gets them into your marketing funnel. The more active someone is in connecting with you, the greater chance you can develop a relationship with them.

Because YouTube has become the 2nd most used search engine behind Google, it’s become an important component in driving free traffic to your website. But to do this you want to describe and post your YouTube videos for best results to even be viewed.

Here are 3 steps you need to pay attention to and have in place before you post your video on YouTube.

Have a great headline

When you upload, your video to YouTube, the name of your video is automatically entered in the headline space. Don’t just keep that name though! You want people to watch your video don’t you? Even though the name may be a good description of what they’ll see, you also want to entice people to view it.

Use strong keywords and power words in this headline. assume you posted a promo video for your dog training video series. You could say this:

Dog Training Promo Video

Pretty descriptive but kind of ho hum and boring. Besides, they are at YouTube so stating that it’s a video is redundant, don’t you think? Change it to this:

Dog Training – Teach Your Dog To Heel In 3 Easy Steps

See the difference?

People love tips, steps, techniques and this headline speaks to that. It also includes a strong keyword – dog training – as well as the power word, “your.”

This headline is also searched by Google so spend some time and come up with a good one.

Use good keywords

YouTube calls these tags. One way to search for good keywords is to use Google’s Keyword External Tool.

Keywords should be pertinent to the content of the video. Don’t use words not related just to get a viewer’s attention. They will see right through that and having them click off your video within seconds is not what you want them to do! You want targeted traffic looking at your video. In this case, you want people who have unruly dogs who need help training them. These are the people who will most likely buy your program.

Use these keywords in your information box

Google and YouTube search this information box as well so make sure that within this area you entice the viewer to watch the video by telling them the benefits they will receive. In this context, you will sprinkle your keywords throughout. But don’t just type your list of keywords! You want this to be readable and make sense.

Think of this information box as an extension of your website and use good copy with links back to your site.

For great ideas on how to do this for your business, you can look at our YouTube channel – YouTube.com/HowToSellYourVideos to see how we do this. Two other great marketers who do this well are Lou Bortone at YouTube.com/lbpromo and Jessica Swanson – YouTube.com/JessicaSwanson.

It’s the little things that will get you.

This will be the first in a series of short little video production tips on how to increase the quality of your production. I title it this way because there is nothing worse than shooting a video and then coming back to edit it only to find a glaring problem with your footage. I’ve had this happen to me on too many occasions and I’m sure it will happen again, but here are some tips to help avoid problems:

Keep Your Lens Clean

Always, always, ALWAYS, check to see if your lens is clean. Carry around several lens cleaning cloths or lens cleaning brushes (Don’t use anything else on your lens, such as paper towels or rough cloth that can scratch it.)

Don’t rely on looking through your viewfinder or screen to determine if your lens needs clean. It is almost impossible to see dirt specks this way. Look at the lens surface. A small speck to your eye will permanently be on the footage and will morph into big ugly and distracting blobs on your program. This problem is magnified when shooting HD. This doesn’t just happen to amateurs. I’ve seen major TV shows that had dirt on a lens.

Adjust White Balance

Most video cameras will adjust white balance automatically. White balance is calibrating your camera’s interpretation of color under varying types of light. Your eye and brain do this for you but a camera needs some help. Automatic white balance is often a compromise. If your camera will do a manual white balance adjustment, that is holding up either a white piece of paper or 18% grey card, fill the frame with it and push the correct button to “force” it to white balance to that, you will often get better colors and appropriate skin tones as a result.

Record The Shot

When you are ready to shoot, make sure you press the record button! I know this sounds silly but I have done this more times than I want to admit and it has happened to almost every videographer I know. You’re so focused on getting the shot just right that sometimes you get tripped up by the smallest of goofs. Some cameras have a very sensitive record button and you may be walking around with it recording and then when you think you’ve pressed record you’ve actually stopped it.

My old Canon GL1 showed a green light when it was recording and the GL2 showed a red light; it took some adjustment to know which was which, especially when I was shooting with both cameras. (Most cameras show a red record light).

Don’t experience the anguish of starting to edit and discovering the camera was never even turned on!

If you would like to make residual income selling your own videos, sign up for your FREE How To Sell Your Videos Starter Kit at HowToSellYourVideos.com. And if you are interested in producing videos for sale, consider investing in the DVD, My Secrets Of Producing Successful Special Interest Videos.

YouTube, and other appropriate free video sharing sites, are hands down one of the most important and economical strategies in your marketing. However, there are some good arguments against using YouTube, or other free sites like Vimeo, Vidder, etc., as your primary video hosting site.

The first thing to consider is their logo is displayed on the video, which hurts your branding efforts. You’re technically promoting the other sites AND your business at the same time. It sends a confusing branding message – even if your logo is on your video. Granted, the logo may disappear as the video plays but if you get the cursor near it, it usually pops up again. It also is prominently displayed on the screen image when the video is not playing.

But that is only one item of concern.

Secondly, embedding a video from there not only promotes YouTube or other free site, it makes yours look less professional. Sure, you’re getting free hosting and bandwidth, but that may be subtly tarnishing your image, and that could potentially lead to fewer sales and less clients

If you don’t take your business seriously enough to invest in hosting your own videos, how seriously do you think your customers or clients will take you or what you’re selling? They may feel you don’t deliver quality products and be hesitant to buy from you.

Since there are many affordable and easy options for converting and hosting your own videos on your site, using free video sharing sites such as YouTube to host your videos isn’t a good investment in your business.

Again posting to these sites is a great marketing tool…just don’t rely on them to be your primary host. Host the videos that show on your site on your own server, and then let your YouTube video lead viewers to you.

And now I invite you to learn more by visiting HowToSellYourVideos.com to get started right away using videos to grow your business.

Kim Miller is a successful video producer and publisher whose company, Panorama Studios, specializes in producing and selling special interest, educational and how-to videos. She is co-author at the HowToSellVideos.com blog, your source for advice and resources to successfully produce and sell your own videos. Visit the website for your FREE “How To Sell Your Videos” kit.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

In my imagination I can get in front of the camera and share my wealth of knowledge eloquently and flawlessly. The truth is I can barely get two sentences out without stumbling. I don’t know what it is, because I’ve spoken in front of large crowds often, but that camera just makes me tongue-tied.

Ever wonder how Brian Williams or your local newscasters deliver long strings of information without looking at notes or stumbling? Teleprompters! Think our president can make those great speeches without a hitch? Nope… he uses a teleprompter.

I don’t know why I waited so long, but I finally faced the truth and bought my own teleprompter. I have to say that it is incredibly empowering. I now can write out my video message in advance and deliver it without having to worry where I’m going with my talk, if I’ve left something out, or if I just started going way off topic. I can adjust the speed so that it seems comfortable and natural, and I can highlight sections so that my wife and I can both be on camera and look like we’re as professional as newscasters. It’s great!

Now I don’t hesitate to write out a message that I want to deliver via video, load up the teleprompter, fire up the camera and get ‘er done.

There are a lot of teleprompter options available, from using an iPhone or iPad, to dangling notes from your tripod, to good old fashioned cue cards. The thing I don’t like about off-axis options like cue cards is that you aren’t truly looking at the camera, and that just bothers me. The prompter I bought fits over the camera’s lens so that you are looking directly at the viewer.

If you start shopping for professional teleprompters you’ll often find them in the multiple thousands of dollars, but you don’t need to spend that much. I paid $799 for the Telmax OS-15, a 15 inch prompter, and as you can tell I love it. You can learn more about the teleprompters from clicking here http://ZaPrompt, and yes, I like them so much that I signed up as an affiliate.

If you are doing online video marketing or creating video products for sale, you will find that a teleprompter makes you far more productive and professional on camera. Try it!

Buyers Guide To The Perfect Hd Camcorder 2010

Author: Art Speck

Before reading any HD camcorder review, you should really know what the best video cameras have to offer by way of features, and then consider which of these features you really need for your video productions.

Only then will you be properly informed to choose the best digital camcorder suited to your needs and find the best camcorder deals for your purpose.

Are you making videos of family events, sporting events or recording the kids growing up, vacations, special interest videos, or more professional stuff like weddings, award ceremonies or instructional videos.

Whatever, you should always read any HD camcorder review and be sure to buy a High Definition Camcorder for the best picture resolution available in 2010.

Cheap video cameras such as a pocket digital camcorder may well suit your purpose if the camcorder is for the kids to use, where quality is secondary, but for more serious stuff, find camcorder deals which give you the special quality which only the best digital camcorder models can offer.

So let’s get to the point of this HD camcorder review, deciding about features.

Recording Format

Flash Memory is the choice for the best video cameras in 2010, where the video is recorded onto either internal digital flash memory or onto inexpensive flash memory SD/HC cards, therefore eliminating all internal moving parts in the pocket digital camcorder and allowing for an extended battery life.

Recordings are made as a file, which can very easily and quickly be copied from the pocket cam to a computer. Other recording formats are to MiniDV, DVD, hard drive or several others, but these all need more space and therefore the camcorder will be much larger.

Image Stabilizer

Note that there are two types of image stabilizer, optical and digital/electronic.

The digital uses software inside the camcorder, whereas optical uses mechanical components, usually tiny gyroscopes.

Choose optical whenever possible for a more stable and clearer image.

Zoom

Again, choose optical over digital every time, because digital only enlarges the pixels, therefore getting a grainy shot.Optical zoom wins every time.

Image sensors.

The choices are CCD or CMOS, either one or 3.

CCD sensors have been the norm for a while, but now more and more brands are appearing with CMOS sensors which are mass produced and used in cell phones, and therefore much cheaper than CCDs.

The research and development seems to be all going into CMOS sensors, so these may be the best choice.

Small camcorders will only have one sensor of either type, but Prosumer camcorders and Professional camcorders are offered with 3 sensors, one for each primary color, producing denser colors.

For many more options for selecting the best video cameras, visit the feature page of one of the best HD camcorder review websites with over 100 models of HD camcorders reviewed, with all the best digital camcorder and camcorder deals in 2010.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/gadgets-and-gizmos-articles/buyers-guide-to-the-perfect-hd-camcorder-2010-2174157.html

About the Author

Art Speck is an experienced videographer having worked for 30 years in the business.

Being retired now gives me time to enjoy my passion for video cameras and in particular high definition camcorders.

The year 2010 is digital HD Camcorder year, with every major manufacturer bringing out new, low cost HD camcorders with an enormous amount of new technology which lots of folk do not understand, so I have decided to write lots of articles like this one to explain the choices between features, brands and formats.

For a quick access to over 100 new HD Camcorders view this website.

From Mequoda Daily April 5, 2010 article by Chris Sturk

In a digital world, words may not be enough.

Content marketing doesn’t have to be just about the written word. It involves any type of content and the sharing of that content with some amount of it being free. The free aspect is designed to show consumers the value of your content before ever asking for their money.

Within the digital world, this content should be created to live harmoniously along multiple mediums.

Video as content

Google purchased YouTube in 2006. They saw the immense potential that YouTube had then, and still has now.

Let’s not forget that Google is the most popular search engine in the world. I don’t know about you, but many searches I’ve been conducting lately have retrieved video content on the first page of rankings. It seems that more cross-pollination between Google and YouTube is taking place.

So what does this mean for the current state of online video?

For starters, if you aren’t using video, and feel that it can fit with your content, you should seriously consider it. Using video will open new audiences of consumers who are primarily engaged by video content. This may include younger generations, adopters of video-ready devices like smart phones, or simply those who prefer to have more of their senses and emotions catered to.

Also, just because it’s video content, it doesn’t mean that it has to be extremely produced. With the help of programs like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker you could create video content comprised of images, slideshows or even PowerPoint presentations.

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A new means of marketing

We have all been victims of horrible television commercials for years. In fact, I have drastically cut down on watching TV because the advertisements were so mind-numbingly brutal that I lost all interest. If companies want to continue with screaming “messages” at their audience, they can do so. But I feel the days of that working consistently in a successful manner are over. I do not like to be spoken at, or in most cases screamed at, in order to buy a specific product. Show me the value and then I will consider it.

This is what content-based videos can do for marketers. If you have a product worth investing in and you understand the fundamentals of internet marketing that we discuss at the Mequoda Daily, then chances are with the depth and reach of the internet you will be able to connect with the correct audiences.

And unlike television commercials, online-based video content can engage the audience member. The video can be interacted with and the viewers can feel like they are engaging in an actual relationship with a company, opposed to being screamed at to buy something.

Video content and Google

If you do decide to enter the world of video content, be sure to treat the content as you would blog articles or other website content you’d like to have found by search engines like Google. By this I mean:

1. Make sure you optimize the video for keywords
2. Have a catchy, preferably keyword-rich title
3. Add keyword-rich copy to the page the video is on
4. Tag your videos with keyword phrases
5. Brand the video with your logo and link to your site if you’re primarily using video hosting sites like YouTube
6. Add descriptive meta data
7. Keep the video to an appropriate length and make it full of great content

Permalink: http://www.mequoda.com/articles/new-media-trends/using-video-for-content-marketing/