When I launched Open Door Multimedia five years ago I believed that the way to develop the business would be to build relationships with web designers who would introduce me to their own clients who wanted promotional video on their web sites. I was wrong or at least I was “a bit previous” in my thinking. Things had not got to that point and in those days web designers told me that though they themselves did see the value of video on websites, their customers were not asking for it. Since then I have developed some really productive relationships with PR/ Marketing/ Web design companies but it took a very long time and the delay was difficult to understand. Puzzled? Me too!

So what was going on? And what is still going on to perhaps a slightly lesser extent?

Well lets take a look at the benefits of using video on your website. If you want a detailed picture you just need to Google the phrase “Facts about video on your website” and you will find lots of information and some very impressive statistics. For starters check out an article from Video Brewery via . It’s all in there. But forecasting the cash value of a video is much more difficult to do because the variables are so complex. So lets take a look in a little more depth.

How much income will a video on a website generate? I have no idea.

Pound for pound will video on a website be more productive than other forms of marketing? I have no idea.

And the reality is that we probably never will have because it depends on many things. How good is the film? What are its messages? How receptive are the audiences? What will a company do with the video? How many times will it be watched? What is the conversion rate? And in a way I think those questions might be the wrong ones to ask.

Perhaps a better question is how much new business/ how many new sales will this video have to generate before it pays for itself? Another good question is how much new business would this video need to generate to beat all the other ways to spend my marketing budget? – the opportunity cost question.

A couple of years ago I made a film about Salmon fishing on a private beat of the River Tay. It is a really nice watch and I have had some great feedback about it. I made it for myself so there was no fee involved but if it had been commissioned the price would have been in the £800 to £1,000 region. So lets take a look at that.

The average price of a day’s fishing is around £80 so to break even that video would need to generate just 12.5 bookings in total. The film is pretty timeless so let’s say it will be valid for at least three years and that means that the break-even impact has to be approx. 4 bookings per year – four days that would otherwise not sold. The reality of decent Salmon fishing is that it is in short supply and good, descriptive, honest information is hard to come by. Traveling distances to Tayside from Manchester, Liverpool and London are 250 to 450 miles. Fishermen don’t travel that far for one day, so 4 bookings in a year could be a single person or two pals fishing together for 2 days each year. On top of that repeat bookings are common – you go once, like it and book for the following year. So converting a couple of fishermen could be all that is needed to get to break-even with that film. So now lets take a look at the percentages.

This film has been viewed 14,994 times in the three years since it was uploaded to You Tube on 30th May, 2013. The viewing audience will be exclusively people who are interested in Salmon fishing – most but not all will be resident in the UK, mainly but not exclusively men, a lot of them will be silver haired with a reasonable amount of disposable income and plenty of spare time – there is a big correlation between retirement and Salmon fishing. In terms of conversion rates what percentage of those viewers would need to book a day’s fishing each year for the film to break even?

14,994 views – lets say some viewers watched more than once and assume 10,000 individual viewers are involved.

We need 12.5 bookings over three years to break even – with a very conservative average 2 bookings per person so we are really talking about 6 people,

6 people from 10,000 viewers requires a conversion rate of 6/10,000 which equals 0.06%.

I would say that makes it pretty much a no brainer and interestingly availability on that piece of river is practically nil from now till the end of the summer. That runs in the face of a comment made by the Gillie (fishing guide) at the time the film was made. He said that there is always fishing available. Well there ain’t now! The fishing has been there for decades – the film has been there for three years – draw your own conclusions.

Of course this is just one example but the approach is relevant to other sectors. So how much business would your company need to do to break-even on the price of a promotional video for your website? How many items would you need to sell, how many hours of service would you need to deliver before it paid for itself? Oh and the other thing to remember is that films about Salmon fishing take longer and are more expensive to make than most promotional films. Salmon are a lot less co-operative and predictable!

Howard Jackson


www.opendoormultimedia.com

 

Maybe it is our growing obsession with everything American, or perhaps the growing stress of running a business in these turbulent times, or maybe it just has not crossed our minds. What am I talking about? The way that we deal with those who we are obtaining a service from of course!

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the amount of businesses who approach you to help them make their business better, then all of a sudden decide that you are now a lowly staff member and can be communicated with in a manner that is neither polite, nor professional.

Here are a few pointers to bear in mind when working with another business:

• They are not working FOR you, they are working WITH you. Do not be surprised that your curt email or sharp text message elicits a poor response if any at all. Disrespecting a partner is never good practice, ask any divorce lawyer!
• No matter how important you think you are or how much you think you are doing for that business by working with them, you are often only ONE of their clients. Expecting something to be done immediately after your communication 5 minutes ago is both unrealistic and arrogant!
• The other business may be working with partners (or in our case) plugins made by third parties. If that other party is slow to respond or cannot be reached, no amount of badgering will change this fact.
• What do you think that acting in this manner is doing for your reputation? If you treat a business you are supposed to be working with with disrespect, will you be cultivating great PR? Will they be recommending you to those who could take your business to the next level?
• Think carefully, is this the way that you talk to your spouse, your parents or your employees? If the answer is no than you could be failing your business and earning yourself a bad reputation.

So what can we take away from this? The one rule that you must ALWAYS be aware of, every hour of every day as a business owner, is that YOU are the ambassador of your business. It does not matter if you are a cleaner, mechanic, flower arranger or financial advisor, the fact that you are part of this business immediately makes you the standard by which that business will be judged for better or worse. You may be the lowliest employee or the company director, to the customer or partner business this does not matter. If you treat them with discourtesy, YOU are damaging the image of your business and it is worth remembering that bad news often sticks around a lot longer than good – just look at the papers!

Today decide to be the person/business that you originally set out to be, be the solution that the business you left in order to start yours was not. Be polite, be patient and be courteous and remember that a good testimonial is worth its weight in gold, whilst bad service will see you back at that old company in no time..

I was on a sales board on Facebook earlier today and read a question from a seller asking if people even read the description of for sale posts or just look at the pictures. As I have spent quite a few years in sales the answer to this was obvious to me, however it occurred to me that to many folk (especially those running smaller businesses) this might not be immediately apparent. so here goes..

No matter what you are trying to sell and regardless of whom you are trying to sell it too (obviously apart from in part those with impaired vision) the image is 90% of the sale. Whether this is a showroom, glossy catalogue or an online shop, a single advertisement or a multinational business, no matter what you are selling – the image is what will get you 90% of that sale.

You have only to look at social media sharing everything from pets to holidays, from nights out to lost dogs, it is all about the image. Or what about the sales websites or auction sites? Be honest those of you who use them, how many people will look at an advertisement for a new or secondhand item that has no pictures of the product? But this does not stop at products; whether you are providing holiday homes or animal grooming, luxury cars or one bedroom flats – people want no NEED to see what they are getting as this is what will begin their thought process. They will ‘see’ themselves owning that car, living in that house, lying on that beach. ONLY when they have that picture in their mind will they begin to read off the tick list of features or approach the salesperson.

Now let’s be clear here I did point out that this is 90% of the sale, so what is the other 10%? Well 5% of that is the description. Here’s an example; you see a stunning new car in the colour you are looking for, check out those glossy pictures! Quick glance at the price, yes that works – ‘click’. The advertisement reads – “For sale, red car, runs well, two new tyres. Call me for more on…” How many of you will actually make that call? I won’t! My immediate thought is ‘well if you can’t make the effort why should I?’ What the seller should have done is list all of the cars features and add a few memory hooks like ‘drives like a new car’, ‘always gets looks’, ‘sad to part with her’ etc. Those first two especially will strengthen that image in the potential buyers mind into ‘oh that could be me driving that car..’

The remaining 5% is how you deal with the customer; too aggressive and they will walk away, too passive they will walk away, it’s a fine balance but it is worth learning. Part of this is your image, have you noticed how delivery vans are often lovely and clean? The drivers are wearing a smart uniform and are ‘so polite’? Yes this is also very important!

Final thought. I will never forget the early days of building websites with my partner, I was sat behind a car valeting van in traffic that was so filthy you could not read the phone number..do you think I ever called them to valet our vehicle? Now go get your camera clicking and sell it… And no this isn’t my car..yet!

PS. Don’t worry if you have no great pictures for your website yet, we know lots of great photographers who can help you with that – Debayne Web Design – Weaving the Web your Way