Here are my best thoughts on what’s happening with video right now…today…and how you can use it in your business to turn more surfers into buyers, increase your customer value and boost the money you stick in your hip pocket national bank — even if you aren’t photogenic, don’t look like an actor or actress and aren’t all that crazy about doing video. By Marlon Sanders

Joe Crump is a customer from way back in the day. He bought Amazing Formula back in 1998 or something like that and says it’s still one of the best things he’s read on writing copy, even though that isn’t the focus of it.Joe has an amazing business where he sells to a very crowded market of “how to invest in real estate.” What I love about Joe is he just does his thing and doesn’t feel the need to jump on the speaking circuit and whore out his list to jv offers he doesn’t believe in.

Here’s an example of how he uses video: http://joecrump.com/trenches/video1.html

Way back in VblogSecrets.com we showed how to create videos like these. In fact, Joe’s videos are what inspired me to create Vblog Secrets. And everything in there we taught still applies. Joes uses audio, video, reports. He does everything from home and no employees other than family. Anyway, Joe and I started talking about OTHER ways to use videos.

I pointed out what I call “The Frank Kern model” where Frank does slice of life videos where he gets in his car and goes to a location to shoot a video. Now, actually, I was the first to use the technique in this market in the Red Factor videos, if you recall. But Frank has done a great job of almost branding the idea. In one slick video, he drives in an old beat up beach van BUT shows his super fancy car in the background. So without SAYING “Hey, I got a hot car,” he SHOWS it.

So I suggested that Joe try the same thing. Where he reads an email from a customer who is skeptical. Then hops in the car and sets out to prove the skeptic wrong by driving to an investment property or to interview a student.

My friend Daegan Smith at recruitylikecrazy.com does a video where he drives to the bank and makes a bank deposit. My friend Jason Fladlien recently did a video along the same lines for his up and coming seminar in Austin. And just last week, Keith Wellman did a cool video he put up on Ustream where he got some guys in a room in comfy chairs and discussed Internet marketing. I thought it looked great.

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Unless you’ve been cut off from life or stranded on deserted island for the past couple of years, you probably know that YouTube is one of the most popular and most powerful tools on the Internet. Millions of people visit YouTube to watch the latest viral videos, or check the recent activity on videos they have uploaded to their account. Lets face it video is here, and its here to stay. As mentioned in a prior post this is very high on my priority lists for accomplishing soon.

More and more video sites will be popping up all over the place as time pushes forward, to not take advantage of this tremendously powerful tool is kinda silly. Think about it as recent studies have shown that YouTube holds over a 3rd of all video traffic online and that equates to millions of possibilities. Read the rest of this entry

Video marketing is fast becoming one of the top methods for driving a ton of traffic to your sites. Over the past year I have noticed more sites popping up dedicated to video entries.  Video marketing for the most part is free for those who already have a decent camera. Google an other search engines give a great deal of credibility and attention to sites that have video as a medium.  The traffic you’ll receive is highly targeted and its is a great way to create a personality online for yourself and your business.

I have not yet taken that dive in the pool of video marketing, however it is high on my list of priorities for the near future. I can also understand why some people are intimidated by video marketing, because they are not sure exactly how to do it. It isn’t really all that hard. I believe it is more about getting comfortable with the idea than anything else. Read the rest of this entry