After reviewing a video from Jan Goldman outlining business ethics (with some nifty marketing techniques embedded), I wanted to repost it in this blog (with appropriate source credit, of course). However, Goldman wasn’t using YouTube or other services where you could easily grab the copy and repost it. Nothing wrong with that — it is his right to set things so that the videos only appear where he wants them to appear.
But I was still curious: How did he do this? So searched through the source code of the relevant webpage, because most businesses simply do not have the practical capacity to host video productions for websites in-house.
And I found it — a link to JiveSystems — Video for Sales — a service that helps salespeople create “business quality videos” in less than five minutes.
Lot’s of useful information on the site, but no one is letting on how much the service costs. You need to sign up for a 25 minute discovery session (presumably with a sales rep) to find the answer.
Generally, I consider these sites with messages like: “You need to talk to a salesperson before we’ll tell you how much it costs” are expensive. Of course “expensive” can be a relative thing — if the cost of the service is small relative to the value then it is quite reasonable to pay the price.
However, you may be able to glean some useful insights about making your videos effective (and virtually for free) by following the introductory advice on the site and its related blog.
The company, for example, provides specific equipment recommendations, which you can fulfill at online retailers.
| A. Webcam | Logitech C920 | $65 |
| B. Ring Light | 18″ Diva Super Nova | $250 |
| C. Stand/Tripod | Diva Video Tripod and/or Diva Table Top Stand | $100 and $80 each |
| D. Microphone | Blue Nessie (Economy) or Rode NT (Pro) | $80 or $170 |
There are specific ideas on how to structure your video and prepare it.
Obviously, if you use this company’s services, they’ll provide you with information on how to upload it to their server and how you can integrate the videos with your email communications (and here the service may be really worthwhile, because it is a challenge for most of us to integrate video into our personal emails.)
If you want to go the inexpensive route, you could upload the video file to YouTube (free). YouTube has various editing functions to help you build things out — this can be tedious and challenging at first, but the work can still be done without any need for subscription fees or costs. Then, while personalized video emails can be a challenge, you can certainly use services to embed videos in your eletters, blog postings and website — and not have any budget consequences.
This blog posting is clearly not a “practice what you preach” example; as I haven’t tested anything out here personally. However, I sense that I could achieve really impressive results rather quickly with a bit of effort, or by paying JiveSystems for their support. Either option would be quite reasonable.
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