Create Your Videos

The bang of internet video proves one thing – you don’t need to be a professional producer of video content to get in touch with a huge audience on the Worldwide Web. If you have expert knowledge about something that can benefit customers, you can be the star of your own how-to-do-it video product line.

Choose what kind of video product you want to create: educational, motivational, inspirational, “how-to-do-it” and comedy are popular genres of video products for sale on the Internet. Don’t pick a type just because it sells for other people. Pick something you’re passionate about. Your passion-or lack of it-will always show in whatever you produce, and this is true whether you’re standing in front of the camera or behind it.

Suppose say that you build houses. You may want to create a promotional video to persuade companies and individuals to hire your services. This is the type of video product that you want potential customers to access freely at your web site or blog. Another type of product that can create an excellent revenue source is an educational video. As an independent contractor, you know all the ins and outs of the business. An educational video product aimed at teaching customers everything they need to know before choosing a contractor and beginning a construction project can give people precious knowledge that they are willing to pay for. And of course the do-it-yourself home improvement market is one of the main revenue producers in the United States.

Let’s take the example of an independent contractor one step further. Every tip that you can present and package in a 15 to 30 minute “how-to” video can generate a important revenue stream that makes money over a period of several years. Think of how the do-it-yourself home improvement market has exploded on television over the past few years. The Internet opens up this huge market to anyone with a camera, a computer, and expert knowledge of how to do something that adds value to consumers’ lives.

Always keep in mind to talk about benefits. When you stress the benefits that come with successfully completing a project, you add value to your customers’ lives. And when that happens, you create a force of “customer evangelists”-people who are eager to tell others about how you created something of value for them. Whenever you make customers happy, always ask them to give you a testimonial to use for promoting your product or service. Businesses know the worth of written testimonials, but think about the benefits of filming testimonials to put on your web site.

Well, if you have no experience at all in the field of creating video products, a video testimonial from a satisfied customer is a great way to start. You don’t have to go out and look for acting talent-the best talent is a real person who can be natural in front of a camera and just talk about the profits of your product or service. Post this as free content on your site and watch your sales amplify.

Creating a video product on the internet has become much easier than ever before.

All right, I know you can’t compete with the big media corporations if your dream is to produce the next Lord of the Rings Trilogy. (In that case, your goal should be to get a job at a production studio and work your way up.)

However creation and distribution of online video products has become so easy-and so economical-that anyone with an Internet connection can become a broadcaster of video content for the Worldwide Web. (The faster your server connection, the better-a broadband connection is perfect for uploading video content to the Internet.)

As an Internet marketer, you should to be aware of what you can achieve by creating video products for sale on the Internet:

* The sale of video products allows you to launch an online business with a minimum cash investment.

* If a video product is ineffective, it’s easy to pull it off the market without running up losses-you don’t have to invest in inventory to launch an Internet video business.

Discover a vision for your video product. The keys to creating a successful video product are the same as the keys to success in any business venture: establish priorities and stay focused on your goal. Your vision must be to create a video product that adds something of value to your customers’ lives. Inspirational videos and how-to videos accomplish this goal-one of these areas is a good place to start. Keep these simple tips in mind as you start to expand a video product for sale on the Internet:

You should focus on your strengths. Find one thing that you do well and build your video around it. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to fix your weaknesses. Successful people spend most of their time doing what they do best-they concentrate on their strengths.

Keep in touch with your customers. Businesses fail when they stop listening to what their customers are saying. Always approach your video business as a system that needs to be constantly improved to preserve your advantage over the competition. Stay focused on your customers. Concentrate on creating a video product that adds something of value to their lives.

Experiment the market. You don’t have to quit your day job to start creating video products to sell on the Internet. Most people think that great companies are established by entrepreneurs who risked everything to test a business idea. The truth is that many successful Internet entrepreneurs launch and test their business systems without quitting their jobs. You can create a video product without leaving your job, test the market on your web site or blog, and tweak the business system until the profits tell you when to plunge into the new business full time. Your chances of success can be greatly increased by making a gradual entry into an Internet video business.

2007 is beginning to look like the year of the vlogs. An explosion in Internet video is taking place, and in large part it’s an explosion based on video blogs. A huge online industry is gearing up around video sharing sites like YouTube and Internet video platforms like Brightcove.com. Television is moving online, and Internet TV may soon replace with your favorite TV programs.

If you’re an independent producer of video content or an Internet marketer interested in learning how to take advantage of the revolution in Internet video technologies, an excellent site to visit is Rocketboom (www.rocketboom.com). This site is wonderful in its simplicity; it has already grown into one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Rocketboom focuses on what’s happening in the world of Internet news and technology. Its content is presented in a light and highly entertaining format.

The quality and simplicity of Rocketboom illustrates how fast the revolution in Internet technology is transforming delivery systems. Licensing and distribution costs used to need an investment of millions of dollars to get a broadcast TV channel on the air. Rocketboom is created with a consumer-level video camera, a notebook computer, and a simple set. It looks and feels like a commercial TV broadcast, but it has no budget for advertising. The videos are produced on easy sets, but the content is as smooth and as professional as anything broadcast on television. The cost of storage and bandwidth space on the Internet is so economical today that a video channel like Rocketboom can be launched with virtually no investment at all.

Like most popular video sites on the Internet, Rocketboom is distributed through a technology called Real Simple Syndication, or “RSS.” This technology lets spectators subscribe to your channel and receive alerts every time you make a new video product available on your site. And like so many other original technologies that are connecting people on the Internet, RSS is a free service.

Paid downloads of your video products is one of the many revenue streams that can be generated for online video content. When your audience grows and you have the demographics to show advertisers, you will start to see what a powerful force video is for driving your business. Offering both free and subscription services is an excellent way to build a large community of users around your video products.

If you aren’t creating video products for both free distribution and sale on the Internet, you aren’t reaping the full profit of connecting your business to the Worldwide Web. You may be impressed with how Internet has become a great tool for gathering and transmitting information, but creating video content for a potential audience of millions on the Internet is the most excellent way to take your business to the next level.

Try out Rocketboom and then come back to this article. Afterwards, I think you’ll be ready to create your first great video product for sale on the Internet.