Send me a message if you’d like to come.

 1.  Product training videos save countless hours of telephone support:

Last year Jeff Long (one of our stunningly talented video producers) was hired to travel to Texas for a week to film a series of training videos for Bowie Industries.  They had 7 main pieces of machinery that were complicated to operate and maintain.  Bowie Industries was constantly getting phone calls on servicing and operating the machinery.  The videos cut down on the amount of time on the telephone.  Instead, Bowie sent a link to the caller which had short videos that walked through each aspect of service and operation.  It was a huge time saver for Bowie and meant they didn’t have to be on the phone all day and could devote their day to other needs, which saved the company a lot of money.

How could you create training videos, product demonstrations, or video FAQs that would help save a lot of time for your personnel?

2.  Recording live presentations saves money and builds a training catalog:

We’ve seen a huge increase in companies asking Exit Row Productions to come to their presentations to film them.  We’ve live streamed them over the internet, as well as put them onto DVD and created web formats.  We can even create a special website or web page that is password protected.  This enables each company to be able to send the videos to those that couldn’t attend the live presentation or training.  It also means that you don’t have to fly everyone from across the country in, just so they can be a part of a presentation.  We’ve found that video taping these presentations is a huge money saver for these companies and allows them to have a catalog of training videos, presentations and information that can be used for years to come.

Do you have any upcoming live presentations, seminars, or training that needs to be recorded?  We’d love to help.

 3.  Product Promotions shows your target audience:

Do you have a product or service that needs to get the attention of potential buyers?  Do you spend a lot of time explaining, making phone calls and sending out literature?  Why not put all the benefits and features into a short video?  Video shows off your products in ways that explaining just can’t accomplish.  In fact, Dr. Fames McQuivey of Forrester Research said that, “A minute of video is worth 1.8 million words” .  When you take into account, the adage that, “an image is worth a thousand words” and most videos have several thousand still images moving at 30 frames per second.  It makes you wonder why you’ve been wasting your time on brochures, text only website and other outdated tactics.  Video will take the pressure off of you and put the spotlight back on your great products and services.

How can you utilize video in your product promotions or as a way to showcase your services?

As you can see in the above examples, video can actually save you money, rather than being inefficient by wasting time with unneeded customer service calls, live presentations, and product promotions.  Plus, video is becoming more affordable as equipment prices gradually drop.

So how can you use video to save money?  Let Exit Row Productions help you determine the best ways to utilize video in your business.

Website of the week: Snopes.com

Does a wealthy sultan from another country want to send you free money?  Do you get e-mails, messages or questionable information online, and you want to check the validaty?  The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. Use Snopes.com to see what’s true, and what isn’t. 

Video of the week: Google Wallet and Seinfeld

Get ready for your smart phone and your wallet to collide with several new services being announced in the coming months.  In this video, George Castanza shows why he needs Google Wallet.

[youtube width="580" height="325"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKGptWtzeaU&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=Exit+Row+Productions+Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=8ad5df7207-Through_The_Lens+Sept+2011&utm_medium=email[/youtube]

Our clients include the following organizations above and our videos have been seen on nationally broadcast television and internet channels.  We have done videos locally and nationally and can handle projects of any size.

Finding the right domain extension

This is very important and sadly, many “good” domain names are taken.  So you need to use your creativity to find a good domain name.  We recommend using a “.com” name if at all possible.  If you are an organization or non-profit, you could also use the “.org” domain.  The last option would be to find a .net domain name.  I would rarely recommend using a “.biz”, “.info”, “.tv”, or any other options that might be offered.  Generally people use “.com”, “.org” and possibly “.net” when searching online.

Finding the right domain name

1. I wouldn’t recommend using numbers, hyphens or dashes in your domain name.  That can be too hard to explain to people.  You want people to be able to remember your domain name and easily spell it.  You don’t want to get so creative with your domain name that no one can remember it.
2. Use a tool like, BustaName.com to use keywords to see if your ideal domain name is available

Purchasing your domain name

1. There are a lot of places on line where you can buy your domain name.  Most of them charge around $10 per year, which is an easy investment since you are building a business around this domain name.  It’s also good to buy a domain name if you think you might start a business with the same name.  Purchasing a domain for $10 to secure that domain is a simple decision to guarantee that it’s around when you want to use it.
2. We use Dreamhost for our domains and hosting and even have an affiliate relationship with them.  But you can buy your domain name from other sites such as GoDaddy.com.  However, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about GoDaddy’s customer service and don’t recommend them.
3. You can also use Dreamhost for your hosting.  However, you might want to wait a bit until you hire a website developer to create your website.  Even though we use and recommend Dreamhost, they might have their own set up which might benefit you.  Plus, there’s not sense in spending money on hosting right away when you don’t have to.

Sit back and congratulate yourself on finding, purchasing and securing your domain name.  You’re a step closer and ready to build your online presence.

We’d love to help you with any website needs you may have.  If  you’d like to know more about our web design service and for a free quote, fill out the form below and tell us how we can help you.  We’ll give you a call to see how we can help with your web, marketing or media needs.

10% of YouTube’s videos are available in HD

Only 10%?  Think how easy it will be to stand out from your competition?  If they have an old standard definition video and you have several Hi-Definition videos, which video do you think people will watch?  Exit Row Productions can create a video strategy that includes high quality HD videos.  That way your videos don’t look outdated on your website and YouTube.  Since most people across the country have broadband internet, they expect to have high quality videos.  And why not show your products, services, staff, testimonials, training or anything else in HD?

Give Exit Row Productions a call and see how we can help you.  We love talking with people to create a video strategy that incorporates HD, YouTube and web friendly formats.  It’s what we’re passionate about doing.  Let us do it for you.

YouTube reached over 700 billion playbacks in 2010

That’s a LOT of video being watched in one year alone.  Were your videos watched?  How many times were they viewed?  If you don’t know the answer, or if you don’t have any videos, than give Exit Row Productions a call.  We work with local companies in the Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio area, but we also have traveled across the country to create high quality videos for our clients.  We’d love to work with you on a video strategy that will utilize the Google friendly nature of videos found on your website and YouTube.  Having video on your site will greatly increase traffic and keep the visitor on your site.  Would they rather read about your product, or watch an engaging video?  I think we both know the answer to that!

We all know that video is the most powerful way to share your message.  What videos do you have on your website?  How many videos do you have on Youtube?  Do you know how many people are watching your video on YouTube’s mobile platform?  Exit Row Productions can work with you on all these aspects and create a video strategy for your website, YouTube and mobile websites.  So no matter where people are looking for you, they can easily find your videos.

Let Exit Row Productions help you create a video strategy of how to best utilize YouTube, social media, website, and the other platforms available.

If 2 BILLION videos are viewed every day, are people viewing your video?  Do you have a video?  If you don’t have a video, why not?  You’re missing out on a huge opportunity to share your story of your product or service.  Chances are that your competitors have videos of their products and services.  You could share video testimonials, live events, training, marketing, promotional pieces and so much more.  Let Exit Row Productions help create a video strategy to help your company be a part of those 2 billion videos watched on YouTube.   We work with companies and organizations locally in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati but also work with companies around the country and beyond.  We’d love to help and won’t push anything on you…we promise.

YouTube is localized in 25 countries across 43 languages

Do you sell internationally?  Would you benefit if people in other countries know about you and your services?  This stat is hugely important if you have an international client base.   Knowing that YouTube has a broad international reach can help you market, promote and sell your products.  Let Exit Row Productions help you create a video strategy which can include your international reach.  We have access to translation services, actors and voice over talent and can create a video in any language you need.  And YouTube is probably located in that area.

Let Exit Row Productions help you create a video strategy that can include and take advantage of YouTube’s importance on the web.

More video is uploaded every 60 days than the three major US television networks produced in 60 years

With the ever growing amount of videos, we’re seeing a dramatic increase in business related videos.  Businesses are hiring Exit Row Productions to create videos for: marketing, FAQ, testimonials, live events, trade shows, mobile phones, promotional pieces and much more.  And once those videos are done, we always recommend putting them on YouTube where people can find them easily.  YouTube is no longer for silly videos but has a huge business application.

What is your company doing to jump into this huge opportunity of online video?  Let Exit Row Productions help create a strategy for your video needs.

How are you capitalizing on the the increasing amount of people watching videos on their Smartphones?  Let Exit Row Productions help create a strategy to boost the viewership of your video on Smartphones, your website, social media outlets and much more.

Email Signature Videos:

This is something we have been personally testing over the past 9 months. How many e-mails do you send every day? Why not put a video in your e-mail signature? That way everyone can see it. We put clickable icons, such as Twitter and Youtube, in our e-mail signature. We also put a link to a video. In the few months that we tested, in one of our e-mail signatures saw that around 250 people clicked on our social media links, but just over 2,000 people clicked on our link to the video. That’s about 8x the click throughs on the video link over the social media links! You can see how much more people want to see a video. Imagine if your company has 5-10 employees with the same clickable videos in their e-mail signatures! Multiply that times the amount of e-mails they send every day. It would maximize not only your video’s effectiveness, but it would also drive traffic to your website with every e-mail sent from your company. How many e-mails do you and everyone in your company send every day? Are they also a marketing tool for your business? They could be. Ask us how we can help you incorporate this into your next video with us.

Training Videos:

We’ve had a lot companies call us to film their training sessions. In fact, last month we were asked to film an all day training series which was broadcast live through online streaming. We also edited the videos together and delivered them in DVD and web formats so the company could put the training on their website as well as send out DVDs to all those that couldn’t attend the event. The cost for this was vastly more affordable since the attendees were from all over the world. There were several people watching online in other countries! Can you imagine paying for them to fly into town to attend the one day event? It was much cheaper to have us record the event.

We have also been asked to record live speaking engagements where we edit the videos and break them into 5-10 minute videos. They then perform what is called, “Drip Marketing”, where they release one video every week. It keeps people coming back to the website for more content and is a great way to build traffic to your website.

These are just two ways you can use training videos in your business to save money and generate traffic to your website. How can you use training videos in your business?

Employee Orientation Videos:

How many companies hire someone new, but then have a long and painful training process? Training manuals are boring and long orientation sessions can give a lack of results. Their can even be a lack of consistency in what is presented during the training. But video is the best way to have a consistent message for your new employees. Why not mix up the orientation by having some videos that introduce your company, message and key staff through engaging video segments? You can then use these videos for years and years to come. Are you looking at revamping your employee orientation with videos? We can help.

Video Pick of the Month: Harvard Business Channel

If you like videos that teach new ideas and practical ways to grow your business, than you’ll like this YouTube channel.

“Harvard Business School’s YouTube channel showcases “ideacasts” that focus on “practical insights, tools and resources.” The web-show offers interviews with prominent Harvard professors, authors, and business leaders who speak to issues in markets large and small.”

Web Pick of the Month: PDF converter

How many times have you wanted to convert your Word document to a PDF.  Or, do you need to convert a PDF to a Word document to edit?  I need this functionality every week.  Check out this service that converts these formats.

For video in the Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati Ohio area and beyond, let Exit Row Productions handle your video, web and media needs.

See what Scott Puopolo, Cisco VP for Internet Business, says about internet video and where it’s going.

Boring slide shows are a thing of the past with the interactive elements of a review video.  Think of everything you can put into a video!  We can add some interactivity and motion graphics to a boring Powerpoint presentation or photo slideshow.

The reason it’s good to get interviews through video, is that they can be edited down to a reasonable length.  This banquet has a schedule and it’s better to have concise video pieces rather than having each board member get up and talk at length.  Those in attendance only hear the important aspects, and not all the details that come to mind when each person is speaking live.

Do you have an annual review meeting or banquet?  Let Exit Row Productions put together a high quality video that recaps everything that happened.  We can work with you on scripting, concepting, interviews, production and post-production.  We can do it all, or work with you on each aspect.

Let us know how we can help you with your next annual review meeting or banquet.  973-673-8450

In the past, they had used one camera, but quickly found that two cameras would add another way to keep the otherwise, dry training a bit more easy to view. We love it when people have the vision to use video in this capacity. First, Think about how much money they saved by doing a live internet video stream! They had people in other countries, who obviously couldn’t make the meeting, as well as those that were in far away States. These people didn’t have to fly into town, but could watch online. Secondly, this company had enough vision to have us edit down the footage into manageable videos that will be on their website in the coming weeks.  That way, if people couldn’t watch the live video stream, they could always watch it on demand.  This means that everyone could get updated on the news, no matter where they were, or when they could view it.

How could you use video to save money, inform, update, market, and promote?  The ideas are endless.  We love hearing from our clients on how our videos helped them.  And we love working with new companies to create a video solution.  Perhaps it’s a marketing campaign, training videos, web video series, product videos, video FAQs, or customer interviews.  The ideas are endless.

Give us a call to see how we can help you.  937-673-8450

I was invited to be on a panel discussion today at the New Media Dayton monthly event.  A monthly gathering for those interested in media, marketing and social media.  The topic was “trends to look for in 2011″ and I was asked to be with other social media and marketing geniuses (I was honored just to be on stage with them).  We started a discussion that I want to continue here.

All Hail King Google:

I’ve been noticing a shift in trends in 2010 and look to see an increase in the coming years over a potential “battle royale”.  Over the past several years we’ve seen the rise of the mighty Google.  I Google everything: questions, spelling, directions, information, events, recipes and more.  Google was built by extremely smart engineers who have a secret algorithm that gives priority to fresh and relevant content.  But, adding regular content like: blogging, news, updates and information will greatly help you as it is captured by Google and you get higher rankings.  Having video on your site is huge too…find out more here.  Google relies on how many times people use your site and how many sites are linked to yours.  This can be good and bad.  It can be good in that you might get a lot of “hits” to your website because of a promo you run.  It can be bad because while you may get a hundreds of visitors to your website, they might not translate into customers or people who return to your site. While Google is extremely valuable still, it might be trending to something else.  Google has been king of search for a while and we have even called it, “the information age”…but a shift is coming.  I think we are heading into the “social age”.

Socially Acceptable:

In today’s discussion, the topic of marketing, information and the social component came up.  April Mescher of ZipSetGo.com made a comment about how everything is going social (social media with Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, online check in through Foursquare, Groupon, etc).  She shared the term “Friendformation”, which got me thinking.   People are moving away from raw, impersonal data to personal recommendations on everything from which restaurant to eat at this weekend, to which vehicle to purchase.  We ask other friends and colleagues where to do business and and where not to do business.  I want to know what my friends thought of a movie or what others in the business community think of a new trend, rather than depending on the cold, hard statistics.  We all depend on personal connections…and this trend is growing.  We were created to be social in our interactions and this is coming out through social media.  Keep an eye out for the “Friendformation” vs Information battle (grab some popcorn, it could get interesting!).

The Great Divide:

Here is where the the shift happened.  Facebook, who has approx 500 million members, has decided not to open up their information to Google.  That means  that Google, the kings of information and mathematics, can’t comb through all the information that we share freely.  I believe that Facebook (along with other social media outlets) will be challenging the search engine and become something even greater.  A social search engine.

So how does your business use: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Foursqare, Moolala, Groupon, etc, etc?  Do you just depend on a static website that is 5 years old?  Do you engage your customers, clients, friends and relationships?  Yes, it can be intimidating since “times are a’ changing”, but the shift is happening.  Consider this your warning.

Agree, disagree?  What do you think?  Leave a comment and we can all chime in!  (which proves the social aspects that I’m talking about!)

1. Youtube is the second largest search engine behind Google.
2. Americans now watch an average of 30 minutes of Video online per day (see article here)
3. Video is over 50% of the bandwidth used online  (see article here)
4. Having video on your website can help you jump to the top of the Google search page (see article here).
5. Videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking (see article here).

You’ve probably noticed the swing from traditional marketing and media to social networking on sites like: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and more.  In fact the growth of these site is staggering.  Did you know, if Facebook was a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world.?  And Twitter has over 105 million users and is adding 300,000 per day!

But did you know Youtube was the most buzzed about social networking site of the year!

YouTube has come out on top in a ranking of 2010’s most buzzed-about websites and social media services.  This year was the year of video — in volume and positive mentions — of YouTube…The Zeta 2010 Buzz Awards measures the mentions of 125 of the top social media sites to determine not just popularity but how people feel about those sites, too.  “We held a mirror up to the social media world and try to get an understanding of what people are saying about the various social networking sites,” said Al DiGuido, CEO of Zeta Interactive, a digital marketing agency in New York City.  People seem to be saying good things about YouTube and Flickr. The blogosphere spoke positively about YouTube 91% of the time and about Flickr 98% of the time. Those positive mentions, along with the sites’ volume of mentions, landed them in the top two spots on the list.

If people have such a positive attitude of YouTube (even more than the popular Facebook, Twitter and Groupon!), you can count on the fact that people will be searching for business related topics on YouTube.

Let 2011 be the year that you start harnessing the power of video on your website, YouTube, video sharing sites and more!  Let Exit Row Productions help you formulate a plan based on your specific needs.

We’ve been serving both large and small businesses for almost 10 years and LOVE doing it.  We’ve got to see some amazing companies doing incredible things.  Here are some projects that we’ve done for some of our clients…and we could do the same for you.  We’ve had clients all over country and have been overseas doing some amazing projects as well.  But, the thing we love most is using creative ideas to convey messages.  We pride ourselves in the creativity that we bring to the table.  Some projects don’t allow for overtly creative ideas, but when given the chance…we can give some out of the box ideas.

Here are just a few things that Exit Row Productions has done in the Dayton area and beyond

• Marketing pieces
• Training videos (examples here)
• Customer testimonials (see here for examples)
• Local and national Commercials (see a video of ours that was on MSNBC)
• Trade show videos
• Commercials
• PowerPoint videos on steroids
• Interviews
• Presentations divided into segments and spread out over time through social media  (see here for examples)
• Website FAQ (examples here)
• Video success stories (examples here)
• Video case studies
• Videos for non-profits (we shot this video for the Y)
• Creative promos (we love creative…and have some very good ideas…not to brag)
• local government and city promo and intro videos

These are just a few types of videos that we can do.  How can we help you?

The Digital Entertainment Group, recently released some stats that show physical media sales are dropping.  Which means DVDs are going the way of the 8-track and cassette tape.   Digital delivery is gaining in consumer confidence and comprehension as they understand the importance of this format and how taking one video and applying it across multiple platforms can save money and increase exposure.

According to The Digital Entertainment Group, “digital distribution was 13.%% of overall spending and consists of electronic sell-through (EST) and video-on-demand. EST was up 37% reaching $432M with VOD  jumping 20% and ending the nine-month period at $1.2B”.

Having high quality content in digital form is exciting for us at Exit Row Productions because we can make a video one time and deliver it across multiple platforms.  This means that your online video efforts are far more vital than in the past since everything online (especially video) is growing so rapidly.  In fact, we work with our clients after the video is made to help with distribution.  We offer our expertise on digital delivery through websites like YouTube and across multiple social media platforms for ultimate exposure.

Let us help you today with your video needs.  Whatever your distribution needs are, we can take your concept to completion and help you maximize the distribution of your video online.  Contact us today for more information about how we can help you.

Don’t forget about the 20% discount for Dayton Business Spotlight members. It’s our way of saying thank you for investing in the Dayton region.   Contact us today for more details.

We all know Kroger as the best grocery store in town (and the country!) but did you know Kroger has a television department?  Each region has its own internal television department that handles training, promotions and news updates that is sent out to their employees each week.  They do an amazing job of speed and quality with all of the video projects that go through this studio on a weekly basis.

Because of the high work load in August and September, Kroger TV contacted Exit Row Productions to come into the studio in Cincinnati to work for 7 days on editing several video projects.  Last year Exit Row Productions also did some work with Kroger TV and they asked us back for more this year.  Projects ranged from promotional content to several training series that had a tight deadline that need to be started and completed.

The station manager had this to say about the services that Jeff Long provided while there.

I am grateful for Jeff’s help.  I really like the way he is able to pick up on a project and, from a mere description, take it through to completion.

If Kroger TV uses Exit Row Productions for their editing and video needs, than imagine how much we can help you.  Exit Row Productions specializes in taking projects from concept to completion and can also handle the distribution, social media marketing, and even website creation to display your new videos.  Give us a call to see how we can help you.