The Internet Age: How It’s Changed The Special Interest Video Industry
September 20, 2010 by Kim R Miller
Filed under All Posts, Internet Marketing, Special Interest Video Biz
(Continuation in my special series on special interest videos where last week I addressed the question, “How much can you make producing and selling your own videos?“)
Internet Video Has Changed The Industry
How has the internet age changed the special interest video industry?
The internet has brought with it some exciting and far reaching opportunity in this business of producing, distributing and marketing your videos. It has made it possible for anyone to enter this industry…not just companies with big pockets.
Leveled the playing field
When I started in this industry, the primary way you reached your customers was through distributors, catalog publishing and direct mail campaigns. The former eats into your profit margin and the latter two are very expensive and prohibitive for the small producer.
The internet has leveled that playing field. With the advent of internet marketing, i.e., email, SEO, blogging, pay-per click advertising, and social media, there are much more economical and new marketing avenues for the small producer.
Lowered the overhead costs
No longer do we have to rely on having a human answer the phone or mail to take orders. Now about 98% of our orders come in online. Many of them arrive overnight or while we’re away from the office. We rarely have to talk to a customer, although we maintain a toll-free number.
When you offer downloadable products, it gets even better! The customer gets the video immediately and you get payment directly into your bank account with no time or money spent packaging, shipping or handling.
Improved research tools
The internet also changes the way you can research and reach your target market.
Although it takes commitment, time and work to produce and sell your own videos, the key to being successful is to pick the right topic, have a well-targeted audience and a good marketing strategy
Along with all the positive changes brought about by the internet age, there are some special challenges it has brought to this field, specifically the proliferation of all the free videos now available and how to stay current on the technology.
Those specific areas will be addressed in our next post. Sign up for our RSS feed to get the next post in this series!
Finally...
If you liked this post please register to receive your free How To Sell Your Videos Starter Kit which will not only give you immediate access to tools and resources to get you started but also a weekly newsletter that’s packed with tips, guidance and more!
These posts are part of an article that is featured in Punto Magazine, a bilingual photography and video magazine (Spanish and English) in the September-October 2010 and will continue in the November-December 2010 issue. You can view the entire article (it starts on Page 18 and is in english) along with the whole issue here.
Comments
One Response to “The Internet Age: How It’s Changed The Special Interest Video Industry”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] are a special interest (how-to) video producer, you should be very interested in this topic because video on demand services are in your future, like it or not. The ability to sell online videos is very attractive to me, as [...]