Hey, this is Chris from VisibleGains. When people think of video now they think of really expensive cameras and hiring really expensive people to create their videos.  That’s not the case anymore.  Cameras are getting smaller and easier to use all while capturing HD video. If you’re having trouble figuring out what you need and where you can shoot I’ve put this video together to show you what you need to do to get your shoots running quickly and easily.

If you need equiptment, you can purchase a Starter Bundle by clicking here.  This Starter Bundle includes, a camera, memory card, microphone, and tripod.  Here are two documents that cover everything in the video for you to use offline.  You can download:

Scouting For A Location – Download

Setting up Your Shoot – Download

Just Grab A Camera And Go!

At a recent event with Business Wire and MediaMobz, panelist Joe Chernov, Global Director of Communications & Social Media at Eloqua, spoke about recent trends deemphasizing viral video.

When online video was initially gaining popularity among businesses, companies spent a lot of time, money, and effort in hopes of making their video(s) viral. Although this success is great for spreading the company’s name, it doesn’t leave much of a measurable, long-term impact when you look past the thousands or millions of views. An earlier survey of the audience at the event indicated that companies today are using online video as a tool for many additional purposes, including sales, PR, and even support. This switch from a viral focus to more practical applications in the business world is refreshing to see. Online video can be adapted and manipulated for purposes far beyond a YouTube trend; the faster companies realize this and take advantage of its versatility, the better.

On Thursday, May 27, many of us from the VisibleGains team went to the Rattlesnake on Boyleston Street for “Lean Into Spring with MassChallenge and Lean Startup Circle Boston”.  It was a packed room with 250 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, and other Lean Startup practitioners.  We’ve been practicing Lean Startup since the early days here at VisibleGains, so it was great to see such a vibrant culture of like-minded folks right in our backyard.

One thing I noticed was that there were a number of marketers from medium and large companies in attendance at the event.  The marketing department, across every company size, often has autonomy to try new ideas, interesting campaigns, new technologies, etc. like no other department in the company.  In selling to marketers, we’ve noticed that our product rarely has to go through the bureaucracy that other software products do.  Marketers are expected to innovate, and the ones that don’t will lose their job in 18-24 months.

The question is: How do you innovate while reducing the risk of failure?  I think one answer to that question can be found in the principles of Lean Startup.  Look at the graphic above.  Your job is to minimize time through the loop from an idea to a learning.  So, if you have a great idea for a new campaign where you’ll have to spend $30k to build the interactive microsite, develop a killer product demo, video some customer testimonials, etc., instead try to focus on the minimum that you can do which results in validated learning from your market.  What would happen if you bought some ads and nobody clicked through?  All of the work you did on the microsite would be a waste (and might get you fired).  In this case, you might be able to get away with a simple landing page that describes the offer, a few graphics that allow the visitor to visualize it, and lead capture form.  If you bought ads and nobody clicked through, you would have wasted about a day of effort and minimal company resources.

A nice side effect of adopting a lean, test before you invest, methodology is that you are expected to fail most of the time.  Most campaigns will be flops.  But when one of them works, you’ll have the resources and time to focus on them to get even greater returns.