How do you measure success?

At last others are coming around to my way of thinking The Wall Street Journal no less. 
Simply no matter what metrics you choose to use to justify your spend on advertising it comes down to just one thing, does it make you money?

Can you afford to Do It Yourself?

Despite all the top business leaders advocating hiring the best people you can afford. There is still a thriving market for DIY books, webinars and tutorials, for business owners and managers out to save the pennies.

Yes, you can learn how to do almost anyones job if you set your mind to it. It is not that difficult, most college units can be taught in only 40 hours. There is certainly no lack of free advice on how 'I did it' online.

The question is, do you dismiss the years, even decades, of proven professional experience that other people can bring to you business, in order to say a few pounds by doing it yourself? What does it say about your business and your values, when you do it yourself? Will it inspire confidence in your potential customers that you are prepared to settle, for what is essentially an amateur solution, to a commercial problem?

On a more practical side. While you are focused on doing everybody else's job, who is doing yours?

Don't micro manage. Have a vision and use that vision to hire the best people to provide the services you need: They have more experience in what works and what does not. They can do a better job in less time and as a consequence are often cheaper in the long run. Hiring the best, inspires your clients and reassures them that you are not going to cut corners in their work.

Ok, there are times in any business, when cash flow simply prevents you from hiring anyone. But when you rigidly adhere to a DIY policy in every circumstance! Perhaps it is time to look at why you are in business. If you are in business to save money you will soon have neither money nor a business.

To this end Vid-FX+ advertising has set up a consultancy service to help you choose the best advertising and marketing options for your business. Advising you on how to build your business.

In of our experience one of the biggest concerns, is businesses choosing inappropriate advice. In the English speaking world, there are many countries using the same language yet with many different legal systems. It is all to easy to mistake good advice from one country and applying it to another, only to find that the advice is inappropriate for their legal system. For instance I was reading a book last night by a very, very successful businessman. Their advice was fantastic, I loved every word of it. The shame was that much of what was advised as good business practice in the 1960's had been made illegal 20 odd years ago!

As a rule of thumb: If advice uses a different currency, or spoken in a different accent to yours. Or if it is more than a few years old. Seek specific 'Local' advice to ensure that you are doing the right thing. The last thing you need is a letter instructing you that you are under investigation for illegal practices, false, or misleading advertising.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley - Vid-FX+Advertising

Why is no one looking at your marketing content.

Why is no one looking at your marketing content.

So you've been to all the seminars, been on every course and read all the books. You've done everything that you have been told to do and still your view count is still stubbonly stuck to the bottom of the scale. Why?

There is more to advertising than meets the eye. It is easy to leap right in, create a bit of content, grab a few stock images and make a quick video or two with your web cam and off you go. It doesn't matter if the content and media is good or bad, because your view counter is stuck on zero!

So what's gone wrong? 

Answer, you probally have missed a few keys stages. 

Pre production - Market Research.

 1. Who wants to buy your product?

 2. When and where are they active?

 3. What makes your product different?

Post production - Distribution.

 1. How to get your message out there?

 2. Where to place your message so that it gets noticed?

 3. How to use other peoples marketing to boost your message?

Placing your message is crucial, just sticking it up on social media and waiting for it to be discovered, is rarely successful on its own. It may sound silly but you have to 'advertise your advert'. Trying your advertising to other promotions and events can also be extremely successful, if done correctly.

The reality is, dispute claims to the country, there is no such thing as free advertising, it has to be paid for oneway or another. The measure of success for an advert is the ROI, return on investment. If your investment is zero, don't expect much of a return.

While most people can write about their businesses, they can only do so in reference to their own business. They have little knowledge of what their rivals and competitors are doing, or where others have already tried and failed in these endeavours. Knowing what has been done before, why they have failed and where they have succeeded, can give you a real competitive edge. Knowing why your potential customers prefer another business to theirs is even better.

Your local advertising agency will have done the market research. having worked with other businesses in the local market they have where they have failed and where they have succeeded. Ad agencies know the laws and regulations under which all advertising and marketing must operate. They know where your adverts will get the most views. They will know why potential customers are buying from elsewhere. But you must be ready to listen, be ready to accept that perhaps you have made a mistake or that the advice you were given was not all that it should have been. Above all, let the professionals get on with their job while you do yours. Think on this, 'while you are doing their job, who's doing yours?'

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+

What can the original Mad Man teach us today?

Best known for his advertising prowess, Ogilvy was an advertising executive who was widely held as ‘the father of modern advertising.’ In fact Ogilvy started in sales before he went into advertising. His sales advice still holds true today, even in this age of social media and digital sales.

1.      “Find out all you can about your prospects before you call them; their general living conditions, wealth, profession, hobbies, friends, and so on. Every hour spent in this kind of research will help you impress your prospect” – David Ogilvy

We all receive cold calls and unsolicited email from salespeople who know nothing of our businesses or our needs. Why because in todays digital age it is all to easy to build or buy lists of numbers and addresses and fire off calls and emails at random, a conversion of one in a thousand is more then enough to turn a profit with this vast volume of data. It is cheap fast and nasty, it requires no real work or understanding on the part of the sales team.

Yet if you take time to understand your prospects, get to know them get to know their businesses, they will remember you and what you can do for them. After a while they will begin to contact you. 

2.    Foster any attempt to talk about other things; the longer you stay the better you get to know the prospect, and the more you will be trusted. Pretend to be vastly interested in any subject the prospect shows an interest in. – David Ogilvy

Social media and email marketing is a good way to keep in touch with family and friends, but to a business you can rapidly become little more than an annoyance that clutters up peoples inbox, the irritation that stops them doing what they should be doing. Even then are you reaching a decision maker or are you just going strait into the trash via the spam filter. Without feed back you will never know!

This is where your networking comes into play, get out there get your face and your business known, this does not work so well siting behind a computer. You can twitter and tweet all you are worth, it is the salesperson sitting in the office chatting about the weather, football and babies, that gets the sale. They are there you are not.

3.    The More prospects you talk to, the more sales you expose yourself to, the more orders you will get. But never mistake a quantity of calls for quality of salesmanship.” – David Ogilvy

This is where CRM software call and email lists break down. It has never been about volume, never about numbers, it is all about the quality of the information you collect. It is easy to dismiss a prospect, to shun someone as beneath your interest, that they will never buy from you. Yet their brother, sister neighbour maybe just the prospect that you are looking for. What will they say when asked “Oh have you ever met…?”

Get to know the people who you are dealing with, know and care about them. They are your customers they pay your wages, treat them with the respect that they deserve. The old adage that 'people buy from people' may not be true anymore in this digital age. Rephrase that to read that 'people buy from people whom they trust' would be more true to day. Earn peoples trust, give them reasons to buy from you.

4.     “Selling does not materially differ from military campaigning, and we may analyse it under two main headings, ATTACK and DEFENCE.“ – David Ogilvy

Ogilvy recommended a combination of attacks (delivery of content) and defences (responses to objections). He stressed the importance of always being on the attack while swiftly countering objections. 

Your advertising and marketing campaigns come in to play here. They should have laid the ground work, have built up the reputation of your business and brand. Half you work is already done when a potential customer responds to your advertising and calls you. All you have to do then is close the sale. 

Advertising is such a key element of the sales process that David Ogilvy himself went on to become the original Mad Man of madison ave.

So talk to your Local advertising agency. We are there to help you get the most out of your advertising and marketing budgets. Call us today and see how we can help you get the processes in place, to maximise your sales potential.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley - Owner Vid-FX+ advertising

Simple tips for video editing.

Editing starts when the editor receives the raw footage, the script, shooting schedule and the continuity notes. The editor works with the director to produce the editing script.

8 simple tips tips for video editing

1. Read the script for the video.You would be amazed at the number of editors who neglect this crucial stage.

2. Reach for a pad of paper and a pencil, layout a timeline of the exact duration, and block in the main components from the video script.

3. Review the continuity notes and shooting schedule, to help you select the 'good takes' from the raw footage.

4. Review and select the B-roll and alternative footage to insert into and intercut with the timeline.

5. Mark the clip names/numbers on the main time line. Assess if they are going to fill or overrun the set duration, decide what could be cut or inserted to bring it to the exact duration.

6. Open a basic editing program, rough cut and assembly edit the raw footage to make a preliminary edit.

7. Review preliminary edit with the director and colleagues, look out for missing or additional items, where improvements can be made etc.

8. You don’t have to have the very latest Pro editing suite. A basic editing program can produce good results if you know what you are doing. Once the edit has been made no one should be able to tell in which suite the video was edited.

The 3 basic mistakes in video editing

1. You are working with audio and visual elements. The audio needs as much attention as the visual.

2. You will watch a clip dozen of times in the editing process. Having seen it three or four times it is tempting just to skip to the end, DON'T. Always play a clip through to the end, it is easy to lose an entry or outpoint to a clip when editing.

3. Don't put something into the edit, just because you can. People will watch your video for its content, not because of your editing. The very best editing passes unnoticed, so keep it simple.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+

Attract more customers

Customers searching for your product or service online have a plethora of choice. 

So how will you make your business standout?

Whatever it is that you are selling, there is always someone else who is offering pretty much the same. Often at a lower price, as they attempt to break into the market. The typical reaction is to lower your prices. This leads to a race to the bottom, until one or the other goes out of business. Either way it is likely to be a pyrrhic victory, as it is  difficult to raise prices once they have been reduced.

The simple answer is to give the customer what they want at a price that they will pay. 
But what is it that they want and just how much will they pay for it? Most businesses assumes that that they know what their customers want. True, yet it is not their customers they need to look to for new business. It is someone else's customers they need to attract.

So before you commissioning  a new advertising and marketing campaign. Ask how will you find out what your potential customers want? 
You should have established this before you started your business. But times change and customer expectations change with them.  It is wise to commission market research on a regular basis. Especially before you start planning your next advertising or marketing campaign. That is real research, not a quick poll around family and friends, or a gut felling that the market is right for...

Market research tells you what you need to know. 
To help you make, your choice of product or service. Good research can also tell you how much demand there could be. What it is often difficult to find out is how your competitors are attracting new business.

Unfortunately far to many businesses leave it to late. 
They only come to commercial agencies once their marketing has failed. Even then they have a tendency to disagree with the results. As these often challenge cherished working practices. Major change maybe needed to get their business back on track.

Don't leave it to late to seek professional advice. 
Do so before you embark on any advertising or marketing campaign. It is not that expensive. It can save you a lot of money in the long run. It could even save your business.

Another factor to keep in mind. Banks and other sources of funding are more likely to favor an application for funds. If the businesses applying, has a viable advertising campaign planned.

- Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+

Nobody is buying!

You have an innovative product, fantastic service and an award winning business.

The crowds should be all over you, clamouring to buy. Yet you are not attracting enough business to even cover your costs. 

Why?

A lot of businesses think a good product alone is all that is needed. How many times have you heard, 'Build it and they will come'? Well, this is a line from popular entertainment, not the sage business advice that it is thought to be.

What you have to do is 'sell your business'. If your potential customers do not know who you are, what you do or where they can find you, how do you expect them to buy from you.

In short if you are not doing anything to advertise your business, how do you expect to be in business? Passing trade, word of mouth etc., are all largely redundant in this day and age. For passing trade, you have to place yourself where someone is likely to pass. You have to have an enticing display to attract the potential customer who is outside to come inside. These days this is your Webverts and SEO. The videos and images on your website have become your shop front and store.

Word of mouth and recommendations do not take place over the garden fence any more. They happen in social media. If you do not have an online presence and do something to justify this, how can your satisfied customers refer their social circle to you?

The art of advertising has not changed, only the media we use and the pace at which we work has. It is still all about attracting customers to buy from you and not from someone else. To do that we have to give them the reasons they need to make that choice.

We have to change, 

an interest into a like
, 
a like into a desire
, 
the desire into a want
 
and the want into a need.

An example

At one time hand made axes were the low end of the market. The logging industry needed high volumes of a consistent quality that the small hand forges could not produce, so they moved to axes made industrially.

Today that situation has changed there is no real need for axes anymore. The logging industry has been mechanised and loggers work from the comfort of an air-conditioned cab.

Yet today, axes are selling at premium prices! Not just any axe but hand made axes from the small forges that a few decades ago were forced to find other product lines because they could not compete.
 Industrially produced axes are now retailing for around $20 -$60 hand made axes $200 to $600 each!

So what changed?

Making logging and axe skills into a sport generated the interest, rebranding small axes and hatchets as camping and outdoor survival tools took care of the rest.

This is called associative or aspirational advertising. In this case the foundries associated their axes with a life style to which people could aspire. Even if you could not give it all up and go live in the high woods. That axe becomes a promise to yourself, that one day, even if only for a few weeks, you could live your dream of a simpler life.



Tricky? No, just an understanding of human nature and how purchasing decisions are made. That is what advertising is, letting people know what you have for sale. Then giving them the reasons why they should buy from you rather than from another.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+ Advertising