It's not uncommon that our clients decide to shoot a bit of footage on their own and ask us to incorporate the material into videos that we are producing for them. Taking this approach makes sense. Rather than hiring us to just get one or two interviews or just capture a bit of broll from a single event, it's simpler and more cost effective for them to grab the video themselves and hand it off to us. ...

The Sloan School and AMA Boston recently hosted a panel discussion on the subject of metrics in marketing.  The three panelists had plenty of ideas to share, summarized below. Branding. Metrics help you evaluate the health of your brand and identify how you should be allocating your marketing resources. Moving the needle. You can define the key things that matter in your business, identify the metrics...

The subject of the October roundtable at SMEI Boston was breaking into the C-suite for sales. Much of the wisdom shared came from George Adams, the CEO of ViziApps. Of note: CEOs are often approving a decision proposed by someone beneath them, rather than making one. If you've done good marketing, and therefore have some brand awareness with the CEO, that will facilitate the sale. Jim Burns...

A few years back, I read David Allen's Getting Things Done and found it very helpful. I implemented his systems and then "fell off the wagon" a bit. So I got myself a copy of the book and am re-reading it. I'd recommend it highly. Without going heavy into detail (that's what the book's for, afterall!), here are a few nuggets from the Part 1 of his book, The Art of Getting Things Done: 1. We should...

I came across this short video and it drew me in. Reasons why I like it: Yes, it's an advertisement for Nike's FuelBand. But it's also a documentary film (my favorite kind) delivered in a very unusual way. The energy is high. The pacing is fast. Even though the main character visits 13 countries in 10 days, all in less than 5 minutes, the video still tells a story. It has a home-movie feel,...

It'll come as no surprise, but when folks are talking to us about possible video projects, they often are wondering about ways to save on budget. When you are in the concept stage for your video, here a few ways you can make your production more budget-friendly. 1. Shoot more than you need. This seems counter-intuitive, I know, but there is logic to it. If you are able to think of video for future...

We completed a fundraising and marketing video for The Food Project last week. Working with them was a lot of fun. Two words to describe the staff and teenagers who work there: infectiously enthusiastic. wistiaEmbed = Wistia.embed("km29f8a3cj", { version: "v1", videoWidth: 640, videoHeight: 360, playButton: false, volumeControl: true, controlsVisibleOnLoad: true, playerColor: "995454", ...

I attended another good roundtable discussion this morning with Sales and Marketing Executives International Boston (SMEI Boston). The main subject of the conversation today was how and why organizations struggle to integrate social media successfully into their marketing efforts. Here are several of the main nuggets gleaned from the conversation: Tactics versus strategy. The consensus around the table...

Airlines get a lot of grief for nickel-and-diming customers while simultaneously reducing services, but one thing I have to give them credit for is offering a pretty decent selection of free movies on the longer flights. While flying home from Europe last weekend, I was happily able to kill three hours of the nine-hour flight watching a couple of very good documentaries - Undefeated and Bully. Films...

We had another excellent roundtable at SMEI last Thursday, discussing the importance of relationship marketing and selling. Lisa Dennis of Knowledgence Associates was in her usual role as facilitator, but she also shared some specific ideas on what relationship marketing and selling is. Most of the conversation circled around maintaining and building relationships with existing customers or clients,...