K.I.S.S. M.E. O.T.D.

Sometimes my best advice falls on my own deaf ears. I tend to over-complicate things in the hopes of either getting it perfect or getting it "right." I tend to scale things to such huge proportions that it prevents them from ever seeing the light of day.

Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time. I have adopted a two step policy that helps. It's K.I.S.S. M.E. O.T.D. Most of you know Keep It Simple Sweetie, but do you know One Till Done? It's a mantra that I've been saying and it does help!

Sit your butt down, focus on one thing until you finish. Move heaven and earth to complete the task at hand. Waiting on someone else? Put in a place holder and continue to move forward to the end. Get that One thing Done.

This does a few things. First it helps you say no more often. Second, it helps you complete more than you ever would imagine. Third, projects don't lag and take forever. As entrepreneurs, projects can tend to take on a life of their own if you don't wrestle them into YOUR schedule.

The M.E. stands for Monetize Everything. Now before you write me off as a crass capitalist, know one thing: I do a lot of charity work, favors, and freebies. That can tend to spill over into my business so for me, the M.E. is a simple reminder that in order to feed my family, pay the bills, and send Jr Video to college next year - I need to be profitable. Whatever you're doing that's business related, ask yourself, "Is this making me money?" Reading a report? Watching a video? Ask yourself what action you can implement to see an ROI (Return on Investment) of the time spent. For that reason I have some trusted advisers, people who know what programs have value and which ones are a waste of time.

So to sum up:
Keep things simple
Work on one thing till it's done
Make sure your efforts will pay off.


Perry Lawrence
Mr Video
 

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

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FEATURE ARTICLE

Hani is a friend and member of AMV. Hani shares some things to avoid in your video marketing.

Online video marketing has become one of the most popular and cost-effective ways to market your business or service online. Based on my personal experiences, I've put together a list of the 7 most common mistakes people, including myself, make with online video marketing. Here they are:

Mistake #1: Failure to Promote Your Website in Your Videos. Since the purpose of your video is to promote your business or service, it is absolutely critical to tell your prospects where to go to learn more about you and your business. For each online video you create, I personally suggest putting your business website's URL in the following places:

a. Title of the video.
b. Description of the video.
c. Inside the video itself. A quick and simple way to do this is to use the YouTube Annotation feature.

You are welcome to use one of my YouTube videos as an example of how to avoid this mistake.

Mistake #2: Improper Use of Tags. Since search engines can't read any text from your videos, they rely on the Title, Description, and primarily on the Tags (also known as Keywords) to find your videos. The idea here is to associate your video with highly searched keywords, not keywords you think people are searching for. The quickest way to determine which keywords are highly searched is to do a search on YouTube and use the tags from the popular videos.

Mistake #3: Not Providing a Call to Action. Not asking your viewers to take an action at the end of each video is a huge mistake. These actions can include subscribing to your newsletter, leaving a comment, visiting your website for more information, adding you as a friend on facebook, etc). Believe it or not, people like to be told what to do, so be as direct as possible. You can do this by using the YouTube Annotation feature.

Mistake#4: Lack of Connection with Your Viewers. Most people starting out with online video tend to get shy and look away from the camera. It is important to look directly at the camera as if it were your prospect sitting in front of you. Making direct eye contact with the camera will help establish a connection and build trust with the prospect watching your video.

Mistake#5: Trying to Perfect Your Video. Thinking that you have to have your videos perfect will result in you not creating any videos at all! There is nothing wrong with you making mistakes and correcting yourself in front of the camera. Making mistakes just emphasizes that you are human and people can relate to you better that way.

Mistake#6: Shying Away from the Camera. While it is not a mistake to be camera shy, most people believe that they have to be in front of a camera to create a video. There are some free online video tools that allow you to create amazing videos without actually being on camera. Here are my two favourites:

a. Animoto.com: Turn your photos and video clips into a professional online video
b. Screenr: Create instant screencasts, which is basically a video capture of your screen, that can be used to teach your clients .

The best part about these online tools is that they all provide you with some HTML code that you can simply copy and paste into your website where you want the videos to appear.

Mistake#7: Only Uploading Your Videos to YouTube. After creating your video marketing masterpiece, you want the whole world to see it. Most people end up only uploading their videos to YouTube and don't bother uploading to the other 50+ video sharing sites out there. It is now easy to upload your video to as many video sharing sites as you like using a free online tool called TubeMogul. This significantly increases the chances of your videos being discovered by your prospects via a search engine.

Hani is a videopreneur and the creator of EasyOnlineVideoTips.Com| Unleash the Power of Video for Your Business. He also teaches a 7 part video course on How to Create a YouTube Video to Market Your Business Online. You can access these 7 free videos here.
 

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ABOUT MR VIDEO

Perry has been in video production for over 20 years and has produced, shot, and/or edited videos for companies like Merck, Maxwell House, Nickelodeon, P&G, Ogilvy & Mather, IBM, and many others. Perry is also the "Go To" video expert for the top names in internet marketing such as Yanik Silver, Carrie Wilkerson, Barry Dunlop, Ryan Lee, Dean Hunt, and many others.

Perry has taken the steps used by professionals and distilled them down to an easy to use formula that guarantees better videos, each and every time.

As a proud member of the Video Marketing Association and "Mr Video," Perry has quickly become the definitive resource for helping business owners and marketers strategically leverage the power of video.
 

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