By Scott Costa, Publisher, tED magazine
While surfing around the Internet for information on using
video for your B2B marketing, I keep finding a similar conclusion: If your
company doesn’t have videos, you are seriously lacking something from your
communications strategy. In fact, in one particular instance, I found a blog
from a communications expert that was dated just three weeks ago. She said,
“Now, the assumption is if your company does not have videos, you are seriously
lacking something in your communications strategy.”
There was a time when creating a video that would be 1 to 3
minutes long seemed like a difficult task that would require expensive
equipment for photography and editing. In case you didn’t hear, ABC recently
shot and edited almost an entire episode of the half hour comedy “Modern
Family” on an i-Phone. If they can shoot a prime-time television show on a
smartphone, you can find an inexpensive way to shoot your next marketing
project.
And, in case you didn’t know, I spent nearly 25 years in TV
news. We would crank out 1-3 minutes stories in 4 hours. I am not saying that
will happen for you the first time you try to make a video, but over time, it
gets easier. And with technology, you will surprise yourself by how fast you
can make effective videos for your marketing.
And that brings me to last summer’s re-launch of tED
magazine’s website “tEDTV”. We describe it as the “YouTube” for electrical
distribution. Manufacturers and distributors can load their marketing videos on
http://tedtv.tedmag.com for free, and
share their new products, company profiles or “how-to” videos with the entire
channel. For free.
Since last summer, we are happy to announce that we now have
more than 50 NAED member companies that have loaded a video to the site. All of
them have loaded multiple videos, so we currently have hundreds of videos ready
for viewing. You can search the videos by company name or by product category. We
made the site as user friendly as possible.
On top of that, we are asking for “Your Story” to post on
tEDTV. Let me know about someone or something that is happening where you work,
and I will hire a production crew to shoot, write and edit “Your Story” for
everyone to see. It could be about an employee who never misses a day of work,
a program that helps your community or someone who have innovated a new way to
do business that has changed your company dramatically. We want to hear from
you.