One of our highly successful and proven methods for sales relies on a concept known as Push Marketing — showing a potential client a creative and unique video solution to his or her need to promote themselves.
Utilizing this method, there’s no need to wait for someone to stumble upon your website. Here’s how it works:
Step 1
You’ll choose a niche market to pursue — say Bed and Breakfasts. of which there are hundreds of thousands around the world, each with a constant need to persuade potential guests to stay with them.
Identify a B&B by looking through the listings on one of these three international B&B website directories.
Look for inns that either don’t have a video on their website or don’t have a very good one. Remember, you need not limit yourself to those B&Bs in your town, state or even country. That’s why it’s called the World Wide Web. Time required: 10 minutes.
Step 2
Find their photo gallery, showing their guest rooms, their parlor or common room, their dining room, their special amenities (hot tub, sauna, exercise room, etc.), and any exterior photos showing the house at various angles. If they have a photo of the Innkeepers, download that as well — all to a special folder on your hard drive, Google drive or flash drive. Time required: 20 minutes.
Step 3
Note any particular other features the Innkeepers emphasize about their B&B — proximity to local attractions, an onsite lake, a picturesque gazebo for weddings — that sort of thing. If there are photos of them, download those as well. Time required: 5 minutes.
Step 4
Adapt the script we supply in our eCourse module on B&B marketing, adding in or taking away elements that will make it unique to the B&B you are targeting. Time required: 15 minutes.
Step 5
Now, with images safely stored and a script written, you need only decide on a template and music. Here again, we have you covered with several suggestions that work best for B&Bs. Or, you can choose others from the online editing site’s vast library of templates and songs. Time elapsed: 5 minutes, if you use our suggestions (recommended).
Step 6
Place the photos and the music into the video storyboard of the online editing platform we recommend. Time elapsed: 15 minutes.
Step 7
Preview the video. This is where the magic happens and you see your unique creation come alive. Adjust as necessary to pace timing of the images and scripted words to the beat of the music (we’ll show you how). When you’re satisfied. name the video and choose a thumbnail image to serve as a cover. Elapsed time: 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Step 8
Click Produce and have a cup of coffee while the online software renders the finished show into something called an MP4 file. Time elapsed: 10 minutes.
Step 9
Write a brief note to the Innkeepers with a link to the finished video, which will show up in its own player like this. We also supply a suggested template note we have found to be effective. Time elapsed: 5 minutes. Total time from picking a target B&B to finished video and email contact: 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Step 10
Send the note and link.
Step 11
Wait 24 hours and call the Innkeepers, identifying yourself and asking if they received your note and link. (we supply a suggested “script” to follow in making this call.) Often, they’ll respond positively, either saying they loved the video and want to buy it as is or they’ll ask for a few changes — different photos, different music or different wording here and there — all easily changeable via the incredibly easy drag-and-drop software provided by your online editor — within 15 minutes of the time you end the call.
Send the new link and call back the next day. Again, typically, this concludes the process and you can send an invoice via PayPal before sending a link for them to download the video for posting on their website. Or, you can simply upload it to your YouTube channel and send them a link to post on their site.
Either way, you don’t send the finished video or link until you receive a notification from PayPal that your invoice has been paid. This way, you receive payment usually within a few days of creation of the video.
Conclusion
If you don’t sell that particular video, you can easily recycle the template with new photos from a different B&B, using most of the same script. Repeat with a note to the new B&B. In this way, you can have 10 or 12 videos out for followup at any one time.
Are you wasting your time? Not at all. The more videos you have in circulation awaiting approval, the higher your chances are of sending three and four invoices a day.
I typically charge $75 each for a B&B video. This may seem low, but remember, you only spent an hour and 45 minutes putting the show together. That’s around $37 an hour for your time. Did your last job pay that? Or your current part-time job?
And the low price point many times elicits a quick “Yes!” from the Innkeeper.
If you have 10 videos in circulation and half send payment on any given day, that’s a $375 payday.
Not bad for a part-time job.
And all without leaving home, commuting to a traditional workplace or even getting out of your pajamas.