Useful Marketing Helps: Camtasia

using camtasia for videoIn this age of videos, online demonstrations, and webinars, Camtasia is one of the products that you should know about, and at least consider using.

Camtasia allows screen recording, from your computer, in seconds.  Pull up a Powerpoint presentation, click the record button, and start talking – and in ten minutes or a half hour you have your demonstration.  (Or use a screen view if what you’re demonstrating is software or a website.)

It has the benefit of being both simple and complex at the same time – if you really know what you’re doing, you can edit, add fade-ins, chop and change with different audio, the whole shebang.  But if you don’t really know yet, that’s okay too – you can still develop very professional- looking and sounding videos and demonstrations with a minimum of effort.

It’s also inexpensive – a grand total of US$100 for a license key for one user (as a one-off fee) on a Mac, and you’re off and recording.  There’s even a 30 day trial so you can test it out, and of course you can keep all the recordings you’ve done during that time.

Ways you can use Camtasia:

Product Demonstrations – If you have a webcam, you can show off a tangible product; if it’s software or something online, you can record your screen.  Either way it’s a great option for showing people what your product or service is like without their having to travel, or phone up, or send countless emails.

Welcome Video – Welcome people to your website, or to a particular page explaining your product or service.  Do not spend the whole video saying ‘Welcome to our website, we began our company in 1883’, etc.  Use your time wisely, and explain how your product or service is amazing, and tell a few stories of clients who had great success when doing business with you.

Topical Seminar – If there’s a particular topic you’d like to wax eloquent on, go for it.  Even a 10 or 15 minute summary could be very useful.  Think about something you end up explaining to clients or prospects all the time.  For me, it’s the trend towards online marketing.  We’ve got a one-hour recorded webinar on ‘How Online Marketing Drives Profitability’, and it helps immensely when our prospects have listened to it already – and they can do it on their own time, any time of day or night.

How-to video – If you need to explain how something works, or how to get started, this is a great way to do it.  Even something like “How to file an online tax return” or “How to set up a blog” is easily recordable using your screen and voice, and is more content to drive prospects to your website, and to you.

Frequently Asked Questions (or Help Videos) – One of the beautiful things about recorded video is that it saves you repeating yourself a hundred times over.  Think about the kinds of questions you get asked over and over – and record the answers.  Or develop a whole series of Help Videos that can be watched as your clients have need.

Training videos – Same principle…what is it that you have to take time to explain to every single new client?  Put it on video and then you can spend your time on building profitability in your business.

A few tips once you start recording:

If you’re using video for sales purposes, make sure that you’re enthusiastic and well-prepared.  Stumbling over your words or having a monotone explanation will turn people off right away (or cause them to turn you off).   The best time to record any video is right after you’ve made a sale, or are all enthused about something.  It will come out in your voice.

Make sure you turn off any notifications on your screen, your mobile phone and landline, and anything else that would interrupt your recording.  You don’t want to be halfway through an hour-long video and have Skype contacts popping up on your screen, or Outlook reminders.

Don’t just buy it with good intentions to use it.  Come up with a few great ideas of how you can use it, prepare a presentation or a script, and when you’re really ready to go, download the trial version. Otherwise 30 days will go by and you won’t have used it at all, and it will be another FTI in your life.  (Failure To Implement)