Video Blocks – Respect

If you want to know how to optimize your business to receive business online it makes sense to look at companies that are successfuly doing this all ready, and what better companies to emulate than online only companies?

I mean, these companies rely 100% on the sales they receive online.

If 100% of your income was tied to one source, you better make sure you do that thing right and do it well.

Not to mention when you’re a business selling digital goods like Video Blocks. You see, selling an intangible product (such as an eBook for example) is great because you can deliver anywhere in the world instantly and there’s very little overhead (as you’re dealing in 0’s and 1’). However you’re competing with everyone else in the world.

With everyone talking about Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. I thought it would be ideal to illustrate a company that is doing well that’s a bit closer to home – one that is in my industry – video production. The company is called Video Blocks and they sell stock videos.

Stock videos, for those that have not heard of the term, is basically a video you can get off the rack to put in your video when you don’t have the time or resources to shoot it yourself – let’s say I’m making a documentary about New York, I want to have an overhead shot of the Empire State Building. I can either hire a helicopter to film this for me, or I can find some footage that has all ready been filmed and buy the rights to that, saving a few thousand dollars in the proccess and allowing me to dedicate those resources into my documentary.

Stock video can be purchased online and there is a lot of competition as far as providers go, just to mentiona few – you have Video Hive, Shutterstock, xStockVideo… the list goes and. In amidst all this competition, Video Blocks has carved out a niche for itself and you’re probably wondering how it does that. Well, my friend read on.

The five factors that I want to talk about today that have lead to Video Block’s success as one of the fastest growing online media companies in the world is – an irresistable offer, 3rd party endorsements, big numbers, engagement and cross selling.

Irresistable Offer
What’s interesting is that the landing page for Video Block’s AdWords campaign is different from their standard home page, which is an important point to keep in mind (which I won’t get into here). Anyway here’s the screenshot below.

Landing page from AdWords

Notice the irresistable offer – 7 Days of Free Downloads. Basically they’re letting you use a service that is usually $50 or more a month for FREE for 7 days. Now if you were locking for stock videos and you came across this offer would there be any reason that you wouldn’t sign up?

Of course there is the little caveat that they require your credit card details and it will be automatically charged if you don’t cancel within those 7 days but you’ll remember. I can guarantee many people who thought they would cancel after 7 days ended up becoming members.

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if they haven’t tested the hell out of this page, as it’s the one where most people would end up leaving. There’s so much great elements in this and it can really be used as a template if you’re looking to ask your users for credit card details but I won’t get into it now.

3rd party endorsements
TechCrunch is a trusted and well known unbiased source of technology news, they have given Video Blocks a thumbs up. So what do you do when the biggest tech blog gives your company a glowing review? You put it front and center on your landing page.
[image] Trust from TechCrunch is now transferred over to you. Anyone can say anything they want on the internet so it comes down to trusted publications to sort the straight up truth from the ‘half-truths’ and outright lies (which always makes for a great expose!). Because of this 3rd party endorsements are SO important, and much more so on the internet than in real life.

Also Video Blocks was voted as the #4 Fastest Growing Media Company and it proudly displays the badge.

What’s that you say?

You haven’t been featured in TechCrunch or A Current Affair? Well do you have any satisfied clients (if you’ve been in a business for a while that’s a real worry – unless you’re the government in which case you’re fine.) Why not ask your clients to give you a positive shout out – simply fire off an email with a pre made testimonial for them to approve – or tell them they can write their own. These testimonials are worth their weight in gold which is why I always ask for one once I’ve finished working with a client.

Big Numbers
One of my favorite rappers, Jay-Z said upon accepting an award “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.” While people have speculated who the comment was aimed at the general premise is true. If your business does the most sales in your area make sure to state that.

And if you have an exact figure put that down. Video Blocks states the following statistics:

7,476,649 Clips Downloaded To Date

25,693 Clips Downloaded Last 24 hours

If over 25,000 clips have been downloaded by clients in the last 24 hrs then someone else must be using the service, in fact many people… and can that many people be wrong?

Engagement
The reality is not everyone is going to buy/register with you as soon as they come to your site. So if you have a way to engage them and build a relationship in the meantime you should do that. Keep in mind though that this is a secondary option, as what you really want is for someone to take an action as soon as they come to your website, however failing that…

Scroll down and you’ll see Video Blocks offers for you to browse their library and see what they have in going for them. You need to scroll down to view it but it’s there. In businesses this is usually a blog or some other free content/checklist that people can view when they visit the website.

Cross Selling

You’ve made the sale or gotten an enquiry! Great! Your website has done its job. So what now? You have a hot prospect sitting there looking at a ‘Thank You For Registering with Us’ page. Why not take advantage of this time?

When I used to work for a television sales company this was one of the biggest earners. In fact the company made most of its money through cross sales. When someone would call to get a certain product they saw on TV, we would offer to send them another product worth either the same or 50% of the price on a free trial – they could return it within 30 days to get a full refund and shipping is free. But let’s be honest who’s going to return a vacuum cleaner (or any other product) once it’s shipped? Bingo – that’s 2 sales made for the price of one.

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Make sure to study what online companies are doing and use it to your advantage on your website.

Make sure you have an irresistable offer. Any business can take advantage of this. Most service based businesses (like lawyers or construction companies) have a free consultation. But you can get creative – if we can’t find a way to save you $1,000 on your next tax bill we’ll give you $100. You get the idea. Get press clipppings (or failing that) testimonials and keep them in your marketing war chest.

Make sure to use them in every place you can to communicate trust to the prospective client. Think big numbers. Let’s take the lawyer example – if you have over 200 successful cases, bring that up. If you have over 1000, 10 000 or 100 000 clients and that’s a big deal in your industry mention that.

Engage your audience – what are prospective customers looking for? Give it to them on your website so even if they don’t pick up the phone to call you (or email you) they’ll be on YOUR website doing research. The longer you keep the customer’s eye ball the more your chances of securing that client.

Finally find ways to cross sell. Even if it’s not your own product. You can do this offline but if you can automate it online that’s just as good. I started Head Studios as a video production company and have sucessfully cross sold many products to the point that non video projects make up more of my income than video projects. I don’t know if that’s normal or not but that doesn’t matter – what’s important is that is a big source of potential revenue, not to mention it makes people’s lives much easier not having to deal with 10 companies.

Hope this gave you some ideas and fired off some neurons in your brain. To speak to me for a free one-on-one consultation where I can show you opportunities to increase your bottom line fill out the form below.

P.S. Just got an email follow up from these guys exactly a day after I registered with the subject line ‘TODAY ONLY: 6 Months of Unlimited Downloads – Just $89′. Great work on the subject line, even though the offer is mailed out exactly 24 hours after someone registers.