How to Utilize Web Video as a Marketing Medium

With the explosion of sites like YouTube, you’ve probably seen a video or two online lately. You may have watched something educational, promotional or something that made you laugh. But have you considered utilizing online videos to attract new customers? Web video is here to stay and it reaps a large return on investment for those who use it wisely.

All businesses, both large and small can afford to produce a web video. Just because large corporations have big bucks to spend on glitzy ads on popular networks during primetime doesn’t mean you’re excluded from the picture if you’re a small business owner. Web video producers cater to all types of businesses – both large and small. If web video isn’t currently in your marketing budget, don’t worry! If you’re a member of a barter club such as SBC, you can use your trade dollars to produce a professional video without taking cash out of your budget. There’s nothing quite like converting your trade dollars in to cash paying customers!

How can you use web videos to effectively market your business?

Showcase your products and services to potential customers

• Services industry - Introduce yourself and/or your staff, explain to customers why your service is superior than your competition, have happy clients provide testimonials on how you’ve solved their problems, build a foundation where customers can feel comfortable with you and your service


• Retail industry: Showcase the quality and design of your products and highlight customer satisfaction with testimonials


• Restaurants: Give customers a behind the scenes tour of your restaurant and introduce your staff so they have a good feeling about the vibe of your restaurant


• Travel industry: What better way to get people to fall in love with your property than to give them a visual tour of your property and surrounding attractions?
  
  From small, local events to national, broadcast-quality ads, it can only help your business to add beautiful moving pictures that tell the world who you are and what you do.

Provide tips that cater to your customers

Show current and potential clients that you’re the expert in your field and keep them up to date. For example, if you’re an accountant, you could provide tips on tax deductions or how to keep paperwork organized. If you’re a Virtual Assistant, you could provide tips on new technology. If you’re a restaurant owner, you could have your chef perform a cooking demonstration.

There is so much you can do with web videos. If you’d like to have web video as part of your marketing repertoire, contact Eric and Lisa Rice, producers of 44 Films and they’ll point you in the right direction. Eric and Lisa are pros, having worked with large companies such as Coca-Cola, Aflac, Time Life and more. Past video users have included swing-set companies, health spas, car dealerships, city events, professional sports events, conferences, travel services, and educators – to name only a few. You can reach 44 Films by going to their website or by calling 770-789-9002.

Yes, You Can Use Your Barter Dollars for Real Estate!

What are your fellow Southern Barter Club members up to? How are they using their barter dollars? SBC member Mike Huebner loves bartering, so we sat down to get the scoop on how he uses barter and how he helps others put their barter dollars to good use.

Mike has been in the real estate business in the South for 31 years and is a 24-year bartering veteran. With around half a billion dollars worth of real estate under his belt at any given time, he’s the man to turn to when you’re in the market for personal or investment property.

Mike, how has barter helped your company over the years?
Barter has helped us pay for many expenses that we had been paying cash for – hotels, entertainment, meals, auto repair, printing, employee incentives and advertising.

I heard you did an ad campaign on barter. Can you tell me more about that?
We have been able to try many different types of advertising, including radio, direct mail, magazines, newspapers, cable TV and billboards enabling us to determine which type works best for us. Because of our involvement in barter, we were able to experiment using barter dollars instead of cash.

What type of real estate do you sell?
We sell home sites, homes and commercial properties in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola, Destin and in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. Our prices start in the 40s and go up to the 300s for our home sites on the water. Homes and cabins are 170’s and up and commercial properties are 125,000 and up.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that you accept barter dollars as down payments. How does that work?
We accept barter dollar down payments up to 20% down and occasionally more if possible. We can also finance some of the barter down payment if the customer doesn’t have all the necessary barter dollars at the time. Any opportunity that a barter member has to invest barter dollars in real estate growth areas for their future is a huge plus. I have many clients who have initially purchased a home site with a barter down payment then built a home on it, utilizing additional barter dollars, have put it in to our rental program and are receiving positive cash flow and are having their rentals pay their mortgage.

What a great use of barter dollars! If someone has plenty of barter dollars for the down payment, but doesn’t think the bank will finance the rest, are there options?
If someone has a barter dollar down payment, we have great bank financing currently as low as 3.5%. We also offer developer financing to our customers who would prefer to go that way.

With property prices so low, now’s a great time to invest. Why is property a good investment as opposed to other forms of investing?
Real estate has increased in value 80 of the last 84 years that records have been kept. Real estate in growth areas will always be a good place to invest with a very stable track record. Currently we are in a buyers market where many opportunities abound.

So there you have it. That is indeed a great way to put your trade dollars to good use! Thanks for sharing, Mike!

If you want to find out how you can put your barter dollars to work for a bright financial future, contact Mike Huebner at 440-821-8404.