Comments

randyvild wrote on 10/13/2004, 8:09 PM
ABout 90% of my business is word of mouth and repeat customers.
Repeat customers are my favorite because it really tells me that they were really satisfied. The only problem with repeating customers when your starting out is that you charge to little the first time.

Good luck!
Randini
Jay_Mitchell wrote on 10/13/2004, 8:43 PM
Find The Need - Then Fill It!

Jay Mitchell
Grazie wrote on 10/14/2004, 12:47 AM
. . ditto all the above .. plus . . .

1/- Know what you can do .. even writing it down helps!

2/- LISTEN to what people say. See how what you feel confident about doing and see how this would fit to what their aspirations are - and TELL them!

3/- Do a Draft sketch of what it could be. I do a lot of gesturing with my hands, and communicate and communicate and communicate and get people coming out with their own ideas, tell them that which is possible . . . feedbac ideas: could be drawings or words or samples of your work that could fit for them.

. . .. . .

Grazie
Fleshpainter wrote on 10/14/2004, 1:25 AM
I had to do a lot of freebies at first, then work for food, then work for cost, then under-bid everyone else, then make friends with obnoxious loud-mouthed wannabe producers and promotors and help them out with their projects so that they would brag about me to everyone else while they were networking and socially butterflying around. It's very hit and miss, and there's a limit to how much control you can have over the process.
What ever type of video work you do, you have to somehow associate yourself with the world of the potential clients.
Grazie wrote on 10/14/2004, 1:28 AM
Oh yes .. oh yes . . . . Nice one FP! . . . G
ztalk112 wrote on 10/21/2004, 3:15 PM
Some may be interested in a new subscription based site in this respect:

www.MarketingYourDVD.com

The focus of the site is on providing real world marketing advice and resources to producers of special interest videos.

Apart from the growing archive of articles written by someone who is in the trenches successfully marketing his own line of DVDs everyday (site owner Tim Kerber), there's a wealth of experience in the members only discussion forum.

There's several members who do $20k+ monthly in self produced SIV sales, one of whom I'm reliably told, sells around 200 DVDs per day on eBay.

An added plus is that more than a few members use Vegas for editing.

What you won't find is advice on how to produce short feature films or Hollywood blockbusters . . . these guys are generally involved 1 hour long 'how-to' type training videos in various niche interest markets.

Software training videos are an example (a la Spot and Gary Kleiner).

It costs $100 up-front to join, but I belong to several subscription sites and that seems to be the trend these days as publishers seek to protect themselves against those who would join, download everything in the archives and then canx immediately.

And it's $9.95 monthly thereafter.

In any event, I (and most other members) think it's worth it since it only takes one good marketing idea to recover that investment . . . many times over in most cases. And I found more than one such gem on joining.

I guess it's all about your attitude in this respect. For some, it could be the type of ongoing help they need to turn their hobby into enough revenue to support the habit.

I'm not financially involved in this site . . . just a happy member.

Hope this helps.

Gary