Dale Debber and Alane Keller show online publishers how they’ve created their own new media studios for video and audio production
Generating Profits From Easy Uploads of Video & Audio was a great session at the 2009 SIPA 33rd Annual International Conference in Washington, D.C. this week.
Starting the session was Alane Keller from NIBM, who shared an A/B split with us. In the split, they offered a 90-second audio clip sample on the landing page for one of their audio conferences. The clip was offered at the top of the page, and in the P.S. portion.
When the test results surfaced, it appeared that the page with audio sold $2,958 while the page without made $2,364 worth of sales. However, upon a closer look, it turned out that a significant amount of sales that came from the landing page with audio clip, came from CD sales. In the end, an audio clip did not sell the actual conference more than the control landing page without audio.
If your publishing company uses video as a publishing platform, it may be in your best interest to create your own in-house video production studio, and that’s exactly what Dale Debber of Providence Publications demonstrated to the audience in the second half of this session.
Debber shared a video, produced by his interns, on how they created an in-house video production company called Studio B.
The comical video showed a handful of interns, whom Dale pays $12.50 an hour, purchasing and setting up an entire video studio. Debber told the audience that the studio cost him around $40,000 to create. The interns, who come from local highschools and have audio/visual experience were the ones to compile the needs of this new studio.
They purchased three video cameras, three microphones, lights, a green screen, use Adobe Premier Pro, Photoshop, and Encore (for DVD menus).
The interns, whom Debber brought with him to the conference, offered publishers a few lessons learned from the experience of building their own in-house studio:
- When purchasing equipment, keep like-brands together. This is for compatability reasons and also for quality of footage, which may differ depending on the brand. Studio B uses Panasonic.
- You can never have too much B roll. B roll is footage that may be played while someone narrates instructions or general dialog. The more, the better.
- Always bring spares. When you’re on location, you can’t go back for a new camera or batteries, so always bring more than you need.
Since launching Studio B, Debber and team have produced safety-training videos, and even employee profiles for their website, which Debber recommends to help give your users faces to go with the names in your company.
More coverage from SIPA:
SIPA Take Away #1: 17 Testing Tools from Sandra Niehaus
SIPA Take Away #2: Get Your Staff Pumped About Search Engine Optimization
SIPA Take Away #3: Create an In-House Audio/Video Production Studio
SIPA Take Away #4: Membership Website Experience from Mark Ragan
SIPA Take Away #5: Best New Product Development Ideas
SIPA Take Away #6: 10 Ways to Sell One-Shot Products
SIPA Take Away #7: Google Really Does Love Online Publishers
