Unboxing Videos
http://www.reelseo.com/views-unboxing-videos-increase-57-per-cent/

Unboxing videos are one of the more lucrative video projects that you can produce.  A good time to produce them is for Christmas and other national holidays as well as important events that the month of June is famous for--weddings, graduation, Father's Day, Mother's Day (in May), Easter, and St. Patrick's Day.  First week of school calendar is also important, for it's when kids get new tools and gadgets for school.  Birthdays are harder to predict, since they are all year round, which bodes well for your video.  

There is a strategy to selecting what items or products to shoot unboxing videos.  But how do you know which product to choose?  Begin with hot-selling items.  Go to Amazon's "Movers & Shakers" and see which products are the hottest this week.  Produce 1 to 5 videos a week for each of the hottest selling items.  The hottest selling item as of January 7, 2015 was the Nerf N-Strike Elite Rough Cut 2x4 Blaster, selling for $12.50.  Then check out the number of YouTube videos there are on the product as well as see the number of views that each one gets. 

Of all the videos at YouTube on this product, this one has the most views. Check out why that is so. 

Before you invest the time to shoot videos on "Hot" Amazon products, check how many views that item is receiving at YouTube.  I say this because I found one of Amazon's top sellers with only a few views at YouTube.  So if your goal is to get views, acquire subscribers, and make money via YouTube, then you need to select a product that already has a number of views since that number tells you that lots of other people are watching it.  Here's an example of what I mean.   It sells for $350.00.  That's a nice price tag. 

There is a home security camera system that is selling well at Amazon, called Arlo SmartHome Security Camera System - 2 HD, 100% Wire-Free, Indoor/Outdoor Cameras withNight Vision (VMS3230) by NETGEAR.  It sells for $350.00.  That's a nice price tag. But it's not always the case that expensive products have lots of views at YouTube.  This product has only a handful of views by comparison to the Nerf-N Strike Blaster.  The key is to find products that review well at YouTube.

The 3-Part Formula for a Winning USP

July 26th, 2010 by Bob Bly

In 1961, Rosser Reeves published his classic book Reality in Advertising in which he introduced the notion of the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP.

Today the book is out of print and difficult to get. As a result, most practicing direct marketers don't know the original definition of a USP. Their lack of knowledge often produces USPs that are weak and ineffective.

According to Reeves, there are three requirements for a USP (and I am quoting, in the italics, from Reality in Advertising directly):

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Each must say, "Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit."  Your headline must contain a benefit, a promise to the reader.

2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer.  Here's where the "unique" in Unique Selling Proposition comes in.  It is not enough merely to offer a benefit.  You must also differentiate your product.

3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

The differentiation cannot be trivial. It must be a difference that is very important to the reader.

In general advertising for packaged goods, marketers achieve differentiation by building a strong brand at a cost of millions or even billions of dollars.

Coca Cola has an advantage because of its brand. If you want a cola, you can get it from a dozen soda makers. But if you want a Coke, you can only get it from Coca Cola.

Intel has achieved a similar brand dominance, at an extraordinary cost, with its Pentium line of semiconductors.

Most direct marketers are too small and have too strong a need to generate an immediate positive ROI from their marketing to engage in this kind of expensive brand building. So we use other means to achieve the differentiation in our USP.

One popular method is to differentiate your product or service from the competition based on a feature that your product or service has and they don't.

The easiest situation in which to create a strong USP is when your product has a unique feature, one that competitors lack, that delivers a strong benefit.

This must be an advantage the customer really cares about. Not one that, though a difference, is trivial.

But what if such a proprietary advantage does not exist? What if your product is basically the same as the competition, with no special features?

Reeves has the answer here too. He said the uniqueness can either stem from a strong brand (already discussed as an option 95% of marketers can't use) or from a claim not otherwise made in that particular form of advertising, that is, other products may have this feature too, but advertisers haven't told consumers about it.

An example from packaged goods advertising: "M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand."

Once M&M established this claim as their USP, what could the competition do? Run an ad that said, "We also melt in your mouth, not in your hand!"?

One more point: As direct marketers, we, unlike most general advertisers today, are compelled to create advertising that generates net revenues in excess of its cost.

Reeves believed all advertising had to do this. He defined advertising as "the art of getting a USP into the heads of the most people at the lowest possible cost."

Read this for an explanation of what went into the decision for a Blakmer pump ad.  Fascinating.  

ABM, Always Be Marketing



End the "Stop-Start Marketing" approach.  Otherwise, your marketing will only be a cyclical endeavor.  To be successful, you market all the time.

QUESTIONS THAT PUBLISHERS ASK WRITERS


1.  Who is your audience and how many of them are there?