Spotlight on "Events with Excellence"

Congratulations go out to one of our special clients - Nishaka Proctor from "Events With Excellence". Nishaka has had a really busy time recently with back-to-back events, and as always she handles them all with ease - and consistently gets rave reviews. Just recently she did an outstanding job with a grand opening for "Malt-O'- Meal" in Asheboro, NC. Check out a recent press release:

Events With Excellence Adds Excitement
to the Arrival of Malt-O-Meal

Event Planner Nishaka Proctor Organizes the Grand Opening of
Malt-O-Meal’s Plant in Asheboro, N.C.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- October 9, 2009 -- Government officials, dignitaries and employees heralded the opening of a new Malt-O-Meal plant recently – with a big assist from a Triad-based event planning firm.

Events With Excellence was selected to fan the flames of excitement for the more than 200 guests in attendance at the event, which put the Triad’s newest corporate resident in the spotlight. The Malt-O-Meal grand opening was a highlight for the recently-formed Events With Excellence, led by longtime event planner Nishaka Proctor.

“We were pleased to be able to bring an extra level of professionalism and excitement to an event as important as this,” said Proctor. “Feedback was entirely positive, and the guests seemed to truly be enjoying themselves.”

The guests in attendance – which included Chris Neugent, the CEO of Malt-O-Meal; Keith Crisco, North Carolina Secretary of Commerce; as well as local politicians, clients and vendors of the company – were treated to music by a 30-piece local high school band; a virtual tour of the new production facility projected on two flat-screen TVs; and other festive activities.

Organizing an event of such size and scope takes a great deal of planning and flawless execution – details that did not escape the notice of Malt-O-Meal’s executives.

“I was very impressed by (their) organizational capability, and equally important, Proctor’s calm and cheerful willingness to accommodate the inevitable last-minute changes,” said Linda Fisher, Director of Client Services for Malt-O-Meal.

Proctor has experience in sales and marketing alongside her 10 years experience as a full-time event planner. Proctor and her team at Events With Excellence specialize in organizing events ranging from a modest reception to large conventions,

“We take a systematic approach to event planning, so that no detail is left unaddressed,” Proctor said.

For more information on Events With Excellence, visit their website at: www.eventswithexcellence.com, or contact Nishaka Proctor at, nproctor@eventswithexcellence.com.

PROMOTIONAL FLASH DRIVES

What are flash drives? If you are not familiar with what they are and how effective they can be used, check out this article at: http://www.ehow.com/facts_5002763_what-flash-drives.html
In case you haven't heard...we're now able to offer preloaded USB drives which are well priced. They are unique gifts for your clients, branded with your logo, and can save you money and keep you green with all types of digital content including powerpoint, employee manuals, brochures & catalogs, etc. Get a quote on promotional flash drives, email us at:jan@vbcardz.com


Promotional flash drives are lightweight and compact. They are an extremely useful marketing tool and can be imprinted with your company name and/or your logo. They are available with various storage amounts - and since they are used to store data, they have the potential to be seen by many people.

Give us a call if you are interested in personalized flash drives - we will work with you to help you achieve your marketing goal. Call us at (336)662-2990, or send me an email for more information: jan@vbcardz.com

Online Video is HUGE

Online Video is HUGE

ComScore Video Metrix released July 2009 data showing that 158 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded. Online video reached another all-time high in July with a total of 21.4 billion videos viewed during the month with the average online video user spending 500 minutes (8.3 hours) watching Web videos! Every minute YouTube users upload 20 hours of online video. That’s incredible!!

I read an interesting article the other day online that said “If you're not yet using Internet video, you risk becoming obsolete because there's a pretty good chance your competitors are.....”

However, many people are unsure how they can utilize video on their website, so here are 10 ideas that the article suggested which I thought were really good:
• Walk customers through the features and benefits of your products
• Have product demonstrations
• Show "before & afters”
• Keep viewers coming back to your Web site with a monthly or a weekly series of tips and tricks in your area of expertise
• Feature interviews with relevant experts in your field offering insider tips, feature what's currently "hot" in your industry
• Do you offer a service that people regularly pay money to attend in person? Create an online video version so people can benefit from your expertise
• Talk about upcoming trends in your field
• Offer ‘how to’ videos
• Give a tour of your company and the people who run it
AND my personal favorite…
• Client testimonials - let your customers tell the camera why they love your product or service and how it has affected their life or business
If you are interested in trying any of these ideas, or you have an idea of your own to create an effective online video….give us a call.!!
We can create a video for your website, and also get it up on YOUTUBE. Give us a call today: (336)662-2990 or email me at: jan@vbcardz.com

What our clients say about us.....

Click in the box below to hear video testimonials from some of our clients:

View My Videos

Testimonial what our clients say about us


Steve Brock's Testimonial on Digital INTRODUCTIONS


Virtual Salesperson / Video Marketing Tools

7 Ways to Effectively Utilize the Power of Video

1.Video Testimonials
*Increase sales by building credibility - your customers are your best sales people!
2.Video Web Clips
*Increase conversion on your website - engage your visitors and turn them into customers
3.Video Business Cards
*Mini CD's with a personalized video message and a direct link to your website
4.Video Flash Drives
*Logo Flash drives with your marketing information and personalized video...that is also a gift for your clients
5.Video Email & Video Newsletters
*Make an impact by communicating with live streaming video - you can create and send personalized video messages
6.Video Sales Person
*A "Virtual Sales Person" immediately captures attention, and KEEPS online visitors on your website
7.Video Real Estate tours (virtual home or business tours)
*Real Estate agents can take advantage of 360 degree video tours to showcase their properties

Call us today at 336-662-2990 to see how any of these VIDEO marketing tools can work for your business!
or email us at: jan@vbcardz.com

Text (SMS) Marketing

Banking On The Future of SMS Text Marketing

Consider these statistics:
• 18-29 year old consumers use text messaging more often than voice to communicate
• On average 94% of text messages are read
• 80% of consumers keep their mobile with them all day
• When given a choice, 39% of US consumers—76 million people—prefer text messages to radio or TV advertising; however, only 3% of most marketing campaigns currently have a text component

Text marketing is the low cost, high tech way to market to customers. Businesses from mom and pop start ups to global brands such as Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble use text messaging to reach their audiences.

A few examples of how text marketing may be used:

A restaurant messages the daily special along with a coupon to patrons.

A real estate agent messages “Just Listed” properties automatically to potential buyers.

A town government issues an “Emergency Alert” to residents for flooding, tornado’s, or other emergencies.

A clothing boutique advertises an upcoming sale, with a special discount to the first 100 customers.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, “The mobile advertising market has matured considerably over the past year, and is no longer a novel addition to media planners, but rather a key component to an interactive campaign. In a relatively short period of time, mobile has evolved into a legitimate medium, with the world’s leading brands… investing big bucks into the potential for advertisers to have a one-to-one relationship with the consumer.”

With almost two billion cell phones globally and over 200 million of those phones in the U.S., text marketing is a quick, easy way to target prospect consumers, drive retail traffic, and increase customer loyalty.

Try it for yourself - you can sign up for a FREE TRIAL by going to www.reach2customer.com to see what Text Marketing can do for your business.

Add a "Virtual Sales Person" to Connect and Engage Your Visitors

Add a “Virtual Salesperson” To Connect and Engage Your Visitors

Okay, we know what you’re thinking. Something along the lines of, “I am not putting one of those hokey dancing people or talking heads on my website to annoy and irritate my customers!”
We get it. (And the hokey dancing people ads annoy us, too.) But done correctly, adding a “Virtual Salesperson” to your site increases click through and traffic to select products and pages on your site, as well as persuading prospects to click on the all important "Order Now" button.

Here’s an example of a virtual salesperson done with what we feel is pitch-perfect humor. Check out this page at Projectorpeople.com. After a brief 5-sentence pitch on ordering printers, the “Don’t mind me, I’m just waiting” demeanor of the virtual salesperson encourages visitors to click through to put the poor man out of his misery. Also, notice that not every page of the site has a virtual salesperson. You can, and should, use a Virtual Salesperson for added punch for special promotions or to draw visitor attention to a certain product feature or service on your site.
Far from being a drain, a virtual sales person provides warmth and life to a website. You can also use virtual salespeople to promote feelings of trust and security among customers.

Thanks to those who stopped by our booth May 14th at the Piedmont Triad Showcase in Greensboro, NC, where we were demonstrating the Virtual Salesperson for websites. Give us a call if you’d like to get a feel for how you would look selling products “in person” on your site at 336-662-2990. Click on the “Other Services” tab on our website for more information.

Virtual Salesperson does not require any software or plug-ins to view and has no bandwidth requirements. If you want your website to stand apart from your competition, consider adding a “Virtual Salesperson” to connect and engage your visitors.

Send Video Emails With Just a Click of Your Mouse

Send Video Emails With Just A Click of Your Mouse

The year 2009 may well go down as “The Year of Video Email.” Websites are buzzing about it, techies are saying, “We knew it was coming,” and the rest of the nation is climbing onboard.

In the recent past, video e-mail meant little more then there was a link in an e-mail, redirecting you to an outside website when you clicked on it. Now, videos may be launched within an email, creating a whole new paradigm of connections.

Here are some ways we’ve employed the use of video email for our clients:

• Real Estate Agents: Send out invitations for an open house, a new home listing, or a thank you to a home buyer
• Travel Agents: Announce new getaways and special travel deals
• Auto Dealers: Promote new inventory, introduce new products, use for service reminders
• Restaurants/Bars: Showcase new menu selections
• Fitness Spas: Broadcast motivational messages as well as advertise new classes and training schedules
• Churches: Send out weekly greetings, announcements, reminders for times of worship or special gatherings
• Foundations: Encourage charitable donations
• Remind colleagues of upcoming meetings or seminars
• Show appreciation to your employees for a job well done
• The eBay Alternative: Email video is the perfect tool to sell a collector car or boat—or whatever you’re selling!

Video e-mails are ideal for any business, from insurance companies, banking, and legal services to hair and nail salons. It’s a great communication tool for sports teams & schools, and to announce concert events. It’s also perfect for product demonstrations, customer testimonials, or event footage.

Why does video email work? New studies show that customers are more likely to click a video in an email versus clicking on plain text that links through to a video or website. You can promote the click through by using an engaging still image to launch the video, as well as including persuasive calls to action in surrounding text.

Video email is also enjoying rapid growth for personal use. Examples include:

• Staying in touch with friends & family. Brighten someone’s day by letting them know you’re thinking of them.
• Celebrating milestones—birthdays, seasonal greetings, anniversaries, or special accomplishments.
• Sending congratulations to a bride & groom, a graduate… or on the arrival of a new addition to the family!
• Sending a personal message of sympathy.

You can send video emails with just a click of your mouse using our professional templates, or you can build your own. We are giving away FREE 30-day trials of our Video Email system – so give us a call at (336)662-2990 or email us at: digitalintroductions@gmail.com

The list of uses for video email is endless. Video emails are fast, simple to create, and easy to send. Please let us know if you have any questions about how video email can work for you.

GO GREEN AT TRADE SHOWS

Go Green at Trade Shows with Video Business Cards

& Video Resume Cards

While many of us are now doing a better job of recycling, using green cleaning products and thinking twice before we reach for a plastic water bottle, making sure our resumes, business cards, and brochures are earth-friendly doesn’t often rank near the top of our priority lists. But that doesn’t change the fact that Video Business Cards (VBC’s) and Video Resume Cards (VRC’s) are 21^st century green products.

Thanks to those who stopped by our booth at the Piedmont Triad Business Showcase at the Greensboro Coliseum on May 14^th. If you’ve ever participated in a trade show, you know visitors are inundated with printed material. It’s thrust at people as they walk past every booth, stuffed in goodie bags, and falling out of folders. Any thoughts on what happens to most of that expensive printed material? Look around. You’ll see it crumbled and abandoned on the floor, sticking out the tops of trash bins, or abandoned at food tables with coffee and chilidog stains decorating it.

Video business cards and video resumes offer several green alternatives to handing out bushels of paper products. With 50 megabytes of space, businesses can have their entire marketing campaign on one small card. Brochures, photos, product specs and descriptions, power point presentations, video tours, contact sheets, interactive links, and more, all organized on one card without a scrap of paper expended in the process.

The state of California has committed to using Video Business Cards in their bid to be front-runners in the “Go Green” movement. Check out this article on the subject in Small Business Opportunities Magazine.

Going Green is becoming important to people on an individual, corporate, and global scale. What is your company doing to stay green? We welcome any tips or advice you have to share.

What's the Best Way to Advertise At a Trade Show?

What’s the Best Way to Advertise At A Trade Show? Video Business Cards Offer a Knock-Out Punch

We hear the same complaint time and again from our clients who work tradeshows. They’re tired of watching their carefully crafted and beautifully printed 4-color, 40-page brochure leave their booth only to be tossed minutes later—unread—in a trashcan mere feet from where they’re standing.

We’ve worked tradeshows and feel their pain. While we all hope prospective clients peruse every word of our flyers, brochures and coupons, the truth is people quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of paper thrust at them during a typical show. The bulk of that paper that doesn’t fall crumpled to the tradeshow floor ends up being thrown away when attendees return to their office or hotel room.

When this happens not only are your printing costs going down the drain but, even worse, your message is being lost.

Video Business Cards do away with the cost—and waste—associated with printing and handing out bulky material. The cards are compact, lightweight, and are an easy and effective way to deliver your message. Consider the benefits of VBC’s versus handing out traditional paper products:

· With 50 megabytes of space, businesses can have their entire marketing campaign on one small card.

· Prospective clients can peruse the cards at their leisure and print out or pass on information that’s important to them.

· People are much more hesitant to toss a CD-like card then they are a random scrap of paper.

· With one click, viewers can transfer company contact information onto their computers.

· A single card can contain, among other things, a video introduction, the company brochure, as well as a slide-show showcase of products or features.

· People treat the cards with respect. While we watch flyers tossed in plastic bags along with material from every other booth vendor, our video cards are carefully placed in jacket pockets, wallets, or briefcases for future viewing.

· Instead of having to hang onto one rumpled, wrinkled, spilled and scribbled on brochure, customers now have continual access to a pristine copy of any of your marketing material to refer to or pass on to others.

· The cards excite interest and enthusiasm – people want to see how they work and what’s on them.

We invite you to contact us to learn more about this creative and eye-catching tool.

What’s been your experience with printed material at trade shows? Do you think video business cards are a viable alternative to printed material? We’d like to hear your thoughts.