I got a VHS video tape in the mail. Yes, a VHS. [Grasshopper Video]

That’s right. In 2013, I got a VHS tape FedEx’d to me. In the cheesiest font, the label read:

“So you want to be an ENTREPRENUER”

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I’d never heard of the person who sent it to me, one Ted Gantry of “Training Video Series.”

At this point, I’m thinking, either this is a really bad or really good come on.

I couldn’t resist.

For on the back of the tape was a PostIt note: “No VCR Player? playvhs.com.” Malware be damned, I was going to visit.

I couldn’t even wait to get home. Here’s what I got on my phone.

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More intriguing still, but no real clues as to why it was sent.

I hit play and was treated to a Dollar Shave style video that worked.

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Who was it from?

It was from my virtual PBX company Grasshopper.com. But this wasn’t clear until the end of the video.

I watched. And you will, too.

I’m already a paying customer of Grasshopper. Why would they send this to me? Probably because they though I might write this and share it with you.

They were right. The VHS and Grasshopper video are Social Content Marketing at it’s best.

 

Thanks Grasshopper. You’ve made me a customer for life.

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Charging Your Marketing Batteries with Video

 

The folks at video hosting company Wistia have made it easier to charge our marketing batteries using video.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with marketing batteries, here’s a quick explanation.

You spend time and money getting people to visit your site.

  • You invest in content that draws search traffic
  • You pay for advertising to get new visitors to your site
  • You share with social networks to get attention

Most of this traffic will bounce away or leak out of your site without taking action. Now, imagine that you can save up some of that hard-won and expensive traffic so that you could try again later to turn them into a customer. This is the job of the marketing battery.

One way to store marketing “juice” is the Subscriber Battery. It is charged by asking for – at a minimum – an email address, usually in exchange for some interesting time of content.

This is where we get back to Wistia’s new offering Turnstile.

Turnstile is a feature of the Wistia video player that requires a visitor to enter their email address before viewing your video. This is great news for businesses that are comfortable creating video, but get bogged down in creating landing pages, registration forms and logins.

Right now, Turnstile only allows you to collect email address; no names, phone numbers or qualifying information. Nonetheless, this is a nicely integrated way to use videos to charge a subscriber battery.

Now, what will you send these new subsribers?