I got the following in my email. It sends me to a video.... then it turns into a full blown SEO sales strategy.
It's not spam, it's absolutely targeted to me because I'm in the market and I'm in the area. But I think it's absolutely brilliant at a bunch of levels.
----- Forwarded Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2012 6:40 AM
Subject: Coming To Florida in January
Hello! Our names are Joshua & Natsuko Shaffer. We are a fun little international cinematography company that recently moved from Osaka, Japan to north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We are coming to Florida for 1 month starting January 20 to film some of the favorite inns & hotels that we picked out.
Natsuko and I sent you a personal video message to explain exactly what her and I are up and are seeing if you might be interested in what we do. It's a youtube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeNsBP4UdiE
We just wanted to give you guys a heads up that we would already be in your area (because we already have a few homes booked in Florida for Jan/Feb). We are just a fun & creative couple that puts every ounce of energy into little company and our clients multimedia. We have a unique style and really enjoy helping out the smaller businesses who are having to compete with larger hotels (as we are a small company ourself). We prefer to work directly with owne rs.
We hope you will watch our video message to you. If you like our art and vision, we really hope to hear from you soon. We will be finishing up our schedule in the next week or so. You are more than welcome to contact our past clients as references¡just let us know!
If you do like our work, we cancel you at a time that's good for you.
Best of luck this year!!!
Joshua & Natsuko Shaffer
Video for Florida Tourism Clients from Chibi Moku
http://youtu.be/aeNsBP4UdiE
thoughts?
I read the email and actually followed the link.... thats pretty good in my book.... then I watched the video, another hurtle.... and I actually watched all 15 minutes.... thats almost unheard of. And there were only 10 views on the video when I saw it.
I thought it was very different. Not the best thing ever but effective. And that is is worth noting, imo.
They are doing a good job of carving out a niche, video production of vacation rentals with optimization. I think the email did a good job of selling the video and the video did a good job of selling the value of their product.
I love the approach, but it waffled on to much for me & I quit before the half way mark. Wouldn't have lasted that long if it had been posted somewhere else. He was good, but the wifestruck me as a stooge coyly laughing on cue.
Quote from: Rooftop on December 30, 2012, 12:16:20 AM
but the wife struck me as a stooge coyly laughing on cue.
I think some of that might be a cultural divide.
Can't be arsed to watch promo videos. It might be just that I'm not a video watching type of person but seriously video as an approach / content tool looks seriously overrated and overused in the last few years. Like they offer you a tutorial on something and it's an hour long and what's worse is there is sometimes no way to rewind and access whatever bit of it you currently need - wtf? Give me plain text, with images if need be, but that's enough in 90% of cases where they use video.
I'm the opposite. I would much rather watch a video than read something. Must be the lazyness in me :P
But saying that, reading on the kindle I'm finding easier. Must be the fact I can't see how far I've got to go :D
Good angle tho. The email and video. Keeping the theme small and independent. I'm sure the alike are fed up with big companies banging on their door trying to promise the earth with a long term contract. Very personal.
I also liked that they were traveling around, scanning existing youtube videos (or Vacation Rental listings) in that area and then targeting those people... that's fairly brilliant way to travel around and generate business, and a strategy that no one would say would work ahead of time, and yet it seems to be working for them.
Overall, the pitch just felt different, every aspect of it. They were looking to leave PA for Florida, so maybe that's why identify with them so much:)
I didn't make it through the whole video... but it does make me think I have to get off my butt and start doing some stuff to increase winter rentals are our vacation rental... video and pictures are outrageously competitive for our area though, so I don't know as that's the solution, but it maybe should be part of the mix.
If I search on the actual name of our vacation rental, our walkthrough video comes up #4 (website #1, then trip advisor and flipkey), but on more general terms I don't see any videos come up at all. Interesting to give some thought to though
If you just need rentals, vrbo.com worked extremely well for me. (If I were that guy, I would just target that list as well.)
Again, I'm not trying to say this is the best biz in the world, only that the whole approach felt different to me eventhough it wasn't all that much different, I guess. I think at another level, if you are going to hire someone to come into your house and project your image, then I think you might trust these two to do you right.
I also liked their detailed seo explanation, which was much more on target than making it sound like voodoo. I thought that was really effective at letting the customer know you know more than them without talking down to them. Tone was very good.
Going to have to watch it again now. Less of a grumpy mood today - that might help.
Hey! This is Joshua...the guy who sent out this email. Great to see some of you are liking our strategy. Don't think too far into it though. What we are trying to do, is take business back to a more personal level. Everyone in this day in age looks at business & people in terms of numbers/statistics. We really think that business should be done on a much more personal level...and clients can become more like friends.
We have had people say that the video is too long...but of course...anyone who really isn't willing to put 15 minutes into thinking about how to improve their marketing outside of tripadvisor, vrbo, homeaway, etc...probably isn't the kind of person who would be interested anyway. By making the video long...it also has another helpful factor. People that are patient enough to watch all of it, tend to be more patient and nicer clients. All of our clients in the past have been GREAT to work for. We have yet to have a rough client...so I think this helps. We also try to show a little of our personality...so that we attract people that like our personality as well. After all, it's not always easy to let some stranger in your house for 12-14 hours to film...so we gotta show who we are at the same time. This also helps us keep away people who are too uptight. When you are creating something that is very subjective (art)...it could be a nightmare to appease someone who doesn't quite understand your style.
Anyway, glad to see you are liking our approach. Oh...and as for my wife smiling...she's just a sweet Japanese girl who is trying to support what I am saying where she can. English is her second language...so she is doing her best. When we lived in Japan...it was the other way around...and I looked silly.
Best of luck in your marketing guys!
Joshua & Natsuko Shaffer
P.S. If you are wanting to know if it works....we almost filled up our schedule in 2 days. :)
Ah bugger, now I feel mean. Watched it in full today and was going to retract some of what I said. Now Joshua has made it here that'll look insincere. Can't win!
Watching the whole thing I can see what dogboy was getting at now. I turned off too early before. The idea I particularly like (read: am tempted to nick) is the embedding a webcam image in to a screencast. That is such a powerful way of selling this sort of thing. Probably wouldn't work quite a well for a grumpy old bastard like me, but that is what staff are for!
It was still a bit laid back /chummy for me, but I am not target market and that is personal taste. Have to say though that I am not too shocked you got booked out off the back of that.
Hope that I didn't cause offence regarding your wife. I think I am just not used to quiet, polite women!
Congrats on the success ChibiMoku! You may find the core interesting. We're mostly a bunch of independent internet business people who have carved out our own little niches on the internet. Most of us have backgrounds in SEO marketing.
Rooftop : Don't sweat it. Japanese girls are a gem....especially when it comes to takin' care of ya....and are some real darn good cooks too.
Littleman : Nice. Looks like a ton of good info. When I jumped the border to Canada back in 2004...I spent 2 1/2 years making all my money on the internet since I couldn't legally work in Canada. Still love watching trends come and go...which I see you guys talk about a lot. I'll keep checking back here.
I thought it would be worth noting...that we pulled the professional element out of our website as well. This also lightens the feeling when doing business with new people. We went with a Jetson style art website...very cartoon like. Since we are doing a lot of business with small business owners...we tend to get a nice warm response to our website. http://www.chibimoku.com
We think this is a big part of our success as well.
QuoteWe really think that business should be done on a much more personal level...and clients can become more like friends.
That is the basis of our rental biz. Spent Friday night with former customers. Our place was full, so they rented somewhere else, but they still called us for dinner and we had a great evening together.
Great. How business should be.
Hey ChibiMoku!
Welcome to theCore :)
Pop over here and introduce yourself to the crowd: http://th3core.com/talk/water-coolerextra/the-official-introduction-thread/
Hey ChibiMoku, usually I don't 'out' other marketers in the public part of this forum, but I was really quite impressed, and there was nothing you were doing that could be construed as spamming or come back to bite you, so I figured it was fair game.
Yeah, I have to admit, I almost turned it off right before the second half, but then once that kicked in I perked back up again. But actually, the length of the video was also another unconventional thing that actually caught my attention and interested me.
Well done and welcome to theCore:)
I can't say I watched it all but flicked through most of it. I thought it was great, I love pitches that are very specific, this isn't something that will please all the people but the ones it resonates with it really resonates.
In my flick two things stood out.
I really liked the "the deal includes 10 pictures, but if it needs it we take a few more" (words to that effect). That signaled to a client that you cared about doing a good job. I'm sure every client gets more than 10 pics, the time taken to snap and process a few extra pics is minimal but then you always deliver more than was asked for, good business.
The one thing I didn't like and would make me a bit twitchy was the "we don't ask for anything up front" line, followed by "we ask for 50% when we visit". To me 50% when you visit is up front. Something like... "Nothing to pay now, we just ask for 50% when we have completed the on site work with the balance due only once we have processed, refined and delivered everything." might work better?
Great job btw, I wish you continued success.
A belated ようこそ ChibiMoku! Th3Core has a few members who have lived or are living in Osaka. Keep checking in!
I guess I'll have to give it a watch as I too rent out my little old house once in a while when the money is right.
Just a note...we are on the road for this campaign now...and just filmed a 3.9M$ yacht for a diplomat of Saudi Arabia....and also the president of the AIA (Architects Institute of America)...and Disney Estates...
The campaign worked like a charm. Greetings from Sarasota.
QuoteJust a note...we are on the road for this campaign now...and just filmed a 3.9M$ yacht for a diplomat of Saudi Arabia....and also the president of the AIA (Architects Institute of America)...and Disney Estates...
it was reaaly nice!!you made my day!!!