I did a guest post on David’s onelifenofear.com website about how I got to 500 000 video views and am now growing by over 50 000 a month. You can read it here:

How to hit 500 000 Video Views!

————— (for posterity, I’ve included the article I wrote below)

A few days ago, I finally hit my goal of 500 00 video views, this article will explain how I did it so you can too!

Why make videos in the first place?

If you have a website, you need to start making videos for it! It opens your content, products and/or services up to a whole new mass of people. People who might not have heard of you otherwise. With a video done right, they may even tell their friends about it… if you are extremely lucky… your video may also go viral giving you worldwide exposure even and some serious affiliate/advertising dollars in the process! Unless you seem to get hit by lighting every few days, don’t expect this to happen, but don’t that stop you from improving and expanding the distribution channels you use to promote yourself or your company.

If your online promotions and marketing represents your caliber, video production has the ability to transform your riffle into a bazooka with nuclear bullets!

Video Production 101

There are plenty of specialized articles about how to make videos, so I’ll give you the short form. The basics are a webcam, a microphone something to say. If you already to audio podcasts – you probably have all the tools necessary already!

Now, if you want to pump out a little more higher quality content, you can get a cheap 720p video recorder (most consumer level cameras these days offer this by the way), a better microphone, some video and audio production software… then if you want to go nuts… the skies the limit.

Basically, start off with what you have and build from there. In my case, I went another route, no speaking, no direct sales… just an animation showing how the product goes together with a website address. I recently added music which I compose myself. Some say don’t add music to videos, I say “GO FOR IT!” as there is always a mute button 😉

There is no sales pitch in any of my videos, which is how I’ve been able to stay in good standing with several sites that would otherwise ban me for commercial activities. I’ve been banned of course, but am usually re-instated because of a lack of sales pitch. My ultimate goal is that of education, and most good site operators get this.

My accidental video success story

I should preface this by saying that EVERYTHING I do is completely self-taught. I never studied business, 3D animation, graphic design or marketing for that matter. When I set my mind to something, I made it become reality one way or another. So, don’t let a lack of formal education or lack of experience get in the way of anything in your life, including video production!

I had an absolute passion for 3D, I just love the possibility of creating anything! So, I started a 3D animation studio before most companies knew what 3D was. I would do sales calls and presentations to very large manufacturing companies across North America (with projects around the world) where my only way of explaining what my company did was by telling them: “Have you seen Toy Story? Well, that’s what we do.” My company had nowhere the computer capability of doing work to that quality but I didn’t let it stop us and it proved rather profitable for several years (and still does to a lesser extent this day).

I also had a deep passion for wood and nature, I decided to close-up my physical business and travel the world, still doing projects here and there while experiencing and living among different cultures. After a year of this, I started to miss wood. The smell, the feel, the texture… it’s just an incredible material to work with! I was on the other side of the world and carrying with me a wood shop isn’t something I wish to explain to the TSA about but I had a very good laptop. The idea dawned on me… I’ll design wooden things on my computer, render them out in 3D and sell the plans online! WoodMarvels.com was born (see first blog post)!

My demographic was people like me, who didn’t have a woodworking shop, hated measuring things and the high cost of shipping traditional plans (along with the delay). I was going to offer people blueprints that were measurement free, available in PDF form as soon as a payment was processed and make a 3D animation of each and every product so people knew exactly how things would be constructed BEFORE they even bought a thing! I also thought wooden toys were stuck in the dark ages… I wanted to revolutionize the industry and show what was truly possible using nothing but wood! Additionally, I have a very deep distrust of plastic, most of it isn’t biodegradable, it leaches chemicals and there is already too much of it floating in the world’s oceans! (See Plastiki Expedition)

Among my very first bunch of products was a Medieval Castle Walls, released October 25, 2007 (see animation below).

It took me several weeks to wrap my head around making wooden models, with parts that intersect, coming-up with a texture that would look halfway decent and although I had lots of experience making (industrial) animations using our workstations, all I had was a laptop! I made lots of mistakes, the quality had much to be desired and I didn’t even have sound! But, I did it anyways and got a few sales… my creativity and passion was unleashed!

About six months later, I was looking for a kit provider… I wanted to provide people with physical kits of my designs (again, my demographic was people without a woodworking shop much less experience with wood), so I searched high and low. I then discovered an article on TechCrunch about an innovative company called Ponoko. A few e-mails and a phone call later with one of the co-founders… I had an on-demand laser cutter who could cut and ship all my kits worldwide!

Over the course of the next two and a half years, software and laptop improvements lead to me giving one of my first blueprints for free on WoodMarvels.com and releasing my second version, Medieval Castle Walls B on April 3rd, 2009 (see animation below).

At this point, I had accumulated a total of about 220 000 video views since WoodMarvels.com was launched online… and total video views were now growing steadily by 7% month after month! A year later, I was up to about 380 000… and now, I’ve just flew past 500 000 views… with total views now growing north of 10% month after month! It’s astonishing but I’m generating over 50 000 views a month now!

Things have been nuts busy every since… it’s amazing how much can get done for a one man shop with nothing but a laptop and passion while traveling the world! I track everything and blog about it because I believe that if it’s watched and written down, you have to do it!

So, how did I get to this point?

A heck of a lot of work, I use to submit my site to only one or two video sites and noticed rather quickly that many people were looking for my site based on my videos. So, if one thing works… do more of it! MUCH MORE OF IT! Soon, I was uploading all over the place… it was taking HOURS after I finished the production of a video to get it everywhere! I also noticed as the quality of the models and animations improved, so did the hits and additional SEO benefits also followed.

Being smart about video uploads

My biggest coup was joining TubeMogul.com, a site that lets you upload your video to A LOT of video sites with only one upload. They include Blip.tv (monetize your video with this amazing company run by fantastic people) to YouTube.com and lesser known sites like MetaCafe.com. As I was generating increasing traffic from people searching for my domain on Google and other sites, the SEO benefits began to trickle in… this is why, at the very beginning I always included my website address on my videos, even if it did get me kicked-off a few sites. I wanted people to know where the video came from regardless of where they were viewing it from. I didn’t just stop there though, I kept adding more and more sites that TubeMogul.com didn’t offer… and getting into video sites from other countries and languages I didn’t even speak, such as YouKu.com (Chinese) and Tu.tv (Spanish). The list keeps expanding every few weeks!

The work-around I found to languages was using AltaVista.com’s Bable Fish translation… it worked like a charm!

Why not host your own videos?

Why upload your videos instead of hosting them yourself? Other than monetize views using Blip.tv or if you get enough views, YouTube.com… you are also offloading a bandwidth hog on your site. If your video goes viral or gets, like me, your library of videos grows by over 50 000 views a month, the bandwidth will be a major killer to you making any profits. Offload the headaches and costs to somebody else and do what you do best… making videos! 😉

Steps to successful video promotions

1) MAKE a video

• Even if it’s awful, without audio and crappy picture… it will at least get your feet wet!

2) ADD your url to the video

• How else do you think people will find you? Keep in mind that many video sites share their content with third party video sites… these things get passed around… make sure people know about you every step of the way!

3) SUBMIT it anywhere and everywhere

• Start with TubeMogul.com and grow from there… regardless of the language or geographical location! Everybody whose online knows at least ONE person who understands rudimentary English 😉 I’ve also had some videos garner a few thousand views in a day while on other video sites, only a half dozen, so each site seems to have it’s own demographic profile interested in different things.

4) REPEAT often

• The more videos you have, the higher the likelihood of people finding you based on the keywords you used to describe it and viewing your other related videos.

5) IMPROVE constantly

• Sure, your first video might suck, but always try to improve upon your last one. For me, I’ve jumped into 720p rendering with my laptop, invested over 5 000$US in new software alone over the past two months. I am also anxious to get into true 3D (my stuff is already 3D, just need to convert or re-render it for those of you with 3D TVs and glasses).

6) DO NOT GIVE UP!

• I decided long ago to give this company 5 years… I’m a few years into it and my passion is only growing along with my animation and design skills. The opportunities keep expanding for me as well, I’m in negotiations to sell licensing rights to companies in a few countries and am in active discussions regarding partnerships with several manufacturers. I also have a good flow of designers approaching me with their products now to be added to my WoodMarvels.com site!

7) PASSION!

• Make sure the videos you create are on a topic that you are passionate about… if you can’t imagine yourself still learning passionately about what you are speaking 5 years from now… don’t make videos about it! Life is too precious a commodity to throw away doing fruitless tasks!

The future.

I’ve got consistent and growing traffic to my sites thanks to videos, now that you know how I did it, you can do the same! By simple projection, I should hit the 1 million mark in about 8 months with a continued 10% monthly “views rate”. I now have a increasingly large library of animations which I submit my videos to once I discover a new video site… so I’d expect to this number even sooner!

Here are a few more recent videos that I’ve released using 720p, for your viewing pleasure! Of course, if you like these models, you can buy them and cut them yourself on a CNC router, laser cutting table or in your woodworking shop. No woodworking shop? No problem, you can order them as physical kits shipped right to your door too!

Semi-trailer Truck

Attack Helicopter

Submarine