As many of you will know I am currently concentrating on writing my own film script! It’s keeping me very busy these days. So I’ll be getting in regular expert contributors to provide all of my valued readers with world class online business advice.

In this article Ed Walters is going to walk you through how to create your own high-end online video business.

Over to you Ed…

“I want to make my own video online information products!’ … move over Stephen Spielberg

There is now a HUGE online demand for video online information products. This is the most modern media format, it’s what everybody wants. People don’t have time to wade through wordy eBooks anymore and audio doesn’t necessarily bring to life many niche products.

So you need to get involved by selling your own high value video information products. Hear me out on this one…it is a million times more easy to do than you probably think and it’ll bring you a ton of easy cash. PLUS I’ve got an added twist on this that’ll make it even more profitable for you.

Let me show you how with my simple seven step plan…

Step One

Think of an idea you are passionate about – it could be something to do with getting fit, magic tricks, dancing, fishing, whatever you want. The key is to make sure it’s something that get’s you fired up – this is important because you need something that will keep you motivated to get this up and running.

It also needs to be something where there is already a proven need for information online for the subject you have chosen. You can do a bit of research on Google or in forums, such as yahoo forums to see what questions are being asked and what problems need solving.

If you’re really stuck for ideas go to http://www.dummies.com and find something that catches your attention. If you can think of an original idea or one with a unique selling point then even better but don’t be too niche pacific otherwise your target audience won’t be large enough to make big money.

Step Two

Do a bit of research to check there will be a market for your product. As well as asking inquiring questions in the forums you should visit http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com, type in your niche idea, such as, ballet dancing and see how many searches there are each day for that keyword. Ideally you want to see at least one thousand searches per day coming up which means there is a good sized market for your idea and you’ve found a goer. Any less than that and you should probably think of something else.

Step Three

Dig out or borrow a simple video camera – preferably something better than your mobile phone but there’s no need to get hold of something used on a Stephen Spielberg set. Buy one if you like, they’re pretty cheap nowadays. You could even hire a film crew but that’ll probably cost you around five hundred quid a day, so there’s really no need to spend that sort of money.

Step Four

Think about what you could video in your chosen subject that people would be interested in buying. Let’s take boxing – i.e. learning to box, as an example. Now I’m no Rocky Balboa but immediately I’ve thought of all the different boxing moves there are, such as the jab or the right hook, etc.

What you could do is ask a boxing friend (if you have one) if you could film him doing a few moves in his local boxing gym – chances are he’ll say ‘yes’ because everyone loves to show off their own talents. Or, you could visit your local boxing gym and see if you can find someone to help you out – the yellow pages is a great resource for this kind of mini project.

Step Five

Arrange a time and a place to do the filming. The more appropriate you can make the set for whatever you are filming the better. For example, to film boxing moves it would be best done in a boxing ring or at least in a gym.

Step Six

Now for the fun part. Meet up and get videoing. Do a few practice takes, check the quality of the video and audio before you get stated for real. I turned up to watch my mates set up at the weekend and it’s a real buzz especially if you haven’t done this sort of thing before. Take plenty of footage so you can edit later.

Step Seven

Go home and edit the video. You could use simple software like windows media player which will allow you to put music or audio over the video. Or you could use Camtasia which has a few more functions and is really simple to use. You can sign up for a free trial of Camtasia at http://www.techsmith.com. You only need about forty-five to seventy-five minutes of footage and then  you’ve created your product and you’re ready to start making  some cash.

Voila…you’re done!

Give yourself a pat on the back for getting your video created. You really can get it all done in a day or two if you put your mind to it. Now you need to let people know about it so that they come and buy it and you make loads of cash.

How to generate an automated income from your video

Now don’t panic this is very easy too. All you need to do is set up a simple web site. Think of a domain name and then go to http://www.hostgator.com/ to register it and set up your hosting  (basically a rented place in cyberspace). This will only cost you   a few dollars a month.

To set up your web site you have two options. Either you can do it yourself by getting software like Microsoft Expression which is as easy as Word to use. Search for web sites selling boxing or fitness products and ‘swipe’ some ideas from them which you can use to write your own sales copy (or your web site home page). OR you can go to sites like http://www.elance.com/ and hire someone  to write it for you and then upload your site.

You will also need a ‘Buy’ button – again very simple – you just need to set up a payment platform with a company like ClickBank.com. Add your buy button to your site and then you’re away. I recommend you charge around forty seven dollars (always use dollars as it’s the global currency of the Internet) for your video. Sell a mere ten a week and that’ll bring in $470 a week. You should  be aiming for more like a hundred copies a week which will net you a cool $4700 a week – imagine how that would feel when you’re down the pub chatting with your mates!

Next you need to attract visitors to your site. This is called traffic. There are loads and loads of ways to do this. You can write articles and submit them to article directories such as http://www.ezinearticles.com/ or http://www.goarticles.com/ and be sure to include a link back to your web site.

You could set up a Google AdWords campaign – by setting up simple text adverts to drive traffic. (these are the ones you see on the right hand side of the page when you do a Google search). Remember you have already checked earlier  that people are searching for your subject so you just bid on those keywords and others related to them (you can find loads more keywords using the Google keywords tool in your AdWords account.

There are loads of paid media advertising networks you could use, such as cost per click (CPC) or pay per view (PPV). I’m not going to confuse you by going in to all of them right now but one example would be to use banner advertising by setting up a simple campaign at http://www.adbrite.com.

You could even advertise in your local magazine and publications or submit an online press release about your new venture to prweb.com.  On top of that you could get affiliates to promote your product for a commission and set up joint venture deals so all the work is done for you. There are literally hundreds of ways to drive traffic to your site and the more visitors you have, the more sales you’ll generate and the more cash you’ll make…on auto-pilot!

How To Sky-Rocket Your Profits…

Now to let you in on the even cleverer part. Having got your web site up and running you can then re-sell to your customers again in the future by collecting their email details when they visit your site (easy to set this up at http://www.aweber.com/). All you need to do is create more related video products which you  already know is very easy to do.

Using the boxing example, you could create beginner, intermediate and advanced videos, training videos, how to build strength and fitness videos, etc. There are so many ideas and all of these ‘back-end’ products you could sell for higher prices of $97 to $497 per video package. If you build a strong relationship with your customers by sending them good quality free content each week they’ll trust you and buy again and again.

As I said, I saw my friends set this up in a day at the weekend – if they can do it so can you. I have literally hundreds of ideas for these video businesses in my head now – in fact I’ve got too many and it’s actually driving me slightly insane.

Get out there, give it a go today, don’t put it off and have fun doing it.

Good luck with your videos!

Ed Walters