Dear Small Business Owner:

You don’t need me to tell you that video is everywhere on the web, or that it can be a powerful tool for you to engage your customers, fans and followers.

Like any production company, we’re in the business of making videos.  Promos, series, customer stories, spots – it’s all become web content.

On the set of Colorado College's "Favorite Places, Familiar Faces" video series

I founded ZWFILM in the spring of 2008 with the core mantra to produce videos with voice, to create videos with the audience in mind: to motivate and inspire them.  To produce a successful video, it’s always a balance between being visually compelling and striking a chord in your story that resonates with your viewers.

From the outside, video can feel intimidating and expensive.

For many small businesses, hiring a professional video producer is out of reach because of the expense.  They may try a DIY approach to produce videos themselves, but not having any experience with video production and how to express through visuals and story makes it exceedingly difficult to succeed.

I’m a huge advocate for locally owned businesses.  Sure, I’m biased since many of our clients are small businesses, plus I’m a small business owner myself.  But there’s more to it than that – to me, there’s this innate magic that’s in the air at local shops, a blend of passion and the desire to make something truly special.

Right now you might be wondering, “so where’s this promotion that the post title suggests?!”  Well, here we go…

I’m lowering the cost for any business or organization to successfully enter the world of video.

Meet Local Infusion.  It’s a new web series that runs on Infusion5, our web television network that produces shows about the creative people behind businesses.  Each episode of Local Infusion gives viewers the chance to step inside their favorite local businesses and learn something.

Until January 15th*, 2012 you can get 50% off an episode of Local Infusion for your business.  And the price?  It’ll normally be $979, but with your 50% discount, it’s only $489.50.  Plus, there’s no pressure to produce your episode immediately – we’ll produce it between now and June 2012.

UPDATE: The discount for one episode is over, but some awesome news is in store!  We’ve extended the discount for a package of 3 Local Infusion episodes for the foreseeable future.  So this means that one episode is at its normal price of $979, but you can still get 50% off with a pack of 3 episodes for $1470.

I always strive to make video as affordable as creatively possible, along with squeezing the most value out of it for each and every client of ours.  I’m excited to offer Local Infusion episodes, not only as a very affordable solution for any business to start using video, but also as a tremendous value because of our production quality and distribution strategy through Infusion5.

Here’s the bottom line: you’ve heard that video on your business’ website is valuable because it converts website visitors into customers.  But there’s way more to it.

From where I stand, the roots of any business are in relationships.  Video can be another tool for you to nurture those relationships, with your customers, employees, vendors, colleagues…anyone!

And why would you want to be part of a web series on Infusion5?  Because it’s simple and awesome.  Here’s why…

Most business videos have two natural weaknesses.

Say hello to Infusion5 – it’s built to produce and distribute entertaining, informative videos about businesses in a familiar, consumable format: web television.  Your episodes are carefully crafted to engage and encourage our audience to look to your business as a leader in your industry.

Everyone that’s clicking around the web expects richer, more engaging content.  Give your customers the chance to have more reasons to like you, to rave about you, to buy from you because you’re creating value for them through video.

So what’s next?  I want to hear from you.  Call and talk with me about your business – 719.357.9224 – or email me directly through the form below.

Here’s to celebrating and supporting small business!  I look forward to your success with video.

– Zach Wolfson, Founder of ZWFILM and Infusion5

Trouble reading or clicking? Please visit the blog post on our website here: First. Promotion. Ever. 50% Off for Small Business

We’re huge fans of online video. Sure, we’re biased – we produce online video content, and even web television series. But we’re also consumers of online video, and we love having the choice to consume quality content whenever, wherever and however we want. So when the fun people at Wistia, an online video hosting company, published a fantastic infographic that puts online video streaming viewership head-to-head with that of traditional television, we loved getting to see some interesting data from Nielsen visualized.

What say you? How do you consume your video content? We’d love to hear what you think.

Infographic by: Wistia

Trouble reading or clicking? Please visit the blog post on our website here: Online Video Streaming Vs. Traditional Television

We recently completed production on a series of five videos for Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO.  I was very excited to work with CC’s Office of Annual Giving again – the last project that we produced for them was the “Price of a Slice” video series.

Production still from the B Camera angle – CC's "Favorite Places, Familiar Faces"

We spent the day interviewing a number of alumni who were planning their class reunions for homecoming this fall. It was great fun to talk with alumni who are so proud to represent their classes – they ranged from celebrating their 5 year reunion to their 50 year reunion!  Being an alumnus of Colorado College myself, I felt particularly honored to get to talk with so many amazing fellow grads and hear their stories.

The theme for CC’s Homecoming and Parents Weekend this year is “Favorite Places, Familiar Faces.”  The videos that we produced are going to be used to encourage alumni to join in on the festivities at homecoming this year, especially if they’re celebrating a milestone year.  Plus the videos will also serve as a fund raising tool to rekindle alumni’s connections with their college.

Our creative concept for the videos was in tune with the vision of the homecoming theme, focusing on the stories of each person during their time at CC, along with where each of them are now because of the education and opportunities that CC afforded them.

Production still from the A Camera angle – CC's "Favorite Places, Familiar Faces"

I always strive for the visuals to inspire and support the story that we’re telling.  So for these videos white limbo served beautifully to create a clean look between each interview (25+ of them), and it would also further bring the focus onto the alum talking because there’s quite simply nothing else in frame.  Add to the white limbo, the direction for each alum to talk directly to the camera and we had a beautiful look for a series of videos striving to create an emotional connection with the alumni watching.

With the production of any video, there’s a necessary balance between visuals and story in order to create the most engagingly-possible experience for the viewer.  This is always a truth in filmmaking to me – the sum of attractive visuals and well-told stories will always result in an engaging viewing experience.

Thanks to CC’s Office of Annual Giving for giving us the opportunity to serve them again!

Trouble reading or clicking? Please visit the blog post on our website here: On the Set – Colorado College’s “Favorite Places, Familiar Faces”

You’ve probably noticed a new design and layout to our site – so what do you think?

We’re very pleased with the decision to make the change, and if you visited our site toward June of last year, you may be thinking, “didn’t they change the look of the site less than a year ago?”  Well, yes, yes we did.  But let me explain a bit…

While working on pushing my skills and learning new techniques when it comes to lighting, shooting and editing – which is an ever changing playing field – I also maintain a healthy diet of branding and marketing.  In my opinion it is essential for a business owner to at least be aware of the basics behind branding and marketing so he or she may better understand how to reach the desired audience.  As an entrepreneur, I’m always striving to educate myself in business strategies that can help me be more efficient and effective in my work, both for my clients as well as for my business.  So over the past few weeks, I began to wonder, “if someone arrives at our website and doesn’t know what ZWFILM is or does, what will their first impression be based on the site’s homepage?”

My impression was that they would get two main points – ZWFILM produces videos, and some guy named Zach is a part of the company.  Additionally, there were an immense amount of images and links to choose to click on, plus a number of blocks of text here and there.  In some ways, the homepage was overwhelming to navigate.

With the change in design and layout I ultimately wanted to minimize the number of choices that visitors make when they land on the homepage.  Plus, I wanted to immediately take them to the areas that I think will interest them most – our portfolio or to request a project estimate.  I really like the cleaner, yet more colorful look of our new site design and layout; it lends itself to easier navigation for you as well as a style that complements our content, be it media or blog posts.

At this point we are still ironing out some bugs here and there (deadlinks, etc.), so if you experience any site errors while navigating the site, or stumble across a bad link, please let us know.

Thanks, and we hope you enjoy the site.

Trouble reading or clicking? Please visit the blog post on our website here: New look to our website (again)

Trouble reading or clicking? Please visit the blog post on our website here: “Dark Cotton” Teaser Trailer