7 Ways to Use Website Audio in Your Marketing Arsenal

Most visitors to your website are using computers with audio capabilities. Recently introduced techniques make it easy to take advantage of this capability.

In the past, web audio was primarily decorative, consisting of musical fanfares or other clichéd sound effects. Now, you can use audio to multiply the impact of your message and create stronger bonds with your visitors.

Audio's power comes from its ability to engage more of your visitor's senses. The more senses you engage, the easier it will be to effectively communicate. Instead of just reading your words and looking at your picture, you can communicate with your voice ? and the voices of your clients.

The power of audio can be appreciated by comparing the newspaper column version of Tom and Ray Magliozzi's Car Talk with the program aired each week on National Public Radio. Although the newspaper column and radio program address the same topics, it's far more fun to listen to Car Talk ? where you can experience Tom and Ray's intonations and phrasing ? than to read the same words.

Here are some of the ways you can employ audio on your website:

- Welcoming messages. You can create closer emotional bonds with website visitors by personally welcoming them to your site and introducing some of the features they should explore.

- Testimonials. Audio testimonials are far more powerful that written testimonials, especially if you include a photograph of the individual speaking the testimonial. The next best thing to a face-to-face referral is a recording of a client explaining their satisfaction with your product in their own words.

- Guarantees. Your satisfaction guarantees gain impact when you deliver them in your own voice. Place them on your order form, at the point of sale. People are inherently cautious about ordering products and services from the Internet. Reassure them that their credit card and personal information are safe with you.

- Seminars and teleconferences. Short excerpts about upcoming events can make your event even more appealing. Snippets from past seminars can whet visitors' appetites for more.

- Tips. Add interest to your site by describing an audio 'tip of the day' or 'tip of the week' in your own words. Be sure to offer access to previous tips, too.

- Audio postcards. You can include audio invitations and testimonials as links in email sent to clients and prospects. To arrange an audio testimonial, simply provide your client with a phone number and password, and invite them to call up and express their satisfaction with their purchase from you. Audio postcards are a great way to stay in contact with your clients and prospects with an announcement of an upcoming product or service. They are also a quick way to acknowledge a special occasion.

- Streaming audio can be used to allow visitors to playback longer events, like seminars or teleconferences.

When you add audio to your website, allow your visitors to maintain control. Don't begin playing your message when the webpage loads. Instead, invite visitors to 'click here' to hear your voice. Keep your messages as short and concise as possible.

And avoid 'scripting' your introductions and guarantees. Write down the key ideas you want to communicate, but deliver them in your own words as conversationally as possible.

Web audio is no longer a futuristic luxury. Web audio is here now and it's as close as your telephone. It is an affordable and easily added feature that can set you apart from the competition and help communicate your message with added impact.

Roger C. Parker knows the secrets to promoting your business one page at a time. Find out the simple way to keep in constant touch with your customers, while saving you time and money. Visit http://www.OnePageNewsletters.com for your three free reports.









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Interview with a Video Virgi

Shani Alexander is the founder of Relocations Made Easy (www.relocations-made-easy.com) which produces an interactive website and CDROM tool that advises people on how to make a stress free relocation to a new city.

To create her interactive product, Shani needed camera vision of herself explaining to viewers how the product worked in front of a cityscape backdrop.

We interviewed her to find out her experience of using a video production company for the first time.

1. Why did you decide that you needed a video component in your website tool?

I am selling a virtual personal service product and the video component was needed to introduce a real person from which my virtual product could springboard.

The video component showed a real person, a company owner. It gave the personal touch and introduced what the customer was going to receive from their purchase

2. What were you looking for in a video production company?

I really needed a company that could understand what I was trying to achieve. I really needed them to get inside my head and make real what I was imagining, what I was dreaming up.

It had to be cost effective with no cost blowouts. It also needed to be applied to the media I was using - the internet and CDROM. I needed clear picture quality that could be viewed across those mediums without any picture quality loss.

3. How difficult was it to compare proposals between the four providers?

Everyone told me how it is difficult to compare. All the production houses said they could do the same thing, but the prices were extremely different.

When I spoke to Digicast they went to great lengths to explain the type of camera that they used. Whilst I would have liked to think that everyone could produce the same job, I realised that the big differences in prices reflected the different types of camera quality being used.

Digicast also took me on board as if I was a client already. They gave me suggestions about how to do the shoot the best way and started treating me like a client before I even made the decision to go with them. From there, we were able to develop a relationship and work together on the project.

4. As someone new to being filmed, how did you find your shoot?

I found it really long, really tiring and boring! I was really surprised at how dependent you are on the weather to be right ? you have to keep waiting for the right light and the sky. It can add hours to the shoot.

Andrew Ross from Digicast who filmed me was incredibly professional. He's passionate, technical and knows what he is doing and has to keep the poor person on the other end of the camera still interested. He did a good job managing that. I really thought he worked well with me as the presenter. Andrew got me to look at the vision on the shoot and gave me options as to how we could re-shoot it to make it better. He controlled everything but I didn't feel like a pawn. His suggestions were worthwhile.

5. What did you learn about the television production process?

I really learnt something from it and I can now look at all the different shows on television and see how good, and bad, those presenters are. I have a healthy respect for an industry I took for granted before. It was a fantastic experience at the end of it all.

6. What advice would you give to anyone looking at starring in their own video?

I advise anyone who wants to take this on to do lots of preparation.

Digicast gave me some suggestions before the shoot about how I could get myself ready and get the most out of the day. I took those to heart and I did put a lot of preparation into the script. I re-edited the script, timed it, practised it and rehearsed it in front of a lot of people beforehand.

I even hired a professional to give me a training session on hand gestures and facial expressions. My preparation even extended to my personal grooming and I had my hair coloured beforehand and bought a new suit.

I also went to a lot of trouble to get the right location. We had to let the City of Melbourne know beforehand about the shoot. The liaising with the council was a much bigger component than I imagined. I checked out the site with a council employee and took some digital shots which I then emailed to Digicast. It was a real team effort to work out the right place to shoot.

7. Would you do it again?

You bet. I'm hoping I don't need to, as I should get a few years of mileage out of it. After all, it was made to be timeless and dateless. But I'd do it again because I achieved what I set out to achieve. I'm very happy about the experience and I would do it again if I needed to.

About The Author

(c) Marie-Claire Ross 2004. All rights reserved.

Marie-Claire Ross is one of the partners of Digicast. Digicast works with organisations who are not satisfied that their marketing and training materials are helping their business grow. She can be contacted on 0500 800 234 (Australia wide) or at mc@digicast.com.au. The website is at www.digicast.com.au.









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Adding Sound To Your Web Site - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music to their web sites but most shy away from doing it worrying about slow loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add background music to your site and some of them don't require large files to achieve professional results. Let's examine all the different ways to add background music to your site and rate them to find the best solution for you.

1) MIDI Files

MIDI files are very small because they actually use your sound card's built-in instruments to create the sounds. The problem is that most sound cards don't have any decent sounds to start with, plus no two sound cards sound alike and therefore the results are very unpredictable. MIDI files usually sound like they're coming from one of those cheap Casio keyboards. Using MIDI for background music is very likely to make your site seem amateurish. Want to know how to do it anyway? Just add the line to your site. (Replace xyz with the name of the MIDI file you want to use!) The Autostart command will play the file automatically when the page is loaded.

PROS; Very small file size, easy to implement

CONS: Unpredictable results, amateurish sounds

2) WAV Files

Using the WAV file format allows you to add professional sounding recordings to your site but the problem is that even if you use a low quality setting like 11k/8bit, the file sizes are still very large and it will take a long time for your music to load. And slow loading pages are the worst thing that can happen to a site. Implementing a WAV file on a web page is easy. Just add the line to your page's HTML code. There's an additional command to loop the WAV file but WAV files do not loop cleanly with the embed command.

PROS: Many Quality Levels, Easy to implement

CONS: Large File Sizes, WAV Files do not loop

3) MP3 Files

MP3 files are highly compressed and don't take that long to load but the problem is that MP3s need to bring up an external player program and which in some cases takes your visitors away from your site altogether. Also, MP3 files don't loop cleanly.

PROS: Smaller File Sizes, Good Quality Possible

CONS: Needs external player software, not loopable

4) Flash

If you own a program that can create Flash files, you will have lots of flexibility in adding sound to your site. Flash lets you import WAV as well as MP3 Files and then creates quite small files from these sounds that will load automatically on your site. You can set the quality level and therefore decide how large you want the Flash file to be. Flash also allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create 'continuous' background music files that can be quite small. But please note that only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop cleanly.

PROS: Great Flexibility, Small File Sizes, expecially when looping sounds

CONS: You need to buy expensive Flash software to create Flash Files

5) Pre-Made Flash Loops

The newest thing on the market are pre-built Flash Music Loops. These files are professionally recorded, loop almost indefinitely and most of these Flash Music Loops are only about 20k in size so they load almost instantly. Flash Music Loops are available at http://www.flashmusictracks.com and currently there are three different loop packages available in all kinds of music styles from classical to techno. Using these pre-built Flash files is easy. Simply upload the "xyz.swf" Flash file to your server and add a few lines from the corresponding "xyz.html" file to your web page and presto...instant professional sounding background music.

PROS: Extremely small file size, professional quality music

CONS: None

As you can see there are many different ways to add background music to your web pages and you don't have to worry about slow loading pages if you choose the right file format.

(c)2004 Alan Steward

About The Author

Article by Alan Steward, a professional recording engineer and producer who worked with many Grammy award winning groups and musicians.

(c)2004 Alan Steward - http://www.musicleads.net


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