My First APS Stampshow

Graham Beck, the host of Exploring Stamps did a nice job presenting the show to his viewers. If you weren't able to join us, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for posting. Enjoyed the announcers enthusiasim. Excellant piece for the beginning collector to get info, and for the average person to understand what it is all about. "Education and Enjoyment." Not all about the monetary and "how much is it worth" society of today.

Mike

Scott,

Do you think APS should create similar quality videos? It was not like he had an enormous staff to produce it.

If you've been reading what I write and the direction I am pushing, content is my objective. Graham does a great job with his videos, but his job was not run a show for thousands of people. I watched him and his wife taking in video for a good bit of the show.

The organization was not designed for content creation and I have made some shifts in that direction. Out of respect to our existing membership it has not been as radical a change as I have made in other organizations. I am going through a strategic planning process with a group of Board members this fall to review this and create a road map to get there.

It is about marketing.

Actually, it's not really about marketing. That is step three in this process, not step one.

We have to first determine the value proposition of the APS - a review that has not really occurred in some time. This was embedded in the modernization presentation I did in February and why I believe we have to do a new strategic plan now. I have come to the Board with some needed changes, but all those were done in the context of accepting we needed to create a financially strong organization first and then rebuild trust with our members and partners. What I relayed to the Board and to our membership is that I feel we've accomplished those to the degree that we needed to take the next step. And here we are.

I believe we have to start with why are we here and are we accomplishing that purpose. To our current members, the answer is a resounding yes, but the to the non-member collecting public, the answer is not. It's not simply marketing, but relevance. I say content because content marketing has a different reason than direct marketing and if I use the whole phrase, it creates less clarity, not more.

Scott,

I do not think we are talking about the same thing. I made a simple comment about what one person did and should not take a strategy review to create videos to educate the online community about a stamp event to this level. APS is selling itself through the website and and in social media. Videos are often minimums for successfully marketing online. The sell is done by backing it up with content.

The simple answer is, yes, we can do it. How we get there is a question of resourcing it with a person who can dedicate the same amount of time that went into the video referenced. Graham took 20 plus hours of video with his wife and then edited it to the nine minutes. According to him, he spends approximately 50 - 60 hours researching, scripting, shooting, and editing each of his video. I believe there are probably some ways to streamline creating the content, but it still represents a significant time commitment and doesn't happen in a vacuum.

My objective is to create and promote content like this and more, but to make this work within an organization, it does take a strategy review.