Happy New Year!
Greetings!
By now, you've returned from CES with your calendar piled sky-high with projects. You've made promises to retailers, reps, and/or distributors, including new training efforts. No worries--Sell-Through Solutions is here to help with your training needs!
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How STS Protects Your Data 
Sell-Through Solutions creates training content for many of CE's most powerful corporations. Beyond the usual contracts and non-disclosure agreements, these clients want to know that their data is safe with STS. Our data security measures include: - Monitored, alarmed offices
- Daily encrypted backups to offline hard drives
- BIOS password-protected computers
- Hardware and software state-of-the-art firewalls
- Anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing software
- No Wi-Fi communication in STS office
- Daily online encrypted backups (128-bit SSL "bank quality" encryption) to protect against fire, theft, etc.
- 448-bit Blowfish encryption for online files in storage
- Laptops monitored by LoJack
- Laptop hard drives separately password-protected (will not work even if removed and installed in another machine)
- Laptops: WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) security
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A New Way to Present with PowerPoint
Last month, Sell-Through Solutions client Metra Electronics asked for an unusual PowerPoint presentation for its Axxess division. It needed to be self-running, so that anyone could view it on any computer, PC or Mac. It needed to be narrated. Basically, it needed to be a movie. How did we do it? - Write the script.
- License images to support the presentation. In a "movie," there are far more images than words...the 98-slide, 13-minute video featured less than five words per slide, and a total of 223 images.
- Customize images in Photoshop specifically for the client.
- Create PowerPoint presentation from narration script.
- Create acoustical environment for narration.
- Narrate script using studio microphone and commercial audio recording tools (don't use the inferior PowerPoint narration tool).
- Obtain music for background.
- Use DJ audio editing tools to segue music cuts, lower music levels, and match music to narration.
- While narration plays, run PowerPoint show, matching slide animations and transitions to narration. At the same time, tell Camtasia Studio 5 to record the show.
- Edit show in Camtasia Studio 5: Add narration and music to timeline, fine-tune audio/video timings and levels.
- Produce show as AVI, DVD, Flash, QuickTime, etc.
Want to see the result? Click here to watch a 2.5-minute segment of the 13-minute presentation. (Speakers on!) Want to see an illustrated documentary of the process? Click here. |
Vendors/Retailers Get Proactive in 2008
 During his keynote address at CES, Head Monster Noel Lee of Monster
Cable outlined three keys to success in 2008: Education, Education,
Education. Several enterprising companies have already gotten a jump on
the effort,
realizing that most high-tech consumers prefer to do their own research
on the Internet before buying. The time has passed for a manufacturer
merely listing specs for its own product. Customers want
comprehensive information about the entire category in which they're
interested. Manufacturers and retailers alike are stepping up their
training efforts to ensure that HDTVs, audio systems, and related
products are not only being sold, but staying sold. Some highlights:
- Buy.com's BuyTV features an ever-changing suite of product and technology streaming videos, aimed at end-users.
- Panasonic
opened its Plasma Concierge program, previously available only to
Panasonic customers, to the world at large, over the holidays.
- Amazon features Hi-Def 101, a clearinghouse for all things HD, as well as a High Definition Blog for up-to-the-minute information.
- Monster Cable, in partnership with Simplay Labs and HDMI Licensing, offers the HDMI Education Center on its website.
- Both Wal-Mart and Best Buy educate consumers while entertaining them, via in-store video.
Consumers
want as much information as they can get before buying, and they don't
want to piece it together. The manufacturer or
retailer who becomes an advocate for the category, and not just for
their own products, is the one who'll get the attention and, maybe the
sale. Contact STS when your company needs help updating its content. |
For PDA Owners...
Some Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are set to receive HTML
messages as Text-Only. Without HTML's larger fonts and colorful
graphics, the newsletter appears on the PDA screen as a relentless
torrent of tiny words. To read the newsletter as it was meant to be
seen, forward it to a PC or Mac email client (Outlook, Outlook Express,
Mac Mail, Windows Vista Mail, Entourage, etc.) that can read HTML, and
set the email client to view images and links. Report any problems
viewing the newsletter here. |
Let Us Help You!
Sell-Through Solutions creates training content for CE and Computer manufacturers to utilize at retail, as well as presentation and PowerPoint skill-building programs. Call Charles Thompson at 863-815-1760 or email here to shift your company's training effort into high gear! |
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STS Celebrates
5th Anniversary!
Sell-Through Solutions
debuted in January 2003 with a mission to become the go-to training resource for elite Consumer Electronics providers. On our fifth anniversary, I'm happy to say we're succeeding. In our ever-changing industry, we still have a long way to go, as training requirements and methods evolve almost as rapidly as the retail climate.
We want to thank the clients below for climbing aboard for the wild ride, and invite the rest of you to join STS on our next five-year mission. Your training audiences will thank you!
Our deepest gratitude to
STS clients:
- Acoustic Research
- Audiovox
- AutoMedia
- AVAD
- Best Buy
- Car Sound & Performance
- Circuit City
- DIRECTV
- Dynamic Control
- Ethereal
- Harmony Remote
- Logitech
- Metra
- Monster
- Panamax
- RCA
- Seagate/Mirra
- Slamco
- Sonance
- Tsunami
- Yamaha
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In-Store Video Is HOT!
In-store video, also known as
"digital signage," is THE hot commodity for consumer product education.
Digital signage leverages a previously unused asset, a retailer's
HDTVs, to educate consumers on any category the retailer deems
important, including home theater, HDTV, buying group initiatives, and
more.
Wal-Mart and Best Buy are ecstatic with the sales results of
their digital signage efforts, citing sales increases wherever they're
utilized. Wal-Mart, via its in-store video, now has the fifth-largest
reach of any network, trailing only big broadcasters ABC, CBS, NBC, and
Fox.
Big box retailers aren't the only ones jumping in. The Nationwide buying group has embraced in-store video for its independent retailers. Terry Oates, president of Nationwide member Great Buys Plus, says in Dealerscope, "These things are network quality. They make us look as good or better than national competitors."
STS video production partner Catalyst Mediawerks now offers
in-store video networks, targeted at buying groups and larger retailers
for economy of scale. Now a retailer's HDTVs can always be on-message,
with all HD content, only approved retailer content, and no competitor
messages.The video can also be repurposed for a retailer's website and
more. Click here to request more information.
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