December 4, 2023 Budget Bicyle Center runs a couple of stores near us on Regent Street in Madison, Wisconsin – and their shop at 1230 Regent Street stocks hundreds and hundreds of bikes. This point was really brought home by a short, dramatic video created for them by drone photographer/videographer Oberon Jagodinski of OVJ Photography. You can see it on Obie’s Instagram feed @ovjphotography. We thought it would be fun to have him do a tour of our shop, and we’ve already gotten a great response to the finished result, which was posted yesterday. The original concept was to keep it to 45 seconds, but we couldn’t show the whole store in a meaningful way that fast. Instead the footage was edited down to 90 seconds, which is the maximum length allowed in Instagram (we could also post it on TikTok, but we’re not on that platform). Take a look! It was important to us that we be able to use the video year-round on our website as well as right now on our social media, so we intentionally did not linger on the Christmas goods currently on display. We are pleased that the drone appears to slow down slightly when going past some nationally-known brands, which meant that when we posted the video on Instagram we were able to tag those vendors. Adding the store’s name and location at the beginning and end will hopefully remind viewers that they can come visit us in person if they’re intrigued by this quick birds-eye view. We made sure we had neatened all our displays and cleaned the floors in advance of filming, because the drone kicks up dust and bits of paper. It’s also rather loud, so we had to film when the store was closed. Creating our video tour took a practice session of about an hour and then another hour to film. The hard work of editing it down to a minute and a half, and adding royalty-free music, was done by OVJ Photography. A store would need to be a certain size to make this kind of video worthwhile. Another option to consider is a 360° virtual tour, which allows customers a chance to preview the inside of your shop. These can be posted as part of Google Street View, according to 360° Virtual Business Tours, which is one of many commercial firms creating this type of video. The hope is whatever you create will become an effective part of your promotional program. As with any advertising, it’s wise to get a quote so that you are aware in advance of all the costs – in terms of both money and time. You’ll need this information in order to decide whether the investment will be worthwhile for your store. Happy Retailing, Carol “Orange” Schroeder