Use Photos, Videos And Audio To Remember And Promote Your Event Or Party

Hello, and welcome to another addition of the Power Performers Radio Show. Power Performers Radio is the exclusive voice of today’s leading edge event planners featuring today’s top motivational speakers, super star celebrities, leading sports professionals and over the top interviews with the best of the best.

Power Performers Radio is all about planning and perfecting your next company, corporate, college or private special event. From highly talked about trade shows to memorable cutting edge conventions, this is Power Performers Radio.

Robert Channing: Hi, this is Robert Channing. I am the world’s leading mentalist, mind reader and mental motivator. I am the owner and CEO of Power Performers, Inc. We work with event planners, motivational speakers, sports stars, celebrities and famous people to create memorable events for everyone or their event is free.

I am on the phone today with Ralph Zuranski. He is a special featured writer, photographer and theme Web site developer as well as the creator of the In Search of Heroes program. He is also an internet consultant that helps individuals and companies use audio, video blogs, podcasts and video blogs to achieve their marketing goals.

He has been a technical director for many companies for over 25 years specializing in ACT Contact Management software, Microsoft Office, computer hardware, PDAs and delivering audio and video over the internet. I first met Ralph when he took photographs and ran the speakers Power Point at the Spiritual Marketing Super Summit.

Joe Vitale hired my company Power Performers to coordinate the entire event. I was the master of ceremonies and the featured entertainment for the big awards banquet. I was so amazed at how Ralph could not only run the computers, instantly troubleshoot everything, the speaker’s computer problems and take photographs of the speakers all at the same time.

He created a great themed site for the event at www.SpiritualMarketingSuperSummitPhotos.com.

Robert Channing: I have Ralph on the line right now. Ralph how are you doing today?

Ralph Zuranski: I’m doing great Robert. How are you?

Robert Channing: I’m doing fantastic. It’s a little bit cold in upstate New York, but you’re out in San Diego, right?

Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. It’s freezing – 45 degrees.

Robert Channing: I woke up this morning and had to jump start my car. It was about 6 degrees this morning.

Ralph Zuranski: Oh, man that is cold!

Robert Channing: Listen, it’s nice to have you on the Power Performers Radio Show. I just wanted to ask you a few questions if you are up to it.

Ralph Zuranski: I am up to it.

Robert Channing: What benefits do event planners receive when they have a professional photographer take lots of photos of the speakers and attendees at their event?

Ralph Zuranski: One of the biggest things that I’ve seen that really benefits event planners is creating a family album of all the people that attended their event. When people have a house that’s on fire, one of the most important things that they run out of the house is basically their photographs. Photographs of people, well people love to look at photographs of themselves.

Robert Channing: It’s basically creating a community for them right? When you have that after the show don’t you put everything up on a Web site for them?

Ralph Zuranski: You bet. I actually do it during the event. I take photos over multiple days seminars or events I actually upload the photo albums everyday to my In Search of Heroes Web site so that people can go in and look at the photos that day of themselves and send those photos to the people that are in their intimate circle.

Robert Channing: Why is it so important for event planners to have photos taken at their events?

Ralph Zuranski: Well, the reason why it’s so important is because you need to have a record of what you do. If you get a bunch of pictures of people that are having a great time, people are smiling, it builds a huge bond to your particular event plus it bonds each of the individuals to the other people that are there.

When you have those photos you actually have the history of your event that you can use to help you in marketing your future events. Then to the people that didn’t get a chance to go to the event, when you have those photos and put them up on the internet everybody can go and enjoy your event just by looking at the photos. A lot of people actually see their friends.

I’ve been doing photo themed sites for internet marketing events and other conferences and it’s amazing once you put that up there it becomes like a family album. People continue to go in there day after day, month after month and look at the photos of themselves and their friends and I haven’t really put up anything other than just the photos.

Robert Channing: You did Joe’s event and I’ve been there many times to re-look at the event and recapture moments. It made me feel good just to see all the smiling faces and it reminded me of a lot of people that I did meet at the event. What are the qualities and services that event planners should look for in a photographer or Web master?

Ralph Zuranski: The abilities that the person should have are one, being able to take great photos of people smiling and having a good time and basically be able to take a lot of photos. The more photos that you take of the people at the event, the more people are going to go in and look at the themed Web site for the event.

If you have somebody that really is hard working and has a good ability to grab peoples cards and put numbers on the cards to the photos you can actually put the names and information about the people that are in those photos as a way of driving traffic to their Web sites and also, just by giving everybody a catalog, not really a catalog but an album of names and faces.

I know when I go to a lot of different events, I may show up at home with 100 or 200 cards. I look at all those cards and I absolutely have no idea who those cards belonged to. In the early days of doing the themed sites of the different marketing conferences I took the time to basically ID those photos and put the names of the people underneath those photos.

I actually created a story of the speaker through photos that I took of them to help share that knowledge of the speaker with the people that didn’t have the chance to actually be there. Also, for a refresher for people that were there they could go back and look at the photos and the stories that the speakers had to say.

Robert Channing: I have got to tell you Ralph that I was so impressed. I’ve got to interrupt you for a moment here. I was so impressed when I met you at Joe’s summit. We actually became very good friends at that time. What impressed me the most was how fast that you could get this stuff done.

I’ve never seen anybody work as fast as you or take the time to really make people feel good about themselves and also during the event we could view the photos. You had a little slide show at the end to show us all.

Ralph Zuranski: That’s another neat thing that I do is I try to upload the photos. If I’m running the computers at the same time that I’m doing the photos for the event and I’m running the Power Point, I upload the photos of the people that I took in the previous break up to the computer and run it as a screen saver of all the photos of the people.

While the people are at the event they actually see photos of themselves and photos of their friends during the event. That further creates loyalty between them and the event planners. I know you were there. You just look at the audience and the screen saver is up there and the photos are flowing across the screen.

You’ve got those people’s attention. They are looking to see if their photo is going to pop up because you are a famous performer. People know you and you are famous world wide and it is kind of neat to get some type of credibility, some type of exposure and when people are there at an event.

I’m mixing their photos with your presentation as the world’s greatest mentalist and mind reader. That just makes them feel better about themselves. It’s sort of like fame by association rather than guilt by association.

Robert Channing: I hear you Ralph. I remember at a couple of conferences that you have done, these people had their picture taken and after the conference they might have forgotten who that speaker was or who that person was that they met can get that information just automatically.

They can create lifetime friendships, lifetime bonds, lifetime relationships just by using the photographs. What a great marketing tool that is. How can event planners use photographs of previous events to market their future events?

Ralph Zuranski: The most valuable thing that you can give a person is a good picture of themselves. I use a special type of printer that is made by Canon. It’s a little bit older printer, a CP200. What it does is it prints out the photos onto a postcard that is ready to be mailed.

What I do is take those postcards and use those throughout the year as part of a Piranha Marketing strategy where ideally you would send up to ten postcards a day to people that you know in your business or in your client group. There is nothing more powerful than sending somebody a postcard that has their photo of them looking good and having a great time at an event and then putting a nice little note on the back of it.

By taking those photos and constantly printing them out and just sending them out throughout the year to the people that are important to your business with a little personalized note on it there is nothing that I know that is more powerful than that, even sending gifts or money or whatever.

If you send a good photo of somebody and you send it to them periodically with a special message that you have for them it’s just astounding the impact that has on that person.

Robert Channing: How can event planners use photographs for pre and I know how you just said for post event promotion, but for pre-promotions to an event?

Ralph Zuranski: Well if they have the photographs of the people from the previous event in all of their different events, if they use that simple strategy of printing out those photos on a postcard that’s already preprinted that has the information about that event, they can send that out to market their event. Ideally when they had their event and they followed the advice that you have on your Web site about marketing it to the media.

They can get the photographs of the different media people that were there and it makes a huge difference. They can again send some people a photograph, especially a good one either as a postcard marketing your event, or send it out to market the video and audio of that event.

Send out the postcard to remind people that they were there at the event that they were at and use it to sell the audio and video programs of previous events. Also, to promote the future event if you record everything and record not only the speakers but also the performers and have that as a package. That’s something that you can sell over and over and over again. You can use it as a gift that you give people to encourage them to attend your new event.

Robert Channing: Okay Ralph, let me ask you this. What are some suggestions that you can give the event planners that are out there listening or even the speakers and entertainers that have their own events or perform they can give advice to the event planners?

Event planners are always looking for something new, something to make them look great. Everybody wants to look good in front of their employees or in front of the people that hired them. What are some of the suggestions that you have for event planners to integrate photographs, audio and video themed Web sites?

Ralph Zuranski: The way that I work it and I’ve had the opportunity to work with some phenomenal groups of people having done so many conferences. I work with not only the creators of the event, but also work with the companies that they hire to put that entire event on. I’ve worked with some good ones. I’ve worked with some great ones.

I’ve worked with some that were just a total flop and the most valuable thing that the event planners can do is first, set up a company to go in and do the video taping and the audio taping of the event so you’ll have a record. You want to make sure that those people are competent and that they have two cameras that they are going to use.

One is for audience response and two that they are keeping a camera on the speakers and also at the end of the event and during the event to be able to do audio and video testimonials of the people that are there. It’s important to get those testimonials. Those are going to help sell the event and sell the product that is created from the event. By doing that, that’s one of the most valuable things you can do.

As you know, video is probably the most powerful medium for communicating information to everybody, especially people go to movies. They watch TV all the time. They say that 70% of the people after they graduate from school, they never read another book.

Robert Channing: I will tell you just to prove that point Ralph. I do thousands of shows over the last 15 to 20 years and out of all the events that I’ve been to, the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that were photographed and video taped. I’m glad that we video taped them and had the client photograph them because I use all that stuff in my promotional material.

If I didn’t have that I wouldn’t have promotional material. I don’t hire people to go out and do this. It’s pretty easy for somebody like me as an entertainer, speaker or even a celebrity to have somebody come out and shoot the videos or the photographs with even a small disposable camera, right?

Ralph Zuranski: Anything you can have and you have to remember that images are much more powerful than words. You know, when you are working on the internet everybody says that copy is king. Well, the way I look at it on a priority basis is first a video is king because that’s what everybody is used to.

That’s how everybody prefers to have their information delivered. They can see the people. They can hear them. They can establish an instant rapport with those people when they see them in action. It’s almost like being there seeing them live.

The next most powerful thing is the photograph because again there is something special about the image. You capture the true essence of the human soul if you take a good photograph. So having somebody there to photograph everything and then uploading those photos it gives you probably the most powerful way of benefiting from that event and promoting that product created at that event.

Then creating advertising for the future event and creating a huge family or community around your event that everybody just becomes dedicated to. They just feel like a part of the family because you were kind enough to take a good photo of them.

Robert Channing: For a little while ago you were telling me a story before we got on the phone about a gentleman by the name of Joe Polish that has a company called Piranha marketing and you actually shot his event and did the photographs. He just called you recently didn’t he? Could you tell us a little bit about that, what happened and what he wanted? He is the top marketer in the world, one of the top marketers. He is the top guy isn’t he?

Ralph Zuranski: Yes he is. He has the top selling program Piranha Marketing on Nightingale and I met Joe at the big seminar in LA last year and he saw me taking photos of one of the speakers. I took some really great action shot of him while he was up on stage.

He sells to the carpet cleaning people because he is a carpeter. That’s where he developed all of his marketing techniques for people to dominate their market. He takes these sort of like shoe covers that look like plastic hair nets. They are opaque and he put that on his head while he was speaking on stage and it was really funny, so I made sure I captured that moment in time.

Right there on the break I went up to my room and printed it out on one of my postcards and gave it to him. He was just so thankful for that and he said, “Would you do this at my event?” I said I would be happy to.

Robert Channing: I noticed when I looked at the event after on his Web site and it was your photograph that he used to promote his event that he just did for selling different services. Basically I just saw the picture and it had about 15 in one photo and 150 people in other photos. He had a big sign up that said Piranha Marketing.

Ralph Zuranski: It was awesome.

Robert Channing: They were cheering. He is using it all on his Web stuff now isn’t he?

Ralph Zuranski: He’s not only using them on his Web sites, but he’s also using them in his Power Point presentations when he goes out and markets to big groups. If you have quality pictures of people at your events it is just such a powerful image of people having a great time.

Joe was so impressed with my ability to give photos on postcards, because right after the event I took the best photos of him and his staff and his speakers and I gave it to him right on the spot as a special gift from myself. Then I gave him my photos of the other people and suggested that he send them out to people who are important to his event and to the success of it, people that you want to do a little something special for.

He was so impressed with that. He said, “Ralph, you’ve got to show me how you do that!” I just got an e-mail from Joe today.

Robert Channing: He’s the top marketer in the world. Right? He’s one of the top guys. He’s the one that everybody goes to and gets information from. Doesn’t he charge like $10,000 an hour to come out or something along those lines?

Ralph Zuranski: I don’t think it is $10,000 an hour. I think that’s his day rate.

Robert Channing: That’s for the day. You’re right.

Ralph Zuranski: But all the internet marketing gurus and his marketing program that he has developed over 15 years is the best that I’ve ever seen because it’s ELF. It’s easy, lucrative and fun and it’s all automated so by the time anybody comes to your business to learn about contracting with you…

Robert Channing: They already feel like they know you just by seeing the photographs.

Ralph Zuranski: Absolutely. They know, love and trust you because you’ve already done all of the selling. You’ve had automated things like automated 800 numbers, auto responder downloads where they can educate themselves before they ever get to talk to you.

It’s just such a much easier way to do it because the people are already pre-qualified. Sales people don’t have to try to re-educate the people every time they call. By the time these people call they go through the Piranha Marketing program they are ready to get involved. They are ready to get going.

Robert Channing: Even college event planners and corporate planners, any event they have. I’ve been to so many events where they didn’t take photographs and after the show or after the presentation or after the whole event really people forget 95% of what they have seen. If they can go back and refresh their memory they are going to remember the great time that they had.

How can you help event planners make their events more enjoyable? What would you recommend to make their events more enjoyable and profitable using photographs?

Ralph Zuranski: Well, as I was talking about originally the first thing is doing the videos. The second thing is doing the photographs. The third thing is showing the photographs during the event if it’s a multiple day event or just even a one day event. If you have somebody that’s fast that does it with a digital camera and you are running a Power Point you can throw those photos of the people that are there up on the screen right while it’s happening.

Robert Channing: That is so incredible. I’ve got to tell you the people listening right now and believe me when I tell you that one of the best things, probably the best thing if I could do this at every event that I performed at or had my performers take a camera with them and take pictures remember most of your business, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients.

If you can do this for the top 20% of your clients or the top 20 events you do during the year and keep in contact with them over the year with photographs and different images of the past event they are apt to do more business with you. Wouldn’t you agree Ralph?

Ralph Zuranski: Oh, I totally agree. Just look at how powerful it is just the photos that I sent out over the last couple of years. I am now probably the leader in the field of creating themed Web sites and shooting photos at events just from letting people take those photos and using them off of my Web site where I put them and being able to use them for free.

A lot of times the photographers will charge a pretty good amount for people to buy the photos. If you go ahead and just make those available to people to use in newsletters, just as long as they give you credit or give your event credit of the photographer or where the photos came from that also increases links to your Web site picked up by the search engines.

It just increases your standing in Google and the other search engines because you have links coming directly into your site. I’ve used photos of people as a means of creating links to my sites to help them have high rankings in the search engines.

Robert Channing: People think, “Oh, that’s just too simple Ralph. Big deal, photographs it’s just so simple that people forget to do that isn’t that true? People just don’t think about it. Oh, photographs, big deal.” But when you take a camera with you those are just the best memories.

How many times did somebody get married and they hired a photographer and then half of the time even the photographer didn’t catch the cool moments? Maybe it was the people in the reception that had cameras on their table and took all the pictures and they had more of the action shots and stuff.

I would say if you are going to go out and photograph and event maybe provide 20 cameras for all of the attendees.

Ralph Zuranski: That’s a brilliant idea. You bet. That is a brilliant idea and then just have them turn the cameras back in to you. You get them developed and create a little themed Web site for that event. Send it back to your entire list and I guarantee you will have no problem selling your next event.

Robert Channing: And also getting speaking business or consulting business or if you are an event planner communicating with your next client or even showing a future client or even a past client, past and future clients of what you have done for other clients and how well the event went. They can actually physically look at it on their screen and just instantaneously pull it up, look at it and say, “That was really cool!”

They build more rapport with you. They like you more. They love, trust and respect what you have done. Is that right?

Ralph Zuranski: That is so true.

Robert Channing: I just wanted to say thanks so much. If you have any other closing comments before we finish our time is running out for this interview. Do you have anything else you would like to share with our event planners or any speakers or entertainers out there that could use this for their events?

Ralph Zuranski: I really look at your company as the model. I’ve seen you live a couple of times and I’m just astounded at how incredible your performance is.

I really felt thrilled to have the opportunity to photograph your event when I was at the Spiritual Marketing Super Summit and told your story through photos of the event. If people are interested just to see the power of it they can go to my In Search of Heroes and actually listen to your In Search of Heroes interview.

Robert Channing: What is the Web site?

Ralph Zuranski: www.InSearchOfHeroes.com and you can click on the photo album and you will be able to see all the photos of all the different events that I’ve done. You can actually see Robert Channing’s presentation and I put in little captions underneath. I think I did over 60 photos of you at that event to tell the story of your being an MC.

Robert Channing: My ESP mind reading show right?

Ralph Zuranski: That was incredible.

Robert Channing: Well good!

Ralph Zuranski: I was just thankful to have the opportunity to be there and to see you as MC and you as a performer and to see how well you coordinated that event. It had to be probably the best coordinated event I have ever been to.

Robert Channing: I appreciate it. Well, it’s been from 25 years of being in events. For the people out there listening, this was Ralph Zuranski In Search of Heroes.com. If you want to look at www.SpiritualMarketingSuperSummitPhotos.com and just search for Ralph Zuranski. How do you spell it Ralph?

Ralph Zuranski: Z-U-R-A-N-S-K-I

Robert Channing: Zuranski, Ralph Zuranski. Well, Ralph it was a pleasure having you on today and it was a pleasure having you on. It was a great tool for everybody to use with the photographs. Please everybody listen to it again. Check it out and implement it even if you are taking photographs without the video you are going to see an increase in your events next time and also a pleasurable thing to take your clients back to look at.

Ralph, it was a pleasure having you here today. Have a wonderful holiday season.

Ralph Zuranski: Thank you so much and the same to you.

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