I’ll only give you this warning once: Poor-quality video will hurt your sales a lot more than it will help. In other words, no video is better than bad video!

I learned this the hard way, when I first began experimenting with video. I put up some low-quality footage shot with a cheap consumer camcorder – a few years ago when they weren’t as good as they are now – and it killed my site’s opt-in and conversion rates.

I wised up, got some high-quality footage together, and as if by a stroke of magic, my sales exploded by more than 40%!

The first thing you need, obviously, is a good video camera. The Canon HV30 is a good choice right now, producing very high-quality HD footage that is indistinguishable from broadcast footage to the untrained eye. It isn’t cheap, but if you’re serious about making money online, it’s a great investment (and while it isn’t cheap, it costs only a fraction as much as a professional camera).

The next step is lighting. This is the biggest mistake that most marketers make – they don’t learn how to set up their lights properly, and the result is poor footage, no matter how good your camera is. In fact, a $500 consumer camcorder with proper lighting will produce better footage than a $20,000 professional camera with bad lighting. That’s a fact.

What you want to do is set up “three-point lighting.” Here’s a picture of what that means, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Three-Point Lighting

As to actual lights themselves, I use Cool Lights from CoolLights.biz. Specifically, I use the 4×55 watt fluorescent light as my key light, the 2×55 watt as my fill light, and their 150 watt metal halide fresnel as my back light. I prefer Cool Lights because they literally run cool, unlike halogen lights which can be hotter than hell. They also use little power. This is a big deal because the wiring in most residential homes, if that’s where you’re working from, won’t support three halogen lights and you’ll trip circuit breakers every time you try to shoot!

I use all 5600k frequency bulbs, since that is the same color frequency as daylight, allowing me to keep the blinds open and let daylight into the room to create a more natural look & feel for my video.

The back light is especially important, and the one element that is most frequently ignored. Without a backlight, your video will look flat and fake, but the addition of a backlight adds depth and realism. You’ll notice when watching television or movies that a backlight is always shining on the subject’s head, separating the actor from the background set.

The next big variable is sound. NEVER use the camera’s built-in microphone! It will result in poor, echoey sound quality.

The best choice is to use a lapel mic. I use Sennheiser G2 EW-100 series mics. These are professional-grade and fairly expensive, so if you want to save a few bucks, go for a less expensive brand like Audio Technica.

The next-best choice, if cost is a major concern, would be the Rode VideoMic. This is a “shotgun” style mic that mounts on top of the video camera. It is highly directional and won’t pick up nearly as much room echo as the camera’s built-in microphone. At under $200, it’s very cost-effective, especially if you would otherwise need multiple wireless lapel mics.

These are just starting recommendations. Come back to this site often, as I will continually update it and add more information on this topic.

If you want to get serious about your video, sites like DVXUser.com and Pana3CCDUser.com are great resources!