Building Mailing Lists, List Building, Social Media, Niche Marketing

Web video is a communication technique that provides a viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the most part a non issue other than the degree to which your content and delivery holds your audience’s attention; second, the cost to produce and present professional online video is far more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides the chance to intellectually and emotionally engage your audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not necessarily an attentive one like your website.

As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns, the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand how certain elements affect an audience.

It’s easy to misread a commercial’s true marketing effectiveness and assume the big flashy special effects and grandiose production stunts are what makes a commercial work, but in fact those kinds of things generally only make a commercial more expensive. True the big-deal aspects of a production may attract attention, but it’s the small things that are the most important, the most effective and the most affordable. It’s the things you hardly notice like writing, casting, music, performance, and campaign consistency that have the most impact on a presentation’s ability to communicate, influence and persuade. It’s the production techniques to which the audience pays little attention that maximizes sale-conversions and increases the bottom-line. Take nuts for example.

Color Me Nuts

Nuts, the edible kind, not the irritating relative kind, are about as generic as you can get. So how do you go about creating a marketing campaign for something as mundane as nuts?

The Wonderful Pistachio “Get Crackin” video campaign and micro site got a lot of things right. This series of videos use the same format, style, message, and color in order to turn a nondescript, seemingly unbrandable generic product into a hip, sexy brand. Each element of the presentation re-enforces the other leaving a lasting brand impression without blowing anything up, or spending a fortune creating animated baby skateboarders.

One element that turns this campaign into a great campaign rather than just a very good one is its use of color. What could be simpler?

The campaign’s consistent use of a signature color palette, green and black, combined with a great tagline and a series of clever sketches deliver the kind of memorable impression that prompts instant recognition and impulse-purchasing when seen on store shelves.

One video is not a campaign, so Paramount Farms had seven different videos created, all following the same formula so the audience’s recognition and retention was enhanced and re-enforced every time they watched a new video segment.

Watch the: Pistachios Mobsters Do It Video (my favorite BTW)

This technique is not new; in particular Danone uses color co-ordination effectively in their television commercials to distinguish their various brands of yogurt: Activa uses a green color palette, DanActive uses yellow, and Silhouette uses purple. The Danone commercials don’t have the edginess of the pistachio campaign but their use of color is well thought-out and effective even though the messaging is pretty standard.

The edgy style, consistent format, and color branding definitely qualifies the “Get Crackin” videos as a Killer Campaign.

The Color of Money

Another campaign that makes an impression by means of its clever use of color is the Edward Jones “Join Us” campaign. If you’re not familiar with the commercials they are available on YouTube but unfortunately the embed option for them has been disabled.

These commercials were shot on a white background in black-and-white, a technique that draws special visual attention to the yellow-and-black Edward Jones logo. The whole package is very clever from the way the videos are shot, to the dialog, the music, and of course the clever use of color, or lack-there-of.

The same visual style was repurposed for a companion print ad campaign further establishing and enhancing the brand image in the minds of the audience.

Edward Jones Companion Print Ads

The Audacity to Believe

Is on Board With the Crazy Idea

Signature Color Branding

Colorcom is a color consultancy located in Hawaii and New York. According to their website, color branding increases recognition by up to eighty percent; it aids memory processing and storage; and it attracts attention, increases comprehension and mentally engages the viewer. That’s pretty powerful stuff, and you don’t have to be a mega corporation with deep pockets to implement color effectively.

Color Affects, a London-based color consultancy, explains how color affects perception on a physiological level through the electrical impulses that pass from the retina to the hypothalamus area of the brain that controls our hormones and endocrine system. The hypothalamus controls behavior patterns, sex and reproductive functions, metabolism and appetite among others.

Color By Association

Color by itself is not enough to get the job done. The pistachio campaign added the format, style, messaging and performance elements in a consistent campaign that re-enforced the message and the brand.

In the end, Web videos are not as much about making a sale as they are about making contact: contact in the sense of connecting to an audience on an intellectual and emotional level. Web videos designed merely to flog some product or service have built-in limitations, and an abbreviated shelf-life, whereas video presentations designed to engage can become eternal.

RELATED ARTICLES:

- Killer Campaigns Volume 1
- Killer Campaigns Volume 2: Making Emotional Connections
- Killer Campaigns Volume 3 – Tell A Memorable Story

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Learn more of these tips, tricks and hands on training at: the Video BOSS

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If you’ve ever landed on a web site where a video plays and it appears that the person in the video is magically floating on top of the page, that’s a transparent video. And in this video, Dave Kaminski from Web Video University shows you how to do it …

Resources
Transparent commands used in embed code:

Placed in the object tag of the embed code

Placed in the embed tag of the embed code wmode=”transparent”

About the Author

Dave Kaminski is a professional copywriter, videographer and 10-year veteran of direct response marketing whose work in multimedia advertising has resulted in millions of dollars worth of sales. A former U.S. Marine, Dave specializes in teaching entrepreneurs how to effectively use web video in their marketing efforts.

Dave also offers online coaching classes on how to create web video, as well as tips on how to promote and market them, for both MAC & PC users. I have taken these coaching classes and highly recommended them. For more information on creating web videos, please go here

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So you want to develop a Web video campaign to put on your website and add to YouTube and all the other Web video directories. Maybe you even want to create a new video micro site to promote that hot new product or service you’re about to launch. You want it done right, professional, slick, and you want it to be effective. Well of course you do.

You know you need to hire a firm that has the creative staff capable of not just shooting video but professionals who can write, direct, edit, and add all the post production elements you need, including signature music, sound design and on screen text. But are there other things you need to be aware of in order to maximize the return on your investment? You bet there are.

There are lots of production companies that just want to crank out the work at the lowest cost without providing any marketing guidance as to what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps these firms don’t know the difference or perhaps they just don’t care. The company you hire should be willing to provide some advice as to the best way to present your message so that it delivers the best return on your investment. Too many Web videos are technically proficient but lack any marketing impact. The last thing you want is a bland, boring, lifeless presentation that goes in one ear and out the other.

When you’re ready to add video to your marketing and sales tool kit make sure you avoid the following seven deadly video development sins.

Doing It Wrong – 7 Web Video Mistakes To Avoid

1. The need to get it all in.
Everyone wants his or her money’s worth. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as a general principle, but getting your money’s worth means more than hiring the cheapest bidder or cramming every possible product, service, benefit and feature into a single video.

You’re better off creating a series of shorter videos each about two to three minutes in length, and each focusing on a particular aspect or sales point. Ten minutes is generally the maximum you can hold someone’s attention, but it will be more effective if you break that ten-minute presentation into a series of shorter segments. By creating a presentation that flows from one focused video to the next, you lead your audience logically through a voyage of discovery that is far more interesting and memorable than a single over-stuffed information-onslaught that overwhelms the audience. Each video becomes an opportunity to re-enforce your marketing image and embed your brand personality by consistent use of color, style, format, and message.

2. The desire to appeal to everyone.
Whatever you sell, not everyone is going to buy it. No matter how good your offering is there are people that you are never going to convince. We believe a properly implemented video presentation is the most effective method of delivering a marketing message, but no matter what the evidence, there are some people who just won’t buy into the idea. If you try to appeal to everyone you will end-up appealing to no one and you will waste a lot of time, money and effort in the process. Trying to appeal to everyone merely dilutes your message.

By concentrating on the most appropriate market segments allows you to fine-tune your message. And if you create a series of videos each highlighting a different aspect of your offering as described earlier, people will be able to pick and choose what they are interested in and what they want to watch. In this way your audience won’t get bored or frustrated by listening to things they may already know, or are just not interested in hearing.

3. The fear of commitment.
Marketing is all about creating an identifiable, unique identity, a personality that people will recognize and remember: a brand. It’s what will set you apart from your rivals and give you a competitive edge; if done right, it’s the one thing your competitors can try to copy but will never be able to duplicate.

Success requires a commitment to your brand image and to the marketing strategy from which it flows. Strategy is the big idea that guides everything related to your business, and it should not be confused with tactics. Tactics are the ways you implement strategy. If you confuse strategy and tactics, you will find yourself running in circles never accomplishing anything.

If you commit to and successfully target one market segment, you not only establish and enhance your brand image but you also create a ‘drag effect.’ For example, the success of Apple’s iTunes and iPods dragged their computer sales along with it. Once people became Apple customers for one product they were more likely to buy another; and even though iPod advertising was originally aimed at a youth-oriented market, it’s success dragged both younger and older consumers along for the sales ride.

4. The need to accommodate everybody’s agenda.
As companies grow they hire new people, and wherever there are groups of people there are opposing opinions, and opinions can very easily turn into agendas. Your sales people want lower prices, your accountant wants higher prices, and your advertising people want something new; everyone has an agenda and they all conflict with each other. The result is compromise. And compromise kills brand personality and corporate identity.

Even big companies with deep pockets and access to any and every expert in the world are susceptible to agenda creep. Take the fast food giant McDonald’s for example. Their television advertising is all over the place. They use different themes, different approaches, and even different music in almost every commercial, each aimed at a different market with a different product offering. The only thing that seems to be consistent is the logo and signature jingle that is slapped on to the end of each spot. As individual commercials they my stand up, obviously they have high production qualities but as a marketing message strategy they become mere advertising noise rather than building on each other to form a coherent approach and brand message. What they seem to want to say is that McDonald’s is for everyone no matter what age or food preference, and that kind of approach only leads to a muddled message. McDonald’s may get away with it in the short term because they are McDonald’s and have a long history of effective advertising. Whether McDonald’s simultaneous multiple campaign approach is the result of a desire to accommodate different agendas, or just designed to appeal to everybody doesn’t matter, the result is the same – muddled messaging.

5. The lack of vision.
And speaking of corporate identity, do you have one? Do you have a vision, a point-of-view, an attitude; a perspective on how you can best serve your clients. The idea of a corporate vision is something that is easy to ignore, after all, how much is a corporate vision worth? It’s not like you can go on eBay or Amazon and download one for a few bucks.

I recall seeing a documentary on a very successful clothing manufacturer. The founder of the company was reviewing the company’s latest line of running shoes. He looked at the shoes, looked at the product manager, and said, “Where’s the logo?” to which the product manager answered, “We can add it anywhere.” The company CEO in no uncertain terms told the executive that that wasn’t good enough. The logo represented the company and the company represented a particular lifestyle. The shoe being presented was just another shoe and that was not acceptable. The shoe needed to fit the ideal for which the company stood. The CEO had a vision and everything the company did had to conform to that vision. Developing and presenting a unified corporate vision is how you create a brand and how you build a business.

6. The fear of failure.
No matter how good you are, you are bound to have some failures. These are learning experiences from which you can develop new and improved initiatives. Building a brand identity is a slow and continuous process and it doesn’t always move forward without some bumps in the road. Sometimes what initially appears to be a failure is not a failure at all, but rather the foundation for future more successful efforts. As long as your company has a vision of who it is, what it does, and why your audience should care, and as long as you stick to that vision, you will ultimately find a way to get your message across as long as you keep trying.

Like any kind of advertising program, whether it’s video, print, or anything else, one-shot efforts almost never show results.

7. It’s all about the features.
The insistence on promoting features without tying them to an emotional benefit is one of the most common marketing mistakes made. You may be offering your customers the most features available but unless you also offer them an emotional value proposition, you will never get beyond the whose-the-cheapest kind of sale.

No matter what features you add to your product or service, you know your competitors will follow with something better, and probably at a lower price. It’s a game no smart marketing executive should play. Discovering the emotional value in your product or service is not always easy when viewed from an internal perspective. If you haven’t discovered what that underlying subliminal value is and how to communicate it then your producer needs to help you find it. It’s the most important element in building long-term marketing success.

Conclusion
There you have it, the seven deadly video marketing development sins. No one said this stuff is easy. It would be nice if you could just look at your analytics, and eureka, a marketing solution would appear, but that’s not the way it works. Marketing is a psychological marathon that takes time, commitment, practice, and a good coach you can call on to move you in the right direction.

About The Author

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

- WebVideoUniversity: Easy to follow classes/tutorials on creating web video for PC & MAC users
- Easy Video Player: Allows you to choose several video players to use, track and upload your
video to S3 and your sites/blogs
- TrafficGeyser: Service to upload to several video sites and drive traffic to your videos
- TheTubeViews: Very affordable and effective to get 1000’s of video views, channel views, etc for
all YouTube videos

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A Checklist for More Traffic and More Views

There was an interesting session on online video at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East, which WebProNews attended. The session was called “Video Search Marketing Beyond YouTube”. The following tips come from a combination of presentations from that session from speakers: William Leake of Apogee Search, John McWeeny of TurnHere, and Eric Papczun of Performics.

Do you have trouble getting the performance you want out of your video efforts?

The tips are all aimed at making your online video efforts more successful by optimizing them for search engine performance and ultimately driving more views and traffic back to your site. So, here they are in no particular order:

1. Encode video files with good metadata like titles, dates, authors, descriptions and keywords.

2. Offer multiple formats (e.g. mov, mpeg, mp4, flv).

3. Include keywords (and the word “video”) in the filename.

4. On the page, follow general SEO principles for optimizing (title, meta, H1, etc. tags and URLs).

5. Include contextually related links to articles and other videos on the page.

6. Post captions and/or abstracts as additional relevant on-page content.

7. Use Unique URLs.

8. Use one video per URL.

9. Use embedded players rather than pop-ups or links to files.

10. Create nav links to the video content.

11. Place video files in one central directory called “videos” off the root of your folder structure.

12. Enable comments.

13. Include social bookmarking tools.

14. Allow visitors to subscribe to your videos.

15. Let viewers grab your embed code – easily (with a link).

16. Remember internal linking (consider site-wide links in your page footer).

17. Distribute your video to the top video search sharing sites.

18. Include titles, descriptions & keywords on YouTube, etc.

19. Create a video site map with a mRSS feed.

20. Control associated page text to optimize for search engines.

21. Control the player (which may drive future video SEO).

22. Shorter videos are better.

23. Don’t spend a fortune.

24. Include end slates with URLs.

25. Drive people back to your site.

26. Thumbnail images matter.

27. Look for new opportunities for video placement (think about things like Google’s product search).

28. Figure out what keyword phrase is most relevant (and winnable) for your video.

29. Look into including videos in Google Place Pages.

30. Set up a Google video XML sitemap.

31. Use tools like Tubemogul’s to optimize metadata across the major video sharing sites.

32. Track viewership.

33. Advertise with video via rich search ads with Google/Yahoo and YouTube promoted videos.

34. Make sure your videos live on your domain and use 3rd parties for distribution purposes.

35. Stay on top of technology changes and new standards.

 
About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Go to YouTube. It seems anybody can make a web video (or try to). Videos create attention, awareness, they entertain, THEY SELL! With faster broadband speeds, video marketing is now a “must” in one’s online business tool kit.

As statistics show, web video marketing/advertising is known to give you a higher percentage of sales BUT poorly done or thoughtout video ads have just the opposite effect.

<-- See this quality comparison video ...

Have you created a web video for your site, squeeze page or even YouTube and after the time spent wished it had come out better, was more professional looking? Have you wanted to make a video ad or presentation for the web, but really haven't a clue how or what too do first?

Check out this excellent resource tool created by Dave Kaminski, WebVideo University. It’s a four-week online training course set in a “virtual classroom” environment. It provides step by step video-based lessons that show you how to create ‘professional looking’ web commercials from start to finish

Here is an 81 sec video from Dave Kaminski about the program.

After seeing most of the video ads put out by various people thus far, this is a MUST HAVE!

For more information, please go here.

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Originally posted in: July ‘09

I see that several of you have taken advantage of the current 7 day trial offer for $1 at Web Video University. I cannot say enough about this great video training program offered by Dave Kaminski. Everything is taught via easy to understand video based tutorials, and are offered both for MAC and PC users.

Whether you’re a web based business owner looking to drive more sales, a YouTube posting fanatic, a musician wanting to make music videos of your material, whatever… these classes can teach you almost EVERYTHING about creating web videos (from software to use, to cameras, techniques and tricks, lighting, 3D …) To find out more, go to www.creatingwebvideo.com (choose selection one for information on classes).

My Testimony About Web Video University
A few months back I wanted to get into making videos for my web business. I knew ‘nada’ about how or what to do to accomplish this. I stumbled accross Dave’s website and paid for the 4 week course that was available at the time. I do not claim to be anything still other than a video newbie, but if you visit my YouTube channel, you’ll see a few of the videos that I personally have done thus far. Not only were they a blast to make, but I have started to get a few offers from people for me to make videos for them (extra income).

Check out the 7 day offer for $1. If you know web video, wanna know web video, think you wanna know web video – get over there today and start the classes.

Click here to visit the Web Video University website.

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Ordinally posted on: April 16, 2009

I just finished my very 1st video!!!
This is a big deal for me, the reason being that, since the time I first started the coaching sessions with Alex Jeffreys, and the video training classes with Dave Kaminski, I have set my goal for this year to move all my business projects and websites into the video marketing mode. I will soon add www.ThreeToedCrow.com as the main portion of this blog just for video marketing.

The video is entitled “List Building (Red Bull Edition) remix”
(Select the HQ option “watch in high quality”)

Why Video Marketing?
There are several reasons why I have chosen to go ‘head long’ into video marketing. As the years have past, I have stayed with static website pages. Traffic and sales on those sites are now almost non existant. By placing a video on the same site about that product or service, will keep the site visitor interested in what you are offering, thus increasing sales. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about …

Earler today a friend of mine asked me to make a video ad for his recording studio located in New Jersey. They use the new Pro Tools HD 8 by Digidesign. In doing a little research, I visited the Digidesign site, and on several of the pages within were very cool video clips of their new audio recording software- I almost wanted to buy it, it just LOOKED so good! And that’s the key! I could actually visualize it, see how it works, experence it … and it was good!

With the social media sites and video sharing sites available to everyone, you now have a viewing audience 2nd to none. You can showcase your site, goods, services, from several sites like YouTube and GoogleVideo.

One of my goals for this year (when I have time that is), is to go into all of the sites I have, decide which ones I am keeping, and then upload at least one video per site which targets that site.

Want to make web videos? As I mentioned, I took video training classes with Dave Kaminski. If you’d like more info on creating web videos, please visit CreatingWebVideos.com

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