Thursday, April 26, 2012

New Video Marketing Workshop, June 2

Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design Offers New Workshop
"Video Marketing: What You Need to Know"


Learn How to Use the Power of Video to Gain a Competitive Advantage

Art Center at Night, the continuing studies program at Art Center College of Design, has designed an exciting new course for Summer 2012. A well-respected video marketing professional has been selected to share insider knowledge and expertise - Lori Berson, owner, BersonDeanStevens, Inc. and VMakers.com

Video is the medium of choice for online communications. Agencies and clients today demand engaging and interactive content that is highly functional, intuitive and measurable. In this one-day introduction to video marketing, you'll gain tactics, strategies and knowledge to apply within your digital communications to help publishers, advertisers and brand marketers improve effectiveness and drive sales. Whether you are involved in creating web sites, point of purchase displays, trade shows, exhibits and/or signage, video knowledge is imperative. Understand how to leverage video to map out your video marketing strategy, evaluate tactical directions and select distribution methods. Learn how to use the power of online video to improve the reach and effectiveness of brand communications and promotions, educate and train, demonstrate, engage, and sell.

Topics include: production; processes; variables; budgets; delivery; measurement; challenges; platforms, devices and browsers; encoding; content; social media integration; marketing, sales and IT involvement.

“Marketers, entrepreneurs and creative professionals seeking video marketing knowledge are fortunate to have an opportunity to learn from such a talented and experienced instructor,” said Dana L. Walker, Managing Director, Public Programs and Director, Art Center at Night.

About Art Center College of Design
A leader in art and design education for over 80 years, Art Center College of Design offers a rigorous and transdisciplinary curriculum, a faculty of professionals, strong ties to industry and commitment to socially responsible design.

Art Center at Night (ACN)

The continuing studies program at Art Center College of Design, allows adult learners the opportunity to explore a wide range of college-level courses in design and the visual arts. Instructors are practicing artists and designers who understand what it takes to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in the creative fields. Rigorous, hands-on learning is stressed in classes taught by the same outstanding faculty who teach in Art Center’s degree programs.

About VMakers
An online video marketing and production company that provides complete video marketing solutions for small businesses, big brands, agencies and Fortune 500 corporations. VMakers' state-of-the-art technology and video experts from Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Paramount, CBS and Fox, create affordable high quality videos that help you sell more, make more and succeed!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

YouTube Video Ads Drive 20% Increase in Traffic to a Business' Web Site

Google-owned YouTube rolled out a number of new initiatives to lure more marketers to the video-sharing site and to ad opportunities in video across the Web. The goal is to build on YouTube’s growing success with video advertising including its early AdWords for video efforts. 

On average, YouTube video ads drive a 20% increase in traffic to a business’ web site and a 5% increase in searches for that business, according to a blog entry YouTube posted over the weekend. 

That’s why Google has now officially opened Google AdWords for video to everyone. The ad process is similar to search advertising — buyers bid on the ads and pay for clicks. Video ads can be promoted by keyword, shown against specific content, or linked into a YouTube account so existing videos can feed the campaign, said Baljeet Singh, YouTube group product manager, who authored the blog post.

“With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel after viewing your ad,” Singh said.

YouTube is also giving away a $75 credit for each new AdWords business, with plans to distribute $50 million in free Google AdWords buys to help 500,000 businesses get into video, Singh said.
If brands need a helping hand to get started making videos, YouTube also created a playbook for advertisers and it’s a hefty 121 pages.- Daisy Whitney, Mediapost

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Monday, April 23, 2012

Google launches Adwords for Video

Introducing AdWords for Video

AdWords for video helps you tell your story with the emotional power of video. Reach viewers around the corner or across the globe on YouTube, the world's largest video community. Your ads can also appear on sites on the Google Display Network -- the world's #1 ad network, reaching 89% of online users.

Best of all, you pay only when viewers choose to watch your ad.
Get all the tools you'll need to create a successful video campaign.

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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Online Video Rankings Reach Record

comScore March 2012 Online Video Rankings
Video Ad Impressions Reach Record Numbers in March

181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March, while video ads topped 8 billion for the first time on record.

Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers
1. YouTube - 146.1 million
2. Yahoo! - 60.6 million
3. VEVO - 51.3 million
4. Facebook.com - 45.1 million
5. Viacom Digital - 44.3 million.
Nearly 37 billion video views occurred during March.
Average viewer watched 21.7 hours of online video content.

Top U.S. Online Video Content Properties Ranked by Unique Video Viewers March 2012
Total U.S. – Home and Work Locations
Content Videos Only (Ad Videos Not Included)
Property Total Unique Viewers (000) Videos (000)* Minutes per Viewer
Total Internet : Total Audience 181,062 36,984,872 1,304.8
Google Sites 146,097 15,748,884 424.6
Yahoo! Sites 60,609 814,838 72.4
VEVO 51,337 706,291 63.0
Facebook 45,073 247,010 21.3
Viacom Digital 44,251 547,732 63.2
AOL, Inc. 43,701 496,415 50.3
Turner Digital 42,917 288,887 24.8
Microsoft Sites 41,169 494,529 46.7
Comcast NBCUniversal 32,164 178,189 36.9
Hulu 31,104 1,010,527 275.2
*A video is defined as any streamed segment of audiovisual content, including both progressive downloads and live streams. For long-form, segmented content, (e.g. television episodes with ad pods in the middle) each segment of the content is counted as a distinct video stream.

Top 10 Video Ad Properties by Video Ads Viewed
- Americans viewed more than 8.3 billion video ads in March
- Time spent watching video ads - 3.5 billion minutes.
- Video ads reached 51 percent of the total U.S.
  population an average of 53 times during the month.

Top U.S. Online Video Ad Properties Ranked by Video Ads* Viewed
March 2012, Total U.S. – Home and Work Locations
Ad Videos Only (Content Videos Not Included)
Property Video Ads (000) Total Ad Minutes (MM) Frequency (Ads per Viewer) % Reach Total U.S. Population
Total Internet : Total Audience 8,370,492 3,545 53.4 51.2
Hulu 1,754,128 690 50.7 11.3
Google Sites 1,269,465 129 17.2 24.2
BrightRoll Video Network** 953,234 589 8.5 36.4
Adap.tv 892,042 531 12.0 24.3
Specific Media** 775,530 358 8.0 31.6
Tremor Video** 675,983 366 13.6 16.2
ESPN 562,584 206 26.4 7.0
TubeMogul Video Ad Platform** 537,180 185 10.8 16.2
Auditude, Inc.** 466,423 195 10.9 13.9
CBS Interactive 415,652 192 17.8 7.6
*Video ads include streaming-video advertising only and do not include other types of video monetization, such as overlays, branded players, matching banner ads, etc.
**Indicates video ad network    †Indicates video ad exchange
Other notable findings from March 2012 include:
  • 83.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  • The duration of the average online content video was 6.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
  • Video ads accounted for 18.5 percent of all videos viewed and 1.5 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Use the power of video to gain a competitive edge.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Video, Social Increase Mobile Content Consumption


One-third of US population will use social networking and video on mobile devices by 2016

With smartphone users expected to make up over half of US mobile users by next year, content consumption on mobile devices is also on the rise, including video viewing and social networking.

eMarketer estimates that by 2016, more than 110 million Americans—or one-third of the total US population—will watch video content on a mobile phone at least once per month. This year, just under 20% of the population, or 25.2% of US mobile phone users, are expected to watch mobile video monthly.

US Mobile Video Viewers, 2010-2016 (millions, % of population and % of mobile phone users)

In addition, according to eMarketer estimates, the population of mobile music listeners will nearly triple in the US between 2011 and 2016, rising from 30.9 million to 81.3 million. eMarketer’s estimates of mobile music listening include music directly downloaded or streamed to mobile phones at least once per month, and exclude sideloaded tracks.

Mobile social networking will reach a greater share of the overall population even sooner, however. One-third of US consumers, or 42.6% of mobile phone users, will log in to social networking sites via mobile devices at least monthly by 2014. The vast majority of these mobile social network users—like mobile video viewers and mobile music listeners—will be using a smartphone to access social content on the go.

US Mobile Social Network Users, 2010-2014

And most will be visiting Facebook from their phones. eMarketer estimates the number of monthly mobile Facebook users in the US last year at 49.4 million, rising to 93.9 million by 2014. By then, over 98% of these users will be accessing the site on a smartphone.

eMarketer’s estimates of mobile content usage, including video, music and social networking, are based on the analysis of survey and traffic data from research firms and regulatory agencies, historical trends, company-specific data, and demographic and socio-economic factors.-eMarketer

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Sunday, April 15, 2012

How Video Powers SEO

Leveraging your online videos is often key to increasing search rankings. 
 We all know that the search engines use social signals as a factor in their overall ranking algorithm, and as the role of social signals becomes increasingly important, so will the role of online video in your overall search and social strategy.
This year, the number of consumers viewing videos online is predicted to reach 169.3 million in the US alone. With numbers that significant, what marketer would argue against the tremendous opportunity video can offer to enhance online presence search rankings?


Customers prefer two minutes to ten

Most people would rather spend two minutes watching an interesting video than spend ten minutes reading an article. Consumers are extremely busy, and they are constantly bombarded with messages that may or may not be relevant to them.
Video is the fastest way for your company to show your audience why they should do business with you. Not only is video a great way to share your story, it’s also a great way to build links back to your site. This is where the major search engine optimization benefit comes into play.


Videos are shared

In their simplest form, search engines bring searchers the most relevant data to their query, and inbound links help the search engines determine the data’s relevancy. When viewers find your video to be valuable content, they are likely to share it, thus facilitating the linking-fest.
Whether it is in the form of information, humor, controversy, entertainment, instruction, or inspiration, the video needs to be compelling enough to make the viewer want to share it. The more shares, the better for your overall online presence.  


Videos increase engagement

A recent comScore study showed websites that contain videos hold a viewer’s attention two+ minutes longer than sites without video content. Visitor time spent onsite is just one more factor that the search engines are looking for to determine relevancy. The fact that your website can hold your viewers’ attention is a big thumbs up. Another recent study, from aimClear, states that videos in universal search results have a 41% higher click-through rate than plain-text results.

Videos offer businesses one more way to get heightened exposure in the search engines. According to a Forrester research study, having a good online video marketing strategy can actually increase your likelihood of achieving first page Google rankings by up to 53 times. For as popular as online videos have become, video marketing is still widely underused by businesses.


Grab it while you can

The “video” search is far less competitive than the “everything” search on Google, yet most marketers are ignoring this opportunity to jump ahead in the search results by implementing an online video strategy. There have been many instances where I have performed a web search using the “Everything” option. A particular business may not rank in the top ten positions on the first page, but when I perform the exact same search using the “videos” option that same business is number one.
This is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to get a one up on their competitors. Granted, the content contained within the video needs to offer value to the viewer. Google tends to show favoritism to informative videos versus strictly sales videos, so this is something that you may want to keep in mind as you develop your strategy. 


Americans spend a day a month on video

In February of 2012 comScore reported that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion (yes, BILLION) videos online in the month of January alone. This equated to the average viewer watching 22.6 hours of online video content in January.
If people are spending nearly an entire day every month watching online videos, there is a tremendous opportunity for businesses and marketers to embrace the opportunity and invest the time into creating quality online content for their target audience to view.


Where is the best place to host your videos?

To be successful with your online video initiatives, and make the most of the SEO benefits, you will want to inundate the web with your videos. Having your videos on your website is just step one to improving your search rankings.
There are numerous outlets for you to take advantage of. YouTube is considered to be the third largest cornerstone of social media strategies for larger companies with 42% or respondents saying that YouTube was in the top three of their priorities for social media execution.
In addition to being among the top three social media outlets, YouTube is regularly ranked among the top three most visited websites online in the US overall.  Although YouTube is the mac daddy of online video viewership, with more than four billion videos being viewed daily and over one hour of video being uploaded every second, there are still other outlets that you should distribute your video to as well. 

YouTube should be your first stop, but make sure to include other video and social sites such as Facebook, Vimeo, Metcafé, DailyMotion, Google+, LinkedIn, and other similar sites to heighten the exposure and linking potential for your video. Make sure to properly title and tag the videos, as well as enable features that make your video easy to share before posting to all of your outlets. 

When strategizing how to improve your search rankings, always think customer first, search engine second. If you are offering true value to your customers (whether in the form of videos, images, or just good content), you are more likely to be rewarded with favorable search engine rankings and enhanced revenue-earning opportunities. It really is a win-win situation. - Jennifer Dunphy, eConsultancy

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Digital Video Dayparting Essentials


Today “television” comes in many forms. Yes, it may be a 52-inch HD LCD on your wall, or it may well be a mobile phone in your pocket, a tablet in your briefcase or a computer on your desk, lap or car. People want to access content whenever, wherever and however they can. We are consuming more content daily than ever before across all four screens. Which means, maybe it’s time to rethink “prime time.”

Traditional TV dayparting -- the practice of determining the most effective time of day for ads to play -- is being redefined by digital video. Prime time is no longer just evening TV from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. (Nielsen People Meter). Prime time varies across the different media and is highly influenced by the habits of “millennials,” the Webification of older consumers and the emergence of digital video platforms that target users anywhere, anytime.

How does digital video dayparting work? With dayparting, advertisers may select the specific time period when their video ads will play. As with TV dayparting, the digital dayparting value comes from the ability to identify dayparts with the largest audience reach and when viewers are likely to be most engaged.

What is most important for advertisers is the time at which viewership is the highest and ideally most engaged, by medium. For online video, prime time notably occurs between the hours of 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. (comScore Video Metrix).

With distinct digital and TV prime times, it’s critical to determine what time is prime time for your brand across different media. It’s important to remember that those times will be different based on the medium selected and your product. For example, prime time for tablet and mobile users is 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, but 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekends, presenting additional opportunities to reach engaged consumers (comScore).

So why advertise on both TV and digital media? A recent Nielsen study illustrates the advantages of integrating digital with TV ad campaigns. The study found aided recall of TV ads improved by nearly 50% when viewed across TV plus PC, mobile and tablet. Further, viewer engagement also increased by 50% when exposed to ads both on TV and digital screens.

Combining dayparting techniques and the complementary nature of digital and TV advertising gives advertisers insights and better access to reach the right audience at the right time. Advantages include:
  • In TV dayparting, advertisers use time blocks to identify programming with the most similar demographic composition to their target audiences. This ensures TV ads reach the most receptive and largest audience possible.
  • Digital dayparting enables advertisers to further refine their audience targeting by device and behavioral criteria, and reach these audiences at scale.
Advertisers should leverage dayparting techniques to reach the largest and most relevant audiences across digital media. Digital video dayparting offers an efficient and targeted avenue to reach the right audience inside and outside the living room, whenever they’re most engaged. With the explosive growth of media consumption across all screens combined with the advantages of digital advertising, it is time for traditional TV advertisers to apply dayparting to digital video and maximize the impact of campaigns. - , MediaPost

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Adult Females Prime Audience for US Online Video Advertisers

As brands turn to digital video advertising to engage with their target audiences online, findings from YuMe suggest a good portion of marketers are especially interested in capturing women’s attention.

According to the video ad network, the majority (65.9%) of video advertising campaign proposal requests publishers received in 2011 were gender-agnostic, yet of the non-gender-agnostic campaigns, there were three times more requests for female audiences than male, 25.7% vs. 8.4%, respectively.



Considering consumer package goods (CPG) companies—which commonly target health and beauty products at women—contributed the greatest portion (24%) of ad dollars to US online video in 2011, the skew toward the female demographic makes sense.

In terms of age demographics, online video ads were most often targeted at those ages 25 to 54: 39% of US advertisers targeted females in this age range and 22% targeted males. Few advertisers looked to reach viewers at the extremes of the age spectrum.


Video advertisers’ decision to reach consumers in their prime parenting or business professional years is logical considering both the value of these two demographics as consumers and the overall online video consumption habits of internet users ages 25 to 54. March 2012 estimates from eMarketer showed viewers in this age range are expected to account for 51.1% of all US online video viewers this year, with the greatest portion (19.2%) of viewers in the 25-to-34 age range.

Through 2016, eMarketer predicts online video viewership among children, teens and seniors will continue to grow. In response, video advertiser investment and focus on these key demographics will likely increase.

Advertisers benchmarking video advertising efforts on engagement metrics such as completion rate appear to be finding more success targeting younger audiences such as teens and young adults. YuMe found 73% of all US pre-roll video ads seen by viewers ages 12 to 24 were watched in full last year, compared to 68% of all ads watched by those ages 25 to 54. The video ad network found little difference in completion rate by gender; males inched out females in their completion rate by just 1%.

Pre-roll ads are often mandatory precursors to watching online videos. As the above completion rates indicate, most online video viewers will watch these ads in full in order to view the intended video content.

Additional completion rates provided by video ad network PointRoll of online video ads served from April through December 2011, indicated much lower view-to-completion rates for non-mandatory ad units such as in-banner video, something advertisers must consider when making video ad buys.


eMarketer estimates US online video ad spending will reach $3.12 billion this year, up 54.7% from 2011. By 2016, eMarketer predicts spending will triple to $9.3 billion, accounting for 15% of all US online ad spending. - eMarketer

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Monday, April 9, 2012

Majority of Shoppers Watch Online Product Videos

Videos Prove Their Worth to Online Shoppers
Consumers value videos that educate and demonstrate 

Product videos are proving their utility to consumers on the hunt for information online. According to a November 2011 study by the e-tailing group and Invodo, US consumers who encountered product videos on websites watched them 60% of the time. And 36% of respondents said they had watched five or more product videos on brand or retail websites over the preceding three months.

Retailers should not worry that videos packed with information will drive customers with short attention spans off—in fact, the survey found the opposite to be true. Fully 85% of those polled said they would watch a video that educated them about a product they were interested in for at least 1 minute; 87% said they would spend the same amount of time watching a video that included a demonstration. However, the percentage of customers willing to spend a minute watching a video that specifically lacked a demonstration dropped to 65%.

Videos with useful content also led to repeat viewings, according to the survey. Two-thirds of respondents said they would watch videos containing large amounts of information about a product several times before deciding whether to buy it. Forty-seven percent of consumers also equated videos with high production values with being more reliable, according to the survey. And good videos had the effect of increasing consumer engagement among 53% of those surveyed.

The poll found that a large number of consumers were also willing to watch product videos on platforms other than retail websites. Forty-seven percent of respondents have viewed product videos on YouTube at least sometimes, while 39% of those polled have done the same on Facebook. The e-tailing group also examined 100 companies and found that almost three-quarters of those with a Facebook presence used video to aid F-commerce efforts.


Retailers’ use of online video is increasing as consumers are becoming more likely to watch clips online. eMarketer estimates that nearly 170 million Americans will watch videos online this year—more than half the total population. The most growth in online video viewing over the next several years will come from currently underpenetrated audiences like seniors, a population that’s also turning more and more to online buying. - eMarketing

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Saturday, April 7, 2012

Online Video Viewers Say They'll Look up New Brands in Videos

On the eve of its digital video upfront bonanza at the end of this month, Digitas released new research on the engagement possibilities in online video. By sharing the data prior to the two-week upfront marketplace called The NewFront  that boasts presentations from Google, Hulu, AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and even NBCU, Digitas is aiming to prime marketers to spend more in online video this year, either as part of their overall TV buys, or by peeling off money from TV and moving it to the Web.

The Digitas study was conducted in partnership with Harris interactive late last month and found that 46% of online video viewers said that if an online video mentions a new product or brand, they're likely to look that brand up afterwards. Also, about half of consumers who follow brands on social channels said if a brand posts a video online they are “somewhat likely to watch it.” (As an aside, “somewhat likely” is not a terribly encouraging combination of words to my ears, but I will say that if a sliver of those consumers watch a posted video, the brands are doing well).

The research also showed that consumers often engage in both mediums — TV and the PC — simultaneously. About 63% of users have looked at online content while watching TV, with that number rising to 71% for adults 18-44. About one-quarter said the online content they looked at was related to the show they’re watching, a promising figure that speaks to how platforms can work together to enhance viewer loyalty and engagement.

Finally, 53% said that if their favorite celebrity announced that they were starring in or launching an online video or web series, they would check it out. That last finding is not surprising, but it also underscores a key learning that brands increasingly have gotten hip to over the last year. This may seem obvious but few adhere to it — if you can land a familiar face for your branded video, DO IT.-Daisy Whitney, MediaPost

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