Monday, December 31, 2012

Mistakes Online Video Marketers Usually Make

Common online video marketing mistakes:
  • Too promotional
  • Or not promotional enough
  • Too lengthy
  • Poor placement on your website
  • Not targeted at a clear audience
  • Boring
  • Burdened with an overload of information
  • Focusing too hard on trying to go viral
  • Only uploading to YouTube
  • A confusing concept
  • Videos that are just done poorly
The most painful “mistake” is trying too hard to go viral. Usually this involves a failed attempt to be funny, which ends up creating disdain for the advertiser.

We're sure there are more common online video marketing mistakes that haven’t been listed here. Recognizing our mistakes makes successful online videos so uncommonly enjoyable to watch.-MediaPost

Need help creating and marketing your videos?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  
Sign Up FREE

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos.
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC.
info@VMakers.com

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Does Video Impact Customer Support?

How to Videos vs Instructional Manuals.
Is YouTube Replacing the Printed Manual?

No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  
Sign Up FREE

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos.
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC.
info@VMakers.com

Monday, December 17, 2012

77% of Brands Aren't Using Online Video Ads [study]

A new study from Kantar Media has found that 77 percent of brands are using national TV advertising exclusively.

Only 23 percent of the brands surveyed were using online video. About 12 percent of brands reported that they were using both online video and national TV advertising. While another 11 percent said they were using online video advertising only.

Kantar Media says that the restaurant and automotive industries were the most likely to use both advertising video platforms in the month of October.

43 percent of the restaurant industry was using both online and national TV video ads. Kantar Media also found that 30 percent of automotive firms were using the two-platform video advertising method.

The study reported that Internet communications and content companies were the most likely to use an online-only method for video advertising. Kantar says that 39 percent of Internet content and communications companies are using online video advertising exclusively.

Resort and travel companies were the second most likely industry to use an online-only video advertising strategy. According to the study, 28 percent of resort and travel companies were using an online-only method for video advertising.

The reports of companies moving to online video advertising exclusively come as consumers continue to view more online video. According to a recent study from comScore, 11 billion online video ads were seen in October.

ComScore reported last November that over 88 percent of online users watched at least one online video in October. According to the firm's report, 22 percent of online video seen during the month were ads.

Another report from Adap.TV found that national television advertising budgets were being reduced in an effort to bring more funding to the online ad space. According to Adap.TV's report 34 percent of advertisers surveyed were reducing broadcast advertising budgets to make room for online video ad spending.

Kantar Media came up with its statistics by surveying more than 4,100 brands' advertisements. The study was commissioned in the lead-up to the firm's release of its new Online Video Measurement service.-ClickZ

No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  
Sign Up FREE

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos.
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC.
info@VMakers.com

Friday, December 14, 2012

5 Tips for Creating Branded Video Content



Branded video content should be part of every successful ad campaign, provided it is built and executed correctly. Advertisers need quality video assets that are pertinent to their targeted audiences, ensuring that the intended (and hopefully authentic) message is delivered the right way. 

These five principles are key to the execution of a flawless branded content experience:

1. Maintain coherence. While high quality, engaging material is a prerequisite for success, content that does not fit sensibly into a larger brand experience can confuse consumers and even turn them off altogether. It is imperative that brand messaging enhances (and does not distract) from the content experience.

2. Be authentic, and do not under-invest. Viewers can read right through content that is not authentic or has had corners cut to save a few dollarsThere is a huge difference between video shot in a studio by quality producers compared to amateurs with a video camera in their basements.  Beyond introducing an unnecessary liability to the health of the brand, a low-cost or disorganized approach to producing digital content is simply a waste of both energy and resources.

3. Do not replicate the TV experience. Reinvent it. Brand integration should be seamless and platform-relevant. If consumers found heavy-handed, one-way communication acceptable with TV ads, this was partially because the platform did not allow innovators to move further. An overly “salesy” or persuasive approach risks alienating Internet-savvy consumers who expect an interactive give-and-take with both their content and their media. Consumers will quickly lose interest in material if it feels too much like an ad, so developing engaging content must be the first priority, with earned media and social sharing serving as the ultimate drivers of any sound strategy.

4. Smart distribution is crucial. A high-quality video experience only works when brands drive engagement through a meaningful and diversified digital distribution strategy. Online content marketing is not a world where “if you post it, they will come.” Simply put, posting a video onto only one site does not provide anywhere near the return necessary to justify the investment. Content creators need to proactively seek out and find relevant audiences through nonexclusive syndication arrangements. 

5. Monitor responses. Do not appoint yourself the proud captain of a sinking ship if results are not as positive as you would like. Test, analyze the results, and then retest every video element of every campaign. Be prepared to tweak and experiment with the necessary components of the approach in order to improve it. Not least among the benefits of digital content over traditional ad strategies is the heightened degree of control and quickened responses it affords users to this end.
Data from comScore's Video Metrix indicates that a record 188 million Internet users watched 37.7 billion content videos in August of 2012. While pre- or mid-roll video advertising puts a message in front of those viewers, consumers are not being overly inspired. Closely aligning a brand message with video content that adheres to a brand’s vision and goals is a great way to get consumers to pay attention. Fortunately, producing this effective material is not as difficult or cost-prohibitive as it would have been in years past. When proactive brands develop thoughtful, appealing programming and amplify viewership through a sound distribution strategy, everyone (consumers, publishers and advertisers) in the ecosystem wins.-VideoInsider

No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!   
Sign Up FREE 

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos. 
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC. 
info@VMakers.com 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Online Video Marketing - What You Need to Know



Online video has become one of the hottest trends in content marketing.
But it’s not just that video is big right now – it’s that it’s getting bigger.
Online video usage rose 12% amongst B2B content marketers, according to a recent Content Marketing Institute (CMI) survey.

Five statistics to know about online video marketing:
1. Over 85% of the country’s Internet users viewed online video content in September 2012 alone.
2. About 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video.
3. Video is now the sixth most popular content marketing tactic, as 70% of B2B marketers use some form of online video with their overall strategies.
4. YouTube averages 4 billion hits each day, and 61% of B2B marketers leverage YouTube to extend the reach of their messaging and brands.
5. On average, mobile viewers watch videos that are three times longer those on PCs and laptops, and the number of mobile viewers are expected to reach over 54 million by the end of 2012.
- Eloqua

No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  Sign Up FREE 
VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos. Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC. info@VMakers.com 



Monday, December 10, 2012

Online Video Ads Boost Brands [report]

While online video ad success is often measured by click-through rates, research from Vindico has argued that completion rates are actually a more important indicator of ad effectiveness. Results from a new study by TubeMogul support that position: according to the report, viewers exposed to a pre-roll video ad demonstrated higher brand awareness and message association than a control group that did not watch the ad – and the lift was significantly higher among viewers who completed the ad.
In terms of brand lift among the overall group exposed to an ad (compared to the control group that was not), the report finds a 3.6% lift in awareness, a marginal 0.1% increase in favorability, a 8.3% boost in message association, and a 2.4% gain in purchase intent or consideration.
Among those who completed the video ad, though, the lift in brand awareness almost doubled (from 3.5% to 6.9%), while the lift in message association more than doubled (from 8.3% to 20.5%).
TubeMogul’s report notes that “for the purposes of this research, “lift” is defined as the absolute difference (subtraction) between the percent of correct answers of exposed viewers (people who saw the ad) and a control group (people that did not see the ad). “Correct” answers are defined as the answer that the brand desires and indicates a positive perception of the brand by the survey taker.”

Pre-Roll Completion Rates Steady

So if completion rates are so important, where do they stand? In Q3, video ads on Tier 1 sites (from well-recognized publishers like news outlets, cable providers and sports broadcasters) saw an 84.9% completion rate, up from 81.8% in the first half of the year. While the average completion rate for ads on Tier 2 sites dropped (from 76.9% in H1 to 70.7% in Q3), it remained steady for ads on Tier 3 and 4 sites (at 82.2% in Q3).

Pre-Roll Inventory Grows; CPMs Drop Slightly

TubeMogul’s latest quarterly research report shows that the volume of pre-roll ads available for real-time bidding has increased steadily during the year, by 7.3% per month through September. That growth has been most rapid in the past 3 months, averaging 323.6 million impressions per day.
Probably as a result of that growth, cost-per-thousand (CPM) for pre-roll video ads has dropped, down from $8.83 in H1 to $8.18 in Q3.

Other Findings:

  • Video ads had the greatest lift in purchase intent for the electronics/computer vertical (10.9%), followed by online services (4.8%), entertainment (2.3%), and CPG (2.2%).
  • Before dipping in Q3, CPMs grew by 2.5% per month through the first half of the year.
About the Data: Data for the report comes from top brand campaigns run through TubeMogul’s media buying platform in the U.S. in the third quarter, spanning hundreds of millions of impressions across standard pre-roll video ads. Brand lift data comes from TubeMogul’s BrandSights survey technology, which launched in September and now counts over 75,000 survey respondents.
CPMs represent average clearing prices for pre-roll ads on thousands of sites available from the leading private and public exchanges, spanning billions of bids. As such, they reflect the raw cost (i.e. what goes directly to the publisher), before TubeMogul’s transparent cost is added, or fees from rich media, 3rd-party targeting, brand surveys or other partners.-MarketingCharts
No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  
Sign Up FREE

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos.
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC.
info@VMakers.com

Sunday, December 2, 2012

YouTube Now Allows Links to External Websites


YouTube Partners who specify their YouTube channels as the official representation of their brand can now put annotations on their videos that link directly to their website(s) or landing page(s). Now your calls-to-action can direct viewers to your own website, where you can promote your products and/or services.

How to Set-up YouTube Annotations That Link To Your Website:
1. Associate your website with your YouTube Channel, under the Channel settings.
2. Go to the Annotations section in your YouTube Video Manager.
3. Click "Add Annotation" and then under the "Link" drop down menu, select "Associates Website."

4. Insert the URL you want viewers to visit in the link area, then save and publish.

To enhance video SEO, make sure you keep your viewers watching as long as possible. So your external links will need to be incorporated strategically. For more information click here.

No time? No video expertise? Not sure where to start?
Call Jeff at 888-712-8211 today!  
Sign Up FREE

VMakers - The easy way to create, manage and market your videos.
Trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, CBS and ABC.
info@VMakers.com