Four Years ago, I saw the beginning of a transition on the web from marketing companies trying to implement traditional "permanent" content to what audiences really wanted in "disposable" content. What? Simply said... we treat the web like a magazine rather than a novel with our "I like this, but what do you have for me next" mentality.
This type of transparent online marketing coupled with an increase in bandwidth, the popularity of YouTube, and the fact that computers make it easy to "do it ourselves" have made it possible and OK for online, authentic style, devalued video to make it into the marketing mix of big time companies.
Four years ago I had a client that paid me $1,500 to do a "man on the street" story about their company. See it here...
Today, we have produced over 3000 video stories for the likes of Lilly, Roche, Tony Stewart Foundation, Real Simple Magazine, Baker and Daniels, Brightpoint, Blackboard, Interactive Intelligence, Golden Rule, and more.
Four years ago, I was talking companies into doing video marketing. Now, they call me. Tomorrow, companies will go from "I don't need video stories on my website" to "I not only have to have web video but need it to accompany every major page / point / concept on my site."
As I'm sure the price to do this will be untouchable in the beginning, it's still something to watch for. Internet video marketing was not the cheapest thing to get accomplished 3-4 years ago either, but if you aren't using video on your website now you're missing out on a proven and engaging marketing and sales tool.
I look forward to learn more about this technology as more becomes available in the future. I would venture to say that as this technology becomes more readily available and cheaper it will add another avenue of marketing for your existing online video content.
Check out this article by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) on crisis communication.
There big takeaway, and I quote exactly: "Video dominates as online communications tool"
The article goes on to say: Organizations need to already have an established video channel that informs — or entertains — your key publics so that you have built an audience and goodwill before a crisis hits. Having an online Web presence will increase the speed of distribution and reach of your crisis response.
This is exactly what our online video magazines at Cantaloupe.tv do. We specialize in producing authentic, online video content which is the exactly what you need when communicating a crisis situation. And our web video platform, Backlight.tv, makes it easy to get that video up immediately.
The last thing you want to be worried about in a crisis is about how to get your video online. Backlight handles everything you need to get that video up immediately. Things you don't need to worry about with Backlight:
The file type. We handle mov conversion, mp4 conversion, mpeg conversion, flv conversion, and more
The online video player. Backlight provides you with that as well as an easy to use embed code
Online video hosting service. That's also included out of the box.
Distribution. Backlight helps you get your video on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, email campaigns, Twitter, partner websites, or wherever else you distribute online
Video analytics. Backlight provides you with all the online video tracking you'll need to determine the effectiveness of your story.
So don't wait for a crisis to hit before you start thinking about online video marketing and the video platform you need to distribute it. Take a look at our offering now.
One of Cantaloupe's current clients is the Tony Stewart Foundation and we have been given the chance to actually work with Tony in a few videos. As a race fan myself I felt it appropriate to share the latest online video we produced for the TSF with as many race fans as I could because it's an actual "Day in the Life" of Tony. So, I shared the link back to the TSF video magazine through Twitter and Facebook hoping that as many fans would get the opportunity to see the video as possible.
Well, a day after posting the video to the video magazine and my social media networks I got the idea to just search Tony Stewart in Google and try and find some fan pages. I didn't have much luck with any fan pages, but i did find a Tony Stewart Forum. Who knew that forums even still existed? I created a username to login to the forum and started a new thread explaining what the video was and that Tony was the main character in the video. Should get some clicks, huh?
What I had failed to do was look down through the threads from the last few days. After posting my thread I soon realized that a fan had ALREADY found the video and had posted a link back to the video magazine. I noticed that there had been 22 replies on the other person's thread. So, I clicked the thread and was very excited to see the comments that were being made. Not only were these folks watching the latest video but they were commenting on the other three videos and how they had made some people cry and how proud others were of Tony. Read the comments here.
So why am I telling this story? I think this goes to show you how web video is allowing people to share others people's intimate, truthful stories with those who they know will enjoy it. And, I'm positive that had this video story been a blog post or magazine article the responses would not have been as heart felt. Internet video marketing is quickly becoming a must have for organization because it's a simple way for your fans and customers to spread your message to those who are interested and the fact that it's video makes them the COOL one amongst their friends.
In the past, we have created video magazines for our clients that incorporate multiple series or channels, which group related videos by category or topic. FORUM Credit Union's video magazine demonstrates this concept. Through a combination of playlists, layouts and web pages, you can create the same functionality with Backlight 2.0 by following the following steps.
1) Upload all videos into Backlight. Select thumbnails and choose ads for each video. 2) Create a Playlist for each channel or series 3) Build a Plalylist layout for each of the playlists that you created in step 2 4) Add a new page to your website for each layout that you created in step 3 and embed the playlist embed code 5) Add channel/series navigation by creating links to each of the corresponding web pages. In the FORUM example, these are represented by the School Days, Giving, Active Indiana, Having Fun, and Who is FORUM links at the bottom of the page. To simplify future changes, use an include page to manage all of this navigation in a single file. 6) Publish the pages to your live website
As you can see, it is easy to quickly a multi-channel layout on your website with Backlight 2.0.
In case you missed it, Cantaloupe sent another installment of its Cantaseries Video Magazine earlier this week. (Cantaseries is our ongoing web video marketing series where we feature an interesting, heartfelt, inspiring or just otherwise entertaining story. We use it to keep in touch with clients and other Cantaloupe fans.)
This latest web video story was called "Laughter Yoga." I won't waste any time telling what that is, because the video itself is worth a million...laughs?.
I have to say, it's a behemoth at over 7 minutes. Sounds crazy considering how often we preach shorter content for the internet, but more of the results on that in another post.
Basically, I wanted to share with you something else cool we saw yesterday. We sent "Laughter Yoga" out through our latest release of our online video management system Backlight 2.0.
One feature we've been very focused on is video search engine optimization. Our goal is for our clients to know that when they upload a video and embed it using our system, that they're taking advantage of the best practices in Video SEO.
Yesterday, we saw a small part of that in action with Laughter Yoga. It's a small confirmation, but if you go to Google's video search and type in "Cantaloupe Yoga" you get the following result:
We're probably not going to convert a lot of people with the search term "Cantaloupe Yoga" but it's a start. Another cool thing is that our ads, or calls to actions" if you well, stay within the video (check out the 0:56 mark and the 5:35 mark) so if people find us there we can direct them what to do next.
This is all very exciting for us here at Cantaloupe. We're looking forward to bringing this online marketing practice to all current and future clients.
If you're reading this blog, there's a good chance you're hip to "cloud computing," and if you're not, well actually, you probably still are whether you know it or not.
If you've interacted with any application on the web (a daily, if not almost hourly occurrence for most people) then you've taken part in some form of cloud computing. Using gmail? That's cloud computing. Using wordpress or some other blogging application? Cloud computing. How about Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, etc.? You get the picture.
Cantaloupe is a big proponent of the cloud, seeing as how so much of what we do exists there including our video magazines and our to be released online video management system Backlight 2.0.
So it's only fitting that we should sponsor CloudCamp - Indianapolis, which is being hosted by one of our clients and services provider Bluelock.
Here's more information if you're interested in attending. Registration is free:
When: Wednesday, January 28th. 5-9:15pm. Where: Bluelock, 325 Morenci Trail, Indianapolis, In 46268
Hi, my name is Justin. Here at Cantaloupe we care about blah blah blah blah blah blah.
That's about how far people pay attention when they hear that type of messaging. It's old and tired as two dollar...car wash. This is where web video can really be a powerful agent for you.
Break down the walls of your business. Don't tell people who you are and what you do. Let clients SEE you as people, and SEE what you do.
One of my favorite video magazines to date is RJE Business Interior's. They knew that they have a great staff and decided to show that firsthand to the world (wide web). Check out their magazine here rjefurn.com.
Internet marketing is all about the truth, and nothing is more truthful than a streaming video about a day in the life of your staff.
"The best public measures seldom result from previous wisdom, but rather are forced by the occasion." -Benjamin Franklin
I stumbled upon that quote back in high school, and for some reason it stuck with me word for word. The insight here is simple - sometimes we don't do the things we should do until we're forced to do them.
In the case of marketing, sometimes we don't take on the new projects that can really move the needle for our organizations until some external catalyst (like an impending economic recession) forces our hand. When our budgets are cut, we're forced to be more creative with our money. When the consumers are harder to reach, we're forced to be more innovative with how we reach them.
At Cantaloupe.tv, we see this every day when we discuss internet video marketing with prospects. Many of them are still wedded to traditional advertising - buying ads in newspapers and magazines, relying solely on a sales force to bring in leads, going to the same old trade shows, etc.
Web video is new to them, and it looks risky, as does all interactive marketing like blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.
But when times change, we're forced to change also. This article on tech firms shows you how lower marketing budgets have forced tech marketers to branch out into new mediums. What's great about these new mediums is through sheer hard work, you can get more out of every dollar spent than you can with traditional advertising.
It's nearly impossible to get more mileage out of an ad you bought in this month's magazine, but if you create a video for your website, there are infinite possibilities for distributing it and getting it seen, if you're only willing to work for it.
I read an interested article last night in OMMA, Magazine of Online Media, Marketing&Advertising (a highly recommended read if you enjoy staying up-to-date with those three categories). It featured Josh Warner, President and Founder of FEED Company. FEED “seeds” videos in strategic online areas in order to create discussion and mass views for their high-profile clients who use online video.
Though his interview focused mostly on FEED and its strategy, procedures & insight, there was a statement within the article that really stuck with me…
WHEN CREATING AN ONLINE VIDEO THINK LIKE AN ENTERTAINER NOT AN ADVERTISER.
While our clients use their videos mainly as marketing materials, which are not related to “advertising” in the usual sense, this statement still makes sense…
WHEN CREATING AN ONLINE VIDEO THINK LIKE AN ENTERTAINER NOT A MARKETER.
Isn’t it a marketing video though? Aren’t we trying to market our company, products, efforts, etc? Yes, but online video MUST be entertaining. If not, you’ll reap drop-off rates, not benefits.
The only way to gain a following and to increase views is to give viewers something worth watching. You cannot force people to watch whatever you put online. So ask them, and if they watch, make sure your content is entertaining and relevant to the audience.
As anyone from Indiana can tell you, we're teeming with great universities in the Hoosier state. I won't begin to mention them for fear of leaving one out, but you'd be hard pressed to find another state with so many notable public and private institutions for higher education, each of them being known for their strength in a particular field. One such school, Ball State University, has a communications program that's achieved much notoriety (and not just because late night tv show host David Letterman graduated from there).
"Webisode" refers to a type of online streaming video or if you prefer, online tv media, and as you probably guessed, it derives from combining "web" and "episode." (a naming technique I just found out that's referred to as a "portmanteau". Yes, despite my video ties I'm a geek for words)
Webisodes are essentially what we're creating when we create videos for online video magazines. The difference in the naming is that we liken our web video production to magazines, while "webisode" users prefer the tv metaphor.
It's great to see Ball State empower their students with skills for web video production, which will undoubtedly prove valuable in what is truly an emerging media. I wouldn't doubt that by the time these students have a foothold in their careers, online video production and online video will be the norm, and cable tv will be a relic of the past.
As usual, the Wall Street Journal is a little late in reporting online marketing trends, and especially, online video marketing trends. (understandably, the Wall Street crowd probably isn't responsible for staying on the bleeding edge of web video) However, when the Wall Street Journal does report on something, you better be up to speed because your competitors probably are. This time, the WSJ is reporting on where to look to find video on the web other than YouTube and they point out a few shortcomings of the popular video aggregator. (If you follow this blog, you'll probably remember one of the shortcomings I noted)
While the article is mostly concerned with trying to find popular TV shows and other online TV media, it illustrates that video is everywhere on the internet, and the places you can find it (or distribute it) are as diverse as the reasons for producing video in the first place.
So if you've been wondering whether your organization should be putting video on YouTube, it's probably time to broaden your horizons when it comes to website video marketing. For examples on how Cantaloupe.TV helps clients put video on websites check out our Video Magazines page.
A lot of our clients ask me how they can improve their Video Magazines email open rates and click-thru rates and my first question back to them is always "What does your email database look like?"
When we start taking a closer look, we usually find out that the database has never been cleansed, a large portion of the subscribers are not truly opted in, and that none of them are segmented for relevance.
When I tell them that the best way to improve their numbers is deleting many of the unengaged subscribers, they cower in complete fear. Which is odd, because I think they should be jumping for joy that it's that easy.
I get their concern but their logic is flawed. It is NOT better to keep an unengaged subscriber in your database "just in case" they see one of your emails and become reengaged and here's why DOING SO ONLY MAKES IT MORE DIFFICULT TO REACH PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY ENGAGED.
I put it in all caps because it is so important to get that point. You damage your email reputation every time you take that small chance, which means you're more likely to end up in the SPAM folders of your true subscribers.
You may look at me and say "his expertise is in online video production, what does he know about email?" Well, our primary mode of distributing our clients' web video is through email, but still, don't take my word for it. Check out this article from BtoB on "How do I prevent my emails from being labeled as SPAM?
The most important is of course number one: Maintain a clean list by handling bounces properly and scrubbing your
list regularly. Scrubbing includes removing duplicates, suppressing
distribution accounts (e.g., info@ or sales@) and removing inactive addresses with no opens or clicks in the last 12 months.
You're probably asking yourself, "Why in the world would Cisco do an online video magazine reality series?" And then your next though would have to be "No way anyone is watching that."
The answer to your first question: To truly show their "Human Network" campaign. It's not surprise that when Cisco wanted to show the human side of the networking technologies they manufacture, they turned to web video and ignored print. There really is not better way to humanize your business than to put your people - that is employees, clients, and partners - in front of the camera for great video stories and online video marketing.
To your second thought - why don't you take a look at their video magazine and judge for yourself.
After nearing the completion of my 30 days worth of video fashion rules from GQ, I've decided I'd very much like to see the video tracking and how many people skip over the intro that's included with every video. It'd be a great case study in web video production.
The intro is good in a way. It's fast-paced and it builds excitement - at least it does unless you've just watched 5 in a row, which often happens because I rarely find a little bit of time every day to watch each video, and rather watch a bulk at once.
I started fast forwarding through it, and I'm sure others do to.
From a producer's perspective I get that the intro is good if the video ever leaves the home of its video magazine. The thing is, it's very unlikely to leave its home. The only way it can is if someone embeds it in a blog or takes it upon his or herself to post it on YouTube.
Even if I post it to a social network like Facebook, it still links back to the original page - which you can only get to if you've registered, making it less likely the video will ever leave its original page.
Intro music and title screens are an old way of thinking about video. It recalls the weekly sitcom and drama that we watch on tv. It doesn't embrace user control and our different viewing habits (like watching a bunch at once).
Yeah, I can fast forward, but why should I have to? You could do something better with my first 15 seconds - like get me interested with something I haven't seen before. I'd rather seen interesting video advertising for Burberry or JCrew instead of watching the intro again.
Even Cantaloupe's digital video production team still uses intros. I think I'm going to open up a debate...
There's been a lot written about NBC's online video coverage of the Olympics. There are people on both sides of the fence - those who say NBC failed with its coverage and those who say NBC set a precedent for taking traditional tv media and putting it on the internet.
The argument for the "failed" side says NBC proved that it's still difficult to impossible to make money off of web video. The "succeeded" side points out the technical feat involved.
For a broadcaster looking to make money this begs the question, "If people are watching video online, what does that do to my tv viewership, and ultimately the ad dollars I can get for selling tv ads?"
It turns out, putting video on the web is fueling tv viewership, rather than reducing it, with 50% of online viewers trying to catch up with what they missed, and with 40% watching something they already saw on tv.
This is interesting news for marketers trying to determine whether to put money into its online collateral or other traditional collateral. I'm sure many of them have figured out that one influences the other, often positively. (Take GQ's video magazine as an example)
However, in the long run my prediction is these technologies blend so much that you can't tell the difference between when tv stops and when online begins.
GQ is doing it's second installment of "GQ Rules" and this time around it's a video magazine. They're not calling it that (maybe this wikipedia entry for video magazines will start to educate people on the proper online video vocabulary) but that's exactly what it is.
It's one video a day, every day for 30 days about an essential fashion secret. And get this, you HAVE to subscribe in order to see the videos (don't worry, subscription is free)
It's a brilliant idea. I loved it last year when it was just text and the video is even better. I would NEVER go to GQ's website this often otherwise and who knows what else I'll end up buying now that I have an excuse to go to their website.
At the very least, this accompaniment has added value to their printed magazine ensuring I'll be a subscriber for a long time to come.
Online video is becoming a
mainstream online marketing tool, but many users are still unsure of how to measure
the effectiveness of their videos.This post will help internet video marketers to gain a better perspective in measuring
both impact and performance of their videos.
Measuring Impact and
Performance:
Is there a call-to-action
on the video?This is something
Cantaloupe TV recommends to its clients.Not only does it make tracking easier, but also it brings about conversion
from viewer to purchaser/supporter/donor.If the action taken can be tracked from different sources other than the
video, make sure that you are able to track where each action is coming from.
What is the Google ranking
for the video page?This can tell
you how popular the video is.
How many other sites are
linking to your video?
How many resulting site
visits did your video create (if the video was posted somewhere other than your
site)?
How many “shares” have
been made?This will tell you how
viral the video is.
How many subscriptions
have you received because of the video?
How many views did your
video get?
What is the average length
of time spent viewing the video?
How many times was the
video watched to completion?
How many videos were
watched on a given visit (if more than one video exists on the page as with Video
Magazines)?
All of these questions
will help marketers analyze the effectiveness of their internet video marketing campaign.Depending on specific marketing goals, some
details will matter more than others, but each item discussed will help give you a better idea of how well a particular video or set of videos is/are performing.
** Cantaloupe TV offers detailed interaction statistics and measurements for all videos & Video Magazines
A report put together by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research tells fundraising professionals that they need to pay special attention to online video marketing. The report titled "The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect to your Middle and Major Donors says: 5. Pay Special Attention to Video Maybe this is the single exception to recommendation four. Relationship Seekers are heavy users of online video and express significant interest in seeing more. Hire a professional producer, and ask a test group of donors what they think before launching to a wider audience. No single video is going to change everything; a series of modestly produced short videos will get more mileage than one blockbuster. Most “viral videos” never go “viral.” Don’t measure success merely by looking at how many times a video has been viewed. The real measure is whether the right people – your wired wealthy Relationship Seekers – have seen it, and whether it has inspired them.
For those who prefer bullet points, the key takeaways are:
Even with online video production, you should hire a professional
It's better to do multiple, shorter, "modestly produced" stories than to do one expensive, flashy video. You'll use them more.
As far as video tracking and video analytics, you need to look beyond number of views. It's about WHO saw the video, not just HOW MANY
Finally, viral marketing does not mean getting millions of hits. It means making something contagious in the true sense of one to one marketing.
To Cantaloupe, this isn't news. It's exactly how our Video Magazines were designed to be utilized. Multiple videos, modestly produced for long term conversations directed at the right permission-based audience.
You've spent time, effort, energy and money in the form of SEO, websites, sales people, traditional marketing, etc. The folks that put this stuff together for you said "they are paying us a lot of money so we better make our communication bright and shiny so that we can really create a stir and turn some heads!"
Perfect. Now what?
Now that we have the proper attention from the proper folks, what do we do to keep those new leads and prospects in our communication loop until they sign on the dotted line? Because most of our sales cycles are much longer than one touch it might make sense to think about a way to use valuable - devalued and disposable - content as a way to reach out again and again and again to these new prospects until they are ready to give us money.
I don't know about you but most of my effort goes into just getting someone to listen to me the first time. Once I have them I certainly don't want to lose them so I use our ongoing video story series as a way to reach out with a big "shepherd's hook," grab them and bring them back to me for... well, as long as it takes.
Interestingly, I had a gentleman call me up 12 months after the first time I talked to him about our ongoing Video Magazine program. Now... he was ready to hire us because he needed 12 months to get through his hurdles.
Because Cantaloupe sent him a new story every four weeks or so, we ultimately, had a reason to keep him in a long-term conversation that lasted throughout his sales cycle.
Otherwise, 12 months later who knows what other Video Magazine company might be in front of him when he's ready to buy.
With online video creating quite a buzz around the internet at the moment 
Check out this 
One of Cantaloupe's current clients is the 
There's been a lot written about NBC's online video coverage of the Olympics. There are people on both sides of the fence - those who say 
A report put together by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research tells fundraising professionals that they need to pay special attention to online video marketing. The report titled "The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect to your Middle and Major Donors says:
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