In the previous chapter, we discussed some of the characteristics of popular videos and why these characteristics are good for the internet audience.
In this chapter, you’ll be provided with links to some successful videos, and then we’ll examine the common characteristics they had made them so popular.
The topics are as follows:
1: Will It Blend
2: Real Estate Marketing
3: Windward Reports
4: Magic Tricks
5: Borat
As you watch read these case studies, you will be provided with links to watch the actual videos on YouTube, or to see the viewing results on YouTube so that you can get an idea of how popular these video marketing campaigns actually were.
In some instances, you may find that the promotional technique is not applicable to your product. The important things to keep in mind are what made these campaigns successful, and which aspects of them should you use in your own marketing efforts.
With a little attention, you will find something instructional in each case study to use when promoting your products and services.© MMVII www.UndergroundTrafficBook.com Page 16
Summary: This series of videos was produced for a blender company which has such a great blending product, that it will blend just about anything. When Blendtec Marketing Manager George W right saw Tom Dickson, Owner and CEO of Blendtec testing the blender, he suggested putting videos of it on the web. The CEO agreed, and the rest is history.
Their videos have gotten over million views and 10,000 comments which have resulted in an unprecedented level of internet traffic, many media placements, contacts and increased sales.
The initial video only cost the producer $50 to create and the YouTube promotion literally built a brand for their home products. There is a lot we can learn from this promotion.
It appears that the element of ‘humanness’ mixed with a bit of strange humor is responsible for the success of this promotion. The company took a risk when using this video as a promotional tool, and it appears to be a risk that few stuffy, stodgy corporations are willing to take. Instead of obsessing over ‘professional’ they took a practical approach and showed their product in action, and did it in a funny way.
Things to take note of:• The simplicity – A simple experimenter in a white lab jacket.
• The catchy 50’s music soundtrack (you will learn how to add music later).
• The watermark for ‘willitblend.com’ at the bottom left hand corner of the video.
• The company logo on a banner in the background.
• A bit of humor.
It should also be noted, that part of the brilliance of this campaign is that it can be repeated dozens if not 100’s of times, all with blending different items. This means that they can make as many different video commercials as they want and get an even wider viewership.
When asked for marketing advice in an interview about the marketing campaign, the marketing manager George W right offered this gem: ”Any time you find yourself saying “that is cool” – or “I want to watch”, pay attention - you may be on to something amazing.”
If you want to get an idea of all the exposure gained from these videos, you can search:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=will+it+blend&search=Search and sort by view count. You will see the videos have garnered millions of views.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the original video for this case study. However, we can gain ample insight into the success of the marketing campaign just from hearing about this story in various credible news sources.
Real estate agent Krista Miller, who had already experimented with innovative online marketing ideas for her Real Estate business, was inspired to do a walk-through tour of a client’s house and post the video tour on YouTube. After Miller put her video tour on YouTube, her client received multiple offers…And one of the people who viewed the video on YouTube eventually purchased the home.
One of the most interesting parts about this case study is the fact that the video was not professionally created. In fact, the agent created the video herself using the video function on her digital camera (which we will discuss in the chapter on equipment).
While many companies offer to create digital real-estate tours, often for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, here we have an example of a low-budget YouTube video, without any special lighting or special editing which successfully sold a property.
It should also be noted that even if a buyer does not find the video themselves by directly searching YouTube, videos can still be extremely useful and time saving as a sales tool. Instead of having to show preliminary tours to interested house-shoppers, Miller used YouTube and had success selling a high-ticket item…A house.
• Over 80% of home buyers start their search on the internet• The buyer was from out of state (obviously the video helped the buyer a lot to gain interest).
• The seller got multiple offers and sold above asking price
• The video probably did not get very many views compared to popular YouTube videos but was still a financial success
• The seller used a combination of Craigslist.org + YouTube to make a more powerful sales presentation.
If you are interested to find more information about this story: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Real+estate+agent+Krista+Miller&btnG=Google+Search © MMVII www.UndergroundTrafficBook.com Page 18
This is an interesting example of a professionally created commercial for a company that provides Microsoft .NET-based solutions for custom reporting.
It is obvious that there was some budget invested in this commercial which is slightly over 2 minutes.
As of writing this report, the commercial has been viewed about half a million times, and possibly much more owing to the fact that widely successful videos are often uploaded to other video sites by fans.
This is a humorous commercial, and takes a light-hearted look at office life. Due to the fact office workers are spending more and more of their free (or on-clock!) time at video sites, and less time using chat, it follows that funny videos about office life can become immensely popular.
It seems that savvy companies like Windward Reports have recognized the talent of funny short film makers and harnessed it as an advertising workhorse.What’s also interesting to note is that there are talented-smalltime-hobbyist movieproducers out there who can created quality videos for you on a budget if you want to outsource your video production (we will cover outsourcing in a later chapter).
Lessons:If you see funny-film makers who can produce consistently funny, hip videos, you might consider hiring them to make a commercial for your product or company.
Really funny commercials on YouTube can get thousands or even millions of views without any additional ‘after-production’ costs. A funny, well produced commercial could be a great investment for almost any product you are considering selling.
Company: http://windwardreports.com/The video was created by a video production group called ‘Barats and Bareta’. http://baratsandbereta.com/
http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~lbarats/videos.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/BaratsAndBereta
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=LearnMagicTricks&search=Search
This is an amazing YouTube video campaign that has probably got 10’s of thousands of visitors to the promoter’s website.
If you search YouTube for this user: LearnMagicTricks, you will find that the user has posted over 100 magic tricks in video format, and all of them a URL to one of his magic sites.
This is a good example of taking a popular search item, and multiplying its effects many times over to reap tons of traffic.At the URL mentioned in his videos, we see a subscriber list, and even some Adsense on some pages.
But the real genius is the amount of video views his typical videos average:
Some of his videos have about 10,000 views…others, just 2,000. But the quantity of videos makes this into a massive campaign.
Lessons:
• The large number of magic tricks videos gets more and more eyeballs on his videos.
• Each video has a URL for one of the magic websites mentioned (keep in mind, these URLs are nothing fancy)
• The video quality was so-so, and it looks as if he may have even asked other magicians for videos.
• His website has a subscriber list.
• URL in the description of the video. Allows YouTube users to click URL to visit site.
• Interesting – Magic tricks take the cake when it comes to generating curiosity, and naturally, people want the opportunity to learn how the trick is done. Combined with the information at the website, this is an effective marketing campaign.
Anytime you can do multiple, short and interesting videos about your niche, you are onto a goldmine. These videos both demonstrate the product (magic tricks) and create curiosity in the viewer to learn more. Campaigns like this are a great tactic to use for info-products.
You can see more magic tricks at: http://learnmagictricks.org/ © MMVII www.UndergroundTrafficBook.com Page 20Regardless of what you thought of the movie ‘Borat’ (if you even saw it), the marketing campaign was undeniably effective.
In the weeks before the film was released, large segments of the movie were leaked to YouTube, which created a huge buzz.
If you even briefly look at the number of views for the Borat videos, you will see that the clips of Borat have been viewed many, many millions of times.
I think these clips largely helped to create ‘curiosity’ in viewers that watched. What is Borat? Why is everyone watching and talking about these videos? What is so funny? I’d better go and see the movie.
The strategy worked; ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ raked in over 26 million its opening weekend and went on to make well over 100 million dollars.
Lessons:• Producers were not worried that segments of the movies were available on the internet.
• Segments generated curiosity, buzz and every other irrational faddism.
• There were lots of small segments of the film which made the clips findable by more and more YouTube visitors.
Even though ‘Borat’ was a full length feature film, the strategy used by ‘Borat’ marketers is definitely applicable to products and services on a smaller scale.
If you can take actual content from your product and split it up into short segments, you may create curiosity in thousands if not millions of viewers while still not compromising your product.
If you should apply this strategy, you may want to use different titles and keywords for your videos to get as much exposure as possible.© MMVII www.UndergroundTrafficBook.com Page 21