Thursday, November 19, 2009

BrandVision Benefits

Michael Billingsley describes the BrandVision product and many of the benefits a company will find. In general, Action Media Group provides a guide to help a company be successful in online video marketing. Good video quality, great brand identity and solid distribution are keys to success.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Consider Video?

In a time when business is a bit more challenging then in past years, it becomes important to put you best message to potential customers. There's few better ways to make an impression and have high retention than through the use of video.

It is now very effective to use video in your online marketing efforts. Here are a few reasons why:

Video does very well in Google search
You Tube has become the second leading search engine
People are starting to expect video when looking for information
Video provides the highest retention rate of any form of communication


So how does video help you make more money?

You get better informed customers, leading to higher conversion rates.

The key of course is to have good video and lots of it. Start with several short videos that aim to describe your top five features. Each video should answer a question or solve a problem using your product or service.

Great quality is key. Then you videos should be distributed correctly. This process gives your video the highest chance of being seen and popping up in related keyword searches.

We are available to provide a free presentation on how you might start using video better and gain higher visibility for you brand.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Mizuno Iron & Wedge Preview 2010


Reunion Resort


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Cliffs Feature


The Jesters: David Feherty & Gary McCord Feature Golf Video

Celebrate Golf.com's 50th Anniversary with the Jesters, David Feherty and Gary McCord. Go behind the scenes on their photo shoot as the two portray Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. See how this comedic duo dons their ill-fitting duds and talk about how their partnership got started.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Interesting Video Search Results

Recently we produced a video for Sea Island Resort in Georgia. This short feature aired inside our television series Inside GOLF Magazine on FSN and Comcast Sports Network to over 90 million households. However, when we posted the video online we saw very interesting results. As many people know Google is the leading online search engine and more sophisticated search is capable using the tabs on the Google window to locate video, images, etc. What a lot of people don't know is that You Tube has now overtaken Yahoo as the second leading search engine. According to comScore, YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the world’s second largest search engine when it received 2.6 billion searches during August 2008.

What we found is that by producing a good video about Sea Island and distributing it correctly with our specialized techniques, we were able to very quickly lead search results on Google, the Google Video Tab and You Tube for many keywords surrounding Sea Island. Here were the results about one week after we published the video:

On Google - someone traveling would likely look for video of the area they are considering these days.
Sea Island Video - 5,7,8,9,10
Sea Island Resort Video - 1,2,3,7

Use Google VIdeo Tab to search.
Sea Island (1,10)
Sea Island Golf (1,3,4,6,7)
Sea Island Video (1,10) (on google main page 5,7,8,9,10 with video thumbnail)

Here's our You Tube Results:

YouTube Search

Sea Island Resort - 1
Sea Island Golf - 2
Sea Island Lodge - 2
Sea Island Learning Center - 1, 2


Interestingly we looked at a few other area specific videos that we had distributed for other resorts:

On Google

Camelback Golf Club Video - 1,2,3,4,8
Camelback Resort Video - 1,2
Scottsdale Golf Videos - 5,9
John Jacobs Golf Academy - 5
John Jacobs Golf Academy Video - 3,4,6,7
Arizona Biltmore Video - 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10
Arizona Biltmore Golf Video - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Roaring Fork Golf (Aspen, CO) - 4
Red Sky Golf Video (Vail, CO) - 3,7,9,10

Use Google VIdeo Tab to search.

Camelback Golf Club (2,3,9)
Scottsdale Golf (2,3,4,7)
Royal St. Kitts (3)
Golf Tip for Juniors
Doral Golf Course
Golf Magazine Top 100 (1-10) (on google #10)
Golf Magazine TV (1-10) (on google 4,5,6,7,9,10)
Golf Magazine (3,4,7,10)
Scottsdale Golf (2,3,4,7)
Arizona Biltmore (7, 9)
Arizona Biltmore Golf (3,5,7,8,9)
Doral Golf Club (7)
Blue Monster at Doral (2,3,4,7,8,9,10)
Camelback Resort (6)
Camelback Inn (4,7,9)
Camelback Golf (1,3,7,8,10)
Grayhawk Golf Club (3,4,5,10)
John Jacobs Golf School (4,5,7,10)
Vail Colorado Golf (9)
Red Sky Golf Club (4)
Roaring Fork Golf Club (1)

On Google

Camelback Golf Club Video - 1,2,3,4,8
Camelback Resort Video - 1,2
Scottsdale Golf Videos - 5,9
John Jacobs Golf Academy - 5
John Jacobs Golf Academy Video - 3,4,6,7

YouTube Search

Camelback Golf Club - 2,3
Camelback Resort Video - 1,2
Scottsdale Golf Videos - 5,9,10
John Jacobs Golf Academy - 1,3
Scottsdale Camelback - 2,8
Camelback Inn Golf - 2

As you can see our videos and the techniques we use to distribute them is working to drive search for key terms that might be very important to a resort or company looking to increase their visibility on the Internet. It also doesn't hurt that these are all very entertaining and informative videos that do a great job selling the product in an entertaining manner. We know this because of the large number of total views we were able to report for each video.

If your company, property, organization or service needs to increase sales, please consider how we can produce entertaining video aimed at online video marketing for the internet. Further, consider how Action Media Group can take your existing video and distribute it to the world and the search engines for great success with your online marketing efforts.

Visit us online at href="http://www.actiontelevision.com">www.actiontelevision.com

Snowrider Television Snowboard Video

Snowrider Television is produced and distributed by Action Television from Denver and Vail, Colorado.  In this episode of Snowrider we meet two of the top snowboarders in the sport: JJ Thomas and Chad Otterstrom.  visit us online at actiontelevision.com.

Pinnacle Edition Snapshot Video

Here is a video produced for Pinnacle Systems to outline features of their editing software Pinnacle Edition.  This was produced and written by Action Television and Michael Billingsley.

Action Television Breckenridge Commercial Video

Action Television, located in Denver, Colorado, is a premiere provider of excellent production work for their clients like those featured in this video, produced for the Breckenridge and Vail Ski Resorts. Find out more about Action Television at http://www.actiontelevision.com.

Friday, March 13, 2009

A million people

I talk about web delivery in three important aspects - hosted, posted and social distribution channels. If you have read previous posts you know Hosted means placing video on your site or your own video channel. Depending on the relevance and popularity of your website this can be very effective. For example - Vail Resorts (one of my clients) has a very large endemic audience that visits the websites of their mountains. So to post a "snow conditions" video on the homepage and lead people into a video channel works well.

In the case of some of my video channels we know that we have a limited audience who are going to find sites like www.golflifetv.com or hitgolf.com or skitv.com. Just a reality. So instead of putting too much involvement in trying to fight an uphill battle we use Posted video delivery strategies. This is how we have been able to start approaching a million unique views for the past year. Our golf content is distributed across the web and using techniques we have developed we are able to manage many different brand channels and drive branded entertainment to lots of locations where people view video content.

Our overall goal and one we are working on for our own content is to locate and nurture social video audiences so that our content can be delivered in the most effective fashion - Social distribution. With Social we utilize our techniques in publishing and delivery for the other techniques, yet with the same level of effort reach a much more engaged, dependable audience member.

Remember - the key to all of these online marketing strategies is content. This does not mean to have someone go out and start creating video just for video content sake. It means content planning and strategies. My best "free" advise is to look for programming experts as I outline in my previous post. To be successful take one long video and break it into a lot of little videos in a series. Target your audience, think of their needs and what they might watch. Most importantly analyze or have someone who can analyze how to produce and publish content optimized for you SEO and sales goals...make proper call to action and target keywords.

Ok - enough advice - get to work considering a budget to start communicating with video using the internet - it will result in positive lift for your business.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Program Pros

So what do I mean with the title "Progam Pros" - well unless your marketing team is under a rock you might have noticed that video is the hottest thing on the web since people learned more about SEO. Incidentally, video can do very well at driving SEO. So the title of this post is intended to put forth the concept of using Programming Professionals to help you with our online video marketing strategies.

Here is my chance to pitch our company - we are programming professionals and for 17 years we have placed products into video distribution on TV, DVD, CD Rom and Internet. However - don't become confused with the fine work done by people you know who mostly do corporate videos. They also have used many of the media I mention. The difference is the idea of programming and specifically the idea of episodic programming on television and internet.

My point here is that in order to be successful with online video you really need to look at it as a long ever evolving journey and you need to plan for more video and less length. The reason for this strategy is that you will find more viewers and more interest in your messages or information if you can provide a "playlist". Think of it like a television series or a broadcast television network. You want to put you message out in a continual fashion and whenever possible you want to spread you message across as many related videos as you can.

There are several reasons for having a group of videos instead of spending your buck on a few high end videos. First let me say all of your videos must be high quality. Second - forget the idea that you are going to come up with the next great "viral" video. Even the most creative of the creatives in video will no promise you that the video concept they are presenting will be successful as a viral video that takes on a life of its own. If they do - they are not being honest with themselves.

I prefer to encourage people to think of their online video efforts more like a "broadcast network". I use the term Brand Vision - broadcasting your videos to audiences across the web. If you consider that to properly distribute video you need to create opportunities to reach viewers where they are - then you can see that it is important to "program your channels". Our advice is to think of your video messages in more of a stream or series - a video campaign or series of campaigns if you will.

If you have more video to work with you can be more successful setting up video accounts, creating video players, presenting playlists and getting people engaged more thoroughly than with a few single messages. Plus you will ultimately reach a much larger audience with more attainable video goals than the Viral hit discussed above.

So back to the original point of this post - "Program Pros". Our advice is to look for companies with experience creating programming. If you are lucky enough to find someone who has successfully developed and syndicated programs that include a lot of product information and demonstration in an entertaining way, then you are much farther along. Finally - if you can find a group that not only understands how to create episodic product based programming but also has been navigating distribution of content on the internet for a while you have a good chance of success.

These days everyone can do video...but few have generated millions of viewers around a series of videos in an informative and entertaining fashion. If you look you will find those few or if you like you can talk with our company - Action Media Group.

Good Luck.