NYTimes.com - Online Sellers Discover the Power of Video Clips

Online Sellers Discover the Power of Video Clips
By BOB TEDESCHI
IT was just a matter of time. Online retailers have begun capitalizing on the YouTube craze, offering a video platform for product demonstrations, rants and raves, sentimental messages and just plain bizarre behavior.
At this point there is little question that the videos, on sites like 1-800-Flowers.com, Buy.com, Blendtec.com and many others soon to come, have novelty value. Whether they will help build customer traffic and sales over the long term, though, remains an open question.
“The scary thing is that we don’t know the financial implications of this,” said Jim McCann, the chief executive of 1-800-Flowers, which recently began two initiatives to post user-generated videos on the site. “Does it have any benefit for sales? I can’t answer that. We’re just going on a leap here.”
Mr. McCann said the company would announce today its “Video Valentine” service (at 1-800-Flowers.com/videovalentine), where users go to the site and upload photos, write messages and choose musical themes and graphics. The site then meshes the various elements into a 60-second clip that, while not strictly video, includes enough motion and sound to approximate the experience.
The site allows users to send the valentines for free, and, after employees review them for inappropriate content, they may post the valentines on the site for others to view and rate.
Users will be able to integrate full video files in the coming months, said Mr. McCann, who caught the video bug after a conversation last year with Chad Hurley, one of YouTube’s founders. In the meantime, the site is relying on YouTube to broadcast other video clips from customers, through its Reconnections initiative.
With that, 1-800-Flowers asks users to film testimonials about instances when a gift from the site has caused or highlighted a reunion in the customer’s life. One video the site is considering posting in the future features a man who had lost touch with his high school sweetheart after the Korean War. Through the Web site, the man sent the woman a replica of the prom corsage he gave her 50 years before. The happy ending: 1-800-Flowers supplied the bouquets for their wedding. The Reconnections clips, which carry the company’s logo and links, are carried on YouTube, but links to the videos will also appear on the 1-800-Flowers site. Mr. McCann said he would feature the most popular videos in television ads, and has begun training employees in video production techniques to help customers refine some of the more promising testimonials.
The effort, he said, falls in line with the company’s increased focus on soliciting customer involvement on the site — whether through suggested gift card phrases, or less formal interactions with customer service representatives, where the site’s employees solicit feedback from consumers on product variations they might like to see.
“The irony is that we’re using technology to be much more personal with our customers, and recreate the relationship I had 30 years ago, where I knew all the customers that came into my shop on First Avenue,” Mr. McCann said.
The business itself is on the upswing. Late last month 1-800-Flowers announced record revenues of $330 million for the most recent quarter, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the same period in 2005. The company’s stock jumped by more than 10 percent last month to top $7, after dropping below $4.50 in August.
For at least one company, user-generated videos have led to a measurable boom in business. Blendtec, a manufacturer and seller of blenders based in Orem, Utah, started late last year posting videos of the company’s chief executive, Tom Dixon, blending random objects, including wood, marbles and Mr. Dixon’s iPod.
The company posted the videos on its own site, WillItBlend.com, as well as on YouTube, and promoted them on various message boards and blogs. The marble video, which can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=3OmpnfL5PCw quickly rose to prominence on YouTube’s entertainment section, and since then, according to Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, the company’s 30 videos have been viewed more than 11 million times.
“We’ve seen wonderful improvements in sales,” Mr. Wright said. “Online, we’ve absolutely eclipsed our records, and it just continues to grow and grow.”
Still, the runaway success of the program has included some potentially troubling side effects. Users have taken to posting their own “extreme blending” videos, with about 600 such clips last week featured on YouTube.
Other sites, like the golf and tennis retailer Golfsmith.com, are employing user videos for reviews. According to Matthew Corey, the company’s vice president of marketing, Golfsmith.com will soon allow users to post clips talking about products for sale on the site.
Mr. Corey said this year’s new golf clubs include even bigger drivers than before, some with square heads. “It’s going to take people some time to understand the features of these,” he said. “What better way to do that than with videos?”
•
Sites may need to offer incentives to entice users to post videos, according to some executives, because users are less willing to do the extra work to post videos than photos or text reviews. Mr. Corey said Golfsmith is considering rewarding users who create popular videos.
Videos also help increase Internet traffic. The more Golfsmith offers videos and reviews of its products, Mr. Corey said, the better the chances Google and other search engines will point users to Golfsmith when they type a product name into a search box.
Mr. Corey will still have to brace himself for the possibility of users posting mock video reviews on YouTube showing, say, the destructive capabilities of a club. But on Golfsmith.com, all reviews will be screened by BazaarVoice, an Austin-based technology vendor that helps Web sites post user reviews and screen them for offensive or inappropriate content.
Brett Hurt, the chief executive of BazaarVoice, said his company would start helping three of its 60 clients solicit, review and post video reviews.
“I’d expect a majority of our customers to adopt this,” Mr. Hurt said. “It’s just a matter of time before it becomes the norm online.”
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SEO.cc - Find Out How Many People Are Searching Your Keywords On The Major Search Engines

Hey,

If you want to get an estimate as to how many people are searching your keywords on the search engines, here is how you do it:

1. Visit: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

2. Look up your keywords.

3. Multiply search query result by a 2.99 multiple.

If you have any questions feel free to ask us.
We are a full-service online marketing agency, looking to service your online presence. If you are looking for results contact us.

Thanks,-- Zach Hoffmanwww.ACDA.com - Dental Directorywww.SEO.cc - Online Marketing Agencywww.DentistryWebsites.com - Bringing Your Practice Onlinewww.DentistSeminars.com - Dental Online Marketing Seminars Zach@SEO.ccDial Up: 954-763-1130AACD.com Conference Booth # 133

Google Under SEO World Fire

So everytime Google takes steps to enhance and filter there search results it seems the SEO world places them under fire. Google's most recent move to start a system where SEO professionals could tell on other sites buying links sparked heavy resentment from professional SEO communities. We are following Google's latest filtering techniques at SEO.cc very carefully to insure there changes will not affect our SEO clients. We actually do not use the process of buying links to enhance website rankings so we do not have much to worry about here at SEO.cc.

Great Domain Name Tool

Hi,

A great Domain Name generation site I would recommend is Nameboy.com. This website will allow you to type in a primary and secondary keywords and generate domain names relevant to the words you have vhoosen to search for. Check out this Domain Name Generation tool, you won't regret it.

Zach Hoffman
SEO.cc - CEO

Google and DoubleClick

What a move...Google looks to acquire DoubleClick and puts Online Media larger players into a frenzy. Large companies are afraid as Google is making moves to control over 80% of the Online Marketing market. WOW, watch out as Google has big plans, and traditional media continues to lag behind. The only real move mass media has made to slow Google down is Fox's acquisition of MySpace. Google remains to be the big player on the Internet, and continues to step into traditional media controls. Just the other day I saw bus ads by Google, the other day it was bid on radio ads, what's next?

If you need assistance bidding on Google advertising we can help your organization gain search engine presence on the major search engines.

Check out an article on Google's bid for Doubleclick.

SEO.cc - Free Keyword Analysis & Upcoming Online Seminar for Dentists

Hi,

For a limited time we are now offering a Free Keyword Analysis of Your Website Rankings, please reply to this e-mail or call us at 954-763-1130 to receive yours today. Don't get caught ranking behind your competition!
Also, be on the look out as we have a new Online Seminar we will be broadcasting LIVE at DentistSeminars.com, it is going to cover Case Presentation Materials & Local Online Marketing. This will be a great seminar and you may want your practice coordinators/case presenters to sit in. Seating is limited!

Thanks,

Zach Hoffman
Online Marketing Agency - Get Listed Today
Dental Websites - Bringing Your Practice Online
Dental Directory - America's Online Dental Directory

Keyword Analysis

SEO an Intangible Asset???? Building VALUE

SEO services allow your company the ability to sustain positioning on the Search Engines when it comes to searching words relevant to your business activities. We continue to build value for clients looking to optimize for their local markets.

The value in local market SEO work is priceless when it comes to captalizing on all forms of your marketing investments. We help you create an opt in consumer who is looking for your type of services in an immediate area to your business. If you are marketing in any other advertising media including: radio, television, print (magazine, newspaper), direct mail, and if you have a website it is neccessary in today's economy to capitalize on local listings on your search engine. We achieve this for client's on both Sponsored Search (pay per click) Management and Natural listing (free relevancy based area) services.

SEO.cc - Capitalizing On Your Multimedia Assets

SEO.cc – Capitalizing On Your Multimedia Assets

In today’s media distribution environment barriers to entry are extremely low. To become an Internet media star all you need is a keyboard and/or digital camera. Just 10 years ago it was never this simple to make yourself into the star. The cost of production on a film used to be very expensive and the distribution of your media required an even more substantial investment. Well bring the walls down they said…and they brought us the Internet. Bringing the walls of multimedia down was not the cry of large corporations, but the call of the people!!

Between the Search Engines, MySpace, and YouTube, and other venues, you could make yourself into a niche market star, and be found. For every 100 people out there, there is bound to be 1 into what you are publishing about. Well 1 is such a lonely number, right? Not anymore, when you exponentially calculate the return of 1 of the 100,000,000 (one-hundred-million) Internet users out there talking about you. You can take .01% of this 100,000,000 number and we are still looking at 10,000 people you could impact TODAY…so ask yourself, have I impacted anybody lately?

Learn more as to how you can create multimedia impact today, join us in Austin March 23-24, 2007 to learn more about this event check out Acesthetics.com for our conference details on Online Marketing…you won’t regret attending! If you haven’t been marketing this decade Online, what are you waiting for? Your Yellow Pages salesman…LOL

Topic for Austin:

Major Marketing Paradigm Shift of Our Time: Internet Marketing

The Internet has become today’s mass form of communication. By definition every major shift in marketing has occurred by changing the way we communicate. Modern day communications and marketing began with delivered mail, followed by the radio, which progressed into television, and has evolved into the medium that marries all media: The Internet. There has never been a more rapidly adaptable form of communication.

We will discuss different avenues to grow and expand your marketing reach by leveraging the power of the Internet. An Internet presence goes beyond your website, and lives on by your use of it as a channel to communicate with your target audience. Your potential reach into the Internet economy is extremely expansive. Through our course you will learn how to capitalize on your traditional forms of media and turn them into an interactive manipulating force on the Internet.



Zach Hoffman - Bio

Zach Hoffman has lived in the dental industry for 20+ years (through the experiences of his father Dr. Howard J. Hoffman, DDS). He has seen the industry transition from a practice focused on insurance based patients to a practice focused on sedation and boutique style cosmetic treatment. Zach contemplates becoming his father’s dental apprentice by keeping a keen eye on the dental industry, but has chosen to pursue marketing at this time. His background in Economics and Finance, from the University of Central Florida, gives Zach a broad range of knowledge varying from demographics research to identifying business opportunities. With this skill set he has helped his clients maximize their returns on marketing investment dollars.

Dissecting the Way You Search

FYI: So the year of the Golden Pig has just started in China, making this the luckiest year in 60 years to have a baby for the Chinese. What does this have to do with us? Well…it adds a whole lot more Chinese babies to the coming search boom. So while are sample set is small we would like to know a little bit about how you search =)

This week’s topic takes us to explore the way you search.

Dissecting the Way You Search

Have you ever asked yourself the following questions?
What search engine do you use? Why?
Who are you (demographic wise)?
What were you looking for?
Do you use more then one search engine?

What search engine do you use?Why?Google: Well because when I am looking for academic information or published papers Google seems to pull me the most relevant results
Yahoo: Well when I am looking for local information I tend to use Yahoo because it points me to local topic destinations like Citysearch and Yellow Pages and other relevant information. They also have a map with providers in each location.
MSN: Don’t use it.

Who are you (demographic wise)?The above search result inquiries come from a Male, early 30s, Marketing Professional.
What were you looking for?

Information relevant to what I wanted to know at the time.

Do you use more then one search engine?
It depends what I am looking for, I don’t always search the same destination.


ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS, we are anticipating your replies:

What search engine do you use?
Who are you (demographic wise)?
What were you looking for?
Do you use more then one search engine?

Thank You,Zach Hoffman
www.SEO.cc – Online Marketing Agency
www.DentistryWebsites.com – Bringing Your Practice Online
www.DentistSeminars.com – Dental Online Marketing Seminars
Zach@SEO.cc
Dial Up: 954-763-1130

Topic for ACEsthetics Group Meeting in March

Major Marketing Paradigm Shift of Our Time: Internet Marketing

The Internet has become today’s mass form of communication. By definition every major shift in marketing has occurred by changing the way we communicate. Modern day communications and marketing began with delivered mail, followed by the radio, which progressed into television, and has evolved into the medium that marries all media: The Internet. There has never been a more rapidly adaptable form of communication.

We will discuss different avenues to grow and expand your marketing reach by leveraging the power of the Internet. An Internet presence goes beyond your website, and lives on by your use of it as a channel to communicate with your target audience. Your potential reach into the Internet economy is extremely expansive. Through our course you will learn how to capitalize on your traditional forms of media and turn them into an interactive manipulating force on the Internet.

WSJ.com - The New Benefits of Web-Search Queries

Commentary:
Since starting Search Engine Operator, Inc (www.SEO.cc), September of 2005, we have stressed to our clients to use the keyword research we supply them to understand their clients better. The WSJ (Wall Street Journal) published an article (below) on February 6, 2007 titled “The New Benefits of Web-Search Queries.” Corporate America is using the keyword data to understand what their potential consumer is looking for and then selling to them in their language. In the dental world this could be as simple as stressing “cosmetic dentistry” vs. “sedation dentistry.” Check it out and feel free to ask questions.

Article:

February 6, 2007


The New Benefits of Web-Search Queries
Companies Use ResearchTo Develop Products,Trail Consumer Interests
By KEVIN J. DELANEYFebruary 6, 2007; Page B3

Some businesses are discovering that Web search isn't just for marketing their offerings -- but also for deciding what to sell in the first place.
National Instruments Corp., an Austin, Texas, maker of software and hardware for engineers and scientists, had for years sold products that required buyers to install circuit boards in their desktop computers. Then research revealed that engineers, when searching the Web for such products, were increasingly attaching the letters "USB" -- the initials of Universal Serial Bus, a type of interface commonly found on computers -- to their queries. That observation reinforced National Instruments' decision to sell new versions of its products with USB interfaces and helped it pick which products to start with.
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

• What's New: Companies are using data about what consumers are searching for on the Web to help with product research and decision-making. • The Background: Search ads have been used in marketing for years; now some firms say search data can give broader insights for running their businesses. • Step to Consider: Numerous Web sites provide free data on what Internet search terms consumers are using.
The result was "one of the fastest-growing and most-successful product launches from a volume and revenue perspective, ever" for the company, says Christer Ljungdahl, National Instruments' director of Web and direct marketing.
People conduct hundreds of millions of search queries daily, many looking for goods or services to buy. Businesses in the U.S. this year will spend an estimated $8.3 billion to have their ads displayed alongside the results offered up by search engines, according to eMarketer Inc. Now, some companies such as National Instruments are figuring that what users type into search boxes offers insight into what people are actually interested in buying.
Businesses are learning to use Web-based services from Internet companies Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and other independent tools to evaluate the volumes of searches conducted on any given keyword. While few businesses say search data are their only source for product research or decision-making, some say it plays a useful role.
Companies that buy search-related advertising through Google and Yahoo can access the online keyword tools, which enable them to enter specific terms and see estimates of consumer search queries or clicks on related search ads for a given time period. Yahoo has a free online tool accessible to anyone as well at inventory.overture.com/d /searchinventory/suggestion/1.
Typing "widget" into that service, for example, indicates that consumers conducted 17,564 searches containing the word through Yahoo in December, while they searched for "gadget" 58,979 times. Yahoo says it plans to release an upgraded version this year. Microsoft Corp. has a free prototype service that offers historical monthly search volumes and forecasts for a few months, as well as an age and gender breakdown of those searching (adlab.microsoft.com/ForecastV2/KeywordTrendsWeb.aspx2).
Other so-called keyword-research services include Wordtracker from Rivergold Associates Ltd., which has a free version of its service that estimates daily query volume for terms and related keywords (freekeywords.wordtracker.com3). Some other Web sites (www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion4 and tools.seobook.com/general/keyword5) let users research keywords, drawing from the Yahoo and Wordtracker data.
In addition, Trellian offers a free version of its service called KeywordDiscovery (www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html6). Other software that companies commonly use to monitor traffic on their Web sites can provide some data on what words consumers are searching for, since it often tracks what search query led them to the site in the first place.
Google offers a free service called Trends (trends.google.com7) that lets users see graphs of relative query volumes over time for any given keywords, and even compare relative query volumes for several keyword phrases. The data on Trends are delayed by one month in some cases, and Google doesn't provide numerical values for the volumes, instead just graphing them in relative terms.
Companies use such keyword tools to help tweak the marketing of their products. Some try to buy advertising linked to the most popular keywords entered by users in searches related to the companies' businesses. Others look for the words consumers most often use in relation to their offerings and create marketing content that could be picked up by search engines. Businesses also often use software to analyze users' activities on their own Web sites to help decide what to sell and how to more effectively present it.
Siemens Medical Solutions is going a step further in selecting a name for a new personal health-card product based largely on search-related data gleaned from Yahoo and Google tools. The product name hasn't been finalized, but "the search volume research is driving the decision," says Inga Broerman, senior manager of interactive marketing at the unit of Germany's Siemens AG.
There is evidence that data about consumer searches could prove valuable to businesses in other ways. As part of an experiment, Google analyzed search-query volumes related to movies released in 2005 and compared them with opening weekend box-office revenue for each movie. The company found that it could predict with 82% or higher accuracy based on consumer search activity as early as six weeks before the opening whether a film would top $25 million in receipts its first weekend.
While Hollywood studios already have other ways, such as consumer surveys, for helping predict blockbusters, the Google experiment shows how an automated approach could be brought to the issue. The Internet company believes there are potential applications of similar analyses in other industries, such as using search-query activity to anticipate consumer demand in order to staff call centers appropriately.
Then there is the matter of product research. Thomas McDermott, owner of 4 Aces Golf in Gettysburg, Pa., is using query-volume data to help decide which brands of golf clubs to carry in the online golf store he plans to open by this summer. A former Google sales executive, Mr. McDermott says initially he can only carry a handful of brands of clubs and that he is looking to find the brands with the strongest consumer-search interest to help his business quickly get off the ground.
At National Instruments, the company recently released products used by automotive engineers to test the quality of cars. Partly based on its search research, National Instruments decided to release an additional version of the product compatible with a specific automotive data protocol. "Search helped us validate that this was a big enough market space," Mr. Ljungdahl says.
Brett Crosby, a Google senior manager for its Analytics service, which helps companies track user activity on their sites and the success of their online ads, applauds that approach. "If people aren't listening to the way customers are voting through search for what they want on their Web site and the products they want them to build, they're not listening to their customers," he says.
Write to Kevin J. Delaney at kevin.delaney@wsj.com8

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117072306604598983.html

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Copyright 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved -- Zach Hoffmanwww.SEO.cc - Online Marketing Agencywww.DentistryWebsites.com - Bringing Your Practice Onlinewww.DentistSeminars.com - Dental Online Marketing Seminars Zach@SEO.ccDial Up: 954-763-1130Dental Online Marketing Seminar - March 23-24, 2006 - Austin, TX - ACESthetics.com