What's the best way to get people to see your videos on-line? With vast size of the internet, web video marketing can sometimes feel like sending out a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean.
And if that person at the other end does see the video what do you want them to do next?
I had an email exchange recently with Jennifer O'Meara an interactive marketer who serves as the Director
of Client Services at Flimp Media. We all know YouTube. But what is Flimp?
Q: What is Flimp and how can it assist in web video marketing?
Flimp, which stands for Flash Interactive Marketing Platform, is a patent pending on demand web marketing software that enables users to create, distribute and track custom branded flash landing pages that automatically collect and report detailed viewer data without any programming or analytics plug-ins.
Using the FLIMP Platform, anyone can quickly create engaging audiovisual landing pages that automatically track and report detailed viewer engagement and response data and by individual email address in a clear reporting dashboard.
Web video marketers can create flash landing pages
without assistance from Web programmers. Flimps are not templated,
so each flimp is a unique design.
The FLIMP platform offers built-in
distribution tools to quickly distribute flimp videosites to targeted audiences by
emails or links. A flimp can be used in reused in a number of ways
ranging from integration into a website to distribution via an email
campaign. Once a flimp has been distributed, detailed viewer tracking and
reporting is available in real time.
Q: In one sense you're competing with YouTube. But with Google I can point people to a link for free. What are the advantages of using Flimp vs. YouTube?
Think of flimps as mini flash websites or video landing pages for marketers and communicators that require no programming to create or edit and that have valuable built-in viewer tracking and reporting capabilities.
When sent by email for example, marketers can track engagement, response and viral activity by individual email address. YouTube provides a simple means of video file sharing from a hosted website with open ended distribution and minimal tracking and reporting.
Flimps can contain any kind of web content, including
videos, animations, images, web forms, graphics, text etc. and any of the content
elements can be made interaction or "hot" meaning viewers can click
to take specific actions desired by marketers.
Every viewer action and activity on a flimp is captured in real time in the analytics reporting dashboard. Flimps also have a variety of targeted distribution and search optimization tools that make them very useful for direct marketing, sales and communications.
Q: How are your clients working with Flimp?
Clients are using flimps in a variety of ways - as video landing pages for email and paid search marketing, as audiovisual sales collateral that instantly report viewer engagement and responses, and for one-to-one branded video communications with compliance tracking.
There are multiple market applications for the product such as event marketing, employee benefits communications, new product marketing, fundraising, recruitment - the list goes on and on.
Q: My clients are pretty results driven. How do you track the return on investment using Flimp?
First of all, flimps are very inexpensive and easy to use, averaging only $50 per month per flimp. Since they can collect and report detailed viewer activity instantly by email address, flimps can be used to generate and qualify sales leads quickly, eliminating cold calling and expensive lead-gen techniques such as direct mail and print advertising.
For search marketing, flimps make it easy to do A/B testing, since you can edit on the fly - so there is a much higher ROI opportunity than with traditional web pages that require programming to create and edit. All viewer data can be easily exported to database spreadsheets for CRM or marketing database integration.
Without a doubt, web video marketing is a must for most marketers because it drives much higher engagement and response rates than static web content. And now that new technologies are making it easy and inexpensive for companies to create web video content, I think you will see it continue to grow in popularity.
Q: What works well when asking a viewer to participate in a call to action?
The most successful calls to action are those that ask a viewer to do something
specific - donate here, learn more, visit website, etc. Very direct calls to action drive people deeper.
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Thanks Jennifer. Check out how Flimp assisted the Houston Rockets here. Go Yao Ming! For more information go to http://flimp.net or give Jennifer a shout at: jomeara AT flimp.net
