Last week I told you about the success of the viral video “Beware of the Doghouse”. This week I want to share with you how I think this video promotion could have been even better. Not to criticize, but so that we can all learn how to make successful viral videos a part of our stores promotions.
Create a Short Video. Videos under 2 minutes have the best chance of going viral and 30 seconds to 1 minute is the best. Four and a half minutes is way too long. A longer version is fine for your own website, but you need short clips to post on the video hosting websites so they are quick to view and easy to share.
Create a Series of Videos instead of just one video. By releasing a new episode each week or a couple of episodes a month gives your viewers a reason to come back and watch your Ad again. Instead of having just one video sent around the Internet, you could have 5 or 6 of them. Plus viewers on YouTube and other video hosts can subscribe to your videos and receive an e-mail from them each time you post a new video.
It would have been easy when filming to go ahead and shoot several different guys giving their loved one a thoughtless gift. Then each of this could be a different video. People would come back to watch to see what thoughtless gifts they came up with. Each video is another exposure to your marketing message. JC Penny could even have a Thoughtless Gift contest when women would submit the most thoughtless gift they received. The winners would receive a gift certificate and their story told in an up-coming video.
Submit your videos to ALL of the Free Video Hosting Website. Sure YouTube is by far the biggest one out there and Meta Café is in the top 5. But there are over 50 video hosting websites that will accept your videos and play them for no cost to you. I don’t understand why anyone would go to all the trouble and expense to create a video and then not submit it to all of the websites that people go to see videos. Sure the “Beware the Doghouse” video eventually was posted by someone on several of them, but just think how many more people could have seen it, if it was on all of them to start with!
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on video production. The Internet is different than Television and the Movie Screen. Viewers on the Internet tend to be leery of Big Budget, Slick 5th Avenue advertising. A video that isn’t so polished and has an Independent film/amateurish look has a better chance of going viral. We’ll never know how many more people would have viewed “Beware of the Doghouse” if it had a more homemade feel to it.
OK so far those items are small and while they probably would have helped they may or may not have made a big difference, but this next item is HUGE! JC Penny did a great job of telling guys they need to buy jewelry for gifts, but did a lousy job of getting them into their stores.
I went to their website, signed up my wife and entered my name and e-mail address as the person to warn. I received a grand total of 1 e-mail. That’s right just one! The e-mail told me that I was warned and I should go to their website to learn how to stay out of the doghouse. And that was it! There was no mention of going to the nearest JC Penny or why I should buy from them. I received no advertisements of specials they were offering where I could stay out of the doghouse and save money while doing it. There were no e-mails telling me what jewelry my wife liked (or a place for my wife to tell them). There were no follow-up e-mails telling me the top selling items. I was never told to come to them and buy.
Auto-Responders (e-mails automatically sent out) take only a little time to set-up and they are absolutely FREE to send out. This is the easiest and cheapest part of the promotion and the most important, and yet JC Penny dropped the ball. One can only hope they are gearing up to send me some kind of promotion on how I can stay out of the doghouse this Valentines Day!
Now I know people will tell you NOT to send too many e-mails because people will grow tiered of them and just delete them. However, the truth is people will only delete e-mails when they are not interested in the content. If you can show me what it is that my wife wants to receive for Christmas – I’m Going To Be Interested! If you tell me how I can save money doing it, Even Better. And what is even greater than me telling them I’m interested, my wife told them I BETTER be interested. I have two options – Either I pay attention to the e-mails they send me or I find a good divorce lawyer. Please JC Penny send me the e-mails inviting me into your store – Buying Jewelry is Cheaper than Divorce!
If you are interested in making a viral video for your store, Subscribe to this Blog. I’ll be posting tips on Making A Video Go Viral, as well as other Local Internet Marketing Tips and Tricks, and the best part is it is FREE.
~ Brad Simon
