Win a Free Animated Marketing Video!!!

Welcome to Switch Marketing’s First Ever Video Contest!

Video is the most engaging marketing method online and we think everyone should give it a chance and see the results it can bring. So we’ve decided to launch a contest on Twitter where the company with the most votes WINS A FREE VIDEO!

All the details are below along with contact information should you have any questions.

If you’re wondering whether this is a contest worth trying for, we’re obviously going to say yes! There are more than $11,000 in prizes to be won so we’ll leave that up to you.

When:
March 1 - 15, 2010

Grand Prize: A FREE 2-minute Plus, animated web video for your company. The video will be produced by Switch Marketing in the 8 weeks after the contest ends. This package is worth $8,000 !

Second prize: A 1-minute Plus screencast video for the business that comes in second. This package is worth $3,000!

Why:
Video is the most effective communication and marketing tool online. Having a professionally produced video that explains what you do, who you are or how to use your product(s)/service(s) is a great way to brand your business, increase traffic to your website and boost your conversion rates.

How:
To get started follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/switchmarketing

Then send out the following tweet to your followers:

Win a free animated marketing video! Follow @switchmarketing & RT this to your followers. http://twttr.me/dbqR

Once you nominate your company by following us and retweeting this message, we will DM you with a link to fill out a short form with a bit more information.

Once you fill out the form you can start asking for some Twitter love from your followers.

Ask your followers to vote for you by Tweeting the following message on Twitter:

I vote for @company to win a  free animated marketing video from @switchmarketing because….
That’s it!  So easy!

The Rules:

1. All votes must be received by midnight EST on Monday March 15, 2010 to count.
2. All nominations must come from a @switchmarketing follower.
3. Your followers can only vote for you once each.
4. The winner of the 2-min Plus Explanatory web video from Switch Marketing will be announced on Tuesday March 16, 2010 at 2 p.m. EST via Twitter.
5. Video projects that we are currently working on are not eligible to win this contest.
6. Switch Marketing reserves the right to use the winners’ videos on our website portfolio and video sharing sites.
7. The winner can then contact Shelby at 1-877-297-6090 ext. 725 to claim their prize.

All questions can be directed to Shelby at videomarketing@switchmarketing.com

Use Your Noodle - A Video

We first started chatting with Noodle on Twitter and it wasn’t long before we began to create this video about their crazy cool program!

Noodle is a work oriented social networking platform designed for efficient and fun communication within the workplace. That’s right!  A program that uses Facebook and Twitter like applications, discussion forums, team blogs and other great collaboration tools that enable employees to share documents, thoughts and ideas with each other. Cool, right? Like always though, the video does a far better job of explaining it than I do.

As the animator on the project, Eric Martucci said, “They left room for a lot of creativity and offered continuous feedback and communication, which helped move the project along quickly while still maintaining a high level of quality. They were open to ideas and suggestions and we worked well together.”

If you’d like to see how Noodle used this video you can check it out at http://www.vialect.com/

So what do you think of Noodle’s new video? We think it’s fantastic, but we tend to be a little bias so please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Producers of Explanatory Videos

A couple of months ago as you may remember, we posted a blog that listed some explanatory video producers following a TechCrunch article titled “The Underutilized Power of the Video Demo…” that got a lot of attention.

Well, after attempting a little market research and realizing that it’s still quite difficult to search for and find explanatory video producers, I thought this is a list we should keep updated over time. So here is an updated version that I will continue to add to upon request.

If your company should be on this list but isn’t please just add a comment with a link to your portfolio and pricing if available.

So here it is! We will rightfully begin the list with the Common Craft Explainer Network which includes the following:

Switch Marketing: Portfolio - Pricing

Say it Visually:  Portfolio

Lilipip:  Portfolio - Pricing

Splainers:  Portfolio

1/29 Explainers:  Portfolio

Animated Explanations: Portfolio

Other explanatory web video producers include:

Nutintuit:  Portfolio

Video Army:  Portfolio

Transvideo Studios: Portfolio

EyeView Digital:  Portfolio

Epipheo Studios: Portfolio

Simpleshow:   Website

Howcast:   Portfolio

Wheelhouse Communications:   Portfolio

RapidFire Video:    Portfolio

Please let us know what you think about our list and follow us on Twitter for access to our web video Twitter list as well!

Short Videos vs. Long Videos

It`s probably no surprise that short videos are more engaging and effective than long videos. Heck, we’ve built a business on this knowledge, but the stats recently reported by Wistia, a hosting service  for thousands of videos, are out of this world!

They first compared two videos by one of their clients. “The red line in the graph represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The blue line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. It’s expected that these two videos would have different engagement graphs, but what’s odd is that the first 30 seconds of both videos are identical!”

The results? “Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.”

This means that just knowing the video is longer is discouraging enough to viewers to quit watching earlier on than they will if they know the video is short. It’s really a fear of commitment!

It’s also interesting how Wistia measured these results on a larger scale including many of their clients to see how many people watched videos of different lengths all the way through.

While viewing length continues to drop after 30 seconds, the big drop begins at two minutes plus. It seems that this is the point where many attention spans timeout and lose interest. If it’s important that your viewers make it to the end of your video for say, a call to action then this two-minute time line is one to aim for.

Depending on your goals for your video the length will vary, but the better you can simplify your message into a shorter, more engaging video - the better the response you’ll receive.

Check out the full article titled Does length matter? It does for Video!

Positive Predictions for Web Video

Yesterday Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer released his annual seven predictions for the New Year and we may be a bit bias, but we think his predictions are great!

Focusing on the elements of the article that speak to web video, here is a short summary of Mr. Ramsey’s predictions for 2010. (We’ve bolded the parts we like best).

“During 2010, as US ad budgets crack open just a little, look for an accelerated migration of ad dollars from traditional to digital media. According to Forrester Research, 59% of US marketers plan to increase their budgets for digital by pulling funds from traditional outlets. Other sources support this shift, including a recent survey among Association of National Advertisers members and a separate study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.”

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Are You A Social Media Addict?

Check out this brilliant video Amber, one of our animators found on YouTube.

A few of our employees here may need to attend a meeting of this kind, but we just checked and they don’t have any in Creemore! Can you believe that?

Vote 4 Your Favourite Video!

Here at Switch Marketing, we’ve been working hard on a bunch of exciting projects over the last few months and we want to know what YOU think.

We asked Tom, Amber and Eric to choose the five videos that they thought should be in the running and with a special guest judge appearance from Lindsay, this is what they came up with.

All we’re asking you to do is watch these short videos and vote for your favourite. We’re not going to tell you how to vote but some factors to consider are: how much they helped you understand the subject matter, how much you enjoyed watching them and how likely you’d be to share them with your friends.

So grab a bowl of popcorn, sit back and enjoy!

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