MarketingOC Studios

Here is a great video by Socialnomics highlighting examples of social media and it's positive ROI impact on organization's and campaigns that have turned to social media as a cost effective marketing tool. Something you can, and should be doing to engage your customers and to grow your business. Something that MarketingOC Studios can help you with!

 

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Here's one service we will not be recommending to our clients: AT&T Interactive's Pay Per Call service.  After a lengthy process to get a simple ad up and running, (see my previous post), our ad is running. We run the advertisement M-F from 7:30AM to 4:30PM in the Orange County, CA market. The ad is only supposed to display during these hours. Yet, in reviewing the account detail on our account, I discovered a charge for a pay per call that occurred on Sat, Nov. 7. Our ads are not supposed to run on weekends as we are not in the studio to answer those calls.

So, why did we receive a charge for a call that occurred on a weekend? I don't know, so I submitted the question through the customer support email form on the AT&T Interactive web site. It's been 3 days, and I have not received a response. 

AT&T Interactive clearly doesn't get it. If AT&T wants to have a chance to play with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in the pay per click/call ad space, it better get it's act together. Self service merchant advertising is clearly a winning solution for all parties involved, but when AT&T doesn't respond and doesn't provide advertisers with the tools of transparency to answer their own questions, AT&T will clearly lose. 

Of course, it is not that I care about AT&T winning or losing - I care about offering effective advertising and marketing solutions for our client's. AT&T Interactive's Pay Per Call is clearly not one of the those solutions. 

 

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NBC will be conducting an open casting call at the Downtown Anaheim Certified Famers Market this Thurs, Oct. 29th from 11:30 AM to 6:00 PM for the new show, "Perfect 10."

Here's the fyi on the show: NBC INTRODUCES NEW FAMILY-FRIENDLY GAME SHOW 'PERFECT 10'

So, all of you actors who call our Orange County video production studio looking for work - here's your chance!

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Today's Marketing Nugget comes in the form of a video from one of our favorite partner companies: Google (also the name of my dog!)

 

In an nutshell, there are lots of ways to monetize video, but first, you have to create your video. So, when you are ready to create your video give us a call, we will help you monetize - and so will Google.

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As cosumers and marketers, we live in a transparent, on demand world. If we want to get a client's Google Adwords campaign up and running immediately, Google gives us the near instant power to do so. If we want to get a client set up on Twitter or Facebook - done...1.2.3.

So, you can imagine how frustrated we are having decided to test out AT&T Interactive's Pay Per Call advertising program.  The concept is simple - it's just like pay per click, but instead, you pay when someone actually picks up the phone and calls you. We are excited about testing this tactic - feeling that this may be a cost effective solution for our clients - however, we are disappointed to find that it can take up to 3 days for our ad to be approved. 

Really, 3 days? I don't get it. I want to proactively give AT&T money in return for advertising results (qualified phone calls) and it takes three days for approval?

AT&T, we are not off to a good start here.

I will keep you posted on the progress and the results.

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 Update:  Oct. 22 - 3:42 PM Pacific Time.

Just checked our AT&T Interactive Pay Per Call account. This is what I see....

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Reason: New Ad ? Acceptance Review Required 

In order to ensure the quality of our callers' experience, we review every new ad before accepting it to appear within our network, a process which can take up to three business days. The "pending acceptance" status means that your ad hasn't yet been accepted. Once accepted, the status of your ad will be updated.

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This is day 3. Ridiculous. It  is just one more reason I am annoyed with AT&T - poor Iphone cellular service is #1. How can one text ad with a phone number take 3 days for approval? Plus, they already took our money to run the ads. Hmmm...maybe the results of or our test will change our minds, but as of right now, I am having a hard time thinking we will recommend this service to our clients - or at least those clients who are looking to get their campaign start quickly!

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We are starting a new blog series - Marketing Nuggets. Basically, little chunks of interesting info that our existing and future clients that we think may find useful.

Today's Nugget Comes from The Online Video Insider and Chris Young:

It's clear that video content is being placed in front of captive audiences where it can be delivered -- and the advancements in technology are allowing for the content to penetrate places where it couldn't do so in years past. That said, it is critical to study advertising message delivery. Advertisers, who now more than ever have the opportunity to place video content in front of their audiences at many more points throughout the day, need to leverage a convergent, multiscreen and multiplatform distribution approach to help maximize exposure and accommodate the empowered consumer of the 21st century. Marketers need to capitalize on today's communication and content consumption habits to create the attractive reach and scale that right now is mostly achieved via television dollars.

In other words, video advertising that once required huge ad budgets for TV quality production and placement is now within reach of businesses of all sizes to reach their target audience in the environment in which they are spending time and interacting. 

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You probably don't factor in the cost of what it takes to make a rich and gooey chocolate chip cookie when you sit down with a plate of cookies and a tall cold glass of milk. You just enjoy the delightful experience of eating those cookies.

Enjoying video is a lot like enjoying your chocolate chip cookies and milk. You watch and enjoy, and you probably don't think to much about the ingredients that went into creating the video production. And while cookies are most always round, a video production should never be cookie cutter.

Of course, when it comes to your business, you are concerned with the ingredients, as it is the ingredients that help to determine cost.

So what are the ingredients (cost factors) that go into a MarketingOC Studios Orange County video production?

Here's a peak at what cost drivers we consider for each new video production and marketing production.

1. Project and production management: The overall planning and execution of the video production. While our video productions services are cutting edge, our client services are decidedly simple - you can call or email us at anytime with your ideas, needs and concerns, and we are ready to address.

2. Script Development: Every video must have a script. Often clients will write a basic outline, and we turn that outline into an engaging story. Even if it is just a 30 second commercial spot, there is a need for a story to engage viewers and motivate them to action.

3. Storyboard Development: Pairing the script to visuals is key to a smooth video production. It helps in preproduction planning, on set and in post production.

4. Talent: Getting the right talent is essential for connecting the on screen talent with the audience. So, we need to consider:

• Casting
• On-screen Actor(s)
• Voice over artist
• Extras
• Customers (Release form required)

5. Video Assets: A video production is often made of both custom and stock assets. Sometimes, it is less expensive to use stock footage, but that often comes with some trade offs such as the stock photo not being exactly how you may have envisioned, but yet, it is good enough.

• Images needed
• Stock photos (Royalty free)
• Licensed photos
• Custom photography
• Video
• Stock video (Royalty free)
• Licensed video
• Illustrations/3d elements

6. Special Effects/Animations: Motion graphics and special effects can help to create more impact by presenting text and concepts in an intriguing manner.

7. Location: The decision to shoot in our Orange County green screen video production studio or our Los Angeles video production studio or on location depends on the goals of the video production. But the basics we consider are:

• Studio rental
• Fees and permits
• Local or travel
• Building rental
• Sets
• Props

8. Music: Music adds a lot to any video and there are lots of options from stock to custom music that we consider:

• Stock music (Royalty free)
• Custom score

9. Crew: Having a strong team to executes your vision is essential. The video producition crew MarketingOC Studios may bring to your production can include:

• Director
• Director of Photography
• Camera operator(s)
• Lighting
• Sound
• Grip
• Production Assistants

10. Video Editing and Output: Bringing all the elements of the production together happens in post production where the final video is assembled.

11. Overhead: It is important to keep the lights on at MarketingOC Studios. So, we need to ensure that we provide the best equipment and operational management to serve our clients. These factors include:

• Equipment (Cameras, Lights, Sound, Studio, Computers, Software)
• Insurance (Liability and Workers Compensation)
• Rent

12. Distribution and Marketing: A video will only begin to serve its purpose if it is viewed by your target audience. MarketingOC Studios helps you to reach your audience.

• video distribution
• video marketing
• video seo
• video sem

This should give you some idea of the script to screen video production costs and services that goes into the final number you receive in a video production and marketing proposal from MarketingOC Studios.

An upcoming post will take a more streamlined approach to video production if your needs are more simple.

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If you are still not sure how or if social media can have an impact on your business, whether you are just focused on the Orange County market or across the nation or the globe, here is a quick video to provide some perspective on the social media revolution.

Still not sure how social media can help grow your business? MarketingOC can help.

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Dear User Generated Content Marketing Team Member,

I want to welcome you to our marketing department. While you are not an official employee or receiving any compensation for your efforts, I hope that you will find that creating content about our superior company is very rewarding for you.

Speaking of rewarding,  I hope that your desire is to only write about all the award winning products our company offers.  Why else would you want to take the time out of your busy life to blog, review or create a video about our company, right?  

Unfortunately, in the past, we have had some content creators "go rogue" on us, and posted some negative comments about our products. We can't imagine anybody wanting to say anything negative about our innovative, industry leading products,  but there is always someone out there with an axe to grind. We like to just ignore these comments, (haters, as we like to call them.) We don't find value in negativity. We are the leaders after all.

You might take shortcuts and decide to take content snippets from our cutting edge web site and use that content on your blog or wherever else you may write about us.  Our lawyers frown upon this, but since we have an understanding that you will be using that content to only say nice things about us, we can look the other way on this little issue.

Now, please keep in mind, our customers aren't those hipster (often delinquent) teens who use those social networking sites. Our customers are Mom's, and Mom's are way to busy to be wasting their time on Facebook and MySpace. So, your efforts on these sites will go unnoticed by us.

That should cover things for right now.

The CluelessCEO of Clueless Inc.

P.S.  Please fax us the content you create about our company prior to posting so that we can ensure it is all "A O.K." with us!

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Yes, this is sarcastic, but it is not far off of how some business folks, of small and large companies approach the thought of their customers "buzzing" about their business.

I hope this doesn't sound one bit like you!

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In my previous post, you got to see how the power of music and U2 is trying to persuade viewers to buy a Blackberry - and as I mentioned, if there is a band / celebrity who might motivate me, it's U2.

So, today, if you haven't already seen it, I want to share with you the recent Iphone 3GS commercial. My personal test in watching this commercial, was to see if it can motivate me to want to update my current 3G Iphone for the 3Gs.  Take a look:

 

 After watching the commercial, I have to say I was pretty excited. However, I love video. In fact, providing video production in Orange County is what we do - so by all means it should thrill me. However, motivate me to upgrade from my existing Iphone at this time? Not gonna happen. 

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