McIntosh Marketing Blog

Yes it sounds unbelievable but it is true…

There is one company that is going for broke with their marketing. They sold $1.1 BILLION DOLLARS in 3 days …just this week-end!

They are selling items that cost hundreds of dollars each and for the most part their products require that you sign up for  1 to 2 years of additional (costly) monthly services.

In the midst of a massive and stifling recession this company moves forward using every tool in the marketing handbook.  Tools that you can use right now with only minimal prep time.

This company has utilized every Online Marketing tool and strategy.  By the way, this was done at very little cost as well.

I did a search for their new product and here is what I found online:

42,900.000 Blogs with with content about their product
9,730,000 Pages online with content about their product
363,000 Images of their product
18,338 “likes” on their product Facebook page
10,800 videos with content about their product
2,140 News Items online with content about their product

Most people consider this company to be a technology company. After reviewing these figures I am solidly convinced that this company is a Marketing company.

It generates BUZZ like no one else and as a result it moves product.

These are the same tried and true proven methods of Online Marketing that we deliver for our clients day in and day out.

And they too are reaping the rewards from this amazingly effective marketing.

Who is this amazing Company?

It is Apple!

This week end they sold an estimated $1,139,000,000.00 worth of the new iphone 4g.

Yes they did this over the week-end. With a minimal cost to them too!

So the next time someone tells you “Online marketing doesn’t work!”

Remove that person from your circle of trusted advisors for they know not what they speak of !

Author: Carlos Gamez
Business Development, McIntosh Marketing
[email protected]

Image by:   Garret Albright

When I needed a video done, I did some research and tried a few companies before deciding to place my large order.  Granted, I work online and understand that good quality takes time, so I was patient.  But as I waited and waited and waited, I just gave up and did it myself – the “faster route” was just not worth the wait.

I actually love creating high quality videos, so it was not a big deal, but I wanted to see what was possible from other online companies.

We I finally got their videos, they were very plain and  the color schemes and music were outdated.

I asked why they were not like the examples on their site and their response was:

Our program is limited but I’ll see what we can do.

Through my persistence, I was able to get almost twice as much text in my finished videos.  I decided to use their low quality graphics because I didn’t want to wait for them to be “re-done” with the same program…again.

But still feeling ripped off I felt I needed to educate myself on what a high quality video actually was before making any final decisions on the videos I just paid for.

I analyzed how long users were watching the videos before clicking away and found it to be between about 30 to 60 seconds. The length of the video was a really important factor for social media which was probably why they tried to stick me with such “short” clips.

Then I started looking into what type of videos were keeping peoples attention and also ranking highly on the search engines.  I created a little list of some basic guidelines that I found effective to follow when creating any future videos.

Here are my tips to create effective videos for your website and for distribution across the internet:

1. Your video shouldn’t be over a minute long unless it is playing on your website.
2. The videos you submit off-site should be 30 to 60 seconds long so the viewer gets to the call to action button/link before losing interest.
3. There is a balance between over-stuffing a video with too much content and getting as much useful information in as you possibly can. Do this by keeping a nice flow with the video, music and graphics to keep the viewer from abandoning.
4. Make sure there is a clear introduction of your companies service or product.
5. Create a news-worthy sales pitch about a new product or service.
6. Put a final catchy plug leading into your call to action.
7. Use keywords and images of your products and of subjects relevant to your business.
8. Include a link to your website. If you can’t put a click-able link, then make sure to leave one in the description of your video where ever you post it.

Image by Michelle Dennis 2008