YouTube Marketing

I recently ran across this forum doing research for a client and thought the members could be helpful in examining a new YouTube marketing technology.  I am attempting to validate the potential value of a new platform developed by a client, start-up Swyzzle  (http://www.swyzzle.com) for YouTube marketers.  Dubbed a Multimedia Storefront, the platform aims to help YouTube marketers more quickly and easily monetize their YouTube video.  I am helping Swyzzle to launch this offering and would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

In a nutshell, Swyzzle provides users with a “player” into which they can embed and edit multimedia — meaning video, pictures, graphics, sound, text etc. – and produce a “show”.  For monetization, Swyzzle provides online marketers with two key features.  First, Swyzzle incorporates the YouTube API into the Swyzzle player so that users can embed any YouTube video or piece of video (or multiple videos for that matter) into the Swyzzle player. 

The second feature involves product placement.  For a very simple example of this, see this brief Swyzzle show that uses YouTube video from Cooking.com featuring Chef Emeril Lagasse.  You will see the products Emeril is promoting choreographed in a carousel below the video.  Click on any product.

http://www.swyzzle.com/SWApp/?…..68a7e445c#

Swyzzle provides a Universal Ecommerce Adapter in the player that allows users to place products from ANY ecommerce system into their show, choreographed with the scenes of the show.  Each product then links directly to the storefront and shopping cart for that specific product.  Multiple products and multiple videos can be embedded into any show.  Additionally, sophisticated reporting features track viewer behavior on a second-by-second basis.  Together this system is what Swyzzle calls the “Multimedia Storefront”.

To my mind this opens up several possibilities for YouTube marketing.  First, it helps solve the challenge of how to efficiently drive viewers not just to the vendor’s website, but directly to the shopping cart for purchase.  It would seem to provide a great way for ecommerce retailers to monetize their video library by simply using the Swyzzle player as the purchasing “bridge” from their video to their ecommerce system.  Marketers could monitor YouTube viral videos and, when appropriate, hitch their wagon to those videos (or snippets of videos) that are already proven popular to market their goods.  It is worth noting that the Swyzzle player allows marketers to add all manner of messages, music, etc. to a video to provide a different context to the video than the original context.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this platform and whether you think it could prove to be valuable to YouTube marketing strategies.  Thanks in advance for your time.

Darrek Porter

Principal, InPlay Marketing and Communications