Training

Most times if you want visitors to your site to be able to view a video no matter what device they have, from desktop PC to mobile phone, your best bet will be to embed a YouTube upload. But what happens if you don’t want to trust your video to YouTube? There are many situations where hosting a video privately is preferable. Fortunately there are a couple of special methods you can use that will enable you to embed any video you like in a way that works for nearly every browser or device.

This first method uses Quicktime Pro to optimize and output a folder full of media files that you can upload to your server and then set your web page to use. A script will evaluate the visitor’s browser and device and deploy the best version of the video to match the situation. All this happens behind the scenes without alerting the visitor to the clever trick.

The video below shows a demonstration of the procedure and there are some notes further down to help summarize the process. The video is a fair-sized file, so give it a few seconds to buffer after you hit play. If your connection is a bit shaky it can help to pause the playback until the entire clip has loaded.

To check what version of Quicktime you have: Edit|Preferences|Register
Download link for Quicktime Pro upgrade (or update from within the software).

To process a video for embeding:

1. 1. Open video in Quicktime Pro
2. 2. Move playhead to a suitable frame to represent the video
3. 3. Choose View|Set Poster Frame
4. 4. Choose File|Export For Web
5. 5. Set desired options, paying close attention to the name you use, because this is the last chance to change it easily
6. 6. Set poster frame selection method
7. 7. Proceed with export
8. 8. Upload folder contents (except ReadMe.html) to an identically named folder on server
9. 9. open ReadMe.html
10. 10. copy header script code to head region of the page you plan to add video to
11. 11. edit the embed code (in the second box of ReadMe.html) to ensure that all 3 instances of the .mov and .jpg have the full, correct path
12. 12. add the embed code to the page in the position you want the embedded video to occupy
13. 13. Save, upload, and test

This procedure is not the most user-friendly in existence, but it works quite well and, aside from using a YouTube video, is one of the only methods that seamlessly fulfills the needs of both desktop and mobile video. If you have questions or run into trouble getting it to work leave a comment and I’ll try to help.

Next time, I’ll show another option involving an arcane mixture of Flash video and HTML5…

In many ways mobile traffic mirrors ‘ordinary’ net traffic, only the formatting of ads and other material is a lot more strict, the potential market size is a lot larger, and mobile users often have expectations that are quite different than those of desktop users. It is important to keep these and other differences in mind when advertising on mobile devices, but it is equally worth remembering the similarities. It might feel like a whole new world when you plan a mobile campaign, but don’t let that force any assumptions. Paid traffic is not the only way to reach mobile users. Properly tagged audio and video iTunes podcasts can be just as effective at driving mobile traffic as paid ads.

When marketers look into the potential of advertising on mobile devices they initially see a huge field of pay-per-click marks with lower competition and lower cost keywords. Working within a tiny screen real-estate is a small price to pay! But don’t forget the expectations of mobile users that align them with other advertising methods. Using a mobile device is often just as interactive and immediate an experience as sitting with a laptop or desktop can be. Consumer demand has driven the cell-phone market to provide larger, brighter screens, high quality audio, and reliable internet access and there are services that have developed along with these trends. To target these customers for free just make sure to give them what they want.

A five to fifteen minute podcast designed to outline a problem and offer a solution makes a great venue for a product advertisment. Offer something of genuine value that matches the interests of your target market and then refer them to your offer. Do you have an Italian cooking website or cookbook to advertise? Offer a recipe in the form of a simple video podcast, or if you are afraid you’ll cut off a finger in a fit of performance anxiety, create a video guide to shopping for the best produce using still images in a slideshow timed to demonstrate your points. Then send them to the offer. Of course audio-only podcasts can work well, too, but remember that mobile devices can go just about anywhere. It doesn’t hurt to echo your audio points on the video and vice versa. You just might catch that customer on the subway who couldn’t hear you properly.

iTunes is not the only place this technique works. Naturally, you can try YouTube as well; many mobile devices can display YouTube videos now. Depending on your content you may have to stick to one platform, however. I talked to another internet marketer who explained that many ad platforms terms of service prevented him advertising his poker training site, but his short instructional podcast video was a hit on iTunes, generating tens of thousands of hits per month for more than six months.

It is true that with this approach your target demographic will be a little less focused and you may get as many or more people on desktop systems viewing your creatives as on mobile devices, but aside from production costs, the traffic is free. What’s more, it will often be a different subset of traffic than can influence with your paid ads, so the two methods won’t interfere with one another.

For a more thorough coverage of specific mobile advertising topics I can recommend the short, intense video tutorial series at Mobile Monopoly. For lots of mobile marketing advice & support, plus loads and loads of other internet marketing techniques, there simply is no better place to learn to earn than the PPC-Coach forums.

It seems strange that something that’s only been around for three years can seem old and established, but with thousands of members and over a hundred thousand posts, dozens of instructional videos and a whole range of wisdom and experience PPC-Coach.com seems downright venerable.

Now, after a short hiatus, the site has been tidied up and updated. It is back in fighting form as the top spot for PPC-noobs.

Learn more about PPC-Coach.com here: http://billionscorp.com/ppc-coach-com-offers-solid-advice/

WolfStorm Media is a new affiliate network specializing mainly in CPA offers and focussed on assisting new internet marketers.