Michael Nicholas’ has released a case history titled “Affiliate Video Brander, A Product Case History Profile”. [Affiliate Video Brander Update]


Michael Nicholas’ case history has been published here.

Affiliate Video Brander, A Product Case History Profile

A Behind The Scenes Success Story by, Michael Nicholas

I had the idea for what Affiliate Video Brander is today about 3 years ago or about when Camtasia desktop video software was introduced to the online market.

It all started one day when I received an email which had a link that I clicked taking me to a video to watch online.

I was skeptical at first wondering how an online video could warm anyone up to do a direct buy online as I hadn’t yet experienced it myself.

As the video played, I watched and listened as the product vendor who made the video described the benefits of owning the software being shown.

There were four significant things that transpired from me watching that promotional desktop video:

1) Slam Dunk… I went to buy the product after the video redirected me to the sales page as this video did a superior job of pre-selling me on what I was going to get out of owning this software.

2) I couldn’t stop thinking how effective the video experience was to thrust me into such an accelerated buying mode.

3) I wondered right then and there how I could use that same video to drive targeted people to it so I too could make commissions from showing that video. ~Side Note~ I also knew if I wanted to do this, thousands of others would too. (the idea of video branding was very clear to me )

4) But I soon realized, I could not use that same video as there was no way for it to redirect through MY affiliate link even if I could get permission to use it from the vendor. Thus, I could not brand that video for my own uses as an affiliate marketer.

So, I was left with a couple of options and they were, buy a $300 program and become an expert desktop video maker myself trying to re-create the effectiveness of the video I just saw… Or wait for someone to come out with a video brander as I thought one would be coming out soon. Then I could just sit back, buy it and simply brand the videos the vendors were creating.

That was 3 years ago and I never did see one come out that I could buy… And to be honest, I can’t figure why a video branding tool wasn’t out soon after Camtasia hit but NEVER did I think I would be involved in coming out with Affiliated Video Brander 3 years later… LOL

So, I went out and outsourced 2 different coders to put together and accomplish what I conceived as video branding.

With that said, let me also say this… It’s been said when someone thinks of an idea, there are at least a thousand other people thinking of the same idea in one form or another.

Therefore, it’s all about who takes action on it and who just thinks about it… I’m glad on this one idea I took action on it.

The significant thing about what Affiliate Video Brander does is it allows affiliate marketers a way to use their own affiliate links to brand the product videos vendors make to present their products.

Thus, affiliates don’t have to spend time learning to create videos but just use them to show their targeted audiences while increasing sales using it.

A nice improvement in the kind video pages AVB generates is the added links that also lead to the sales page. So, you not only get automatically redirected at the end of the video (like a Camtasia video) but you also have active links showing at anytime as well as sub headline text that can be used to boost the call-to-action.

Not only that, but you can add meta information into the head of the video page so you can optimize the page to help get picked up by the search engines. The search engines do love video on web pages, so we made sure to add the meta info in AVB.

Why did I wait so long to begin developing AVB?

The simple reason was I was preoccupied in setting up shop for my online marketing so to go out and think I was going to also turn the online video community around with my branding idea was not very realistic to me at the time.

I just thought I’d wait till someone else came out with it and I would have been happy enough at that to buy and use it. Cut to the end of 2006 and I was promoting a product and one of my list members wrote me this…

– Help Michael! The Link for the Competition Dominator video does not play.

What was happening is something common that happens when vendors show a video on their webpage is many times it will get over-loaded when too many site visitors are trying to play it.

We’re talking massive traffic was hitting this site and I learned that it’s much better if affiliates can also show the video on their own sites so it would eliminate the main sales page of staggered video playbacks and frustrated visitors.

So, as an affiliate for the product I contacted the vendor, Chris, and mentioned it to him. But of course he was knee deep in trying to get his server back up and running.

However, I knew people really wanted to see this video but they couldn’t and they were losing their patience fast unless I did something for them.

I emailed Chris back and got permission to use the video as it just so happened I was testing videos on my own site at that time.

In fact, as things unfolded, I used what would become my first version of Affiliate Video Brander (the test model) to see if it would save the day. And happy I was because I was able to brand it with my own affiliate link and that was the big test to see if the branded link would work and convert sales just by showing a video at my site.

Well, to my delight I made $4,890.87 in commissions with a CTR of 12% all from using a branded video.

At that point the Affiliate Video Brander idea was born and now being used quietly in action.

I went on to crank out many more thousands of dollars testing the later versions of Affiliate Video Brander on Day Job Killer and others.

But I didn’t Launch The Product yet… I Launched A JV Partner First…

Enter, Eric Holmlund

I have to say I got real lucky hooking the AVB idea up with Eric Holmlund, Joel Comm’s JV partner on Instant Adsense Templates and The Next Internet Millionaire, etc.

Eric is a top gun internet marketer and I have a high level of respect for his work.

I had been promoting his stuff since 2005 so I wanted to run the AVB idea by him since I promoted for him many times and I knew I could get a solid opinion and viewpoint about AVB as feedback. That’s all I was really looking for at the moment when the email I received back from him which floored me.

In it, Eric told me that he too had been making his own specially made video pages and how they also made him thousands of dollars in commissions AND right then and there we decided to partner on the marketing of AVB.

Soon we were on the phone planning the launch of Affiliate Video Brander.

I took it as a real good omen having Eric as a partner as for one important thing is it made the AVB story so much stronger when we added up the money we had made with video pages branded with affiliate links, we knew others could be doing the same thing too…

And since we had the tool to generate branded video pages… we knew we had a great product and soon carved out our plan to launch it.

The Perfect JV

If there was a perfect JV – this was it.

One thing is agreeing to do a JV but it’s another thing to make it all work.

Working with Eric was a great experience because everything he said he would be doing, he did and he did it extremely well.

It was like a great volleyball match as we both worked on the sales letter down to the final moments and as he was working on his video intro production I did the JV partner email copy then while he set up the OTO I was doing some last minute updates on the product user guides and just like that… it all fell together so well.

The Signs Of Success

On launch day sales poured in pulling to over a thousand orders within a few days. AVB was a top clickbank ranked product in a matter of 24 hours plus having a killer review by Phil Wiley calling it “the most powerful affiliate tool created” was yet another telltale sign.

Overall, the launch of Affiliate Video brander was a huge success and after a lot of time behind this project we believe it’s one of the most powerful affiliate weapons to come along as we look forward to many affiliates using it successfully.

Michael Nicholas

http://www.AffiliateVideoBrander.com

http://www.ImpactInfoMarketing.com

*This case history was submitted by Michael Nicholas.

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