There is a very large untapped market of creating .TV niche and business oriented online video sites which your business may be overlooking in your online marketing and search engine optimization strategy. If your business has a strong brand, then people are searching for your brand online. If your business does television commercials, then when people see your commercial on the television, they are popping open their laptops or whipping out their iPhones and searching for your brand.
Ever hear of .TV domains? These domains are perfect for television, web TV shows, video blogging or online video. Ever hear of TV? That’s the box in everyone’s living room where your business’s television commercials have been played since 1950.
TV commercials and .TV, are you sensing some kind of connection here?
Brand Defense and Reputation Management
In this crazy mixed up world of blended search results, when those brand oriented searches are made, sometimes the listings of competitors, complaint sites, and sponsored search advertisements intrude upon your brand message, and can lead the consumer into making a purchase with an entirely different company, when their original intention was to look into your business.
When people would just pick up the phone, dial a 1-800 number and buy a product or schedule an in-home demo, this was not a problem. But today, securing your branded search results and defending your brand online is more important than ever.
Showcase Your Commercials on a Branded .TV Domain
One way to attract that same user who is searching for your brand, and build the value of your brand in search results, is by launching a .TV site which is an online video representation of your company. By doing so, not only will you have another authority and valued site which should rank highly for your domain name, but you will also be engaging your customers in a form of social media.
- There are various methods of setting up a .TV site for online video, but the first step is taking your television commercials from over the years and transferring them to a digital video format, such as .mov, .mpg or .avi.
- Well, the actual Step One is securing your .TV domain. Do that as soon as possible.
- Then launch your online video site. There are various ways to do so. The simplest is launching a WordPress Blog and then embedding your YouTube, Google Video or other video sharing service commercials on the blog, one for each post, with a unique title tag and description for each post.
- A more effective way to launch your branded video site is to use a service like ClipShare (paid) or PHPmotion (free). These services let you launch a “YouTube clone” and offer various templates and plugins, similar to the strategy behind WordPress. Furthermore, they give a much better impression that simply launching a blog with embedded YouTube videos. Using Clipshare or PHPmotion, you can actually use your own branded video player, which itself offers embedding and social sharing functionality. Also, these formats offer commenting, which is great for motivating your fan base or customers to rate or comment on commercials.
- Like I said, when uploading your commercials, be sure to use original titles, descriptions, tags and keywords for each commercial. This is going to greatly assist with search engine rankings not only for your domain name, but also longtail variations of your domain (eg. “COMPANY NAME New Years promotions” or “COMPANY NAME clearance sales”).
- Promote the site using social media, link to it from your site’s press room, ask business partners and bloggers to link to you, … etc.
One example of a branded .TV domain in action is EmpireCarpet.TV. Carpet is one of the most popular product offerings from Empire Today, a national installed home furnishings and home improvements company that has made a name for itself with branding, its jingle (800-588-2300 Empire!), and The Empire Man character.
Empire Carpet, before becoming Empire Today, used to only service the Chicagoland area. For decades the company’s commercials showed on local TV, establishing it as not only THE next-day carpet and flooring shop-at-home installation company of Chicago, but also as a household name and member of the family. Empire Today launched the EmpireCarpet.TV site which features the company’s nostalgic commercials. The site also features the company’s local Chicago number (588-2300), with the online video site designed in a retro 70’s format. The site, which only launched last week, has already become a hit with Chicago area bloggers and press.
Take Advantage of Your Commercial & Media Library
My point here is that businesses who advertise on television, radio, billboards and other forms of offline media need to take advantage of the offerings of today’s Internet and expanding your brand presence online beyond the written word. Instead of having all of these commercial clipping lying around collecting dust, take advantage of them!
By launching a branded .TV online video portal, you will not only be securing your brand name in search results, but also driving indirect sales as these sites will push your name, push your message and drive phone calls or leads to your business from a channel which currently does not exist.
