Yellow Book USA, a national yellow pages and online local search company, has launched a live advertiser video trial on yellowbook.com, the company’s Internet yellow pages site.
“[This will help in search marketing efforts as] it will allow our customers to embed video in their SEM programs,” said Pat Marshall, chief new media officer at Yellow Book.
“Video can be crawled or submitted to video portals, and this gives the advertiser additional exposure,” he continued.
He added that video alone is not a major seach engine click driver, the capability will complement traditional text pay-per-click ads.
The trial is a test of selected Yellow Book advertisers from across the country. The advertisers represent a cross-spectrum of small- and medium-size businesses that advertise on yellowbook.com.
“We are trying to offer [businesses] the opportunity to prospect for their customers using the bandwidth of the Web,” Marshall told DM News.
“[Businesses] benefit by being able to engage the consumer in more compelling, interesting and robust ways. It helps [companies] to differentiate themselves from other merchants and permits them to present their personality in a meaningful way.”
The yellowbook.com video ads are professionally produced, high-quality spots that provide advertisers the opportunity to promote their business in their own words and with strong visuals.
The video shoots for the trial took place at the advertisers’ place of business and required little disruption to their business and time.
After professional editing, the finished videos were added to yellowbook.com to accompany the advertisers’ Internet display ads.
“Video is a very compelling medium,” said Marshall. “An ad with sight, sound and motion is the next level in Internet local advertiser content. Consumers are remarkably drawn to it.”
Video’s engagement feature along with the Internet’s tracking and targeting capabilities, offers an accountable method to really get to the heart of your target audience.
“Video ads will no doubt strengthen our advertisers’ online campaigns by capturing the attention of users with an addictive medium,” added Marshall.
A demo containing the video ads is available at www.yellowbook.com. Not only can potential advertisers view the demo, but Yellow Book also requests that viewers give input on how well this type of ad works.
