Video Marketing Publisher [review]
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None reallyNEG:
To many to list in this small box.Today at a readers request Im reviewing Video Marketing Publisher. When I first went to the sales page, since it had not yet opened for sale there was a squeeze page that had an opt in form and a video of a discussion between pitch man Todd Gross and the product creator. This discussion described […]
Today at a readers request Im reviewing Video Marketing Publisher.
When I first went to the sales page, since it had not yet opened for sale there was a squeeze page that had an opt in form and a video of a discussion between pitch man Todd Gross and the product creator. This discussion described Video Marketing Publisher and it also talked about some of the ‘problems’ with YouTube. After opting in I was given access to a PDF that also listed so called problems with using YouTube.
So what is Video Marketing Publisher? Well its a self hosted video player / solution that proclaims to solve all of the problems with using YouTube videos. The thing about it is that the ‘problems’ that they list are total nonsense and some times flat out lies. Lets take a look at a few of them that this product claims in its presale copy and promotional PDF.
Unless you set YouTube up correctly it will display other videos that are not yours, and that possibly compete with your promotion:
This is actually one of the least deceptive things it lists but it still is a little deceptive. While its true that unless you have embed code that tells YouTube not to show related videos after the one your are embedding completes it will show related videos, what they neglect to tell you is that the embed code you get by default is already set to not show related videos. You dont have to do anything to make it not show related videos so its not really a problem.
YouTube is stealing your traffic!
This one is at best a huge exaderation of the truth. Sure YouTube videos have a ‘view on YouTube’ link in the player controls in the lower right of their video player and if the user clicks that link they will be taken to YouTube. But A) YouTube is opened in a new window on your browser so your site does not close and B) The user has to actually click the link and elect to go to YouTube. YouTube is in no way actively stealing your traffic.
A quick little 2minute video can take over 40 minutes to upload…even with high speed internet. If you have five 5minute videos to put on your website, they can take 8-9 hours to upload.
This one is just so moronic it actually makes me a little mad that they said this. Not mad because they said it, but mad because they where actually stupid enough to say it. It takes over 40 minutes to upload a 2 minute video to YouTube with high speed internet and 8-9 hours to upload a (5) five minute videos? Are they kidding? Have they ever even used YouTube? Anyone who has knows it takes about a minute to upload a 2 minute video and about 3 minutes to upload a 5 minute video. This is a flat out lie. Not only that but its a stupid one since anyone who has ever used YouTube knows its nonsense.
Regular users will tell you, server outages are commonplace with YouTube.
Another ‘problem’ that is a flat out lie. YouTube is owned and backed by Google. You know the largest and most powerful web company in the world (Facebook is a close second). People use YouTube because of its fantastic track record for reliability. YouTube serves over 1 billion views a month, 6 billion hours of video are watched each month and they have a track record for up time that exceeds 99%. Saying that server outages are common place with it is not only stupidity its a complete lie.
Anyone (and I mean anyone) Can Download and Use Your YouTube Videos.
This one is actually true. Anyone (who knows how) can download your videos. However what they fail to mention is that anyone who knows how can download and save a copy of any video played on the web regardless of if it used YouTube or some other player. Why? Because they ARE downloading it. Which is how the video is playing. All web video players have to send the video to the users computer where it is then played. That means its in the users computers memory. Anyone with know how can save this video. So sure this is a very minor problem with YouTube, but its also a minor problem with all web based video.
People cant watch your YouTube videos at work because their company’s block YouTube.
This might be true I guess though there is no way to know for sure. I have heard of company’s blocking Facebook so Im sure that some block YouTube as well. But here is the thing. So what? People at work should be you know .. working anyway. I personally have no problems with this.
People wont think you are creditable if your video does not have enough views and YouTube shows the number of views your video has had.
Ok lets forget the fact that people cant even see the number of views the video has had if it is an embedded video on your site and instead just assume that people are actually on YouTube watching your video and can see your view count. Do you really think someone is going to watch your video and say .. ‘wow , what this guy says makes sense, this video is very informative and well made .. but aw shoot not enough people have watched it yet so it must be no good’ .. come on the concept that someone would think that is totally idiotic. Every video ever published has had 0 views to start off with. If its a good video no one is going to care if they are the first person or the millionth person.
By saying that this is a problem VMP is just trying to prey on peoples insecurities. This is the exact same tactic that ‘like’ sellers used to screw over thousands of peoples fan pages by selling them fake likes and it is the same tactic that those late night infomercials use when they try to sell you ‘male enhancement pills’. Make people feel insecure and they will buy. Its pathetic.
Ok so now that we have taken a look at some of the so called problems that VMP (Video Marketing Publisher) lists and have seen how they are total nonsense lets get some REAL facts about YouTube.
1) The #1 top best selling product ever on JVZoo uses .. you guessed it, YouTube for its sales video. Hmm does not seem like YouTube caused them any problems there.
2) In fact 7 out of the top 10 products ever on JVZoo use YouTube for their sales video (one of the 3 that dont does not have a video on its sales page). Once again, it does not look like YouTube is causing people any problems.
3) Many of the top video affiliates (Han Fan, Mike Thomas, myself and others) use YouTube to host their promotional videos. These affiliates sell hundreds and sometimes thousands of copies of digital products a month. YouTube does not seem to be hurting them.
4) The pitchman for Video Marketing Publisher used YouTube for his last product release. In fact as of the writing of this article he’s still using YouTube on its sales page. Here he is pitching a product that says that YouTube is bad for your business, yet he uses YouTube!
Besides all of this there is still the fact that a video on YouTube is a part of a community. It can get shared, spread and can get you followers. Further than that by putting a link to your website in the videos description you can get a decent amount traffic from YouTube itself. In fact I get traffic to this blog every day from YouTube. None of this is possible with a self hosted video.
So to sum up this product uses flat out lies and deceptive wording to try to get people to think that somehow using YouTube is bad for their business. Nothing can be further from the truth. YouTube is used with great success by the majority of the top product sellers and by the top affiliate marketers. I really dont see any reason to blow $20 on something that not only solves a problem that does not exist but also has to lie to you in order to come up with reasons why you should buy it.
My advice is to pass on this one, big time!
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Brett,
Now that the product is live, is there any possibility you will update this review on the merits of the software? I totally get it that the sales pitch is very deceptive, and thank you for the time pointing out in detail why, however I am very interested in seeing if the software is as deceptive as the sales pitch. Unfortunately, there are very few Internet Marketeers who are not deceptive in their sales pitches and has become common place. Most of the time you have to go past the sales pitch to see if the product has any merit whatsoever.
To give an example of what I am speaking to. A very well known FB marketeer routinely holds webinars where he sells a given product and claims at the end there is only X number of units available for sale while the webinar is happening and that there will not be any left once the webinar is over. As the webinar gets close to the end and the number of units has sold, miraculously there has been an extension and additional units are sold. At the beginning of the webinar everyone is cautioned that there may not be a replay sent out based on the outcome of the webinar (all units are sold). But to date, I have never not seen a webinar replay sent out with additional units being added for sale. I have even seen this same marketeer hold multiple webinars with different JVpartners and make the exact same pitch on each of the webinars.
In my opinion, the pitches were very flawed, however the products that have been sold were infinitely better than the sales pitches. It is almost like we have to evaluate all IM products on two levels. The sales pitch, and the product quality.
Believe me, I get very sick and tired of seeing almost every sales pitch have some fabrication or outright lie in it, and under normal circumstances it would not be prudent to purchase from someone who markets in these ways, but in the IM world if you followed this rule, you would not purchase about 99.999% of all the products being sold. It is a shame Internet Marketeers feel they have to resort to these tactics to sell their products, but the sad truth is they have and the quality of the sales pitch in many cases has nothing to do with the actual quality of the product being sold.
Is my suspicion on this product true, is the product infinitely better than the sales pitch, or are they both equally as bad? As far as I am concerned, you are the man to give us the straight answers to my questions.
There is really no reason to review the functionality of the software since the reasons they listed for it to exist are not true. Even if it did work 100%, if it was a great video player .. so what? There is no reason to buy it anyway. Its not needed in any way. There is nothing wrong with using YouTube which is free. Tons of big name and top selling products and affiliates use YouTube.
Thanks for taking the time to write down your observations. I saw the same thing so it was good to get some validation.
Hey Brett; Most of your points were going through my head as I watched the sales pitch video last night, I even went onto to YT while the pitch was playing to see if Todd was still using it (YT) to promote his other shiny new objects, and low and behold there he was. Thanks again Brett for another great review.
Norm
This launch will Crash & Burn for sure!
Unfortunately I dont think it will. Though it should. But Todd has a lot of affiliate friends who will just send out tens of thousands of emails promoting this regardless of the fact that its not really worth buying. Lots of people will waste their money on this one. Its my hope however that I can save just some people from doing that.
Thats actually why I always encourage my readers to like and share these reviews. Underhanded affiliates can reach tens of thousands more people than I can simply because there are many of them and only one of me. By sharing, liking and back-linking your helping me reach more people and helping me help more people.
Enjoyed the review. I think you need to watch this first of all:
Yes, you should try the software as your review actually diverted people’s attention that it is the easiest to use Video Player out there #1, the lowest cost for the features #2, is the ORIGINAL Video Player that first came out around 2008 when I promoted it way back when, and has that cool Facebook integration feature.
It is such a good player for such a good price. I will look over your point-by-point takedown of the PDF pre-report, but I can tell you this.. Youtube is crazy in the way they yank people’s channels and videos. The people posing as me they won’t take down, and the videos of JUST me receive copyright infringement notices.. crazy. To say there is no reason to use Amazon S3 is kind of like saying there’s nothing wrong with Paypal either, and yet they ruined countless businesses including my own from the same arbitrary computerized rules. (ie. . too many sales too quick, computer shuts you down)
Todd,
First let me thank you for what is probably the most mature and proper reply to a bad review I have ever gotten.
Normally I would ask for a review copy of it and test it prior to writing an article, however given that this invented fake problems with YouTube and chose to focus on how it was going to solve these fake problems I did not feel the need. Even your video pitch on the now live sales page starts with how its going to solve problems that are not really problems.
I judged it based on what it implied its primary function was. Since everything in the presale focuses on solving a bunch of non existent problems with YouTube, several of which are totally false. I judged it based on that. Had the presale copy instead focused on features I would have asked for a review copy and tested the features.
I actually like several of your products and have promoted them in the past. The most recent of which was Video Jeet which I actually loved. However for this one I think, it degraded itself by inventing problems with YouTube in order to ‘scare’ people into buying instead of focusing on features and advantages that this provides. I have never, and will never promote a product that uses deceitful sales copy. There is simply no need for this kind of ‘marketing’. Its really a shame because so many product creators think that the only way to get sales is to lie to customers when its really not needed. Its also a shame that so many product creators do not feel that their products have enough merit on there own that they dont need this kind of ‘marketing’.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. While I like your products normally, the sales copy and especially the presale report and how this product was presented really turned me off to this one. Its nothing personal so please dont take it that way.
PS) YouTube shutting down your video ‘may’ be a reasonable concern. Provided you comply with its TOS I dont think its a big one. Still I will admit it ‘could’ be a concern. However saying one or two things with a sliver of truth does not justify a mass of nonsense. Some of which is so silly. Here in fact is one that I didnt include but noticed after I wrote the article.
“Just 1 bad comment on a video can ruin your reputation” .. unless of course you turn comments off or you delete it. Basically its NOT a problem. But making that statement is a ‘scare’ tactic intended to intimidate less experienced people into buying. Uncool in my book.
My view is that being able to get software that does everything Easy Video Suite does ( currently $497 I think) and VideoSkin ( in the hundreds too I believe) for $27 is a steal. Sure I paid no attention to the YouTube Danger issue, a poor marketing choice in my opinion, but I like to be able to have ad free videos on my own and my clients sites. Passing on that just because you didn’t like the marketing hook is in my view short sighted.
I would not call it short sighted. I would instead say this: sales copy that resorts to low level ‘scare tactics’, and flat out lies, shows the character of the person promoting the product. Do you really want to be a customer of a person that has no problems lying to you? I dont. But of course that is up to you. Its a real shame to. Because it (may) in fact be a good video player. However they chose not to focus on the player, the chose to use deceit and scare tactics. This was their choice to promote it this way. As such I judged it NOT on its features, but on if 1) The problems they claimed it solves exist and 2) If it solves those problems.
Thank you for your update on the player though. Perhaps in the future product creators will be more careful on how they promote their products and will have the confidence to feel that it has quality on its own merit without needing to use hype and fake scare tactics.
Again this is my opinion and while I make a recommendation I also expect people to use there own head in making the final purchase decision. For me, I would not buy it. You lied to me. Thats all I need to know.
Unfortunately the scare tactics, as you mentioned, create a immediate negative perception of the product itself. I have used some of the products that Todd pitches, and they have been a good addition to my toolbox.
Ethically, making claims that use scare tactics, or are outright ridiculous is totally wrong. That is one side of the coin. Todd is not the only one in the wolf pack using that strategy in this case.
I also like go a step further and bypass all the BS, and see what the product itself offers.If it falls into the BS category, that will be the last time I consider the publisher for anything.
Granted that Todd, should not have gone along with a lot of the scare tactics, but based on his track record, it would be interesting to see what the product actually offers..
I agree George, and I will admit, if they only chose to market this a different way my review might have been quite different. However the chose to promote it as a solution to YouTubes ‘problems’ as such I had to judge it on that basis. Which since the ‘problems’ are mostly imagined the judgement was negative. As I said to Todd I have promoted and was very impressed by some of his past products. Unfortunately this one turned me off before it even ‘got a chance’ by the way they promoted it.
Hi Brett,
Thanks yet again for giving a straightforward and honest review. Having received a link from 3 affiliates today, I am seriously thinking of un-subscribing from these also as they clearly condone this type of marketing. As you say some of these claims against using You Tube is ridiculous and outright lies, no way does it take as long as 40 minutes to upload a 2 min video.
Also I checked the bonus on their page “clicking the Red button” as they suggest and after 10 seconds it stops I tried several times and each time same problem, maybe they should try using You Tube as clearly their server cannot handle 🙂
Also I notice that there is a “powered by ewp’ button which takes viewers straight to their sales page so great “viral” advertising fir them courtesy of their clients.. so instead of the YT logo you get the ewp logo and link… so not white label..
Thanks again, another $30 dollar saved…
Mark
You raise some good point there Brett, but I disagree with you on the overall value this product and software offers. I agree, good sales copy sometimes gets the better of us. However, they do have some features that you dont mention that are worth noting.
One feature is the fb timeline posting features that allow embeded optins and the forced social share buttons. Thats huge.
All my videos are posted on youtube and I will continue to post them there but the software raises a good fact and that you should have your videos in both places not just one.
I elected to not buy the software after i read the post, I then i re-read the material and made my decision to buy. The FB timeline feature was the decision maker for me.
Good post! Appreciate your feedback..
Well as I said David. None of this was mentioned when I did the review. At the time I went to look into this product all that they spoke about was these made up ‘problems’ with YouTube. Thus I judged it on that only. Had they actually chose to speak about the features that this provides instead of resorting to ‘scare tactics’ my review might have been very different. Keep in mind that the sales page you are seeing is not what I looked at as I was presented with the presale page since it had not launched yet.
I am however very glad that you found a feature that is of benefit to you and that makes this a product worth buying for your particular situation. In the end that is the most important thing, that customers get good value for their money and it sounds like you feel that you did 🙂
I bought it and Iam very disappointed most feature that show on video on sales page are now fade away and non-clickable unless I have to upgrade to a $20/month membership this is a very nasty move especially I paid the expensive one social version
the reason I bought it because I saw at the video sales it has following feature
1.post to youtube
2.trim the video select star/end
3.set video image
4.set pre/post video
all this features are not included !!!!! really do you expect me to buy a player that work only as an embedded player only there are lots of free and easyvideosuite will be much cheaper as its only one time offer
I’ve been caught like this in the past Zane and prefer sales copy that list exactly what comes with original purchase. The sales videos should also clarify the original product and which shown features are upgrades.
Why oh why do most seller not mention the OTOs and exactly how the OTO enhances the original product I just don’t know.
It is becoming exhausting reading long sales copy, watching long videos and after all that, still not getting what you paid for.
Best of luck.
Yvette
Bravo, Brett! Just the bold faced and ignorant lies are enough for me to beware!
Appreciate the time you take to help take the guess work out of these new, crappy products! I hope this review site climbs higher and higher in the serp to help others!
Perhaps you should create an official “seal” that reads “IM Watchdog Approved”! I’d take notice!
Hi Zane
I got this from Todd – it addresses your concern on the recurring payment issue.
Quick note to let you know you will be getting some
questions on whether the product is recurring or not..
we’re fixing it, but on the inside there is some reference
to the Easy Web Video service that is recurring while this
is not, we’ll nail that down so the buyers are not
confused – but if they ask you – NO , this is a 1-time
charge.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Wow Brett, I just got a great You Tube lesson from you, you’ve cleared up a lot of confusion I was carrying around. Thanks for your insight.
Yvette
Brett, Brett Brett,
I was just about to pull out my credit card for this one since the ticker on the sales page was coming to an end…and the cost would increase. I’ve actually been watching that ticker for the past few days….I guess something just didn’t feel right. I’m so very glad that I found this page and your review, as well as responses from others. Now that I see the features mentioned are only included in the OTO really pisses me off. That’s really bad in my opinion. I’m keeping my money in my pocket….or on my card. Thanks a bunch for your review!!
i have request a refund , i can upload a movie to facebook manually its not a big deal .. and if its all about player then there are other cheaper options such as voo player , simple video pro, and easyvideoplayer and many others with one time fee
Hi Brett,
Thanks for all the honest reviews of many products that look great until I read your overview. I’m not an online marketer but someone that is trying to become the expert in a niche where there are none. Technology has never been my strong point. Thanks to your honest input, I’ve saved money on products I was considering. Keep up the good work.
Best,
Dan