Los Altos, CA September 16, 2008 – Los Altos, CA September 16, 2008 – MerchantCircle, the largest online network of local business owners in the nation, and Spotzer Media Group, a pioneer of ready-to-air advertising solutions, today announce a partnership that gives MerchantCircle's 600,000 local business owners easy access to the most scalable, affordable custom videos in the market. This scale of high quality, professional video creation and distribution is unprecedented and the first of its kind.
"We've been experimenting and testing different video options for our local merchants for a long time," says Darren Waddell, MerchantCircle VP of Marketing. "A lot of the problems we saw related to issues with scaling custom video creation for hundreds of thousands of local merchants. The other issue was affordability; many local merchants just aren't able to pay thousands of dollars for a custom-produced video. Ultimately, working with Spotzer we solved these issues with unique and impressive technology."
MerchantCircle members will have access to Spotzer's library of thousands of professionally produced ready-to-air business videos. Members will have the option to put a free business video on their MerchantCircle listing. The basic video is automatically customized to reflect the merchant's name, address and contact details. All of the videos include title screens as well as professionally produced voice and music tracks. Since launch, more than 2,000 merchants have already added a video to their MerchantCircle listing.
Merchants can purchase exclusive rights to use their video in their region for $39 per month. Businesses desiring more customized videos can enhance the basic video with a unique voiceover for a fee of $69 per month. A premium upgrade is also available for $79 per month and allows the merchant to add photographs and logos into the video.
"Spotzer and MerchantCircle are a perfect fit. We both help small and local businesses put digital media to work by offering scalable solutions that are easy for merchants to use and extremely affordable," says Valerie Taylor, Spotzer Sr. Vice President. "MerchantCircle has been able to bring local businesses onto the web for their first experience. Through this partnership, they will have access to the web's most affordable custom video product."
"We're always looking for new ways to market ourselves, and had been looking for some time to provide a more engaging, unique, and personable web experience for our prospective clients," says Christopher Walker, Mission Grove Realty in Hemet, CA. "When we looked into adding a professional video for our business, all of the options we were seeing would have cost us hundreds of dollars. This has been, by far, the easiest and least expensive option we've found. We're extremely happy with the way the video turned out."